Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Are Vikings fans that hate rebuilding ready for it now? (A Fan's Only pod)

Episode Date: January 28, 2023

Matthew Coller answers Vikings fans questions, starting with a long-time fan's call for a rebuild and then looking at the Vikings' situation from Kirk Cousins' view point and talk about Trey Lance Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Liquid Death, delicious water that's bringing death to plastic. Learn more at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Well, welcome to another episode of purple insider matthew collar here again as we continue fans only week lots of great questions to get to and no further updates on the vikings defensive coordinator situation so all i'm going to say is just everybody enjoy championship weekend should be pretty good i'm sure that a lot of you will be rooting against Philadelphia because of deep-rooted annoyance with the Philadelphia Eagles as they play at home for another NFC Championship game.

So try to just kick back, have some pizza, not get too upset if they win that game. I think that they might, but I guess you're all Midwestern Brock Purdy fans today, right? The Vikings fans don't have as big of a beef against San Francisco for beating them in 2019, but it does seem like sometimes fate decides to bludgeon Vikings fans over the head and probably San Francisco, Philadelphia does that a little bit, the 38 to seven with the giants, all those things. But you know, with so many things that have kind of gone awry,

there's like a long list to pick from. But anyway, none of those really are in the other game, which is Cincinnati and Kansas city, which just should be an amazing game and a pleasure to watch two great quarterbacks, kind of a throwback for a lot of people. Actually, you could be in your 20s, 30s, 40s, and it's a throwback in some way. Because if you think about all the Brady Manning years, or if you go back to the NFC of the early 90s and you had your Aikman Young matchups, and now you have your Mahomes and Burrow. So enjoy it. Have some fun. I bought some chicken wings to make for myself and i'll be watching it right along with you so let's get right in to vikings fan questions we'll start with jeff the vikings had the number four ranked defense this year according to pff i've contacted

them several times asking how this is possible maybe you could ask your friends at pff about this my subscription is up in june and i'll look elsewhere for advanced stats if they can't explain this ridiculous ranking. That's not your question. You have another question, but let me just answer that real quick because that has come up on a number of occasions about their overall ranking. And I think that when you look at the Vikings defense and how the individuals performed this year, what you had was either

great or terrible performances. So for example, Daniil Hunter was the highest graded Viking defensive player with an 86. I think we all agree he had a great season. 70 pressures was top 10 in the league. Zedaria Smith had an 82 grade, 78 pressures. Again, top five in the league. Patrick Peterson, one of the highest graded corners with an 80. They also had a number of guys. I mean, Delvin Tomlinson was a top 15 defensive tackle with a 77. I know he's not as big of an impact player from a pass rush perspective, but his grade was higher this year. He had better pass rush win rate, pressures,

and Harrison Phillips graded solidly as a run defender. And I think that, you know, he probably wasn't the issue when it came to run defense. Harrison Smith also did not have one of his best seasons, but was still pretty good. So that's a group right there of very highly graded players on this team, along with a guy like Duke Shelley, who played a good number of snaps, had a very high grade. Josh Metellus, Brian Asamoah, these guys all had good grades. But if I flip it to the other side, you're going to find that there were some key players that played a lot who graded very badly. Shannon Sullivan being one of them and also Cameron Bynum, uh, Cam Bynum. Yeah. Like both of those guys, they graded under average,

had terrible numbers when it came to targeted and things like that, and gave up a lot of yards through the air, a lot of receptions. Chandon Sullivan gave up more receptions into his coverage than any other nickel corner in the entire NFL. And then when you look at the linebackers, Eric Kendricks did not grade very well in coverage. And of course, Jordan Hicks didn't either. Those guys had some of their worst numbers, but they actually had decent grades otherwise, like in run defense, tackling, things like that. And so I think that they didn't grade as badly as the impact to their bad play,

which was probably caused a lot by the scheme. But I hope that makes sense for you that, you know, if you're doing an overall grade, grading every play and Eric Hendricks makes a nice play to stop the run. We probably forget about that because the next pass goes for 50 yards, but they're grading every single play. So they're not saying like, oh, this pass coverage play that you made a mistake was so much crazier in terms of its impact that you get a way worse grade. That's not really how the grading system works. So you could see how like the impact of mistakes by the linebackers or bad

scheme with the linebackers would be humongous. But if they played well, if they rushed the passer well and graded, uh, you know, highly on those plays, which I think both guys did. And then against the run that, you know, the grade would come out a little different than you'd think. And also if you have a nickel corner and a safety who give up some of the most yards at their position in the entire NFL, but you have five other players who graded extremely well. The impact of those guys failing outweighs the other guys succeeding in the total picture. But from a PFF perspective, they have to still grade Daniil Hunter really well because he's doing his job.

It's just that when one guy on defense makes a bad mistake or doesn't cover well, everyone else, all other 10 can do it perfectly and have one guy go wrong. And then it's a big mistake. And that's why we talk about weak link systems and the Vikings had a couple of severely weak links that cost them over and over and over again, despite great performances by several players. So I think that explains how that ranking works. It's not a total defense number as in an expected points added or yardage or something like that. It's really looking at the individual performances of which they had. And I think this matches up with the eye test, multiple guys who had very good seasons, despite being a very bad defense. Uh, the other question from Jeff is all

we can do right now is play what if games as it applies to the roster and pending draft and free agency. My what if is pretty plausible. I have to assume that after the playoff game, the idea of running it all back again is off the table. I won't try to guess exactly what veterans will be cut or traded in that scenario, but if that happens, I suggest that Kirk Cousins could be amenable to a trade. Would he realize that the team is going to be awful and wouldn't want to be part of this disaster? He played pretty well this season, so the idea of getting a first or a couple seconds for him isn't completely crazy. What are your thoughts on this? I know that if I were his agent, which I am not because I have way less money and success than Kirk Cousins agent. But if I was, or if he called me and asked, Hey, what do you think my friend?

I would say, look, your guy only has a couple more years. Okay. More likely than not. Kirk Cousins following the path of just history is anybody not named Rogers breeze, whatever starts to slide at the end of their thirties, if not before that. And I I've mentioned before that, you know, Jay Cutler was like out of the league by the age Kirk cousins is going to be next season. And that's a similar quarterback as far as just talent and, you know, kind of having one shot to win and so forth. I mean, different characters, of course,

but similar in some ways as a 500-ish quarterback who had good numbers and was kind of divisive. So anyway, he was out of the league. I've probably brought this up before, but like Joe Flacco, Russell Wilson, even Matthew Stafford last year, there's a toll that gets taken on these guys, even the most healthy quarterbacks that

eventually you're going to fall off. So what I would say is I just can't see a path right now with this roster around Kirk's huge contract to lead you to a Superbowl. But there are some other teams where you could find a path and particularly the New York jets. They kind of come up with every quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo Derek Carr because everybody can see it that a middling quarterback with Garrett Wilson the offensive line they've put together the defense they've put together and I know they just hired

Nate Hackett which you know I don't know but there's a reason why all these guys are connected to the Jets because they make so much sense how about even a Tampa Bay in a division? That's not all that good. A Carolina where maybe Frank Reich is looking for a quarterback that knows what he's doing as opposed to drafting one and rebuilding Carolina does not have a horrible roster. They might actually have a good roster and it's been quarterback play and bad coaching that has kept them, you know, from winning more. So I think I would suggest to him that he go to the Vikings ownership and say, look, I just don't see it. And maybe you should move me if you're not going to sign me to a long-term extension that I would kind of lay out those two options, make it five years, make me a Viking for the

rest of my career or move me to another team. Let's not do the two-year extension again, because I'm not seeing it for how we're going to get back. And you don't know how many years you truly have left. How he sees it, I don't know. He might want to be a Viking for the rest of his career. That might have been a goal of his when he signed here in 2018. It's always been so hard to tell what Kirk Cousins thinks about just about anything, right? Like there are times where you just felt like the last

thing he would want to do in the world was be here. And yet, you know, he signs an extension last year. And then this year, the locker room galvanizes around Kirk Cousins and he's got a coach that trusts him and believes in him. And that might factor in for him wanting to stay. So it might be about more than just, Hey, could you possibly win a super bowl or Hey, it's, I mean, Cousins is going to maximize his dollars. You could bet on that, but Hey, it's the absolute best contract extension in the entire world. But you get, you know, you get to stay with Kevin O'Connell. That's your guy. You get to stay with Justin Jefferson. I mean, that's somebody who's certainly elevated Kirk Cousins play massively over the last three seasons as he would with any quarterback.

It's a complicated formula for Kirk Cousins himself as they go to him and sit down with him at the table and try to figure out what his wants and needs are. But I do think your point is valid. I don't know that they'll be bad, bad, horrible, awful, terrible bad if Cousins stays. I think they'll be a good team, probably. But with the changing circumstances, even if you're a good team, it's going to be way harder to get to 13 wins than it would have before. And I think that Cousins is analytical enough and savvy enough.

And we'll look around also and say, there's a lot of guys who have done a lot of winning that are no longer going to be here. And then you're going to replace them with likely younger players who might be out of their depth. I don't know. And you look at the offensive side, it's going to be a new running back more likely than not. Uh, there's going to be, you know, probably the same offensive line, but if Adam Thielen's not here, uh, possibly a new wide receiver that he has to work with.

And so, yeah, you've got Jefferson and the two tackles that are phenomenal, but it might even be a new center. So if you're replacing center running back receiver, you know, it's like, that's a decent amount of changes. And he's kind of seen this movie a little bit before in 2017 with Washington, when they let Pierre Garcon and Deshaun Jackson go, a couple of linemen got hurt and it ended up being a seven and nine season. So he might see that writing in the wall, but I don't know. I mean, I would love his agent to call and tell me how he feels about this. I don't think that's going to happen. I could see him feeling almost any way about this situation. If it were me, I would say it's probably like you've sort of run your course here and there might be an opportunity to latch on with someone who can do the Stafford

thing, who can get you another chance, because I'm not exactly sure that I see it right now. But also, you know, there have been older quarterbacks like Phillip Rivers who have stayed with a team all the way to the end and seen through some rebuild the years. And I'm not saying that again, that they're going to be awful, but there's going to be maybe some rebuild ish years, like from 2019 to 2020. And look, he already did this once. I mean, he sort of saw that through with Jefferson coming to the team digs being traded, missing the playoffs, and then coming out on the other

side with a 13 win season. But does he want to spend another year or even two to get back to that point? And, you know, there still remains questions about the cap and you kind of need draft luck and all that stuff. So it is a fundamental question of the off season. And I don't have a great answer for you other than to say that your line of thinking is not at all crazy that we always think of this from the Vikings perspective. Should they do this with Kirk? Should they do that as if he has no say in it? but no, eventually Stafford wanted to move on, uh, and ended up in Los Angeles.

And it seemed like eventually Russell Wilson wanted to move on and the Falcons, they sniffed around to Sean Watson and Matt Ryan asked to move on. And maybe there's something like that, but usually it has to go downhill first in order for somebody to get there. Right. Like with Wilson or with the Falcons, it's maybe harder to see him being like, I want out when you just had a really fun season in a good working environment with somebody, a head coach that you really like. So if I had to guess, I don't think that it goes that way. I don't think he goes to the team and says, Hey, ship me off to Carolina. Um, but I think that the way you're thinking is not at all like crazy or way outside the box. I mean, I think that some players probably

would have that discussion. Uh, all right. Next question is a bit of a long email here but it's a good one from a longtime listener gm who emailed says as a lifelong vikings fan i've always preferred that they stay competitive so they're playing meaningful games in november and december and hopefully january however looking at their cap issues and lack of young talent on defense for the first time in my life i'm inclined to hope that they try to go into the mode of a rebuild. Belichick always had the theory that it's best to trade a player a year early rather than a year too late. They missed that boat on some of their veterans like Cook, Harrison Smith, Adam Thielen, Eric Hendricks, and they probably regret it now. I think Belichick's

motto could still apply to both Cousins and Daniil Hunter at the present time. What kind of draft compensation do you think that they could command in the trade market? Now, I may sound crazy, but what about trading Justin Jefferson and even TJ Hawkinson? I just think at some point now or a year or two, the rebuild and a new quarterback are going to be in the cards. And I question paying a wide receiver $30 million if you're going to make it through that process. So let me stop there. There's more to the email. I'll stop right there. Let's take a look at Miami and like put aside that they had to start Skylar Thompson and

Teddy Bridgewater and look at what they were with Tua, for example, with the cheap quarterback. If you have, and eventually the Vikings will, a rookie quarterback contract with a $30 million wide receiver. Like, yes, you can be fine and you can build a really good roster. And he's not the only example. AJ Brown's cap hit was very manageable this year. And that's a good example too, of how with Justin Jefferson, this is the reason you want to sign him right now is because he won't be expensive until several years down the road.

And at that point, you're hoping for hitting on some other draft picks, having a quarterback on a rookie contract and making it all work. But the idea that you shouldn't pay anybody and you should just trade everybody that you have. I don't like that idea. I don't mind the idea of having situations and seasons where you realize you have to take a step back. But just saying get rid of everybody like I don't really think that that's quite the way to do it. And I'm trying to look about like, you know, teams and salary cap space and situations and poking around here a little bit for like, you know, the 49ers, the Eagles, like these teams, they do pay people. I mean, Trent Williams next year is set to have a $27 million cap hit. Well, that seems good. Like, I mean, because he's Trent Williams, Fred Warner, George Kittle, Nick Bosa, like all these guys are expensive, but you have to have inexpensive players to counterbalance

that. So it's not that you should just trade everything that isn't nailed down. Justin Jefferson is going to be good until he's probably like 33 years old. You've got a lot of time with Justin Jefferson and it's okay if he is expensive and if Derrissaw is expensive and if even Hawkinson, because tight ends aren't crazy expensive, I would not move on from anyone who is young, even though they will be expensive. And if even Hawkinson, because tight ends aren't crazy expensive, I would not move on from anyone who is young, even though they will be expensive old. Of course. Yes. And you're right about Belichick that he gets a lot of credit for his great defenses and Tom Brady is everything to that franchise, but he was very savvy. He also knew that he had Tom Brady and he never worked in desperation mode

to win a Superbowl in a particular year because he knew he had a chance to win every year with Brady. Everything becomes easier. Like with Mahomes, they were able to move on from Tyreek Hill because they knew they could still win with Mahomes. Everything becomes easier when you have that guy. And so is the answer just get that guy? Yeah, it kind of is, but that's hard to do. One or two teams, two or three teams have that per decade. So let's say that's just not your option. It's still smart to take that approach where you do have roster turnover. You do have to make hard decisions on guys, but nostalgia just doesn't seem to work in the NFL. And it results in things like Anthony Barr and Kyle Rudolph being on the salary cap last year still because they loved

those guys and they didn't want to part ways and thought they were hard to replace. And it turned out that with their performances, it was just a lot of wasted cap space because they didn't pick the right time. So now is the right time to move on from a lot of guys. I totally agree with that. I just would not go moving on for players who three years from now are still going to be marvelous NFL players. That's when you want to be bouncing back. Not even three years.

I think two years. I really think that it only has to be a one-year dip to get the salary cap right when you have superstars like Jefferson and Derrissaw. If you did not have that, and I'll throw O'Neal into that as well, if you had nothing, okay, well, that's fine. That's going to be a little bit different. Folks, it is time once again for us to have a discussion about liquid death. Now, here's the thing. My wife has been one of those people for a really long time that has carried around a water bottle. And it's metal and it's gross.

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referring to the rebuild. I know that he is phenomenal, and I probably sound crazy, but moving on from some of these players, hitting on draft picks, and being fiscally responsible, these are things that could turn around pretty quickly. I agree with you. Say what you want about Spielman, but some of the extensions he offered to aging players and non-premier positions have dug a hole for this team more than Cousins contract. Cousins contract may have led to offering some of these extensions, but at the same

point, uh, the can hits a dead end of, and can't be kicked down the road any longer. Yep. Totally agree. It wasn't just Cousins money, but it was also that they didn't hit on draft picks and they were repeatedly required to sign players that they had and they could never really replace them. They had to say, no, no, we've got nobody behind player X, so we can't move on from them.

We have to give them their long-term extension. I agree with you on that point that missing on draft picks caused that. All right, back to the email. While running things back, this year produced 13 wins. Once again, we're good enough to hold the second seed. Actually, weren't good enough to hold on to the second seed. And it was obvious that this team had a defense that wasn't good enough to go in a long playoff run. If we keep things more or less intact for next year, the offense should be good.

But I see very little hope for the defense to improve as things currently stand. Not to mention you probably aren't going to benefit from a slew of backup quarterbacks this year as you did. And instead of nine and a half home games, seven and a half and seven and a half road games, you'll have eight home games and nine games on the road. Finally, there are no guarantees

that you'll have a fully healthy Jefferson for all 17 games and that he'll produce one of the best wide receiver seasons ever. Again, running things back with similar talent could lead to an easy eight, nine or seven and 10 record. If the breaks just don't even out. And, uh, yeah, you know, I think that this email, although it gets a little aggressive about the, Jefferson stuff, and I'm not going to sign on to that because I think that that's like a little too much. But all of what you're saying is the considerations that they have to make. And I also just am so interested in this being the turning point of how people feel. I'm sure that there are a portion of people who follow this team, who look at it and say, you just won 13 games.

Why can't you do it again? But you just laid out some of the reasons why it's going to be very hard to do that. I mean, when you have one of the greatest receiver seasons ever, it's hard to repeat year in and year out. Cooper cup did not repeat it this year. And it's a reason why it's one of the best ever because it's hard to go back and do it again. Even for the guys who are among the greatest wide receivers of all time. That's a good point. I think that the home game thing does matter. U S Bank Stadium is a advantage for the Vikings. Not all home situations are like this, but I think that that one is one of those situations.

And it's going to be a more difficult schedule looking at just where they have to go. I mean, they have to go to Cincinnati. That team's not going to get any worse. You just got a really difficult road ahead if you're going to come anywhere close to repeating these things. And one thing I think, too, is just like recognizing the pattern throughout Vikings history that it always kind of goes this way. I mean, even though they tried to stave off regression from 2017 to 2018, it still happened.

Because in 2017, Everson Griffin had his best career season. And then the next year he didn't and was not available for a handful of games. They had a good offensive line in 2017, but Joe Berger, Berger, uh, retired. And I think they lost somebody else, Nick Easton from that. They tried to replace them. It wasn't the same. And they tried to replace their offensive coordinator. It wasn't the same, like tried to replace their offensive coordinator it wasn't the same like things change from year to year and that's why last year they had a sense that hey it could

actually get better because we had some things go wrong and against our luck and they were right that it did go much better to win 13 games but you also have to see the other side of that regression as well, which so many of you seem to be spotting. And I just wonder, like, if you're able to see this and we're able to look at it from kind of an objective perspective, are they realistic as well? Because it does seem to be a pretty beaming light that it's going to be hard to do what they did again from next year with all of the evidence. But that doesn't mean it's easy to convince everyone to do that. And I guess one thing I keep coming back to is from Kevin O'Connell's perspective, we always talk about

the owners, but O'Connell has a big say in that room. And is he going to be okay with losing a lot of these players that meant so much to them? I mean, you can look at a Jordan Hicks or even an Eric Hendricks and say, all right, you know what? We could probably find someone who does the same thing. You might even look at an Adam Thielen and say, we can find someone who does the same thing. That's not the easiest thing in the world because he still had 70 catches, but okay. Maybe find someone who can run after the catch a little bit better and so forth. Not too many guys catch every pass like he does, but you know, okay. Maybe you can replace that level of production for much cheaper, but is he going to agree to any more radical approach

than that? Or is he going to want the same sort of whole plugging one year free agent contracts and so forth, which in theory feel competitive rebuilding because they don't lock you in, but it also prevents someone else from progressing or getting a chance. So this year, if they had played, and I'm not saying Troy Dye would have been anything. I don't know if he would have, he didn't play. If they had played Troy Dye and Brian Asamoah, would the numbers have been different? I mean, looking at Hicks and Kendricks from where they ranked as far as linebackers in coverage, probably not with those two. And we would have found out something about them. We would have learned, is Troy Dye able to actually play? And if he is, then they

can sign him to a reasonable extension and have somebody there. And Asamoah, I mean, this guy is probably going to be somebody for them for a while. You know, they cut the entire 2021 draft class, which look, it was not good. No question about it. It was bad. It's not like I think that any of those players that they let go are going to suddenly become superstars, but you would have an opportunity to kind of find that out and then go into the next, you know, right. That's kind of the looking back at last year and some of the veteran players. And like, if you had drafted a receiver or signed a receiver and traded Adam Thielen last year, when maybe you could have gotten something back, well, could that receiver in his place have been just as valuable or more valuable? The answer is probably yes. And this is why it ties back into what you said about Belichick. Belichick seems to have understood this. Bill Walsh understood that it's in his, a football life documentary that a lot of times, despite how much you love a guy,

when they start to slip, there is somebody else coming up. There's a lot of football players in the world. There's somebody else coming up or available for cheaper. And that is the harshness of the league. And this team has not always been like that in terms of it's like pragmatism. It hasn't looked at things through a harsh type of lens. It's been much more of a, we love this guy. He's going to be hard to replace. But yeah, I mean, I think that what you're saying there, the thing that sticks out in this email, in this discussion is that you've never been for this and you're for this now because you can kind of see where this could be headed if they try to run back. And that's really good perspective.

And I appreciate that a lot. Thank you for that email. All right. Next question comes from at Vikings T.E. Screen. Can't imagine why you made that your your Twitter name. As a longtime fan, I'm feeling insanely frustrated by the fixation this franchise has on Kirk Cousins. He's good, but not transcendent, not top seven or eight.

And with so many areas depleted, it would seem like keeping him is more about competitive stability rather than real championship aspirations. Are we as fans stupid and thinking that the team would want championships more than competitive relevancy? You've been around the insiders. Is it a big secret everyone keeps from the public that they care more about sales than championships? No, I don't think that that is a secret that they keep from the, although if it's a secret, then I wouldn't be telling you. Um, no, it's, I don't think that that really is. I think that they believed that it was always around the corner. And I understand why, like, if we go through the whole thing, I understand why, because there was always a bad man. There was, so they signed cousins in 2018 and it's a good team. It is a good 2018 team, but John D Filippo's offense

cousins play in some big games. Some of the things that I mentioned, the regression stuff, not having a third receiving option, like all those things played into it. And by the way, that first place schedule, uh, they all played into it. And by the way, that first place schedule, they all played into it in 2018. It was a harder road to where they wanted to go. And they had a target on their back because they were talked about from day one is Super Bowl or bust. So it didn't work out there, but they could point the finger at John D. Filippo. It was his fault. And they were pretty right because the next year, Kevin Stefanski operated a much smarter and better offense and they outscored their opponents by, I don't know, like a hundred

points that they were getting toward that number that we talk about, uh, of being a legit contender with point differential. Their numbers for team strength were actually much better in 2019 than they were this year. We still question them throughout because they had a bunch of big games that they didn't win. Kansas City, Seattle, there were a few of them. Green Bay at the end of the year. But they proved their team's strength in New Orleans

that that was probably the best shot that Kirk Cousins was going to have. But by winning that playoff game, and this might happen with the 13 wins this year, you could see why they did this. Like, I think a lot of us whose team it isn't, you know, it's very easy to say, like, it's not my millions and millions of dollars. So it's much easier for me to be like, hey, guys, you're losing players on defense from 19 to 20. So maybe you should, et cetera, et cetera, you know, cut everybody and move on from cousins and maybe even just change coaches or whatever. But that's much harder when it's your team, it's your hearts into it, and it's your millions of dollars.

And you just watched your guy win a playoff game against Drew Brees in the Superdome. So I remember Spielman coming back and saying, yeah, you know, I think Kirk really proved that he can win in the postseason. And he was great in that game. And especially that final drive with the throw to Thielen and the throw to Rudolph. And so the idea was they sign him to an extension, lower his cap hit, and get the same results next year,

only a little bit better. They'll replace some guys through the draft. They'll trade unhappy digs. They'll get a happy, good receiver, which they did. And then everything will be on the right path. But if you extend cousins, it doesn't mean you need to win in 2020 necessarily. You just need to be in a much better spot heading toward back toward that strength that you had in 2017. You can see why

they did it. And in hindsight, it's easier to criticize at the time. I think it was foreseeable, but it was a debate. It wasn't like, Oh wow, this team is just going to be horrible this year. I think I probably picked them to win nine games or something, nine or 10. And you could have seen it in 2021. Had they hit on a few draft picks other than Jefferson in that draft, which they did not. So all these things usually surround the draft in some way or another. But my point is that there's no conspiracy. It just kind of is how the order of operations worked. So then last year cousins plays very well and they come this close and a bunch of games. And look, a lot of them were defensive meltdowns that it was Cam Dantzler going too deep in the

end zone against Detroit. It was Brashad Breeland, uh, not making a play. And then also Dantzler against Cooper rush in that game. Like it truly was not Kirk Cousins failing in the clutch or failing to come up in the bigger games in 2021. It was really a matter of, uh, that their defense seemed to fall apart at the biggest moments. So again, then you have Eric Hendricks and Adam Thielen, and I don't know who was in this room for sure. I mean, Eric Hendricks said he was, so him for sure. You have them telling you, look, if we have the same results and Patrick Peterson by coming back, if we have the same results with better coaching and better clutch play, we will win a lot of games and Kirk can win them as well. Again, you can see their perspective. Now, this is where it would change is this year, because after winning

13 games and knowing what's ahead for them and knowing where the roster is at and knowing cousin's age, that makes it so much harder to say, Hey, success is right around the corner because you'll probably never have everything go right the way that you did this year ever again. If a team ever goes 11 and O in one score games ever again, I would be shocked. I mean, this was a year for the ages and that's why it's so unfortunate how it ended is that it was just like even one playoff win

would have made it a little more like satisfactory. So the point about Cousins is you could always see why they would talk themselves into it and understand why they would talk themselves into it and understand why they would continue to sign extensions. This one would be much harder to figure. And even last year, I thought they did the right thing as far as the length, setting themselves up for only having one more year on Cousins' contract and kicking that decision

down the road to see if Kevin O'Connell and a completely changed approach to everything, including cousins would make a difference. And I'm not saying they have to trade him now. I'm just saying you have to start planning for the future, whether that's drafting a quarterback or just not extending him and understanding when you're going to make this change and have it timeout with the rest of your roster. So they could keep him for next year and have a pretty good season and then let him hit free agency, draft a quarterback. And everybody sort of goes their separate ways, like graduating from high school to college. But if they sign cousins to another short-term extension, it will just be confusing. It will be like, do you guys

know where you're headed? And, you know, it's just always been the same like, oh, they just needed a guard. They just needed a corner. They just needed a linebacker. They just needed a better culture. And ultimately, it's just proven too challenging to put it all together at once around this quarterback to take you deep in the playoffs. And I think five years is a pretty good sample to figure that out. So I think that my view was sort of sympathetic to why the owners would want to continue to bring back cousins, but now it's, it would be less. So if they signed him to a certain type of extension, if they went all in on him and gave him a five-year deal, I would also think that was

kind of nuts considering his age. And of course, you know, the last five years, but I would actually get that more than I would like a two-year extension, because at least in a five-year extension, you're saying we want this level of quarterback play, and we're going to draft and draft and draft and draft and build this thing from there. It would be an understanding that you have to build around it. So I think that that's probably the nightmare scenario for some people, but I would understand that more so than I would going like, let's kick the can down the road. Let's lower his cap hit a little bit for one year so we can sign another defensive tackle and that sort of thing. Um, but yeah, more, more great perspective from you guys on kind of the big picture and where cousin stands in that, uh, onto the next question

from at Dan Taylor, 26 says, if we keep talking about the team needing to get younger, but what does that mean in practice? What has the average age of successful teams been recently? And how do the Vikings compare to that? I appreciate that it's not an exact science, but it would be good to know the trends. Yeah. So there was a look at this not that long ago that found, and I'm sure you won't be surprised that usually the average age does trend older. And that makes sense because usually what you need is superstars

who are experienced to win a Superbowl in multiple different positions. So all the teams that are remaining, yes, some of the quarterbacks are younger, but they have your Lane Johnson's, for example, your AJ Brown, who isn't old, but he's been around for quite a long time average age is also a very goofy thing because like Justin Jefferson is not super young but he is by average age he would bring the team's average age down but he's an established superstars like what what are we supposed to learn from that also teams that are about to win usually get some latchers on who want rings. And even if they're not the biggest players in those teams, uh, they still end up moving that average age up. Like when players can kind of sense like, okay, new England, I kind of want

to get myself to new England, try to win that super bowl. Uh, that probably has pushed that number around a lot, but having experienced and established superstars is an absolute must. I don't think, I think that's like the least hot take I've ever given on the show, but it's an absolute must for competing for the Superbowl, whether it's a, you know, a Trey Hendrickson or even like they're young, but you know, T Higgins is somebody who has established himself as a young star player. You need lots of good players who know what they're doing. So they have to either be young and very intelligent or more experienced and good at their jobs and proven. I heard a really good theory this last offseason.

It's not as scientific as maybe you're hoping for. But Greg Rosenthal of what? NFL.com. He said, he thinks that you need 40 good to great players to win a Superbowl, which is what there's 22 starters. And you'd probably need 40 because a lot of guys play different roles. And he's not saying 40 superstars. That doesn't make any sense, but like good players who could come in, either come in in any position, if they're a role player or are driving the success.

And I, and maybe that number's a little bit high, but it kind of tells you where you need to stand for complete roster strength. And I think that's the way I would look at it is getting younger. Doesn't just mean like, oh, we need to have younger players. It means getting cheaper, which is just the reality when you're talking about rookie contracts. So that's getting younger. And also guys who are older always can fall off the edge of that cliff. So you're always teetering.

And they're also more expensive. That's another part of it, too. So if you have younger players, it means that they are probably not as expensive which allows you to bring in other players to fill out the roster to get to that type of number and this is something that you know these teams who are here now they've all been able to bring in players from the outside so when somebody gets hurt it's not a disaster or there isn't a player who you're just seeing targeted over and over and over and over again on defense or something like that.

You can get someone quality and maybe on a team that was closer defensively, like maybe Jordan Hicks isn't a bad signing. But other teams, instead of one Jordan Hicks, they can make five Jordan Hicks type signings or something, or five Harrison Phillips type signings to bring in quality veteran players who are, you know, normally, I mean, probably getting decent money on the market, but you can pay more Jacksonville's this way. You can pay more for Zay Jones because you like them and you want them and you've got the money to do it.

That's what it means to me to get younger. It doesn't necessarily mean, oh, well, if you play young guys, you'll just win. That's not usually the case. But you need cheap young players to be able to build a successful roster that's more complete. And that always has been and always will be a route and a path to the Super Bowl is if you don't have Mahomes, you have to have every position be good. And for these teams that are playing in championship weekend, that's the case. And for the Vikings in recent years, it's always been that big hole that they just could not fill. It's always been, is it the guard?

Is it the, you know, whatever. Is it the corner? Is it the nickel? Is it the whatever? There's always been these big gaping holes, um, that cannot be filled. Uh, by the way, just as, as I'm doing this, the Atlanta Falcons hired Ryan Nielsen as their defensive coordinator from the saints. So you can take that one off the list for the Minnesota Vikings. See, I said at the beginning of the show that I wasn't going to have a defensive coordinator update and we do a defensive coordinator update. Uh, all right.

This question comes from Joe and I've got a couple more for this episode. So hopefully for these fans only episodes, you guys, uh, actually I might have to make now I'm scrolling. I might have to make a whole other, yeah, probably a whole other episode. So what a shame you'll have more to listen to. All right. This one comes from Joe. Hey, Matthew, happy new year. Now that's questionable right off the, right off the bat, Joe, I'm recording this on January 27th. I think we're past the happy new year thing. Um, I'm, I'm just messing around, but that was a, it's a Larry David bit where he, I think it was like two weeks after, uh, January 1st is like someone said happy new year to him. So anyway, if you like the show,

you know what I'm talking about. Joe asks, what do you think the chances are that the Vikings push for Trey Lance? And do you like him as a prospect? I am not sure whether I like Trey Lance or not. I mean, I've only seen a very limited amount of Trey Lance, maybe a couple of games. I watched the mud game against the

bears and that probably didn't tell me anything. And as far as his actual performance, you know, it's been underwhelming, but what could I really expect? The guys played four games. He started four games and he has a 84 quarterback rating and not a lot of yards per game. I don't know. Like there's nothing you can really take as far as a raw talent. Of course he is extremely talented. He's got a huge arm. I got to see him at training camp when the Vikings had the joint practices. And there were times where I thought he was really letting loose. The one thing that was very concerning is that when you watch Brock Purdy play, he is so quick at recognizing where to go with the football. And I think that was a Trey Lance issue. So if you're going to have an offense with him, he's probably got to understand

it, how to get the ball out. That's a Justin Fields problem and a lot of quarterbacks too. But you can't just like look for the first thing you saw and then run. You got to get through progressions, no matter who you are, even if you're a running quarterback, even, you know, Jalen hurts or anybody, anybody who's running for a thousand yards as a quarterback, you still need to sit in the pocket and make progressions. But he's so young, like maybe there is a Josh Allen comparison. Who's not the perfect quarterback coming out of college or anywhere close when it came to accuracy and reading a defense. But of course, you know, he develops and is much, much better. There might be that potential there, but there's holdups here.

There's major holdups. And when this idea is brought up, I just haven't heard anyone solve these major holdups. The first being, why would San Francisco trade Trey Lance to you? I don't see the benefit for them trading him to an NFC team. When there are AFC teams that need quarterbacks, you trade them to an NFC team that you kind of bump into all the time, playoffs or, you know, regular season, big games and things like that. You're trading him there, risking him becoming a superstar and immediately to me if i'm the 49ers like now i'm not doing that i am not taking the

risk that the guy that we love this much in the draft to give him to a division opponent that we might play in the postseason not doing that and the other part is like can the vikings even cobble together enough draft capital to trade for him? Now I know the reported price was low, but I don't know about that. I mean, I think you get a couple of offers going and you're going to get more for Trey Lance than just like a third round pick. So there's those things that are pretty big hurdles. It really doesn't benefit the 49ers and there will be lots of phone calls if Trey Lance ends up on the market. So, I mean, it kind of doesn't benefit the 49ers and there will be lots of phone calls if Trey Lance ends up on the market. So, I mean, it kind of doesn't matter if I like him as a prospect. I mean, it really just kind

of stops there for me. Why would the other team do it? We always look at it from our perspective, like, Hey, this is a good idea for the Vikings. And the one other holdup, I may have mentioned it before, but the one other holdup is really just the timeline and his rookie contract. We're already going into year three, which gives you maybe into year six for being manageable on a contract if he's great. So your window is pretty tight. That doesn't make it impossible. But when someone's already used a couple of years of that rookie deal, that means he has

to start being great like next year or the year after. And then you might get one chance with him while he's cheap. And then all of a sudden you're talking about having to pay him going down that same road again. And then he needs to be an absolute megastar and not just good. And we sort of go round and round and round. So there's merit to the idea from the Vikings perspective, if they think that they're not far away.

And with Jefferson, maybe you don't feel that way, but it's a tight window if you're doing it before he becomes expensive. And even with a team like Buffalo, where Josh Allen's going to become expensive, there are just concessions that have to be made and you have to be a Josh Allen level quarterback to work around that. And we'll see if they're even able to do that as well as they have been during his rookie deal. Okay. One, one more. Want to go one more? Let's see. Um, let's go with, uh, uh, at Mac jaw 68 on Twitter. Let's see. Guessing this has been asked already, but do you see any reason to bring back Eric Hendricks, Jordan Hicks, Z'Darrius Smith, Harrison Smith, Chandon Sullivan, Delvin Cook, or Adam Thielen back. Do you think we could get any picks for

any of them? Yeah, there's a case for Harrison Smith to return and maybe for Z'Darrius if they feel like his knee is not going to be a problem in the future. I know that the second half of the season was less impressive, but he had overall a great year. And if his health is okay, it is risky compared to what they can make in the dead cap or like they're not hit with much dead cap. It was for all intents and purposes, a one-year contract that gave them the cards if he played well, which he absolutely did. But if they're going scorched earth, well then then, yeah, I mean, you can move on from Z'Darrius and make a bet that his production

was not going to carry over. But otherwise, I think he probably stays. And when you're hiring a defensive coordinator, are you saying, hey, you know, the first thing we're going to do is get rid of the guy who led the team in pressures and, oh, by the way, that borderline Hall of Fame safety you have. I don't know about that. Like that's a tough sell. Those guys could stay. I mean, Shannon Sullivan, of course, Jordan Hicks, Eric Kendricks is a tough one because he's been such a good player for them, but I think it's probably time as well. Delvin cook was one of the

least effective running backs per his carries in the entire NFL. Easy to move on from him, I think. And Adam Thielen is another tough one because if you do the June 1st thing, everyone loves the June 1st with the salary cap. Oh, well, you could just cut them after June 1st and create X number of dollars. While that is true, you have to pay those dollars eventually. So they get pushed down the road and they make the future harder maybe you should just bite the bullet now and take the bigger dead cap to just move on and not have to push it down and make your life harder in the future that's why i can't stand the void years thing and i bring it up all the time because delvin tomlinson even if they extend

him they still have to pay those void years they They just get spread out, but you still have to pay them. They don't disappear into thin air. Like that money is dead cap and it is there somewhere on your books. And it's not great for you if you're looking for cap flexibility. Um, so with Thielen though, I think Thielen is a coin flip to be back. It seems like maybe he's not the happiest with how this went this year, uh, as far as his own personal production. But at the same time, like it's kind of the, the road we've been down many times is they're going to move on from this guy. No, they love him. So they'll just keep him. And last year really was the year to probably move on from feeling. I'll say that they don't, but I think it is very, very possible. Uh, Do I think they could get picks for them? Here's what's hard. Someone like Harrison Smith, the answer would be yes, because he's very good,

but his contract is really rough. And that means that any other team is just going to say, we love Harrison Smith, but we're not giving you almost anything for that. And that kind of goes for almost everyone here. Now, zedarius would be one that would have some you know potential for getting something back but it's probably not that high again it's a fairly high cap hit they would be wondering why you're getting rid of him and saying well it sounds like you need to move him for your salary cap and this is where you end up in a tight situation and how amari cooper ends up being traded for a fifth rounder in Dallas is when other teams know that you got to get underneath that cap. Things become very,

very tricky to get other teams to help you out. And as I think we saw last year in the draft, I'm not sure that Kweisi Adafo Mensah yet is established enough to get other GMs who are going to help him out and say, okay, well, we'll step up. We'll give you a good price for that. So I think that almost all the guys you mentioned just don't have a lot of draft capital that's going to come back. If we were talking about doing it on Madden and they had 80 something grades and you could just trade them for, you know, a first round pick or something like, yes, but in practice, those contracts matter a lot to the teams making the acquisition.

So aside from Zedaria Smith, it's hard to see anybody making a deal for those guys and giving up more than like a fourth or a fifth round draft pick. That's why the position is difficult that they are in, because if you want to get draft capital back, real draft capital, there's only one guy that's realistic to trade and that's daniel hunter and you don't actually really want to do that because he's good at football but that's the spot that they have put themselves in it is a fascinating position and one that we'll be talking about for a long time so i've got more questions to get to uh for another episode very soon The next time that we'll do a pod though is after Sunday night,

breaking down the conference championships. If you have a YouTube account, it's right after the games. Paul Hodowanek and I are going to be on there breaking down what we saw, talking a little Vikings, if there's any changes and reporting over the next couple of days,

which a lot of times in those pregame shows, there might be something Vikings related for the defensive coordinator or whatever. So, you know, a lot to look forward to, and then we'll be back to fans only questions next week. Uh, I think Searles will still be around next week, even though it's the weekend between the super bowl and we'll, we'll dig up some guests and get back to rolling, but always love these fans only episodes and appreciate you sending questions to purpleinsider.com or on Twitter at Matthew Collar. Much more to discuss in the off season. We'll catch you all guys soon.