Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Arif Hasan talks us into the Vikings being on the right path

Episode Date: June 1, 2023

Arif Hasan of Pro Football Network joins Matthew Coller for a game of "Talk me into" that includes the Vikings being on the right path, the Lions hype being legit, Justin Fields and the best non-Fran Vikings QB of all time Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Oakley. Express yourself. Build a look that's made for you. When you wear Oakley, there really is more than meets the eye. Try it for yourself. Oakley is not only the best looking, but the best quality. So head on over to oakley.com for more information today. Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and joining me from Pro Football Network is Arif Hasan. Recently of a trip to Menards to fix things is why we're a couple of minutes behind recording. I think that you have to explain this because this is quite the revelation for you, Arif, to be doing housework with hardware. So please explain before we get into the football. Yeah, no, I've just decided that I wanted to get back to the roots to, you know, understand kind of what makes men men. And, you know, I saw I saw, you know,

last year, someone went to Home Depot, bought a plank of wood and said that this is what manliness is. And I figured, well, I could do better than that. I could buy multiple things at Home Depot and Menards. And so I did. And my beard became fuller. I don't know if you can notice that, but it's certainly a much fuller beard now. Just having purchased items at these hardware stores, we will be doing all sorts of hardware related things. So for example, re-cocking the bathtub, that's a phrase that I get to use. We will be putting up different gauges of metal into different areas of the house. That's important. I'm very familiar

with the differences between different alloys of steel. And that's knowledge that I've been imbued with, with my masculinity. No, I mean, we're selling the house, so we have to renovate a couple of things. Oh, okay. Right. I'm very impressed though, because all that sounded like it was real. And I think it may be. So that's good stuff. And you're also wearing a flannel, even though it's 80 something degrees, which is very similar to say like Bob Vila or Ron Swanson, like some of the great manly men who fix stuff of our time. So I, yeah, I'm impressed. Well, good luck with that. It always is quite a bit of work selling a house. So you're, you're in for it there, but you've got some time. So I, yeah, I'm impressed. Well, good luck with that. It always is quite a bit of work selling a house. So you're, you're in for it there, but you've got some time because, you know, national writers like yourself covering the NFL, they've got time in the summer. Unlike those of us who have teams that may cut or trade their greatest players after June 1st, I was, I was thinking about this yesterday, Arif, like how often do you see a team with four of its best players where the, uh, there's some uncertainty

after June 1st, Delvin cook, Kirk cousins, uh, you know, Daniil Hunter, Justin Jefferson, like this is something that does not happen. I'm like, but also classic that the Vikings would never let us sleep for two seconds without wondering, are they trading Kirk right now while I'm taking a nap? Yeah. One thing about having a broader focus is that you get to put all of the crazy stuff the Vikings do in a context of all of the other teams. Because sometimes I wonder, it can't just be Minnesota.

All teams must be like this be Minnesota all teams must be like this or many teams no Minnesota is like pretty unique and how nutso it is and you've covered another team right so you know but like it's just it's crazy how like on your toes you have to be on the on the way to recording this podcast I opened an email that a roster move has been made by the Vikings and I'm like oh this is it they did it without leaking that's incredible and it's you know Ellefson retired which good for him but like okay so now there's like 88 spots on the roster filled great fantastic good that means major free agent signing at any time major trade major whatever uh but I agree with you when I opened that same email and I saw roster was like what what is it what's going on on? Is Delvin? No. Okay. Not today, I guess,

but maybe some other time. And so we've talked, of course, as you would expect on the show, a lot about those things. And I want to play a game of talk me into that involves not only the Vikings, but some other teams around the league. And I know that you have never played talk me into, but just by the name of it, you can figure out how it goes right I give you a subject and your uh goal is to talk me into it even if you don't believe in it and then you ask me to talk you into stuff even if I don't believe in it so there you go there's all the rules that it takes I want to start out with sort of what we were just

discussing about talking me into the Vikings having handled this off season so far in the right way. Can you talk me into them having done the right things to push them in the right direction? Ultimately, I don't know, toward a Super Bowl or at least like getting better for their long-term vision for what they have done so far, regardless of what they're about to do, because we don't know yet. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, the goal of the Vikings here is to remain consistently competitive while at the same time bringing in as much talent so they can constantly, I guess, churn through the amount of talent that they need to in order to constantly be at the head of the pack. And so

what the Vikings have done is that they have approached things from a way of finding as many market inefficiencies as possible. And so that means finding players who teams undervalue because their best season wasn't the most recent season, finding players who teams undervalue because they're a little bit older, hitting free agency, finding players who teams undervalue because of the way that the market has shifted towards people who like defend the pass versus people who defend the run and so on. And so they, for example, have made sure that with the proliferation of light boxes, that they increase the number of blockers that they have available to them in the run game. They have determined that even though kind of contemporary studies say that play action and run capability isn't related, that they have found that the ability to run,

not, you know, your performance when you run, but the ability to threaten a run, say, for example, having two tight ends on the field improves your play action capacity. And so bringing in another tight end and free agency, bringing in Marcus Davenport, whose most recent good season, it wasn't the most recent season, finding those players who the market undervalues in order to find, you know, long-term solutions, right?

Marcus Davenport is a one-year contract, but partway through the season, if he is performing, you have the ability to create a long-term extension for him. Finding that and paying attention to analytical principles, knowing that, for example, a running game might be important, but a running back may not be. And so attempting to put a running back on the market, extending Alexander Madison, because he is kind of the ideal situation when it comes to, you know, a committee back that embodies this.

The run game may be important, but the running back that isn't necessarily don't want to overpay there. And so they have found ways to find those market inefficiencies. They've completely turned over their secondary. They know that the secondary is the key to modern defenses. While at the same time, knowing that if that's what they're going to do they have to be run stuffers at defensive tackle position so they made sure to keep harrison phillips they didn't pay too much for dalvin tomlinson and they grabbed quillen roy kept kairis tonga and so they have run stuffers up the middle that allows them to lighten the box and counterintuitively do a better job protecting against the pass and so they've got a number of versatile players in the back end.

That's good for the Brian Flores defense. They've got a number of safeties that can play corner. They've got a couple of corners that might be able to transition into safety. And so you've got players that can play in the slot or up higher in the box that will allow you to much better defend the pass, even though you've got run stuffers up front. It is taking modern football concepts and thinking ahead just a little bit. So that is, I think, what they have successfully accomplished within the parameters of this game.

Well, I think you've done a very good job there. And one of the things is, I remember last year, at one point, getting a little exasperated with some of the moves and yelling, where's the analytics? And with Gracia da Fomensa. and i think that this year we started to see them much more that a lot of the moves really came into focus that of things that you and i would have been talking about uh years ago as sort of the most efficient ways by the people who have studied things closely and i also think that you know gary kubiak is no fool. And when he was throwing two tight ends out there, you know, with a couple of wide receivers and looking for some big shots downfield, like he knew what he was doing.

And they didn't have that tool in their bag to be versatile last year. It was kind of like if you're not running 11 personnel, there really isn't much of a threat there because it was Ben Ellefson or Johnny Munt on the field. And those guys couldn't do a whole lot in the passing game, where I think Josh Oliver actually does have the potential to be a threat there because it was Ben Ellefson or Johnny Munt on the field. And those guys couldn't do a whole lot in the passing game where I think Josh Oliver actually does have the potential to be a threat in the passing game based on what he did in college and a handful of passes that he got in Baltimore. But also what I've noticed, and I think is an interesting part of

this as well, is they were a black hole running the ball last year where there were a lot of teams that were actually on the plus side of expected points hole running the ball last year where there were a lot of teams that were actually on the plus side of expected points. Almost almost half of teams this this last year, almost half were actually on the plus side of expected points in the run. And first time it's happened since like 2006. Like I was going to say, you actually can't understate like how crazy that is compared to what we had seen in recent years. You even go back like four or five years and it's 90 percent of teams are negative when rushing so i think that teams are figuring out how to better run the football efficiently when to better run the ball and then like you said defenses have totally changed to try to play these

fangio and shell type systems i also think that drafting a wide receiver is part of this as well but the one hold up is the quarterback position hasn't been resolved and I understand why it hasn't that also has to have an opportunity to do that and they were drafting 23rd they were not going to be able to trade up and get Bryce Young as was reported that they wanted to and just like you want to be six foot seven like it was never going to happen but uh you know I I am I am convinced though that this offseason showed us a lot of things with Kweisi Adafo-Mensah and his overall approach that we did not see last year that I was impressed by the general feel of what we got from them. I think the one holdup is just when you don't know what's going to happen at the quarterback position,

you sit here and wonder, wait, are they going to extend Kirk still or like what's going to happen here because you can do all those things you named right and have that thing not go right and you still end up in a rut yeah and that defines your season yeah yeah I don't know defines your next five years yeah right yeah yeah well okay I mean that that allows me to get you to talk me into something which is that i need you to talk me into a kirk cousins extension you know i was worried about you doing something like this i thought if you play this game with a reef he's gonna come up with some sinister stuff because i thought i thought this was a newer reef i i thought you know he's building stuff i'm i'm a

salt of the earth the reef that doesn't mean I'm a good person or reef. Okay. I've got it. When you look at the Raiders situation last year with Derek Carr, they gave Derek Carr a contract extension. And then after a year between Derek Carr and Josh McDaniels, and do not misunderstand me. I am not trying to present the raiders as team that knows what they're doing they are not but uh from this from this perspective though they created an extension for derrick carr that was kind of a phony extension it was like get him some more money in his pocket and make it look like he's got security even though they can release him uh after a year and it was basically a year type of extension as they did. And that's why he plays for the saints. Now the Vikings could create somewhat of a extension that allows them to next year, draft a quarterback that sits behind Kirk. Now this probably should have happened this

year, but there had to be a quarterback there. And aside from Will Levis, who went in the second round, which, you know, I, I did not blame them for not doing because nobody else decided to pick him in the first round. It's like, I don't know. I just am not wanting them to stretch on that type of quarterback. I think we've seen that type of quarterback fail many times, and I would not want Kevin O'Connell to just be locked into that quarterback. So if they were looking for the Alex Smith thing, I think we were looking for that to be this year. But if you extend him, you could have it be next year. Or if everything goes wrong, you can set up an extension for him to be able to leave and

hit free agency the same way that Derek Carr did. Yet it puts more money in his pocket right away. And then you can go forward let's say that you only win six games this year and then he wants out he wants to go play for another team that could still be a possibility um you know this is a tough one to talk you into but also there is 28 million dollars of dead cap for next year which I think that they would want to try to uh you know move that out to a couple of more seasons make something basically right which is one of the benefits of a potential extension so

if you could kind of have your cake and eat it too with kirk cousins then i think that you could do something like this does that talk you into it it does because you were weaselly about it the reason the reason i wasn't playing fair because you didn't, yeah, I mean, I'm not playing fair, right? But the reason it worked is because I didn't ask you to talk me into a long-term commitment to Cousins. That's not what I asked. I asked for an extension. You designed an extension structure that allowed the Vikings to get out of it in some way, which I think is actually a smart thing to do.

I think that probably even better than, you better than the Derek Carr situation would be, and not that that was a great situation, but in terms of the structure, is to make it tradable. I think that that was one of the issues with the Raiders is that that contract wasn't as tradable as it was releasable, which sounds like the same thing, but only on the team perspective, not on any team that's going to trade for him. It would be an onerous contract. And so making it so that it is something that a contract that you can trade for as well as trade from would make it a pretty exciting prospect because

then you can turn dollars into picks, which is something that NFL teams have been trying to do since that tricky Brock Osweiler trade that the Browns made to get a second round pick and also Brock Osweiler. NFL teams have been trying to get a second round pick and also Brock Osweiler. NFL teams have been trying to do that a little bit, and it has been really tough. There's very few examples of being able to trade cash for cap or trade cash for picks. And I think this is kind of one of the examples where you might be able to construct that, because teams are always looking for a quarterback that's going to give them some level of stability.

And for as much as, you know, we criticize Kirk Cousins,ins it's kind of like and I got into a Twitter argument about this last week the reason people criticize Kirk Cousins is not because people don't think he's a good quarterback almost universally obviously there's exceptions people think he's a good quarterback the question is is he a good enough quarterback to get the final parts of the job done and when you compare him to quarterbacks, like not even Patrick Mahomes, that's impossible, but like a Jalen Hurts or a good version of Dak Prescott or Joe Burrow or even like Trevor Lawrence, right?

When you compare him to those quarterbacks, he falls short, right? And so it's easy to be in a place where you're criticizing him because of where your expectations are. But that's where the Vikings are right now. They made the playoffs. They couldn't win the playoffs.

Well, a team that has built the rest of its roster really well and thinks that like they may be there on the spot that San Francisco was in last year can you imagine if the 49ers had instead of Brock Purdy Kirk Cousins and I I don't think the most of Brock Purdy so cards on the table but I you know I that that probably would have been they probably would have won that game against the Eagles which is a weird thing to say, but I think so. And so, plus, I mean, he's durable, right? It's kind of an issue there. So there are teams that could find a market for quarterback like Kirk Cousins,

especially if they're picking late, especially if they feel like they've built the rest of the roster. If, like, you're in a Steeler situation where now you're comfortable with the rest of your roster, you finally figured out that offensive line situation, that defense is getting better, and Kenny Pickett has not developed. Well, you're coached by Mike Tomlin, so you're not going to pick high. So you could trade for Kirk Cousins or something like that. So in extension, yeah, you talked me into it. Wow, I did a good job on something that I don't think.

I think, yeah, and all those things actually't think I, I think I, yeah. And all those things actually do make sense. And that's why I could still very much see it happening that they do even fairly soon announce an extension for Kirk Cousins, because I think that when Kirk looks at it as well, there's probably some risk there for him. Not only going into a year, remember he was the most hit quarterback in the nfl last year and even though he survived that i do wonder if the one i think it was jonathan allen caught him pretty good and knocked the wind out of there i mean he took a few hits last year where i mean you you

have thought his iron man streak was going to be over after that allen hit i really i really did like he did not move at all and uh then you know it turned out he was okay and the mvp of last season was that rib protector but that's you know that i think that's the offense i think it asks him to stay with reeds a little longer than maybe in the past and he's gonna take hits and if you're him that's more guaranteed money for you it might be more that you get from your own team than from another team in free agency because it's not like Derek Carr got some crazy 48 million or something he got like what was it like 35 and guaranteed was not super impressive and and so they might look at that and say well a team has to be really desperate and the Saints

were really desperate but they still got a reasonable contract for Derek Carr so there's kind of incentive for both sides to do it I still think the Vikings should just let it play out, eat it, draft a quarterback next year and go forward that way. But when you do have an edict to remain competitive, then you kind of have to stay with that. Like you, you can, you know, be good with Kirk, try to continue to rebuild the defense and, and look forward to next year to potentially draft and sit a quarterback for a year. So I think that might be something that is going through their mind. I want you to talk me into not just the Detroit Lions being good, the Detroit Lions being the best team in the NFC, because I think the obvious talk me into would be like, talk me into it not working,

but that's not hard. You just say their team name. So I want I'm going to give you the harder challenge, which is convince me all the hype for the Detroit Lions. I saw Aiden Hutchinson was talking about, hey, what if the Lions were to win a Super Bowl? Like, OK, getting ahead of ourselves a little. But but I want you to talk me into the Detroit Lions Super Bowl representative of the National Football Conference. Folks, our new sponsor, Oakley.

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It was one of the worst defenses in the NFL last year. They only got away with what they did because the offense was explosive and surprisingly consistent. So what happens here is that the defense needs to get better. Now I ran a model over a pro football network, plug, plug, plug, uh, to try and predict who the best defenses are fools errand, by the way. I mean, it's defensive performance is really difficult to predict, but the inputs are, you know, like draft position and, um, you know, which positions matter more where you've invested in free agency and stuff like that, as well as, you know, stuff like PFF grade

and trying to figure out how good a player is and all that. Well, their moves to basically restructure the entire secondary, they already have a really great defensive line. Linebacker doesn't matter that much, but they have improved a little bit there. But their moves to restructure their secondary, adding a player like Brian Branch, those have resulted in a defense that I've modeled to be about average, which is a huge upgrade for them.

And so I think that once you get there, you're at a point where this team is probably not a 500 team, right? So I think that that's like a pretty easy thing to convince you that that defense will likely regress towards average because of the investments that they've made. They've got a really good run stuffing front. Aiden Hutchinson played well in the back half of the season. And they've got a lot of promise at edge rusher because they're not going to have the injury issues, likely not going to have the injury issues with the Okoras. And plus they've got James Houston, a super promising guy that got like sacks on 20% of his pass rushes last year.

So, you know, they've got that, that capability in the backend. I'm not saying we're going to be a world beating defense, but you can see how they would be an average defense. The question is whether or not that offense has the ability to be consistent and explosive. Now that offense was in the passing game run entirely through Amon Ross and Brown Jamison Williams famously had one catch last year, right? Against the Vikings.

But that's not going to be the case next year. Not only have they made investments in tight end to replace TJ Hawkinson, they have also, you know, they have a full off season available for Jamison Williams, an explosive receiver that can do as much as you need him to do, whether it's going to be as a deep ball threat or as an after catch threat. And they've got really great after catch options on Monroye St. Brad. Now, historically, relying on last year's after catch offense to be as good this year

in after catch performance is famously dicey. It's much better to have a deep ball offense that seems more inconsistent, but from season to season tends to produce more. Well, here, they've made sure that they can consistently provide the offensive tools that they need to have somebody like Jared Goff be as consistently explosive. Now the Lions were able to make a ton of points by being explosive in the run game. And I've talked to a lot of running back guys about DeAndre Swift specifically. I was like, Hey, why would they draft from your Gibbs and get rid of DeAndre Swift? He was so explosive last year. And they were like, DeAndre Swift has got to be the least consistent

explosive running back in the NFL. He's a pure athlete. He doesn't have any vision. And this is before they drafted Jameer Gibbs. I was getting these scouting reports. They wrote these up beforehand. Now they draft Jameer Gibbs. I'm like, so now we get that context.

Jameer Gibbs, maybe they overdrafted the guy. Fine. They didn't get good value for their pick. Okay. That's not what the game is. The game is to win games, right? And so they've been able to grab a running back with much better contact balance deandre swift and much better vision and those things combined with how great that offensive line is at run blocking allow them to be one of the few teams in the league that's explosive in the run

game and you just said you just said that teams can now gain positive expected points in the run game and who would we expect that more of than a Dan Campbell team that had one of the most explosive run games in the NFL last year, that has a point guard at quarterback, that has a better roster of receivers to throw to, and has the ability to generate explosion in both the run game and in the passing game. There is a lot of offensive explosive potential here. And if they can kind of continue along the path with the Jameson Williams and the investments they made a receiver in tight end, they could be a top five offense again.

So you've got a top five offense and a middle of the pack defense. I mean, how many Super Bowls is that one? A lot. It has, yeah. I mean, I think there's a baseline for a defense that you have to be at least average that it's very very hard to win if you have a horrible defense um which is why last

year they didn't make the playoffs in part because they had a horrible defense and an amazing offense uh so it's funny because we're thinking along the same lines about the jameer gibbs thing because on draft night a lot of vikings fans were like LOL Lions what are you doing you do have to play him you do have to like he's gonna play and look was it the best draft pick for the Minnesota Vikings in 2017 to take Delvin Cook a running back with their highest pick that year efficiency wise probably not but man did he run for a lot of yards so like he's really good at football and you know so there's a difference between did you use your draft pick in the most efficient team-building way, and also that guy could be really good at football, which could make the Detroit Lions better.

I have a lot of belief in two parts of their team that I think will sustain them. Number one is offensive coordinators. I think that offensive coordinators. They keep them. Yes, right, right. Ben Johnson, keeping him is a huge thing. And offensive line. And I think they have an argument for the second-best offensive line in football,

probably behind the Philadelphia Eagles. And when Jared Goff historically has had an offensive line, he's been fantastic. And one thing I thought of in 2021 was if Jared Goff had Matthew Stafford's offensive line, because the previous year their line got all banged up and wasn't any good. And I think PFF ranked them like 25th and then they were number one with Stafford. So Stafford gets to own the 5,000 yards of the Superbowl and all that and poor Jared Goff, you know, but I think we saw it last year when that man can drop back in the pocket, set his feet and throw a football, he's pretty darn good.

And I think he really understands where that football is supposed to go. So if all those things are set up for him, he's, he can be excellent. And Vikings fans are not going to underrate Jared Goff because he has clobbered them a couple of times, beat them when they had no wins, perfect quarterback rating in Los Angeles. Like he's a guy that's given them fits. I think that this, that I am talked into this, but I do want to offer one counterpoint because I think that their roster, everything about it is legit and their offensive coordinator is legit. And I think that they play hard for Dan Campbell, but I want to offer this.

They're the Detroit lions. Is that, is that like a legit uh counterpoint to this i mean how many times have the detroit lions had oh well stafford's great and megatron and like this is their year remember the half a season where stafford had great stats and everyone's like all they gotta do is have jim bob cooter dial up those same plays again and uh it didn't happen yeah Yeah, because his name is Jim Bob Cooter. But is that a valid counterpoint to everything that you just said? So I think that to the extent that teams have like an essential character, right, that they carry with them. I think that there is a truth to it in a non-superstitious manner insofar as Spanos will always be owning the Chargers, right? And so some of that is endemic to the investments that the owner makes or the team culture that the owner implements. The Washington Commanders will stop being the Washington Commanders.

I am confident of that because of the ownership change, right? And I think that Jimmy Haslam owning the Browns has cut the Browns off at the knees. I think that the Browns are doing a lot of smart things and it's been really difficult, right? Because, you know, you've got an owner that listens to a person, just a random person on the street, tell them to draft a quarterback. And suddenly they're doing that now. Right. Um, that's, that's an issue that you have to overcome. The thing is the, the culture of ownership in Detroit has changed over the past couple of years, and they invested in making sure

that they had a stable, strong football culture throughout their operation, which is why they fired everybody, everybody, before they brought in Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell. And I think that that's meaningful. I think that you can say, hey, they've been the Detroit Lions because they've had some sort of institutional rot in the way that the organizational culture has developed. And they can't really get over that.

But the Lions have done some really crazy stuff over the past couple of years, including getting back down from like 1-6 to becoming a playoff contender. Like, yeah, they didn't make the playoffs. That's important, right? Almost getting there. Who cares about almost, right? So I don't want to like oversell it but like when a team like the lions has a late second half season rally when they lose one of their best players in tj hawkinson who we found out actually turns out really great asset he's really good um and they figured out how to make that team operate without that guy, you know, maybe like a Ewing effect sort of thing. Right.

That I think says a lot about the team culture, which I think pushes back against our understanding of like, they're the Detroit Lions. I think like the Dan Campbell meathead jockey-ness of all of it is just overwhelming the Detroit Lions-iness of the Detroit Lions, which it takes a strong personality to do that. And I think they have that. Like, I don't think that Kevin Stavansky, I love him.

I think he's actually a really good coach. I don't think he can overcome the Browns-ness of the Browns, right? It takes an extraordinarily strong culture and personality to kind of change that element of a team. You know, I mean, now that you're going to Home Depot and Menards, I'm not surprised that you're really behind Dan Campbell here. Like there's a lot of synergy there between those things. Yeah. And I also think that, I mean, look, everybody knows where I was before this in Buffalo. They couldn't have been more of an atrocity. And then they draft the right quarterback

and they get the right coach and Sean McDermott. And I think we saw his leadership, especially last year and the culture that he's built last year when they had to go through so much and still made it deep into the playoffs, despite the DeMar Hamlin thing. All the injuries that they went through, they still had an overall really good season. And I think that spoke to him. I was actually surprised he didn't win coach of the year after everything that he went through. And so that can be the case, that you are kind of only as good as the, the culture that you build,

unless I guess you have my homes and then just anything goes. But yeah, I agree with you that same old, whatever team is a thing that only holds up until you get a good offense and they have a really good offense and a really good offensive line. I think that gives them a chance. I would not put them in the top two, but I might put them in the top four of NFC teams

that could make the Super Bowl. What would you like me to talk you into? I thought that one was a decent challenge that you passed quite well. We're doing too good in this game. I feel like we need something a little bit next level. Sure. Let's talk about the Bears then.

Talk me into the Bears. Ooh. In what way? In like, can I use long-term as part of my Bears argument? Whatever argument you use has to include Justin Fields as part of their future. Okay, okay. All right, now we're ramping it up a little bit.

Now we're turning it up to 11. So with Justin Fields, one of the things that I looked at last year because i was trying to i was very curious about geno smith because i remember when geno smith was coming out in the draft and i thought he was by far the best quarterback prospect and he was like accurate and just a really good throw the football good arm all that stuff had the same geno tech coming out of that draft then yeah so crazy Crazy accurate, by the way. Right. Fast processor, super accurate. Threw for a gazillion yards at West Virginia,

and the Bills drafted E.J. Manuel, and I was like, ah, should have taken Geno Smith. And then every one of those quarterbacks was horrendous. And then Geno Smith pops up 10 years later, and all of a sudden he's playing extremely well. And I thought, what the heck is going on? So I tried to look for any evidence that Geno Smith had it in him. And the answer was no.

There was almost no evidence outside of a few games here or there, which every middling quarterback would have. Really inconsistent. His production is, I shouldn't say quarantined, but isolated to a couple of games. Second half of the season was not that impressive at all. So it's not like he got better with time. I know where you're going. And explosive plays, contested catches, all of the signs of

inconsistency. And here's where this ties into Justin Fields is Gino Smith was given two years. And so then I started looking back at all quarterbacks through two years to try to find patterns in whether that was predictive of their success or not and i found that it was pretty much not that two years did not tell us who guys were going to be but once you got into a third and a fourth year then you really truly understood like sam darnold is not good at this and so forth and i think the 49ers disagreed and i think they know a thing or two hey hall of fame thrower of the football um I don't doubt that he could throw it but the other team catches it that's the problem so but anyway my point my

point is just this that Justin Fields from the eye test of having seen him in person not seem to know where to throw the ball take a bunch of sacks and really struggle um but also having seen him take off and be as explosive as he is, I think that there is a floor that gets raised to where he doesn't have to become a prolific passer from being horrendous. He only has to become a decent passer from being horrendous. And with an improved line, with an improved wide receiver group, I think that's really important because with Justin Fields, what I see from him is he locks onto that first read and that man is throwing that ball to that first read. And that's, that's what it is or whatever. Like he just seems to lock on and stay there and stay

there. And that's how he gets sacked all the time. That's also how big time throws happen sometimes where you force the ball to that guy and it becomes a great throw. If his receivers are more open, then this will work more. And I do think that DJ Moore is a really good player. Their overall franchise approach has been nothing short of fantastic from a true tear it down, play Nathan Peterman and Tim Boyle in your last game so you get that freaking number one overall pick, trade the heck out of that pick, and then go forward from there

and just spend like crazy in free agency. Have everyone complain that you overpaid for some free agent because every team with tons of cap space can do that. So I think their general manager is doing the right things. And I think that the jury should very much still be out and we shouldn't use those first two years stats to really predict what he's going to be. And it just cannot be forgotten that at any time, at any game, it could be a 60-yard touchdown because he is that explosive and that dynamic. So if he even raises,

it's like you're talking about with the Lions. If they get to an average defense, they're really good. If he gets to the 14th or 16th best passer in the NFL and is the top three runner with him and Lamar Jackson, I mean, that can be a team that's winning and that can be a team that's dangerous. And then he can continue to make progress because sometimes we decide someone's career is over after two years. When I think enough quarterbacks over history have proven to us that there is

more time to someone's career than just their first couple of years. Does that talk you into Justin Fields and the bears? It talks me a little bit into Justin Fields. I didn't really hear that much about the rest of the Bears. Well, I think just with the Bears in general, what does it really matter? It's Justin Fields, right? Like if they're clearly doing all the other things

to roster build, they're spending a little bit of money because they have it, but they've drafted on defense. They've got some good players there. They've stacked up draft picks. They can spend a lot like Detroit did this year, but they can do that next year on the defensive side. The trade to get DJ Moore was really good to get a top wide receiver. I mean, I think they drafted well. And anytime you have a ton of picks, everyone's like, let's give them A's because they have a ton of picks in the draft grading.

But something I've learned surveying draft grades over the years is the key is to have multiple first round picks. Yes. You're always going to get graded higher when it comes to that. But I think that if we're spending too much time talking about like, did they draft this guy or this guy? Or did they spend a little bit too much money on this free agent? Then we're just, we're losing trees. Yeah, exactly. We're losing sight and we're overconfident in our ability to evaluate individual transactions. Right. And one last thing would be that if Justin Fields is indeed horrible, which I know was not part of the conversation, but if he is horrible, then they draft next year really high and they get a top quarterback prospect. I don't

think they can be worse than Arizona, but at least they could end up with like a Drake May or something if they win three games again so I I think that I really and I truthfully do think they're in a great position and they probably made the right decision this year to stay with Justin Fields um the talking you into the Justin Fields thing is uh I'm a little I'm a little sketch on it but I think I tried really hard. I think you did as good as anybody could reasonably do. I'll say that. I'll say that you have not convinced me that the Bears are definitely on the right track, but you have put the Bears into the, oh no, conversation. Like, oh, this could turn into something if they get a couple of

games early in the season i'll remember this conversation right and i'll be like there's something there just as i vehemently argued yeah right with your true beliefs yeah well so can we can we just like side conversation here like Like, what do you, what do you think the benchmark of how good he has to be for them not to consider quarterbacks next year? Man, if we're going to do it, like if we say, Hey, let's use as our benchmark EPA per play, right. Which would be really friendly to him because it incorporates, you know, running and quarterback runs are more valuable than running back runs just because of when they occur and how they occur. And what we count as a quarterback run, right? Because

sometimes they get counted the sacks if they're negative. I think that from an EPA per play perspective, they would count it as progress if he was like 19th or so, which given the number of quarterbacks that end up playing over the course of the season, it's not 32, it's closer to like 35, right and so that would be kind of middle of the pack and they would see that as progress enough to commit to another year plus if he is about 18th 19th in ep ever play and that defense has made the improvements that those investments would kind of hopefully warrant then they wouldn't be picking top five right and so it would then be tough for them to i don't know what the quarterback class looks like

next year i know there's drake may and caleb williams and that's who we know about and maybe that could turn into four quarterbacks like this year or it could turn into you know just those two right just like in 2012 right we didn't know about russell wilson then so um that you know i don't know what that conversation looks like if they do end up having you know a four quarterback class where somebody picking in the middle could conceivably you know pick a quarterback maybe that changes but i think for the most part if they see progress and if he looks like because one of the things about the bears is that they incorporated quarterback runs in the second half of the season a little bit more deliberately and so his his epa per play what his passing didn't change in fact it got slightly worse

but his epa per play got went up because they were incorporating that. And so if they are in that spot where it's like, hey, he's still not throwing all that great, but it doesn't matter. You know, it doesn't matter. DJ Moore is out there somewhere, and he's fielding punts from Justin Fields, right? Then I think that they would consider that enough progress for them to continue the experiment. I might say sometimes in sports, and you and I, nobody loves the numbers more than us, right? This is where you and I like a couple of things. We like building stuff and

fighting, bare knuckle boxing each other, going to WNBA we do that and we like analytics but i might say with this situation it's going to have to be vibes it's going to have to be the feeling of and i mean this it's going to have it's going to have to be how it feels does it feel like and and this actually happened in buffalo with with josh allen where numbers, when they won 10 games and they lost to Houston, when he had that hilarious fumble in the playoffs, like that year, when you look at his numbers, you don't say, oh, wow. I mean, this is about to blow up. But tell me if you didn't watch, I mean, if you watch four or five games that year, you're like, this guy is the guy. Like he's, he is in command of that offense. He in command of that team they win games they're

not supposed to he finds a way he fights his way and everybody around that team is saying honestly and we're between the line readers they're saying with honesty like he's taking that step he's being that guy and we haven't really seen that at all from just Fields. And I don't know that he has that general vibe like Allen does of this, like I'm the dude and no one's going to stop me, but he started to get confident last year. I was about to say, yeah, I was about to say he ended the year pretty confident in the way his teammates talked about it at the end of the year, at the end of,

not in the middle of the year, the end of the year was really positive, like, you know, in a way that surprised me. And this is taking into account that teammates will often hype up their teammates. If you adjust for that, right, it's still, I still remained kind of impressed at the end of the year about the way that they talked about them. Enough that I actually had to check the numbers, right? I was just like, they're really hyping. Sorry.

No, okay. We're good. Yeah. That's kind of where I was at. And yeah, people talk about it with Josh Allen. The thing is if all you knew about Kirk cousins was his vibes this year alone, you could, you could be convinced to buy into him as like the guy, right? Winning games. He's not supposed to all of these fourth quarter comebacks absolutely gritty

play 100 putting it out there on the field running taking scrambles taking tons of hits getting back up not complaining about the hits like just like real like this is the guy who's leading the team kind of behavior right um if that's all you knew about him you didn't know about the the rock tube or the grilling or or the covid stuff you didn't know about any of that right and you just knew about his on-field play and the way teammates talked about him after games you could be convinced that he's and we both agree he is not that dude right but you could be convinced basically so we have to be careful of what i'm going to call probably the nerdiest thing I'm going to say on this podcast, which high bar. But I'm going to call it vibe sample size. We have to be careful of vibe sample size here.

Well, what I was going to say is now, if you did the vibe check after fourth and eight on Kirk, I think it might've been, we might've had to check an old Everson Griffin tweet that might be referenced a few times, but I mean, that, that is, that is a very valid point though, that trying to judge it off of whether they feel it. But I do think it's something that builds momentum over time that it isn't just a, well, the guy had three games where he was great and everyone started calling him the guy it's okay. Built momentum off that last year. And if we get to the end and there's also, and I don't know what this is, but there's also a feeling, and I'm going to use a Joe Burrow example, but it's not fair because he's the number one overall pick, but with Joe Burrow, his first year, there was just a feeling when you watched him that he got it right.

There was a game. There was a game against cleveland like this guy the defense was horrible they were giving up like 40 points and this guy just kept fighting and he's like taking hits but he was driving he's making plays he's keeping him in that game they're going back and forth in that game where they had no business being in it their line was horrible he didn't have jamar chase yet and yet it was like this guy's gonna find a way and i remember mike zimmer talking about that before they played c in 2021. He said, I've been telling everyone in Cincinnati, this is the guy because, and he cited that like, cause he fights and everything else. It's something you can see. It's something I haven't necessarily seen a lot in

Justin Fields. Uh, but I think it started to flash last year. Uh, last one real real quick and we'll just make this a fun one i want you to talk me into whoever you believe is the second best quarterback in vikings history so we know who number one is the goat fran tarkinson talk me into the second best quarterback in vikings history can be whoever you want it to be this is just a dante culpepper conversation all over again just from twitter on to here i didn't say that i didn't say that i said whoever you know so case keep no uh yeah rich can if you include his whole career and then acknowledge that he was on the vikings but um i'm gonna say in a vikings uniform i'm gonna go with dante culpepper why wouldn't i um i think that we did a very poor job of evaluating the impact that quarterback rushing had on quarterbacks and despite that

dante culpepper had um really astounding passing numbers for the time i think that people do a really poor job of era adjusting those passing numbers uh and so we we might say hey back in the 70s those were different so the fact that that Fran Tarkenton didn't crack a hundred passer rating, it doesn't matter to me. That's not what one games, but like in that changes suddenly in the nineties, I guess, or the 2000,

early two thousands. And it's like, when you look at a graph, all those numbers are way up, they're way up. And so it's, it's, it's tough,

but when you era adjust Dante Culpepper is right behind Fran Tarkenton and adjusted net yards per attempt, right? When you error adjust. And that does not include his rushing, right? Like this is really important, right? Like he set records as a, as a rusher and passer. And I think anybody that puts himself into an MVP conversation, the same year that Peyton Manning is having one of the best passing seasons in the history of football. And,

and this other guy's in the conversation for MVP. That is so meaningful to me. That's so huge that I think that you absolutely have to go with Dante Culpepper. And the idea that, hey, he had this great receiving core and a fantastic offensive line. And it's like, yeah, man, I have seen bad quarterbacks with a great receiving core and a great offensive line do nothing. I've seen that all the time.

And I've seen good quarterbacks have all of that available to them. And they don't enter the MVP conversation suddenly. That doesn't happen unless we're doing some weird, hey, maybe Matthew Stafford should be the MVP. No, he shouldn't. No one believes that. And you don't believe it either. You just need to say something so that you can have a week 16 take that isn't tired fine but people were genuinely saying that Dante Culpepper should be considered for MVP the year Peyton Manning broke like 18 different passing records

like they were just like yeah but have you seen this guy like that's crazy we were just talking about that dude Dante Culpepper was 100% that dude. People believed in him 100%. And the thing is, we have a bunch of on-off splits for Culpepper. We've seen Brad Johnson play with him, which Brad Johnson was not bad. He was great. But, like, we've seen other quarterbacks play when Culpepper is out, and Culpepper has consistently been miles and miles ahead better. And obviously we have to deal with, like, the fact that in 2005 he wasn't that good

even before the injury and then after the injury and, you know, all that, right? That's fair. But we're just talking about kind of who you would have or who's had kind of the best career for the Vikings. And I would say even after you include all of that, that it's easily called pepper because he reached higher highs than almost any other quarterback in Vikings history. He had all of the intangibles that you asked for in that kind of quarterback. And he did exactly what you want someone to do when they have that kind of stuff. I mean, like we were just talking about Peyton Manning, 2004 Peyton Manning, phenomenal receiving core, right? Your second best receivers, Reggie Wayne, get out of here. Right.

And that offensive line, like two of them are probably going to the hall. Like that's a pretty good offensive line. And we're saying Peyton Manning doesn't deserve credit. 100% he does. Just like Dante Koppelper did so like I think that you take a look at kind of all of this into and also those defenses were not always good maybe they were great at stopping the run they were not always good defense they were bad they were very bad yes they were very bad and and you were just talking about like this this Justin Fields like you know at any moment he could break off a 60-yard touchdown run and you always have to be aware of that and so that's

always going to put him above the bottom tier of quarterbacks and that's fine but it's like let's say hypothetically we take that quality of a player and make him a really good passer holy crap we have dante culpepper we don't have to we don't have to debate this that's Kirk Cousins is a very good quarterback right but Culpepper was a great like he was and if he had he'd been able to to last a bit longer without that injury we would be talking about him as like not just like ring of honor but like borderline like hey maybe the Vikings should organize maybe like a hall like again if he was not injured maybe they should organize a – and he probably wouldn't get in.

But that's not the question. The question is, is he the second-best Vikings quarterback of all time? And I think that he is. Like, I don't know. He was just so good. Yeah, I mean, I think that you have to have like a Tommy Kramer discussion because Tommy did not inherit great teams and then had some really good years with them.

Probably the fact that Wade Wilson took them to the NFC championship takes away from that. For Tommy Kramer, in comparison to Kirk, the best year that Kirk Cousins had was a year where they ran the ball like crazy and ran play action, took deep shots in 2019. That was his best, most efficient year. And I think that never happened for dante culpepper he was the whole offense oh yeah watching those games it's like oh wow i'm watching like ancient football but then you watch another 2004 game from a different team and you're like wait wait you he could have been playing in shotgun what are we doing here these like seven step drop backs three tight ends like come on right i mean it's it is yeah it's definitely funny to watch

and then you realize how much you have to adjust for era because it looks so much different but uh by by the numbers on this the objective measure um from 2000 to 2004 i looked at approximate value with dante call pepper and the only which is pro football references stat that tries to kind of capture your impact and it's kind of a catch-all and it's not perfect like nothingpper and the only, which is pro football references stat that tries to kind of capture your impact. And it's kind of a catch all and it's not perfect like nothing is, but the only player that was higher from 2000 to 2004 was Peyton Manning in the entire league than Dante Culpepper. And, you know, some of that might be, look, if you turn the ball over a lot, the other team scores and you play in shootouts and the Vikings didn't have good defenses. So a lot of stats got racked up and things like that but nfc championship experience

you know experience uh beat the packers in the playoffs i mean these are things that um you can kind of look at either the numbers one quarter uh playoff games that was crazy what an error but that's the thing is that you can look at the numbers perspective, you can look at the skill perspective, or you can look at the production relative to when they played. And I don't think there's really much in the conversation with one year, which would be Randall Cunningham, because it's not just a good year. It was legitimately the greatest offensive performance in the history of man throwing around pigskin when he played in 1998. But he also won a playoff game for them in 1997 with some incredibly clutch throws at the end of that game.

So I think Randall Cunningham gets into the discussion in the top five. And if you were arguing was Randall Cunningham's highs, does that, is that worth more than Kirk cousins consistently good? Uh, how much do we want to blame Kirk cousins for the fact that Mike Zimmer loved to run and play action all the time, like that kind of thing. So there's a lot that goes in there but i think that um there's it's it's been a long time since dante culpepper played for the vikings and it's very easy to forget but then when you go back and look like okay wow and i think that just in general local fan bases either overrate or underrate their own players uh they're when i got here when i moved here there were a lot of people who are like man it's joe mauer man he's just not any good like Joe Maurer like the catcher you're saying well he's his contract's too big

like the the MVP you guys are saying he's not good what uh so the local fan bases have ways of doing that they could get cynical about a player and I I, you know, I also wonder with Culpepper, he's one of the great what ifs, because if he plays all the way through the 2009 team where the roster got built up and built up, you know, maybe he's Favre instead of Favre being Favre. So that's what makes Vikings history so great. But I just looked up, so RBs don't matter, has EPA per play going all the way back to 99.

2000 to 2004, number two in EPA per play is dante culpepper right behind of course peyton manning who like lapsed the field um but like after that it's like trent green and rich gannon and like mark bolter right like it's like he's better than those guys that's a bunch of yeah a bunch of guys who we would kind of compare to cousins so yeah there's always there's always that like you guys don't think he's any good. Like, no, that's not true. Culpepper was just unbelievable for a short period of time. So this was fun. I think

you did a great job in your first talk me into appearance. Of course, I did a better job of answering the questions, but no, this was really fun. I'm glad we... My Justin Fields answer was fire. No, but this was good. I'm glad we – Yeah. My Justin Fields answer was fire. No, but this was good.

I wish you the best of luck with all your handiwork. We'll get to a Lynx game very soon. And make sure to read Arif's national football writing at Pro Football Network. I'm happy for you. I see you get a lot of traction on your articles. So glad that that's happened for you. And really appreciate the time, man. We'll do it soon.

Awesome. Appreciate it, man. Have a good one.