Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Ask Purple Insider Anything (Part 1)

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

While we wait for the NFL Combine, Matthew answers fan questions with everything from the Kirk Cousins decision to where Purple Insider came from to the Vikings approach to free agency Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Warning. I've got this condition where I don't feel pain. You're a superhero. This is how intense Novocaine sounds. Oh, wow. Imagine how it looks. Is there more? Yeah, big time.

Novocaine, only in theaters March 14th. Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only. I participate in McDonald's in Canada. everybody welcome to another episode of purple insider matthew collar here and you know i was thinking this afternoon as i was looking on social media and i was trying to hunt for what's our topic gonna be tonight what do we got to talk about what's the news in the hunt for what's our topic going to be tonight? What do we got to talk about? What's the news in the NFL?

What's everybody arguing about online with each other that we can bring to the live stream this beautiful Wednesday evening? And you know what? Not a whole lot. I had not a whole lot. The Los Angeles Rams released a center and a couple people tweeted me eyeball emojis. That was the most exciting thing that happened today on the internet. So I thought, you know, we've got this

little section of time and just this little pocket where it's not the NFL combine yet of which purple insider me will be there. And I've already started lining up the guests. We've got a lot. Uh, Thomas Dimitrov, former NFLm is going to come on along with eric eager courtney cronin from espn brad spielberger from pff that is just the beginning of the guest list that's already getting lined up for the nfl combine so that's going to be next week and i got my credential approved today uh after applying for it on january 29. And so I was like, what is this something happening? But we're good. We're all set.

So it'll be another year at the Combine for Purple Insider. That'll be great. And we're going to have, once we get to the Twin Cities, will be sitting down with Kweisi Adafomensa and Kevin O'Connell for one-on-one sessions-ish with the group. And also they'll be doing their podiums as well. I'll be there for all of that. And Dane Mizutani from the Pioneer Press is going to break all that down after that. So that will be on Tuesday. They're going to speak to us in the middle of the day later on in the evening you'll get the video

slash podcast of us breaking down everything that the gm and head coach said so there's a lot coming but as of right now like i got nothing other than the usual conversations we have so i decided to do something a little different which is ask ask Purple Insider anything. And Jonathan Harrison, a producer here at Purple Insider, working behind the scenes to make sure that I don't miss your comments. So he's giving us a hand tonight. So he's going to pop your comments up on the screen, but anything is on the table, anything you want to know. Now I'll warn you, I'm not that interesting outside of football. So some questions I may not have a whole lot for you, but you know, the other day on a fans only somebody asked me about like my top five video games and stuff like that. So I don't mind answering any question that

you guys want to throw my way about purple insider, what we do here, football, old football, this football off season, Vikings, anything you got, that's what we're here football old football this football offseason vikings anything you got that's what we're doing tonight i got no other plans so we're gonna hang out for a while here and answer questions so let me start with jp jp says could the vikings re-sign kirk to a non-fully guaranteed deal and still have cap space to develop the rest of the roster, not in favor of it, but saw a Viking content creator say that we could and had this doubt. Well, so the thing is that the Vikings can sign Kirk Cousins to a contract extension and also field an NFL football team with the salary cap, they can

certainly do that. They can go into free agency, sign players, they can bring people back. But the question is not whether they could be cap compliant or whether they could kick money down the road and so forth. We've seen that. It's really a whether they can win while doing it. It's not, is it legal or is it possible? Of course it is. And we've seen the Vikings, especially 2017, well, I guess 2018 through 2021, try everything under the sun as far as salary cap stuff went. But did it work? That's what we're really looking for here. Not is it possible, but did it work that's what we're really looking for here not is it possible but did it work and if we go back through the brief history of the vikings trying to do everything they can with the salary cap in order to complete their roster and add to it let's go to 2021 where

they brought in sheldon richardson was that also Delvin Tomlinson that offseason? Bashad Breland. I recall a D.D. Westbrook mixed in there. And if I remember correctly, there were a lot of people very excited about those signings. Well, look, they filled out this roster. It's a good football team. They're going to be able to win the North and compete for it. And they ended up coming up short. Now, of course, some of that was Mike Zimmer melting down. Some of that was one score games they didn't win. But even if that roster had been transposed into last year, is that a Super Bowl contending roster? One or two players got hurt. Daniil Hunter got hurt that year and they couldn't pressure the quarterback at all.

You're really aiming to build not a full roster of just the 22 starters. There's a reason there's 53 spots. I think you probably need 30 good players, 35, at least who could step into a role in order to be a really good team that can compete for a Superbowl. So that's what we're really talking about here yeah sure it's possible is it like likely that that's going to work probably not and the other thing is too that any and all of us can go to over the cap.com and we can sign all the free agents we can go boop boop and we can say oh the you know this is what their projected contract is let's just slide them onto the Vikings roster.

In fact, that website is kind of addicting when it comes to doing roster constructions on it. The point is that the player actually has to agree to sign with you. Are you actually going to get all the players that you want to sign? Is Daniiel hunter actually going to come back or do you end up with sheldon richardson at the end of may when he can't really have a big impact anymore or bashad breland signing him i believe it was before training camp or in a mini camp it just are we going to do this again one of the things that i really notice about Kirk Cousins' discussions is that we've all done it before. You know how with history, it's like, you know history, so you're not doomed to repeat

it? That's how it feels with all Kirk Cousins' discussions. Every single one we've had at some other time, and someone's been arguing at some other time, hey, you could still do this and that with the salary cap and make it work. And they tried it and it didn't. They tried bringing back Kyle Rudolph on a big contract and kicking it down the road. Did that help them long-term? No. They tried keeping Anthony Barr around and restructuring his contract and moving money down the road. Did that work? Not really. So if you're aiming for something to actually be

successful, then you have a hard time convincing me that that's going to work. Not to mention that the other thing is they have a lot of holes. I mean, I was going through this the other day. One thing I forgot about is they have no backup offensive linemen. And that doesn't sound like that big of a deal. Like you can always get back up offensive linemen but they need like four of them the the like there's so many players that they need on this team that it's just really hard to see them being able to do that well bringing back her cousins even if he had a lower cap hit in his first year and when you sign somebody to a short-term deal even if it's not fully guaranteed it still is going to carry a big cap hit unless you tack on a bunch of void years. Again, they could, but New Orleans did the same thing last year with Derek Carr. Was that a good idea? Probably not. So yeah, I mean, it's a good question. Like, could they? But it's more of should they? And the answer I think is no. So let's move on to Caleb here. How did Purple Insider start? What has been your career journey? Yeah. You know, what's funny is

I always end up assuming that people just know this because it kind of played out like a couple of years ago and I just figured everyone knew what happened. Maybe we should put this like on the website or something. I don't know. Uh, so what the whole career journey is, is this. So I grew up in Buffalo and I went to college in Western New York and then I worked for the Buffalo bills, a flagship radio station. And so I was a reporter. I was a pre and post game host for Buffalo Bills games, which was a journey when they had Ryan Fitzpatrick and EJ Manuel and Tyrod Taylor that I left and they got Josh Allen. So I was the one handling all the crazy phone calls where people said, Hey, Trent Dilfer won a Superbowl. So so can Tyrod. So that was me taking those phone calls.

And then I saw that 1500 ESPN, the former AM radio station in the Twin Cities, needed a Vikings reporter. So I applied, got the job, moved here. And from 2016 to 2020, that's what I was doing. And I was covering the Vikings and then doing a show, doing podcasting, stuff like that. And then when COVID happened, the company that ran the radio station decided to eliminate almost everyone's jobs, which if you've seen Manny on the show, you know, Jonathan, we all work together. That's why they're a part of Purple Insider because they're great teammates. And so we all kind of got axed together and i had

a choice of trying to move somewhere else and maybe go continue my sports radio career or to kind of take a leap of faith and start this thing and that was a little bit before everybody was starting their own thing and it was uh nerve-wracking to get it going. But the support from Vikings fans was unbelievable, truly unbelievable for the newsletter, for the podcast. And it's only been recently that we've gotten this YouTube thing going. But I've really enjoyed this, doing all the live shows and everything else. So that's kind of the whole arc of how Purple Insider got here and what we're doing here

and kind of how I built the team a little bit and things like that. So it's been great. It's been great. Total blessing in disguise. Been kind of one of the best things that's ever happened to me because I've just gotten to know Vikings fans so well through doing this. When you're on the radio, it's a little more like whoever it hits and lands out there in the radio signal, whatever, you know, and I'd get some emails sometimes and so forth.

But when you're doing it this way, the interactions, I get to know people. I get to know you guys that I see every night when you come on and do the chat. I get to know people who subscribe to the newsletter. And it's just been a really awesome experience. And learning how to build my own business and run it as a business and things like that has been a great experience. I knew nothing about business before that and kind of had to figure it out, but I've really enjoyed it.

So that's kind of how it got here and where it's going is we're just going to continue to try to build on it. Um, like we're doing here with the YouTube and so forth and just try to grow and keep it going. But you know, the main thing was I didn't want to move. I hate traffic and the twin cities do not have a lot of traffic. Although I'll never understand why people drive the speed limit. That just doesn't happen in other States. It's kind of crazy. But no, honestly, the Twin Cities have been so good to me and so good to my wife. For those who don't know her, she's a broadcaster on Big Ten Network. So this is a great place for her to be. The airport is

awesome. Just a great state that's really embraced us as people that were from out of town. So I wanted to continue that. I did not want to give that up. I didn't want to give up covering the Vikings. I've really enjoyed as sometimes you guys know that I rant like a crazy person, but it's just my favorite thing I've ever done is to come on here, talk about this team, write about this team all the time. So I didn't want to give that up. I didn't want to go cover another team. I didn't want to go work for another radio station. I wanted to keep doing this. And the key part of the whole thing is that the Vikings reached out to me and said, if you start your own thing, we'll keep you credentialed that. And they didn't have to do that. So them doing that was a super classy move considering what

had just happened to me and also, uh, allowed this thing to go where it's gone. Because if they had not done that, then I probably would have moved to Milwaukee or something and had to talk about the Brewers. Does Ricky Weeks still play for the Brewers? Dave Nielsen? From Danny Boy, what are the chances Harrison Smith signs with the Cowboys and Mike Zimmer

this off season? I would be surprised. I think that he wants to retire a Viking. I think they want him to retire a Viking and you could judge it by last year, last year, the Vikings asked Harrison Smith to take a big pay cut and he did to stick around. He could have decided to just go out and find another place like so many of his teammates did. Eric Hendricks, Adam Thielen, Delvin Cook, they decided they were not going to take the offers. Zedaria Smith as well, that the Vikings had on the table to cut their salaries down. But Harrison Smith did to stick around here. Might be family related, might just be familiarity. He said he was excited to play for Brian Flores and that relationship worked out great.

So if I had to guess, I would say that it's either Vikings or retirement for Harrison Smith. It's very hard to play a whole career like his Hall of Fame caliber career with one team. And that's an accomplishment that I think would be pretty meaningful to him. And if not, and I don't want to put words in his mouth. If not, I could see Harrison Smith going to a Superbowl contender. Uh, the Cowboys would qualify as that. And I'm sure Mike Zimmer would like him. I just, I just don't know if that's

going to happen. I would bet against that. I would bet against him trying to just go ring chase. Just doesn't seem like that's really Harrison Smith. If he does, I'll totally respect it, but I would bet against it. If he does, I mean, it's going to be a great defense because I think Harrison could still play. Maybe not the impact player that he used to be, but I think he could still play. So we'll see. We'll see what other former Viking people show up in Dallas. Maybe Anthony Barr will go back there. From py314, is that pi, like 3.14? Your top five favorite active NBA players. So I saw this in the chat before we started,

so I pulled up NBA players. I have to tell you the truth. If you asked me my five favorite NBA players from 1995, this would be a very easy question. And it's not that I don't love the NBA. I do. And what the Wolves are doing is awesome. It's just hard to keep up. Players change teams constantly these days. And when I'm doing football all the time, I really realize what's going on in the NBA about the playoffs is that's like what June. So I'm not doing as much work with the NFL stuff. We're waiting for training camp. Playoffs are going on. And I love the NBA playoffs during the regular season. I went to one game this year. I've probably watched five wolves games and I tried to watch the dunk contest, but it was bad. So anyway, I know who NBA players are. I would say one of my favorites is Jalen Brunson of the New York Knicks. He is one of my favorite players from watching him play in the way he commands the entire offense, the ways he can find to score as a smaller player, just got a lot of toughness, a lot of grit in that guy still respect the grid

in the NBA. Giannis, I'm a big Giannis fan. I really enjoy watching Giannis Antetokounmpo play. He was a guy, some of it, as you guys know, I like sports video games. Some of it is just based on video games. I played a season with Giannis and I averaged a triple double. And I thought, well, that's stupid. That's crazy video game stats. And now people do that all the time. But his story, where he's come from, his humility, I really enjoy that. I'm still a Steph Curry enjoyer as well.

I think he probably has gotten on people's nerves at some point because he's just been so successful all the time. I would love to go. I don't honestly know deep enough with the NBA to be picking like three, four guys, five, six, seven, eight deep for guys that I really can talk about. But I will say my favorite Timberwolves player is Mike Connolly. I love the way Mike Connolly plays basketball. He is just precise and smart and tough, and he makes big shots. And you watch possession to possession, and something good always happens when he has the basketball or he moves away from the ball. I mean, he's a great player. So he's probably my favorite player to watch with the Timberwolves.

And as far as young players go that I don't know much about, Gilgis Alexander from Oklahoma City is really exciting. Just great scorer. That's the best I can do. For NBA fans, how'd I do? Did I do okay? Is the Faithful says, what's your dream scenario for the Vikings draft,

and what would you hate well the dream scenario is that they trade up well think let's think of the content folks let's think of the discussions the dream scenario over here for purple insider is that they trade up and get drake may i also think that that is just in general, the, the best thing that could happen for them is to try to get a franchise quarterback. I honestly do like if they have to give up a lot, I know we talked about the roster and everything else, but that would be the most exciting thing.

That would be the biggest swing they've taken in a really long time. And it would be getting a top three prospect. And I'm not totally sold that there are other first round picks. I think there might be. And if the league decides there is, then there is. But it really depends on who you ask. I have talked to people who think JJ McCarthy is legit, a franchise quarterback.

And I've talked to people who think he's a second round pick. And the same thing goes for Bo Nix, where I was talking, I did an article with a couple of former scouts and one of them felt like Bo Nix was a great commander of an offense and he'd be great in the NFL. And the other felt like he was kind of meh. I mean, they're really split there. But Drake May is huge, super athletic, and he whips the football.

And I think you can make too much of nitpicking away at, well, he didn't make this read, he didn't make that read, and so forth. You're really looking for the tools with a quarterback. So that would be my guy. Or, I mean, Jaden Daniels, of course, that's another one. I think the scenario that I don't like is waiting until the second round and taking whoever falls. That's the one I don't like. I think the odds are pretty low that if you take somebody in the second round that it's going to work out and they'll be your franchise quarterback.

We've seen it happen a couple times. Jalen Hurts, Derek Carr, Jimmy Garoppolo. You know, I mean, Jalen Hurts is really good. But aside from that, second rounders have not had a whole lot of luck. Most of the time they turn out to be Drew Locke or Christian Hackenberg, where there's a reason that they weren't first round picks. And I'm still skeptical that Will Levis will ever become anything. Maybe he will, but there's a reason why everybody evaluated all these guys and they dig as deep as you could possibly dig into the film, the analytics,

the background. And if they don't want to go all in on you, it's just rare that someone becomes a Brock Purdy or becomes a Dak Prescott. That would be my least favorite. And if they drafted anything aside from the quarterback position, anything except for defensive line would also be the worst. I mean, you can make an argument for corner, but there are so few defensive linemen on this team. I don't know how you would not pick defensive linemen. Bryson says, what's a realistic timeline to keep Brian Flores, given how the offseason has gone? Might be a long time.

It might be. When you sue the National Football League, then they are unlikely to make you their next head coach. And that's maybe something that I underestimated. Even when I was writing about him deserving a head coaching opportunity, that the NFL and its owners, when they lock you out, they really lock you out. And we saw that from a

certain quarterback, uh, who, uh, you know, even last year was still doing workouts for Jim Harbaugh of all people. If, if I don't know if you guys remember that Colin Kaepernick did a workout at Michigan for Jim Harbaugh, and it was a pretty good workout, still had it still had the arm. And you can't tell me that he wouldn't have been better than 15 backup quarterbacks who played this year. But that, and by the way, the NFL paid millions for colluding against him. So that's not great. But with Brian Flores, they might end up paying millions for colluding against him too.

It's what they do, but they don't care. I mean, do billionaires care that they have to pay a couple million? They'd rather just do that to you and lose the lawsuit. So I don't know. I think that's really the only explanation, but there is another part of it too, which is what Ryan Fitzpatrick said on TV about Brian Flores. Everybody hears everything. And he criticized the way that he handled Tua when he was in Miami. And what's the last thing that anybody wants? And that's not to say that Flores couldn't change, couldn't improve, because I still think he would be a good head coach if he got another chance. But nobody wants somebody who can't handle the quarterback.

And Mike Zimmer found that out with a veteran quarterback, much less a rookie. So I think Brian Flores is going to be here a while. He'll probably be here as long as Kevin O'Connell is. I'm sorry. I'm just laughing. Scott asking if the rant was the reason I was fired. No, no. The rant was great.

You're talking about the code words rant. A couple years into working at 1500, at the end of the 2018 season, Kirk Cousins said that next year we're going to have code words, so it's fine. And I kind of went off on that. But no, in fact, I think that some people agreed with me about that, that were inside the building, that Kirk had handled that press conference wrong. But yeah, that's that. No, ranting is good in sports radio. I think I've tried to actually cool it back a little bit because sports radio is just different in the east than it is in the Midwest. It's very different in the East, New York, Toronto, Buffalo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Cleveland's ish Cleveland's more Midwest, but still like in that Rust Belt, a much more aggressive Boston is famous for this

much more aggressive. And when I first got here to Minnesota, I went on the air and I like ripped the heck out of somebody in my first day for the Vikings and went off. And the program director, who is still a very good friend of mine, Brad Lane, he said, this is the Midwest. This is Minnesota. I don't know if people are going to feel that way about your rant. And you know what? People have enjoyed the rants, but I can't do it every day. See, on the East Coast, it's kind of like an everyday type of thing if you're listening to New York sports radio. So I try to stay even keeled most of the time. And every once in a while, somebody says,

we shouldn't draft a quarterback because of Christian Ponder. And then my head blows up and you guys all laugh at me. But it wouldn't be as special if I didn't save it for the right moments. And, you know, every year when the Vikings get eliminated, if they don't make the playoffs, you guys know that one's coming in the press box of whatever stadium we're in. So, yeah, no, that was, but that behavior was largely encouraged when I was in sports radio. Who's getting tagged tomorrow?

Nobody for the Vikings, because it was weird. I saw Adam Schefter said that he included Daniil Hunter as on the list of players who could get franchise tagged, but I think he probably didn't realize that Daniil Hunter has it in his contract that he can't get franchise tagged. And as far as Kirk Cousins goes, he also

in his contract can't be tagged. But when you're talking about the whole league, I would guess some of your favorite free agents are getting franchise tagged. Whom among us would not enjoy Antoine Winfield Jr. signing here and replacing a retiring Harrison Smith or Josh Allen leaving the Jacksonville Jaguars and becoming the next great Vikings Ed Rusher. But I don't think that some of those guys are going to actually hit free agency because every year we do this, we make our top free agent lists, and then a lot of those guys get franchise tagged. So those two would be at the top of my list. I don't have the entire list memorized, but what you're going to see is that those players that you were looking at going, hey, if we could only sign him, then that would be a difference maker.

Oh, he got franchise tagged, so he's not going anywhere. And that's what's likely to happen with quite a few of those guys. We'll see. Jake says, out of all the bridge quarterbacks the vikings could bring in if kirk isn't resigned which quarterback would be your favorite to cover do you have minshu mania matthew gardner minshu seems like a very interesting cat yeah he would probably be at the top of the list i know he's just interesting and he's a really good talker. He did a podcast a few years ago with PFF where he went on one of their PFF podcasts and talked about how he used their data to evaluate himself.

So he's a bright dude. And he's got the Fu Manchu and he's got the long hair and he likes to make jokes and stuff, but I think he's actually probably pretty clever and he's hung around as a journeyman quarterback. You know, we like journeyman quarterbacks. Everything I've also heard out of Jacoby Brissett is that he's a real standup guy, really bright guy. So I always like to cover players who I can learn from. And this is why, even though some of you guys would make fun of Sean Mannion as the Vikings backup quarterback, to me in the locker room, Sean Mannion was great because this is a guy who knows football is so much in depth that it is insane.

That he retires and becomes a coach immediately. That's how much he knows about football and the quarterback position. So you can walk up to Sean Manning anytime and be like, Hey, explain this to me. And he would give you a great explanation. So someone like Jacoby Brissett, that might be a guy I would enjoy covering. Who else? A Baker Mayfield would be interesting. You got to admit. And honestly, Sam Darnold too. I don't know much about his personality, but is Sam Darnold not interesting? This is a guy who went through hell in New York

with the jets, bad coaching, bad teams, bad offensive lines. Then he goes to Carolina and somehow it's worse. And he goes out to San Francisco. He's a backup quarterback. And throughout history, it's happened where guys have developed as backups and then gotten their second chance. If the Vikings brought him in just as a second chance and then drafted, say, Michael Penix or something, I'd be really interested because seeing him throw the ball, he is a thrower of ball. And you know what kind of reminds me of a little bit is like Sam Bradford.

Bradford, Bradford. It was a different story, had the injuries, but remember what people said about Sam Bradford before he got here, Sam Bradford, he just stole all the NFL's money and everything else is like what? And then he comes here and Sam Bradford becomes a very likable quality Vikings quarterback. I think we all agree would have had a chance to go to the Superbowl in 2017, had he not gotten hurt. So there are redemption stories in the NFL. And if they got Sam Darnold,

whether it worked or not, it would be a lot of fun to cover. So there's some good options there. MP says, do the Vikings have the worst future in the NFCc north uh of all the nfc north teams at the moment uh yeah i mean it worst future is hard because football changes so quickly from year to year where one year the detroit lions have won zero out of their first 11 games and then by the end of the next year, everyone feels like they're a rising team

when they beat the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau to knock the Packers out of the playoffs. So that's how fast it happens in the league. One year, somebody's the darling. The next, I mean, Philadelphia. Philadelphia looked untouchable and then even looked untouchable halfway through this season.

And all of a sudden, it kind of came apart. You can look at the teams in the North right now and project them forward and go, man, this could be a problem. This is a big problem. And the Vikings should approach it that way. They should approach it long-term, but things really change fast in the NFL. So you could go right now from looking at your roster versus their rosters and your draft capital versus theirs. And then two years down the road, everything's completely different because you drafted the right quarterback.

You develop some players, you sign some free agents and then you're back baby. Right? If the Vikings continue down the same path as they always have, it's really hard to see that being better than what the Lions, Packers, and Bears have going for them. And the NFC North is going to swing on whether Jordan Love keeps it going and if Caleb Williams is good.

We're just assuming Caleb Williams. But it sounds to me like Justin Fields is going to get traded. Or they might pick Drake May. I don't know. But I think it's going to assuming Caleb Williams, but sounds to me like Justin Fields is going to get traded. Or they might pick Drake May. I don't know, but I think it's going to be Caleb Williams. If Caleb Williams is good, this thing is a problem. I mean, this is going to be really, really tough to overcome, and they're going to have to build the deepest, most dangerous, successful team around their quarterback if you are facing three other really good quarterbacks,

I mean, Jared Goff cannot be downplayed. He's now been to a Superbowl and an NFC championship. He's led four top five offenses. So you've already got in my mind, a top-notch quarterback in the NFC, an NFC North. You've got another one who looks like it. And then you've got another one that's going to be the number one overall pick. And then you've got another one that's going to be the number one overall pick. And what we know about number one overall picks is it's usually either spectacular or terrible. It's usually either the guy turns out to be really, really good or really, really bad. And it's Jamarcus Russell or something. And it blows up in flames. Somebody like Baker Mayfield is kind of the unusual first overall pick that is just kind of

meh. But Caleb Williams, I think we know that is a high ceiling and a low floor. It's going to be great or it's going to be terrible. If it's great, then yeah, the outlook for the future is really, really tough. And the road back to the top is going to be really, really difficult, which is why I've continued to say, you need to look at this off season as a step toward catching up in that race. If you think of it as four horses racing, you started out ahead in 2022 and you're going, we were going to win this race. And then you lose to the giants of the playoffs. The other tanking teams, draft guys, high, they rebuild their rosters. They trade montez sweat and uh-oh three other horses have run right by you how are you going to catch up that's that's the question for them

and that's the biggest thing facing them uh javier says been a fan since the 1500 espn days thank you javier and uh to all the people who have followed along for that long, bless you for doing that. Would love your opinion on the state of the franchise based on your time here. Do you ever feel a sense of redundancy when talking about the decision at quarterback? Yeah, so one of the things that I really wanted to do when I got here was fully immerse myself in the history of the Vikings. Not just, hey, I know the roster currently, and I'm going to cover the current players, but really know down to the details, down to the Eric Gulliford catch against the Green Bay Packers,

like down to, if you know that one, you're old, but like watching old games, studying old seasons, studying old players, looking at statistics, interviewing people, like really get to know everything about this franchise. And one thing that just keeps coming back up is that since Fran Tarkenton, they have never been able to lock down this quarterback position. And so what they've always done, even going all the way back to the 80s, and it's just it's crazy how this is their identity. It's better than being the Bears, by the way, and having no quarterbacks ever since like Jim McMahon.

But is that they've always had quarterbacks that were good. Jeff George is good. Randall Cunningham is good. And that one year, incredible. And Dante Culpepper is good. And Teddy Bridgewater is good. And Tommy Kramer is good. And that one year incredible. And Dante Culpepper is good. And Teddy Bridgewater is good. And Tommy Kramer is good. And Wade Wilson is good.

They're always good, but never quite enough for whatever reason, sometimes just knees, but for whatever reason, never quite enough, which means that you're always in the mix. You're always winning nine, 10 games. And every once in a while, Favre shows up and something crazy happens or Case Keenum and something crazy happens. And you get your one chance per decade. And that's really how it's been one or two chances per decade for this team, because that's what everybody has happened to them that does not have that true franchise quarterback. I mean, if you were the

Atlanta Falcons with Matt Ryan or the New York Giants with Eli Manning, you did not compete for a Super Bowl every single year, but you went into every year thinking, you know what? We got a chance because we got that guy and we're building around him. With the Vikings, it's been much more of, well, if they win every one score game, or if they have the number one defense in the league and case Keenum gets on a crazy heater, or if Randy Moss shows up and Randall Cunningham is just throwing bombs to him. If something totally insane happens, we can be there. That is the history of the Vikings. And I think that Vikings fans who have been through this year after year after year have felt the redundancy that you're asking about. And I have started to feel it as well, covering it year after year with Kirk Cousins.

I mean, it's been a long time. I mean, it's been a long time since Kirk Cousins got here. And every year has mostly felt the same. They've been different iterations, but even 2022 when they won in Buffalo, I thought, okay, maybe I'm, maybe I'm wrong. Like maybe this is happening. Maybe they're just going to be a Superbowl contender with Kirk. And then the second half of the season happens and they weren't, and they have a negative point differential and they weren't. And yeah. So I think that one of the biggest reasons to move on from Kirk is that you're

seeking that Eli Manning, Matt Ryan, at least as a baseline, Philip Rivers of a great quarterback that every year you feel like you have a chance because of them. And then if you get the next level above them, the Brees, the Rogers, the Mahomes, the Josh Allen even, then you are a favorite every year. Not just a, hey, we could get there because of this guy, but you are a favorite. And that's what Vikings fans are seeking. So yeah, I've definitely felt that,

that it seems to be history repeating itself over and over again. And if they bring back Cousins, I think I've probably mentioned before, I don't really know what to say about how it's going to work because we've just seen the movie play out so many times over and over again.

But I would say that this team, redundancy for sure as far as you're always a bridesmaid. But as far as entertainment value and as far as drama and intrigue and crazy bleep happening all the time, this team has to be in the top five in the NFL as far as just crazy stuff happens. And you can never really put the phone away. Like you always got to be dialed in because something could change in a moment's notice. But yeah, I mean, I've never gotten bored of covering this team, but I've felt the malaise with fans. And I talked about this earlier this year that even inside the stadium, I felt it inside the stadium that the cheers are just not as loud.

The intensity just wasn't as much because I think a lot, there's the malaise and there's this sort of assumption like, well, we'll probably blow this game or whatever. You know, that's just been that feeling recently. Imagine being the team that thinks every time, all right, we're going to win

because we got this guy. Like that's what you're really seeking so i have felt that though uh jordan this jordan's doing this because he knows jonathan is working behind the scenes here and i and you guys can't see jonathan but i can and he's laughing at this was the music Music City Miracle lateral a forward pass? Now, I think that Frank Wycheck passed away recently. And I want to say this about Frank Wycheck. He was a great player. He was one of my favorite players. That was one of my favorite teams, the Tennessee Titans. Steve McNair, Lorenzo Neal on that team actually fielded the ball on

that play and pitched it back to Frank Wycheck, Derek Mason, Javon curse. Like they were great and they were super fun. And I was not sad that they made the super bowl because Steve McNair was so good. It was one of my favorite quarterbacks. I think when you look at it back then, we really didn't have a very good viewpoint and there wasn't a pylon cam or something sitting right down the the numbers to be able to to really tell i think if you had that it would have been shown as a forward pass i i do think that now i watched a thing on this not too long ago where it was uh explained by the referee who made that decision because it was not challenged but it was reviewed and he was talking about his line of thinking trying to draw the point of like here's where the ball left his hand and he's fading backwards so it's a

little weird and hard to figure out and here's where he actually grabs the ball yardage wise. And it didn't look to the referee. Like it was a forward pass. I think if we had the digital tracking and chip in the ball, it probably would have shown to be, but I also, I'll say, I totally understand how they could not overturn it. They, it was just way too close. And if the call on the field was that it was not a forward pass then at that point it was very hard to overturn but there you in Minnesota there's a lot of sports tragedy uh that's a that's an all-timer in Buffalo in Buffalo they've got their own with that Bills franchise there's a lot of it a lot of it and they've added to it in recent years even since i left that's one of the toughest though that i was uh 13 years old on that one total disbelief couldn't believe they didn't

squib it by the way more than anything uh caesar says thoughts on i don't know if your name is really caesar augustus but uh if it is that's a cool name uh says thoughts on the vikings trading up is it too much to move up to three this is one where i swing back and forth by the day um i think that if you were to get for example if let's say that jayden daniels goes number two and they trade up and they take drake may with number three just for example it doesn't really matter between daniels and may whatever if they're willing to give up everything then it's's fine. Both guys are great prospects. I think Daniels has more of a chance to fall than May, but who knows? Let's just say it's for Drake May, just to say the way I would look at it is yes, that's a lot to give up,

but you have five to six years to prove it wasn't too much to give up. You have five to six years to sign other people and use the cap space that his rookie contract is going to give you. You have, okay, no first round picks, but Delvin cook, Brian O'Neill, Daniel Hunter. These were not first round picks there. You are allowed to hit on other draft picks and you're you can also as the chicago bears have you could trade for disgruntled players or players that teams don't want to sign or whatever have conflicts for their contracts that happens a lot now because every

team is thinking of their uh windows windows to win and if you're not in a window to win, then you trade Khalil Mack or something as the Raiders did at one point, you want to be on the other side of that. So Chicago is a good example there where they got Trubisky and then they went out and traded for Khalil Mack. They gave up a lot of picks, but they were still able to build a team around Trubisky to actually get them in the playoffs. What two times, which is kind of crazy considering he's Mitch Trubisky and just not good at all. You want to, you're going to have time to be able to recoup that, to use your other draft capital, to use the free agency capital and to develop recent players that you've drafted. And is it easier if you don't use that pick? Yeah.

And if that goes bust, is everyone fired? Oh yeah, absolutely. Everyone is super fired if that pick goes sideways, but if it works, you have a lot of time to rebuild it. And just because we were talking about Buffalo a little bit there, Josh Allen, the first year, look at that Bill's roster. The first year Josh Allen played for them. Terrible. Absolutely terrible. They went six and 10. They lost the first two games, like 40 to nothing and then beat the Vikings obviously, but they had nothing. I remember doing a preview piece where I compared the Vikings roster to the bills position by position. And it wasn't even close. The bills had nothing. And then they use Josh Allen's rookie deal to sign a bunch of offensive linemen to get Micah Hyde and free agency to trade for Stefan Diggs.

You see, like it can come together pretty fast. And by the third year of Josh Allen, they're a great team. So it might take a little while. And another thing to point out is some of the hardest part is already done. That's Justin Jefferson and that's Christian Derrissaw. If you have out of the say big four positions that are not quarterback, which would be corner pass rusher, wide receiver and tackle. If you have two already filled, you're in pretty good shape with top five players at the position, and you can compete offensively and try to patchwork the defense together and develop it around Brian Flores. If they didn't have that, because when we talk about this roster, it's mostly on defense. If they didn't have that, if they didn't have

Jefferson, if they didn't have Derrissaw, I'd probably say, no, you can't. I mean, you just need to get a receiver. You need to get a tackle. But the fact that they already have those things, you're going to be competitive by year two. And potentially, if everything went right and the guy's a star, then you're a Super Bowl contender by year three.

I think any of us would take that even if it does cost quite a bit. So I would do it because of that. Anthony says, how much longer before the whole league recognizes Christian Derrissaw as the best left tackle? Trent Williams can't play forever, can he? Yeah. As far as tackles go, there's a few guys that are really up at the top of the list. Rashawn Slater is up there and, uh, Penne Sewell, I think established himself, you know, left tackle, right tackle. We'll just throw them all into the same bin, uh, that, you know, there's a few guys that are the elite next level type of tackles. Dara saw at the end of the season, I think was playing through some injuries and his play dipped a little bit, but he's still finished in the top five by PFF.

Trent Williams might play forever. I don't know. Jackie Slater did. I mean, Anthony Munoz did, but no, I, the Trent Williams is still the God of that position.

He might be the best player, like the best human to ever play. Not quite the best resume ever, but he is maybe the best human to ever play along with like Orlando pace. He is up there. So no, he's not going to knock that guy off, but is he there's, there's always tears to everything. He is a first tier left tackle. And one of the things that happens when you watch every game closely of your team and not every game closely of every other team is every time someone gets beat, you're like, oh man,

he's not the same. He's not as good. And I saw a little bit of that with Derrissaw, which kind of blew my mind a little, because if you watch left tackles around the league who struggle, they just get smoked play after play after play. And I shouldn't have to tell anybody here that because you all saw TJ Clemmings, but when,

you know, we were talking about Darisaw, if you're allowing like 20 pressures in a season, playing that position, considering how good defensive lines are, how dangerous blitzes are. Plus he's a great run blocker. Yeah.

He's a lead at that position. And I wouldn't give that up for much. Not unless we were talking about getting that top quarterback, but he's as good as it gets. And, um, what a steal. How about the Vikings getting, this is a crazy thing about Rick Spielman at the end is Rick Spielman drafted all these defensive players. They were all terrible, every single one. And yet somehow in the middle of the draft lands, Jefferson and Darisov, two elite players draft is crazy. One before I die said, do you see a world where Atlanta gets fields?

Pittsburgh decides not to spend big money on quarterback, new England, Vegas, Washington want young quarterbacks. Then Kirk's market is actually dry enough that Minnesota gets him on their terms. I, yeah, I mean, that's realistic and that's right there. Probably the scenario that is keeping a lot of you up at night. A lot of you who are on the train of, Hey, let's start something new here. Let's go in a different direction. And one thing I wondered about, and this might be what you're getting at is if the Vikings are going to try to sandbag a little here, give an offer that they think Cousins won't take. And then all those things that you just name happen.

And he comes back and says, well, I guess I got to take this offer. And then the, oh, okay, now you're back. Now, I don't think it would be quite that from Kevin O'Connell, who has really enjoyed working with cousins and the offense and the locker room would be happy with cousins to be back. But as far as all that recent history that's played out, and we've seen them try this many times before, I don't know that there is a number that makes this workable. Even if it was, I remember Brad

Spielberger pitched originally two years and 60 million, and that's, you know, 30 million per year. Maybe the first year is only something like 20 as far as cap hit, but we've also gotten to the territory in his career where we can't just say, Hey, it's, he's a great quarterback. It's his cap hit. And, you know, there's always been fatal flaws to his game that we've discussed at length. But now it's we don't even know how good he's going to be coming back from this injury. And if he comes back at $20 million, okay, well, great. But what if he can't throw the same? What if the leg doesn't have the same drive off it that it used to?

He already has to put a lot of his body into the throws. What if you're just stuck in neutral still and you win eight games and everybody's unhappy and you fire Kevin O'Connell? I mean, all of you could sit here right now and go, well, you know, Kirk is a bridge quarterback would be fine, I guess. But do you remember what it felt like to go seven and 10 last year? We had lots of you in the chat being like Kevin O'Connell can't coach because Nick Mullins is out here throwing wild ass interceptions. I mean, if you go eight, nine with Kirk back,

there's probably a lot of people who are getting fired. So I would say that that scenario is possible. And if not plausible, because there are so many other quarterbacks that are on the market. So unless they are only doing this as a public facing thing, and they're not going to offer him at all, I think they will. I think they will give him an offer. That scenario remains very realistic, I would say. And yeah, that's the one that, that is in your nightmares. I think if you want them to move on, Daniel asks, how would you like the Vikings to attack

this free agency and draft to improve the defense? Uh, panic, total, complete freak out is the only way when you look at the depth chart. Um, no, I, I think with think it has to start with the defensive line. But what I noticed when Brian Flores went to Miami is that he immediately brought in some kind of swings at it type of guys on the defensive line. I'll give you examples. Shaq Lawson. Shaq Lawson was a pick of the bills, a bust in Buffalo and I think he ended up with something like four sacks in Miami a handful of pressures he was okay as a rotational guy I would want to approach it that way which is I hate to use this example because it went so badly but Marcus

Davenport was not a bad idea Byron Murphy was not a bad idea this Byron Murphy was not a bad idea. This is a hard thing to do because there's a lot of pressure. But if you go looking for guys who are the next level down from the most expensive players and who could have some upside to them still. So I'm talking anybody under the age of 27, where they could still in the right circumstance, and we've seen Brian Flores do this for players. So I believe in it seen Brian Flores do this for players, so I believe in it, that Brian Flores has the ability to elevate the talent of his players.

He did that with enough guys that I think that's realistic. And so find five players that Brian Flores really likes as under-the-radar guys and sign them to contracts and make sure you don't go crazy with anybody. Because if you put all the eggs in one basket, then if that doesn't work, you're just up a creek and one player on defense can't make the whole impact. We know that last year, last two years, has anybody been better than Daniil Hunter? And how was their defense? It was good when they played bad teams or bad offenses,

but for the most part, it was not a defense that could have taken them deep in the playoffs. And that's despite having Daniel Hunter, having Harrison Smith. And before that last year, you know, our 2022 with Zedaria Smith, that it's really about the whole picture when it comes to defense, I'd be looking to draft more players that Brian Flores wants. You're pretty much going to have to draft all defense past the quarterback position and then take swings and be ready in 2025 to make the big deal or look at the trade deadline. All of a sudden we're seeing trade deadline stuff happen. So be ready at the trade deadline for something to happen there for a Montez sweat type trade to happen. But that's when you go big fishing, I think is before 2025.

Nobody wants to wait for that. Of course, you want to see big home run signings for the Vikings right now. I'd much rather see them take some shots at guys who have redeemable qualities and have been in the NFL and have played and have started, but might have upside than to see them go nuts right now when I don't think that one player is going to have the same level of impact. So that's the way I'd approach it. Scott asks, does KOC's offense prohibit us from drafting a mobile quarterback? If it does, then he should be fired. I mean that. If it does in today's NFL, if any coach cannot coach a mobile quarterback, then there's no reason to have them. But mobility

is on a scale. You have your Lamar Jackson mobility, which I think if you're with that guy's talent, you should be able to figure it out. We saw, we saw Greg Roman, who I don't think is very good. Uh, Greg Roman, he was the office of coordinator for an MVP Lamar season. I mean, Lamar is just the greatest. So yeah, anybody could figure that out, but there's the level of mobility. That's a guy who can escape a guy who can make a play and that you don't have to coach so much or scheme so much with some somebody like now mahomes is a totally different thing but his version of running is basically if everybody plays man coverage and you leave the middle of the field open he'll run for 20 yards that is a mobility that doesn't take much coaching now if you're

talking about Jaden Daniels, which is just a totally different story, that's kind of in the Lamar type of category, then you really do have to design your offense for that player. And Daniels, I think needs a little more work as a thrower than Lamar. Lamar coming out was criticized for his throwing, but I didn't think it was that bad. I thought that was more, I don't know, the NFL just not liking that he was too athletic. I don't know. I watched a lot of Lamar that year. Couldn't figure out why he wasn't a top five draft pick, but that's the draft for you, I guess. I think Jaden Daniels needs more work with his timing and more work with getting the football out, more work with protecting himself. And you will have to do a lot with the offense. He's going to

play right away. Anthony Richardson would have been that way too. And the fact that the Vikings reportedly had interest in Richardson says to me that they're not afraid of that. They're not afraid of mobility or playmaking or whatever that you work with what you got so they got here and they worked with kirk cousins and they designed the offense for kirk cousins and when josh dobbs was here we saw a little bit of it but i also think that this is something that kind of frustrates me sometimes is because i and i say frustrates not that i'm frustrated with this opinion more of that i don't know what to think about it because I also felt that there were adjustments that could have been made around Josh Dobbs there is no universe where Josh Dobbs should be throwing 38 passes while you run 16

times against the Chicago Bears and lose that that should not have happened you shouldn't be asking him to drop back and look through a bunch of reads in the pocket and hit guys on time with perfect rhythm and accuracy. That's just not who Josh Dobbs is. So that was a reason criticism. At the same time, he's Josh Dobbs. We can't use that to judge anything because he's Josh Dobbs. He was two and nine before he got here.

He played for like seven different teams before he got here. I wouldn't be surprised if he's playing for the St. Louis battle Hawks in a year. Like this is, we are not talking about Jaden Daniels. So I think also the other thing is too, that you would design a whole offense for you would start from scratch. The first day that you sit down with a, he's drafted, you sit down with your staff and you go, how are we going to do this? And you, and you design everything for that player. You get a backup like Tyrod Taylor, who kind of emulates him and could be similar at, right. So you can still have the same offense. That's why I think it should be fine. I don't have a huge concern about that. If they draft someone where running is a major factor, but most mobility in the NFL, that's not

Jalen hurts. That's not Lamar Jackson. Most mobility is just scrambling. And that comes down to the player. Bo Nix is going to scramble. JJ McCarthy's going to scramble. You don't have to really worry about that. And I think that Kevin O'Connell would kill for somebody who scrambled for the occasional first down. I, I mean, just, we haven't seen any of that over the years. I remember looking this up last year. It was, there was a crazy stat that like Teddy Bridgewater from 2015 to last year had more first down scrambling than Kirk cousins. And he missed like two years and was a backup. It just, that's just not something Kirk ever does. And I think it's something that is super, super necessary.

But if you're getting a running quarterback, then you better be ready to really add that element to your entire team. I think they could do it, but they weren't going to do it in the middle of the season with Josh Dobbs. I would say that.