Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Bleacher Report's Derrik Klassen would trade it all for Drake Maye

Episode Date: March 9, 2024

Bleacher Report's Derrik Klassen has been studying this QB class like crazy and one thing he believes is that Drake Maye has special tools. Should the Vikings move up for him? You betcha. Plus he talks about whether the Vikings should be concerned that Caleb Williams will be really good for Chicago and whether JJ McCarthy would be a fit. He's also down on Bo Nix and Michael Penix Jr. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collard here and returning to the show, QB Class himself, Derek Classin, writing for Bleacher Report. Also works with one of my favorite websites, Reception Perception, which is run by Matt Harmon of Yahoo. You've joined them. So now it's no longer just reception perception, quarterback perception, as well as some very, very cool charting data on that website and great analysis. So it's good to see at the combine. We couldn't quite make it work schedule wise. So now we are here doing this for a podcast on quarterbacks. What's going on, man? How are you?

I'm doing good. I mean, yeah, now see, see, during the combine, it was a bit of a whirlwind. But now we've you know, we've been home for a week. for a week. We've got our takes to settle a little bit. I think we've settled back into being home, back into our normal groove. So hopefully we're a little bit more coherent than maybe we would have been a week ago. Yeah, that is definitely true. It takes a few days to get back on normal existing time as opposed to out till 3 a.m. and then waking up early for certain things. So anyway, we're here. And here's where I want to begin is actually with Caleb Williams, because on this here show, we have not talked about Caleb Williams pretty much at all

because of the assumption that Caleb Williams will become a Chicago Bear. However, I was thinking about this. That's actually pretty relevant to the Minnesota Vikings that he is likely to become a Chicago bear. So how concerned should Vikings fans be that Caleb Williams is very likely to be the next Chicago bears quarterback? I I'd be pretty concerned. Um, even before I get to caleb i would say like the bears roster is really not that bad like they still need a couple more pieces on defense i think one more receiver would be great but like dj moore is a pretty good guy to have like the offensive line i think is not great still but it's significantly better than it was a year or two ago um like cole is okay like they have pieces where any you, insert rookie quarterback can come in and actually produce in a way that just was not true when Justin Fields took over two, three years ago.

Like that roster was abysmal. This roster is like semi-functional, much better than your typical first overall type of roster. Getting to Caleb, I think he's fantastic, man. Like obviously he's, you know, been lauded as the quarterback one for two years now. So I don't think he's fantastic man like obviously he's you know been lauded as the quarterback one for for two years now so i don't think that's any sort of surprise but i think the thing that i keep coming back to with caleb is it seems like people talk about him like he's this completely like wild horse who like doesn't really play the position the right way all he wants to do is break structure and go do yada yada yada he's just like backyard football after charting him and watching you know five six games of film or

whatever i just don't think that that's true like there are definitely two three instances a game where you know he'll look at a quick game concept and just be like nah i'm good here i'm gonna go make a play but to me that was a lot less like oh he doesn't understand how to play the game or oh he wants to go create chaos. That to me was like, yeah, they're down 14 all the time and he knows he has to score every single drive or they're not going to win the game. So that to me was just like, OK, he knows he has to go be the guy and he very obviously has the tools to go do it. And so to me, I just don't really think that he's a guy who doesn't get how to play the game. You're going to have to teach him a lot. I think almost immediately when he gets into like a serious NFL structure where, you know,

everything is a little bit more on time and there's a clear way to play the game and he doesn't feel like he has to go score every single drive. I think he's going to pretty nicely settle into actually playing on time, playing the game, you know, quote the right way. And then you're obviously still going to get five plays a game where it's like, Oh my God, this guy is, it's very different. It was one of man's worst defenses ever created. Like if they were doing the history reel, the worst defense that ever was, was the USC defense that Caleb Williams played under. It was incredibly bad. Like, even if you watch the Colorado game, they're running away from Colorado

and then they just allow them to come back and come back. So if he had, if he had JJ McCarthy's defense, maybe it looks a little bit different with all the madness that was created for him. I think that the tools have been very well documented, but what I didn't realize when I started looking at his numbers was when he threw from a clean pocket, he had like the best quarterback rating in all of college football. And I'm not sure that their offense was as spectacular as maybe you think when you think Lincoln Riley, they didn't have Jordan Addison this year, obviously became an NFL star pretty quickly. It was just a bit of a different story. The one area where I watched and went oh I don't know about this is whenever there would be pressure that would come and their offensive line wasn't great either

he I thought tried way too hard to make every single play special it was like I'm gonna be the hero I'm gonna go highlight reel and that led to a lot of pretty ugly and miserable plays and I think that that has been true of some NFL quarterbacks who try too hard. Like Mahomes is a guy we shouldn't even ever mention because somehow he does this with chaos and yet doesn't have the mistakes to go with it. And I think with Caleb Williams, he needs to understand that you can just throw the ball away. You can just check the ball down because if he tries too hard, he's going to get the heck beat out of him. I think as a early quarterback in the NFL.

Yeah, that one's interesting because I think it's kind of two parts. I think on one hand, he probably is always going to be like that to a degree. Like, I think you're never fully going to coach that out of a guy like Josh Allen is not nearly as bad about that as he used to be, but it's still there,

especially in like super high leverage moments. It's still there. Pat is, is the same way. Um, Deshaun Watson was like this in Houston. Like there are just guys where they have that, like, I have to be the hero every play, even when maybe they don't. What, where I think it gets complicated with Caleb is like, he did have to be that guy every play. Like, I don't think him, you know, just checking the ball down or, or, you know, making more throwaways than he did have to be that guy every play. Like I don't think him, you know, just checking the ball down or, you know, making more throwaways than he did would have actually helped USC win games. Like I think he fully understood that he kind of had to flip the coin a little bit

and just see what he could get away with. And obviously it led to some terrible plays. And I think that's probably still going to happen a little bit in the NFL, especially year one when he's kind of adjusting and trying to figure out exactly how much of that he needs to do but I think in general it's going to be something that he's going to be able to tame down and get to the point where it is like Josh Allen where it's like yeah he still does this but he's a lot more normal and I think you know Josh Allen went through that learning curve where by year three it was like

oh he does know how to throw the check down now. And that was kind of when he went from really good to super Nova to when he could keep himself in check a little bit. I have a lot of faith that Caleb, like I said, when he gets into a more structured team and a more structured environment where he doesn't feel like he has to press every single play, I think all, I think all that stuff is going to come.

And we have to remember he's 20, 21 years old. Like he's, he's a very young player. It's not we have to remember, he's 21 years old. He's a very young player. It's not like he's a 24-year-old who doesn't know how to get to his check down. So I have a lot of faith that he's going to be able to figure that stuff out. I also think that we have a tendency, and this goes for a lot of different quarterbacks when they're coming out in a draft, because they get so much attention. We look for anything and everything.

And of course, i'm as guilty about that as anybody else with someone like caleb williams but when you talk about him being a potential problem like what in your mind after watching and charting is the biggest scary thing that williams can do because i think for most people the highlight reel throws some of their some of his throws are absolutely wild like it makes no sense how the ball even came out the way that it did, the way he can throw on the move, the way he twists his body, and things like that. But those are a small percentage of plays overall.

So what is it about his skill set in general that says this guy could be an elite quarterback? So I've said this about the top two quarterbacks this class but like to me the the two tenets that are like non-negotiable for an elite quarterback prospect are pocket management and arm talent arm talent i don't really have to go into with caleb like the flexibility the arm angles that he the ball just pops off his hand i think anybody who's seen him throw knows all that to me the pocket management um was almost surprising with caleb like i think when you're watching him on saturdays because you kind of remember a lot of

the like oh he just went outside the pocket and did something ridiculous that's more of what you think of when you think of how caleb manages pressure and all that sort of stuff i think watching the film was very like forgiving and enlightening to him in that sense just in terms of like how he actually manages the pocket, how he manages pressure. I thought his, like he keeps a really firm base in the pocket, which I think is good.

Like some guys can get too tight or they'll just like start kind of going haywire. I don't think that's a problem with Caleb. I think he showed really good flashes of being able to move and keep his eyes up and understand how to navigate through space. I don't think he's like quite as good as Trevor was at it coming out of college. I don't think he's like quite as good as Trevor was at it coming out of college. I don't think he's even quite as good at it as Drake may, but like on a scale of one to a hundred, he's at like 85, 90 to me, just in terms of like

understanding how to manage the pocket and how to be calm and all that sort of stuff while maintaining aggression. Cause I think some guys are okay at managing the pocket only for the sake of getting to a check down. I think Caleb actually are okay at managing the pocket only for the sake of getting to a check down. I think Caleb actually understands how to manage the pocket, keep his eyes up and throw a backside dig out or something like that. So that to me is like where Caleb is actually really special on top of obviously the arm talent and all the creation stuff. But that to me is more like the meat and potatoes that glues him together.

If there's one thing that is going to go wrong with caleb williams it's probably for me just handling the environment and i i am not the type of person that is like anti a player crying or anything that would be that would be insane because we see that all the time all the time in football constantly constantly i mean mean, watch Jason Kelsey's post game or not post game, post retirement press conference where, you know, this game means a lot to these people and they put so much into it and it's so hard and it's so stressful and it's so emotionally taxing that sometimes they just break down. And I think it's one of the reasons we love the game so much is that, you know, everybody out there puts so much heart and soul into the small amount of games that means so much.

But some of the stuff is all right. You're going to have to deal with failure a lot. You're going to have to deal with pressure a lot. And a regular old loss to Washington is probably not the thing that should be breaking you. And that's just from a totally outside opinion. But I've also heard this from other people in the league that kind of worry about, like, there's going to be a lot of stress.

You're going to play against the Lions. They were in the NFC Championship. You're going to play against the Packers. You know, that's another team that's on the rise. You're going to lose games in the NFL all the time. And you're going to get beat down. And you have to come in and be the entire organization and how you handle that and how you let that impact your play and your leadership,

I think is a major determining factor. And that's why someone like Brock Purdy, I think succeeds in some, to some extent, because the guy never seems to realize that everyone's arguing about Brock Purdy, or he never seemed to realize the pressure that was on him you even saw it in the Super Bowl I thought he was very calm in the way that he managed that entire game it's just such a big deal someone's personality and how it reacts to the environment that I think there's no way to recreate that from college at any point in a guy's college career I mean I think that's absolutely I mean, to the Brock Purdy point, I've said before,

I think Eli Manning was perfect for New York because that stuff just goes over his head, dude. Like, you know, all the New York media, it's very hard. Like, dude, he's Eli Manning. He doesn't care. Like, I don't think he ever thought about any of that, which is why he was able to have a, you know,

10-year career or whatever in New York and just not really think about any of that sort of stuff. I do think Caleb is definitely more of a guy who is like cognizant of that type of stuff. What I'll say is I actually think he might get value out of having gone from obviously 2022. He was unbelievable, won the Heisman, like just going into the offseason, like golden child. Everyone thinks he's going to be the first overall pick. Obviously, he still is going to be the first overall pick. But 2023 season was not as good he lost jordan addison i think the offensive line got even worse they were not up to i think what they thought they were going to be as

a football team and i think that you know he in the moment maybe didn't handle that the way that everybody thought he should or the thought you know a top five pick should or whatever i don't really care about that stuff i think in the long term though having that experience of going from i'm on top of the world to oh maybe it's not going to be like that every year i think that was actually probably really valuable for him especially for you know kind of like you're saying a guy who's going to step into one a team that you know if you have the first overall pick you're not going to be competing for titles right away and to a very hard division. Like the lions are probably still going to be a really competitive team.

The Packers are probably only going to get better. And like, whatever we want to say about whatever the Vikings are going to do, this is not a pushover team, especially with what they, some of the stuff they do on defense that Caleb's going to have to deal with. So I think the experience for him of, of the turmoil of this year was probably good in the long term, but I guess you just never really know until you know what these guys. No, that's totally right. And so the question is, do you use that experience and learn from it, or does that become kind of who you are? And we just don't know because there's no way to emulate

it. And the other part of it too, is if you're Zach Wilson and we're don't know because there's no way to emulate it and the other part of it too is if you're Zach Wilson and we're all wowed over your tools and so forth and then you go to your team and you're a diva who doesn't like to watch film or understand the offense or study you're just going to fail doesn't matter how good your arm is I mean if you took Zach Wilson's raw tools and put them in Brock Purdy he'd be the best quarterback in the league. It's just not how this works. Right. So that's, that's going to be a question with just about anyone,

because even the most solid guy, which of course Wilson was not really, but even the most solid guy coming out of college, we think of JJ McCarthy as just this quintessential perfect guy. Well, if he could play with Harbaugh, but you know, the NFL has a way of saying bleep

you when it comes to that because how many games has J.J. McCarthy lost ever in his entire life get ready to lose some buddy because even Tom Brady lost a bleep ton of games and Super Bowls and everything out like everybody's going to get hit with that and the pressure is is I think impossible to know how someone's going to react to and the complexity of the game. It is T-ball versus major league baseball here. When it comes to the complexity, it's just so much different, but that goes for pretty much every quarterback. So I think what with Chicago, I assume that you're totally on board with moving on from Justin Fields, drafting Caleb Williams. This was the plan.

This was the ideal scenario that they really brilliantly pulled off in their trade with Caroline. Yeah, I think you have to at this point. And it's, it's funny. Cause like, I think Justin Fields maybe showed enough.

And I know I've like, I love Justin Fields as a prospect, but like to the point where if Chicago didn't have the first overall pick, I would kind of get, if they just like, you know, maybe wanted to take another receiver at nine and just like, try it one more time with him.

That's obviously just not the case. Like I've written before, like when you kind of stumble into the first overall pick like this with another team, getting you there, it's like in this quarterback class where you have Caleb and Drake, who to me, I would take them first overall and not even think about it both of those guys you kind of just have

to reset the clock like even if you have an inkling of hope for justin it's like you just you're one year away from having to pay fields and you still don't know if he's a top half of the league quarterback whereas with guys like caleb williams and drake may i think like by year two those guys are like banging on the door of top 10, top 12. I think they're that good. So you kind of just have to reset and try again here. Well, what a perfect transition into what I wanted to ask you about because I saw some tweeting about this that you were doing. And there's a discussion here about whether it would be worth it for the Vikings to trade up if Drake May is the prospect.

Now it could be Jaden Daniels, but I just look at Kevin O'Connell and what he wants to do on offense. And when I look at Drake May, I see a match made in heaven. I see Matthew Stafford and Kevin O'Connell, big arm dude who could throw over the middle of the field where the Vikings love to attack and with enough playmaking to make up for it. If you have a bad play call, which has been a struggle through the entire time Kirk Cousins is here. But if you were just to design a prospect for Kevin O'Connell, I think Drake may is that guy. The question is, would anyone trade out of it? Now there's this is Drake may the guy who drops and like, I don't is drake may the guy who drops like i don't know everyone's the guy who drops i guess uh but if the washington commanders or new england patriots were willing

to play ball is it worth giving up number 11 and two other future first round draft picks to move up for drake may i would trade whatever the nfl allows me to trade to go up to get Drake May, like anything. I think he is phenomenal. I, he is actually my like quarterback one, a two Williams is one B. I think, like I said, I would take them both first overall. And I wouldn't even think about it. They're both incredible. I think for me, it goes back to a little bit of what I said earlier about like the two

tenants to me of, of elite quarterback prospect or arm talent and pocket management. May and Williams check both boxes and very, very obviously May's pocket presence to me is slightly better. I think he does an even better job of understanding when and where he's getting pressured, like where the free rusher is supposed to come from relative to his protection all that other stuff i think he does a really good job pre-empting pressure by like drifting away from it pre-snap if he knows he's hot and he's responsible for the free rusher stuff like that and then i think the way that may moves in the pocket for a guy who's like six five is incredibly efficient like he doesn't waste space it's very reminiscent to me of like justin herbert trevor lawrence where they're big dudes but they don't like run themselves into pressure it never feels like they're cramped in the pocket like they just find space I think Drake absolutely has that and so that's to me is like if I think they're

both you know 99th percentile prospects the thing that just barely pushes me over the edges I think his pocket presence is just slightly slightly better better. So yes, I would trade everything if I was Minnesota. And look, I've been very much on board with that myself. If that's a possibility, if they really believe in him and that's your guy

and the only guy that you want on this whole draft, then go for it and then just use the cap space that you get from the rookie contract. And the other part of it too is the hard part is done on offense, which is an elite wide receiver and elite left tackle, and even an elite tight end, or at least

top five as a receiving tight end, probably a well above average wide receiver. I mean, Addison is just a rookie, but he showed a ton last year. I mean, you just, those are the things, if you didn't have those, I'd be like, oh, I don't know about trading up because then you might get in a Sam Darnold, Robbie Anderson situation where the guy just has no weapons to work with and you just don't want that. But that's the opposite of what the Vikings can give. back and watch all quarterback prospects and look for their worst plays. It looks like Shaqton, a fool. If you ever watched that on TNT where they, well, you're not a basketball guy, but like the, they, they take the Knights goofiest plays in the NBA and then they just laugh at them. And I just like, go back, let's go back and have a look at Lamar Jackson's worst plays from Louisville or Patrick Mahomes worst plays from Texas tech. I bet they're hysterical. So sometimes a look at Lamar Jackson's worst plays from Louisville or Patrick Mahomes worst plays from Texas Tech I bet they're hysterical so sometimes I look at it and go I know we can do

that but he's a college quarterback and also NFL quarterbacks have some bad throws we can just overdo it on some of the analysis to the point where like don't miss the forest through the trees have you seen him throw the football 100 like the thing i think this is especially true now over the past you know really basically since like the post mahomes era of quarterback drafting you have to chase what is special like it's it just is what it is and i think truthfully these guys who are special who have the caleb williams tools the drake made tools trevor lawrence whoever you want to name they know they're that good so they're going to go try and see what they can get away with and to your point they're going to end up with very stupid plays especially when they play on terrible teams like patrick mahomes did at texas

tech um drake may's north carolina team is awful like people bring up the fact he had tez walker tez walker can't separate from man coverage like he's not like he's cory coleman which is like cool to have in college but it's not like a legitimate serious nfl receiver if that makes sense and their offensive line was terrible i mean i think the same is true of caleb williams they had a little bit better receiver talent like brendan rice probably goes top 100 um tosh washington is okay but that offensive line was also bad and I think Lincoln Riley had probably his worst season as a play caller so like when these guys who know they're the best end up in these situations like this

they're going to just try to make stuff happen and to your point you're going to end up with three silly plays a game that it just they look funny but in, like that's just not what should, you know, hold that much weight when you're, when you're judging these guys as prospects. Yeah, I agree. I think that because what the draft industrial complex has become with so many people all looking at the same information, there's a lot of, I mean, nitpicking is aggressive maybe because like you're supposed to tell the whole story, but what matters versus what we're going to see worked out in the NFL or what you can make up for or what you can improve on, especially Drake Mays, not 24 years old. And you would expect younger quarterbacks to make poorer decisions, just like younger humans make poorer decisions. And that is the job of the coaching staff to figure that out.

So why do you think that there is this little bit of buzz? Is it an attempt from people to maybe like talk anyone out of it? The buzz element of it has always been something I've tried to ignore. But I have to kind of ask, like, is there a reason for this or is this just typical draft? We have way too much time to think and talk about it. And that's how there's any discussion of him not going top three. I think we just have way too much time to talk about it. Like, I think it's just completely ridiculous. Um, I also think there's like, I think what's fascinating specifically

about Caleb and Drake versus Jaden Daniels and JJ McCarthy is to me, May and Williams are two very obviously sensational prospects who were on terrible teams. And Williams kind of has been able to hold his status as the first overall pick anyway, because he's been that guy for a very long time. I think we see Patrick Mahomes and we and we're like okay this is what we want to chase so we're going to do that and so he's still held that status i think drake has fallen off a little bit in that regard because he doesn't quite play like mahomes um i think he was on a program that has even less of like status than usc does so i think that's probably hurt him a little bit and then you compare him to guys like jane daniels and J.J. McCarthy there is stuff to like about them but they very

obviously got to play in situations that were significantly easier and cleaner than than made Williams got to and I think that that's like kind of warping people's perceptions like I think we're misunderstanding how much easier it was for J.J. McCarthy and Jaden Daniels and so you can watch the film on Jaden and JJ and be like, oh, well, this looks a little bit cleaner. They're not making as many mistakes like blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada. And it's like, yeah, because they're not pressed into making those mistakes nearly as often as Drake May and Caleb Williams are. And so I think that's really kind of what a lot of it is.

And then to your point, too, there probably is a little bit of let's see if we can get drake may to fall which again i i think by the time we get to april drake may is going second overall it's like there's going to be no doubt about it by the time we get there but we're in the peak of silly season so oh we most certainly are uh now i want to ask you about something that I've considered a piece of art, which is J.J. McCarthy, which means that you can bring many people to look at the art that you have in your house and say, what do you see? And they say, oh, I see an old woman knitting. And another person says, I see a dog jumping over a fence. Everybody sees something different with J.J. McCarthy and the one thing about it that I have not been able to get over personally with McCarthy is that when I

watched him play football I did not Leonardo DiCaprio meme and go first rounder and this has been in the past something that's kind of worked for me a little bit as a way to analyze quarterbacks. And I'm wrong as much as anyone else, but you and I actually at the last combine talked about my same feeling about Will Levis, where we were like, I just want to watch a game and be like, oh yeah, first rounder. I don't want to have like, I don't want to, I don't need a dossier to figure out why the guy is supposed to be drafted high i should just see it right and i understand everybody's argument about it but that for me personally when i look at the picture that's what's difficult for me can you tell me that i am wrong for feeling that way

no when i tweeted my uh my charting profile for jj on reception perception. I said basically the same thing. Like he's whatever quarterback prospect you want him to be. If you want him to be Mitchell Trubisky or Zach Wilson, you can go find tape that looks like Mitchell Trubisky or Zach Wilson. If you want him to be like a slightly lesser Josh Allen, like where he's just skinnier, Josh Allen, you can go find those throws.

If you really want to find them. I just think because he has like comparatively fewer difficult reps, like you just, you can kind of extrapolate whatever it is that you want out of his skillset. So I, I do think, yeah,

he's like the quarterback art thing of this, of this class, but I'm kind of with you where to me, he's just not a top 10 pick. I think if you want to, you know, end of the first round, you know, he's one of those guys you trade up for because you just want the top 10 pick I think if you want to you know end of the first round you know he's one of those guys you trade up for because you just want the fifth year option

all that other stuff I think that's totally fine but he to me is not a guy where yeah I look at him and it's very obviously he's the best player on the field when you watch Caleb Williams and you watch Drake May there's zero doubt in your mind who the best player on the field is you know who is going to swing the game and who has that power when you watch JJ there's like doubt in your mind who the best player on the field is. You know who is going to swing the game and who has that power. When you watch JJ, it's like, you know, he has three great throws a game. He'll have like one really cool play outside the pocket. But he just never really feels like he's the force that makes this team go. And that's not really to say that he sucks or anything like that doesn't mean he can't be a useful player.

I think he can be a functional NFL quarterback, but you just never feel the force that like he's the guy. And Michigan never really asked him to be. And like there's a part of it where it's OK, the team is awesome. So, of course, they didn't really need their quarterback to do all that stuff. For me, though, at a certain point, if a college team knows they have a top five pick at quarterback, they're going to treat him as such and they're going to let him go and win games. That just never really happened with with J.J. McCarthy. So I'm kind of more towards your camp where there's stuff to like.

I get it. But the top 10 stuff to me is just like you're asking for a lot to go right and extrapolating a lot off of very little evidence the other odd thing to me about it is and you know i joke about the draft universe and consensus and all that sort of stuff because with quarterbacks especially it's just wrong all the time but But when you go look at mock draft database or grinding the mocks, those websites that track where players draft stock is by the outside world, as people were watching his season play out, they had him as a second round picker late first. And then when he doesn't play football games, then his draft stock shoots up. And that's weird to me. That's like, wait a minute.

So all you guys were watching this and then you decided later, maybe based on what you think you're hearing from the NFL, as if everyone would have the same opinion in the NFL. And in the past, sometimes that's fooled people. It's just when there's this like buzz, buzz, buzz, a couple of big draft analysts, Mel Kuyper is out there saying, well, he's going to be this level of pick. I mean, Mel Kuyper was as wrong as anybody else about say like Malik Willis, who he had as a top first round draft pick. So there's nobody, and I'll say it a million times, the NFL teams do not tell anyone who

they're drafting. I will hammer this table over and over every single year, every single March and April, they don't tell anyone who they're picking. So there's this perception, I think that the league likes him, which means the mock drafters and the draft analysts seem to then like him more. And then I'm like, is this really happening or not? At the same time, Derek, if the Minnesota Vikings draft JJ McCarthy, I think it's a perfect fit to work with Kevin O'Connell and Josh McCown and to have all the things that you can have there and develop him in the eyes of a quarterback to his skillset. And I think it could really, really work. So I am speaking very much out of both sides of my mouth

but if they draft him I'll be like great pick I mean I I kind of get that logic too I actually I did a falcon show um yesterday where I kind of said the same thing where it's like I don't know if I love him that high but because of the way the offense is constructed and the way I know that they're going to run it McCarthy actually makes a lot of sense and I think that very much applies to to Minnesota because McCarthy's best traits to me are he will he will stare down the barrel of the gun and make a throw he's not scared to do that he can throw over the middle of the field because I think he has great velocity so he can throw all those dig routes seam routes whatever it is where you just got to go pin it on a guy and that's obviously a big part of Kevinvin o'connell's offense um and he can do all the boot stuff like he can he's very functional

very uh mobile outside the pocket and he throws well on the run so like you very clearly see like you know he checks a lot of the boxes for the way the offense on a very like simple you know we're making this very simple but on a very basic level he understands and can run the offense i would like to see him them still pair him with like a very basic level, he understands and can run the offense. I would like to see him, them still pair him with like a journeyman quarterback where he doesn't have to play right away. Cause I don't think he's going to be ready, but I do think Kevin O'Connell's offense gives him the best chance to be who he can be, which again, I don't know if that's ever a top 10 quarterback, but it at least gives him the best chance to be the best player he can be.

Well, and you bring up a great point because when Kevin O'Connell is having these meetings with Josh McCown, and it's a record for the squarest jaws between two men in history, and they're throwing footballs around and everything, talking about all the teams they played for, I think what they're going to look at they're not just going to say well i like his arm all right they're going to look very specifically at when he threw these specific footballs that we asked him to throw all the time here's what it looked like and from that perspective when he throws a line drive it's a freaking bullet man like when he can really rear back and put everything into it. And the other thing is he has enough of this natural athleticism, this kind of fluidity to his body that when he's on the move, that kind of like a baseball player where he could kind of

flip the hips and make a throw. You're like that, that'll work here. That'll work here. If he does most of the same stuff that Kirk Cousins does like that, and then adds just a little bit more from a playmaking element, you've got yourself something that you can win with. So that's where I fully support it. And also I've got lots of questions. Speaking of which there are two more quarterbacks. I want to ask you about, you know, who they are, Bo Nix and Michael Penix. Let's start with Penix because you're a hater. That's where we got to begin because now we see this one, this painting a little bit differently. I look at Michael Penix and I go arm, look at that thing. He throws that ball super hard. And there's another

thing I see from him as well that I like. I think the guy has a lot of guts. He's gone through a lot. It's not easy. And he took a program that mostly has been pretty mediocre forever to the national championship in a place where they had no business being against the team that was so much better than them from top to bottom. I like that about him. I like all those things about him. And I just have in my brain, Michael Penix unleashing 35 yard passes down the field on a rope to Justin Jefferson and I go all right I I like a lot about that so why in your mind because we already talked about this at the combine actually why why are you more concerned about Michael Penix than maybe me

I think it's a couple of things i'll start with even before the film a 24 year old with who's played for six years and has like he's torn his shoulder twice and torn his knees twice that to me is like automatic i'm not touching that in the first two rounds like there's just no way um and i said this about hendon hooker as well hendon hooker had even more like offense probably like other stuff that made me really not want to draft him I think Penix is obviously better than that but I think like that profile alone that's just not a player I'm staking a claim in in like the this is going to be our starter right away territory there's just no way I think the other stuff that bugs me with Penix is there's obviously a lot to like like you mentioned his arm is obviously fantastic

he's a pretty aggressive thrower especially outside the numbers down the field he's very willing to go give this guy a chance um where I struggle with him is I think his biggest area that he struggles with is throwing the middle of the field they didn't ask him to do it all that much and when he did it was not all that good I think he kind of struggled to anticipate windows um I think his ability to to pin it on guys over the middle when they're moving across you know in front of his face i think was not all that great um and i think his ability to layer throws it kind of struggles and i think you see that too outside the numbers like if he's got to throw a corner out against the

um like someone trailing in man coverage where you have to put it more over the top instead of line driving it in there. He just doesn't have that club in his bag to me. I think the same is true when he needs to throw a seam route and really lay it over the top of guys. Sometimes deep overs, that's the case, depending on how the guy is trailing. So I think he really struggles with that.

I think the other thing with him too is just the way that he handles pressure in the pocket. And I know he has like an incredibly low pressure to sack rate i think part of that is this is an offense that constantly had five out in in in the concept and the check down was always open and he did a good job getting to it to his credit but i think when he had to throw under pressure with bodies in his face because of like the literal like biomechanics of how he throws, I think he's just never going to be that good at it. Because usually this is a concern with short quarterbacks, right?

And Michael Penix is not short. He's 6'3". But he makes himself short because he has like a almost sidearm release, which that alone is going to make you lose a little bit of height. And then he's also a guy where a lot of times he kind of like drops all of his weight when he throws. So you kind of lose a little bit there too. Whereas like you see some other guys like, you know, they'll get up on their toes and

really make sure they're getting over the top. Penix does the opposite. So I think that's a big reason why he struggles under pressure. And then athletically, I think he's okay. And there, there are flashes, but I think with some of the medical stuff, I'm concerned that if anything happens, he's just going to lose a little bit more and he's not going to have anything so to me he's just if i could get him in a in a bruce arian's offense and i knew i had mike evans awesome like maybe this can work i think under almost any other circumstance you're trying to thread a very fine needle

yeah i mean with the vikings offense they do push it down the field and that's what i like about him is that you know he has the ability to create explosive plays with his arm and put it up for wide receivers to make plays i mean as he did for roma dunze the entire season all the medical stuff i don't know what to say about that i mean there's no there's no taking it back that's pretty tough and those those surgeries they add up over years we We know that, uh, I did see Daniel Jeremiah compare him to Sam Bradford. I don't love that comparison. I love it because both of them threw the ball really hard, but Sam Bradford had magic in his touch. I mean, it was the best thrower of the football I've ever seen up close in my entire life. So I don't think that's

quite right. I think it's much more Jared Goffian where it's like that thing can spray all over the place a little bit. Kind of how I play golf in some ways where when it's pretty, it's pretty, but there's some balls that get hit in the woods for sure. And there isn't a precision to the short game. I totally agree with that. When the pocket gets muddy, the feet kind of get wide, like in the wrong way. Not wide headed that way, but like headed that way. And I'm pointing sideways and weird stuff happens. And yet at the same time, I think it's really hard to replace a guy who could captivate a team the way that he did.

And it's really hard to replace a guy that throws a football that hard. And so he was operating a lot. Like you mentioned, there's five out all the time. There were motions in that offense. There were checks in that offense. And I thought that's kind of the Vikings like to do that. They like to send five out. They like to have that sort of stuff.

So as a fit, I do like him probably more than some others on Bo Nix. Now this is a real interesting one because it's another one where I think there are some people who are like, look, average depth of target was terrible. And the skills that he has do not wow you. So he does not run like Jaden Daniels. He doesn't throw a football like Michael Penix. It's all kind of, if you were making him on Madden, it's all kind of like 82 out of a hundred on Madden, every 82 arm strength, 82 accuracy, 82, you know, speed or whatever. Nothing is a 90 that can be hard to win with, but then we've seen guys in the right circumstances be able to do it. So how are we

feeling if the Vikings, let's say that McCarthy is that top pick and the Vikings are sitting there in the first round with the top four off the board and you can draft Bo Nix, is it worth it? I don't think so. Because it kind of goes back to what I said earlier, where like, yeah, I think if you're taking a quarterback in the first round, you have to chase some sort of high-end trait like i might not love jj mccarthy or jayden daniels but jayden daniels will walk in and immediately be a top three rushing threat at the position um jj mccarthy i have some questions about his touch or whatever but like the arm strength is like the velocity he can get is insane and he's

obviously going to be one of the better uh scrambling athletes i think at the position pretty quickly so like the tools from that perspective i get it nicks i do think is a good athlete um i think he's a good runner i think you could probably get 400 plus yards out of him as a as a rusher um because i think he has like a very it's almost like if you shrunk jalen hurts just a little bit like just his rushing style it's almost more like a running back. He has good vision, can run fast, but that's not really exactly what makes him win. I just think as a passer, I don't see whatever makes him a top like 10 type of quarterback. Cause the arm strength,

I think the arm strength, when he's just like one, two, three throws a post or one, two, three throws a dig route. It's like, okay,

he has enough velocity here. I think when he throws outside the numbers, the ball gets there pretty late a lot of the times. And I think in the NFL, it's going to be an even bigger issue. And then I think every now and then, like he really has a tendency to drift away from pressure and like, try to throw off his back foot. That's cool. When you're Josh Allen, it's not so cool when you're bo nicks um who who has

like you know to your point like an 82 arm strength like b minus arm it just doesn't translate the same as when you have 95 and you can throw it from anywhere um so i think that's kind of a big issue with nicks nicks to me actually reminds me a lot of like gardner minchu as a passer where it's like okay quick game we know he can handle it really really good at that rpos and all that jazz i'm sure he can handle that at a high level probably not going to be a guy who anticipates the middle of the field or throws it all that well and i think down the field you're kind of banking on okay he can get some loft and arc on the ball but he's never going to just like boom go pin it on a guy so i i think he kind of reminds me of gardner in that sense he's a better athlete

than minshu is and you can actually use him as a design runner but i just nicks probably to me caps out as like quarterback 19 in the nfl like best case scenario yeah i can see that i mean the upside of him is harder to look at and go oh i could see how this becomes amazing where it's so easy with caleb williams Williams and Drake may just be like, there it is. Let me show you five plays where it could be amazing. And I agree that, that that's harder.

And the one thing I could see and everything for me is just through Vikings lens. So if you're doing broadly, it's well, you know, just, uh, we pick a,

a B minus offense and coach and whatever, and sort of project what he would look like generally. And with this, everything has to be amped up. So I like all the quarterbacks more than other people because I'm like Jefferson. I mean, I watched in front of my own eyes in the year 2023, Nick Mullins put up 800 yards in two games throwing to Justin Jefferson and the number of high difficulty catches that man made the number of times that he absolutely roasted and demolished other human beings and stole their souls in order to get those footballs it was an act of God and I'm like okay so if Bo Nix can get the ball generally near him like like what can we do here? So there there's just

a different lens that I look through this app, but I think it's accurate to say that upside on Bo Nix is, is pretty limited. So let's, let's wrap on this rank the ideas. So we went through the quarterbacks. We went through the ideas, uh, trading up for Drake May drafting JJ McCarthy, maybe higher than you'd like, which might include training up to like seven, but it's not going to cost you the franchise. But I think five or seven might be where you have to go for J.J. McCarthy. Sticking around and drafting Knicks or maybe waiting and drafting Pennix, like trade back into the first round type of deal.

How would you rank those potential ideas? May 1st by a million. Like I think if that's even a possibility, I think you'd leverage everything to go do it. Next would probably be McCarthy. Like I said, I don't know if I love top half of the first round, but it's like kind of a perfect situation for him to actually go figure it out.

Especially if they can sign a, I don't know, Jacoby Brissett to, to play 10 games or whatever and you just don't feel like he needs to be thrown in right away i think that would be good after that like i guess i would rather wait on penix than draft nicks if those are like the two options and then i mean i guess i don't even know what the other option is the other option i guess is like spencer rattler but like i think he's probably a better i think he's a better player than those two but i just don't know what his deal is with like the off the field i think there's just no way of knowing until you talk to him i just i just don't buy it

i i just you know there's it seems like the draft analyst really loves spencer rattler and i don't know like at some point you have to do something that makes me think you're actually an nfl quarterback if the farther we have to stretch to be like well you know if this and this and this and this like probably not though and at the combine, he was hysterical watching him try to run. Yeah. Like, all right, you're like the worst athlete in the league right off the very bat. I totally believe that you have arm strength, but there's lots of guys who have arm strength. Paxton Lynch has arm strength.

I just don't believe that he's some magical fourth round draft pick or something i think my thing with rattler is if nicks or pennix had to play behind that offensive line i don't think they would even be prospects like like true i think it would be that bad like i don't even think we would think about those guys almost at all whereas rattler it's like okay we knew he was a first round pick two years ago it was supposed to be till he ran himself out of town and then i think he did show a lot um especially growth from 2022 to 2023 like again i'm only like betting on him in the sense of like the fourth round or whatever so i don't think he's gonna be i don't i'm not advocating to take him in the first round but i think for the value relative to nicks and panics where those guys are gonna go i'll take the swing on rattler man like the arm is just too live it's too loose

i will say though him running the 40 was very funny. It was funny because his 10 yard was actually kind of good. It was like 60th, 70th percentile, which not insane. But then he just had like one of the slowest 40s you could imagine. So it's like, okay, you clearly just lose gas after like the first 15 yards. Maybe that's all you need though.

Maybe all you need is 10 yards. He looked like Homer Simpson when he starts to try to run and then just gets exhausted. the first 15 yards um maybe that's all you need though maybe all you need is 10 yards he looked like homer simpson when you're like he starts to try to run and then just gets exhausted hold on guys 40 yards is a lot meanwhile 360 pound offensive linemen are like running five like that shouldn't work that way uh but the mid-round prospect has always just been for me i've just i don't know it's like when the vikings and there's not a comparison between the two but when they drafted kellen mond and jaron hall both i was kind of like i don't know guys what do you want me to say i mean i'm sure

some draft analysts love them but if we're picking them here there's a pretty big reason for that so uh well it will be very interesting to follow and certainly as things play out guess who a quarterback expert will be returning to the show that is you my friend tremendous tremendous breakdowns as always awesome everything you post that you write a bleacher report or reception perception i always click one of my favorite guys to have on thanks so much for doing this man i'm glad we could connect thanks for having me and you you know whenever they draft the quarterback or, you know, God forbid, against your wishes, re-sign Kirk, I'll be back.

Why would you end my show on that? Why would you? I just said so many nice things. I've got to, you know, I've just got to keep it spicy at the end. For now, it remains possible as we speak, and we'll see what happens next. Thanks, Derek.