Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Breaking down Kwesi Adofo-Mensah's pre-draft press conference

Episode Date: April 26, 2022

Matthew Coller and Sports Illustrated's Will Ragatz talk about Kwesi Adofo-Mensah's pre-draft press conference in which he said... not much. However, there were a few things to pick through concerning trades down, cornerbacks, elite players versus getting more players and we talk about the question that wasn't asked. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here along with Will Rangitz of Sports Illustrated to cover the Vikings as you all know. And we're inside TCO Performance Center following Kwesi Adafo Mensah's press conference. So we're going to attempt to parse through that. But I think Kwesi is less specific than Rick Spielman was in the past about how he feels about positions and depth of draft and things like that so we're going to answer the questions that Kwesi was asked to answer and we're going to do our best to give more specifics than he was giving today but first Will, A, how are you and B, we have something cool to announce involving you. So what's going on? Yeah, I'm doing well. Should we start with that?

Yeah, let's start with that. So going forward, you are going to be doing a weekly show here on the Purple Insider podcast. What do we call it? The Feed? Is that what we call it? Sure. So each week, you're going to either do a show with Paul Hodowanek or you're going to interview somebody else. There's a lot of Sports Illustrated writers that cover different teams, but you're kind of wide open to interview whoever you want. And I wanted you to do this because, A, you've been a great guest on the show. And also I feel like just it's an opportunity for you to do some podcasting. Like you're always writing and everybody who follows you on Twitter is seeing you write all the time.

But there's other than your guest appearances, not a podcast that you have that's where you can kind of give your hot takes. So I wanted to give you an opportunity to do that and also interview people. And also I think you do really good work and I want our listeners to hear you an opportunity to do that and also interview people. And also, I think you do really good work and I want our listeners to hear you as well. So you will be doing a show each week and I'm really excited about it. Yeah, I'm really excited about it too. And that's a good point that you made. A lot of times I'm listening to your show and it's just the amount of the platform that you have to give off so many different takes and really dive into them is so much different in audio than it is in writing.

And I'm trying to give these same takes, and I don't want to write 3,000 words about this right now, but I could. So it'll be nice to have that and be able to come on every week and talk about what's going on and share my takes and talk with Paul or whoever. And I anticipate definitely putting some feelers out for questions on Twitter and seeing what you guys want to know and what I can answer there.

So, yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun. Well, you are very free to borrow from fans only anytime you want. People have really enjoyed the fans only podcasts. So you are certainly open to do those as well. But I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with and listening to your show. You listen to mine. I'm interested to listen to yours, even though it'll be on my platform. So I'm excited about that. And I would congratulate

you, but that seems weird because I made the decision. But anyway, so look forward to that. We haven't decided on what day that's going to be yet each week, but it'll be an additional show for all of you guys to listen to. And I know Will's going to do a each week, but it'll be an additional show for all of you guys to listen to. And I know Will's going to do a great job. So let's talk about, or maybe I should give a whole press conference about this. And you can ask, and we could talk about our collaborative culture and so forth. But we just got done listening to Kwesi Adafo Mensah. And I thought he was asked really good questions and he mostly wanted to sort of focus on really, really broad strokes. So we can't come in and say, Kweisi said they're taking a corner, folks.

But I do think that one thing is notable is when he talked about the trade down thing. I think that he has a really specific idea of what value is that maybe Rick Spielman did not and when he's talking about like what it costs and looking for that other team that is sitting in a room believing that player x or player y is the answer for their franchise it's almost like he knows that there's a lot of fallacies involved with that that maybe other teams and other scouty gms believe in and it made me feel like and and i know i'm i might be stretching because he did not come out and say this we're gonna have to do some stretching today but it made me feel like the trade down thing and he talked about you know there's a lot of phone calls going on

the trade down thing if we were ranking all possibilities is number one for me yeah I it's certainly a lot more likely than trading up and I felt like that throughout this whole process I mean the Vikings historically never trade up I mean it's a new GM so you don't really know but I've always felt like since since Kwesi came over that the analytical approach is going to favor trading down and taking advantage of somebody which he did allude to somebody could talk themselves into this quarterback or this offensive lineman fixing all of their woes and making them a contender next season and taking advantage of that desperation if you want to call it and and getting value out of that and he talked

about kind of there's there's historical benchmarks for for success and value at every pick, and they're trying to meet that and exceed it. So I came into this thinking that a trade down was very much on the table, especially if there's a group of players, the defensive backs at the top of the class, that if those guys are off the board, I think there will be a lot of kind of flat value that they might see. And this is just me projecting and what we know about the draft class from from 12 to 20, even even in the mid 20s, there might not be that much of a drop off. So I think it's oversimplifying it always to say analytics. And but I think that kind of value and data based approach is going to favor potentially moving down.

Yeah, he said so. I tweeted out the quote, special players do matter, but you have a big team and depth is needed. And, you know, I think that kind of points to if he's saying special players matter, that's really true. But what special players will there be at number 12 that's the question and you know I think maybe a little higher in this draft there could be some Kayvon Thibodeau, Aiden Hutchinson these players who are going to go maybe number one through number five have a chance to be special but even then a lot of the draft analysts don't believe that these are hall of fame type of prospects and when you get to number 12 there's the derrick stingley jr thing who has a chance to be a special player kyle hamilton might if he

drops to that point i'm not really convinced that he will the receivers are pretty hard to say which one could be a special player if any outside of jameson williams who is also expected to be taken you know in the top 10 now. As the talk has been recently, he's recovered well from his ACL injury and so forth. And so it feels like if Stingley, Williams, and Hamilton aren't there, those are three guys with pro bowl potential, then you have a pretty serious drop off after that. That's how it feels to me.

And in that situation, you want to trade back and you want to pick up more picks later and the other thing too is that this team just doesn't have developmental players that they've drafted in the mid to late rounds that we're sitting here talking about oh well this guy you know he's got a chance and kenny wong woo is a running back and so like i mean you could throw his name out there or Wyatt Davis who we haven't seen that's a big question mark but there's not like this bevy of dudes who were saying oh man there's like eight guys who could take that next step next year and and so it really feels like they just need more bodies they just need more people they need the sort of cliche more darts to throw looking for

bullseyes then they do this number 12 overall player versus that one unless it's one of those guys yeah unless it's it's like a sauce gardener falls which seems really unlikely but now there's been some buzz that maybe stingley will go ahead of him after all uh the whole pre-draft season is so funny because it's like four months long so you have to talk yourself into every possibility and discuss everything and it's like four months long, so you have to talk yourself into every possibility and discuss everything, and it's just the whole prospect fatigue thing. I'm glad the draft is here is what I'm saying, but I definitely agree with you that this team needs more depth. They've had a lot of kind of whiffs on the mid- to late-round guys recently.

I still have no clue why they drafted Chaz Surratt in the third round last year. And they also have a big gap as a result of we're not going to be i'm not going to be dunking on rick spielman all day but you can you can it's allowed they don't have a fourth round pick because they traded it for chris herndon so they don't pick after 77 in the third round until like 156 or something in the fifth so that's a big a big gap that i imagine they may want to fill because there because there's a lot of talent in that top 100, even late in the fourth round sometimes. So I think just from that perspective, a trade down makes a lot of sense to add more, another pick if you can in that top 100. And I think also

looking forward to next year, I know this is a team that's in win now mode based on everything that they've done in free agency and kind of what we've heard. But the 2023 draft class is there's a lot of early buzz about some top guys there and things of that nature. So I think if you can get a team to move up in the first round, maybe give you a 2023 first rounder that could be kind of the savvy approach as well because of the way that those the future picks tend to be devalued in the moment when when teams are like I want this quarterback right now because there's kind of a baseline with that from what we saw with the Bears trading up for Justin Fields last year and they gave the Giants their first round pick which ended up being like the number seven pick so if you could do something like that i think that would be appealing as well i do think i would probably say that sitting at 12 is more likely than trading

back um i don't know if you i think you disagree with that but uh in in a pie chart i think they'd be pretty close but um the the issue being that there may be a decent number of teams that want to trade back because they see this same phenomena where after the top few guys, there's no slam dunks. There's injury risks and there's kind of depth within the first round. So you need to find somebody that wants to come up. You could want to trade back, but you can't just call somebody and say, hey, we're trading back.

They have to have somebody they want to move up for. Well, you mentioned how long draft season is, and i probably have gone back and forth on this because every time i draft sim there is somebody there who is like really a good prospect i mean sometimes in the draft sims it's jameson williams sometimes it's kyle hamilton sometimes it's malik willis and if all of these people are drafted in the top 10, that means that somebody else who's been projected has to drop out of that. I wonder if the tackles are going to go as high as people think they are, like just because they're maybe the better prospects that,

like if you're the New York Giants, this is the one I can't really understand. And maybe they'll do this. But they're just being projected a tackle all the time. Like, well, Andrew Thomas played a lot better last year. Like, are you really spending another draft pick, another really high draft pick on a tackle when you just drafted one with Andrew Thomas? So like, maybe there will be guys

who slip farther from the tackle position because I think there's like three or four who are projected in the top 10. I just don't see that happening. but if one of those players is there Stingley Hamilton Williams that would be a no-brainer you just take that player and never think about it again aside from that though that's where it seems like the trade down but I mean I agree with what you said that like I've got the slight edge to trade down by 5% over staying at 12. And I don't think there's any chance they trade up,

but that might be the surprise that we end up getting because, you know, it's like, it's weird to talk about what draft night surprises could be because they're surprises, you know what I mean? But, but unexpected goes under the trade up.

And he actually mentioned this because we've just gone on like the broad analytics well analytics say don't trade up but he mentioned that last year cleveland traded up to take jeremiah wusu koromoa uh the linebacker from notre dame in the second round yeah in the second round and i guess there is a part of me that thinks like if they have this here's the elite prospects in this draft that we could potentially pick because tackles are just off the board and then here's the next drop off and it's a big drop off to the next wave of prospects like let's say that it's number 10 and Jamison Williams is still there or Kyle Hamilton but the next prospects you have after those two guys are pretty far down from where you have them in terms of however they evaluate prospects.

In that case, that's the special player thing that he talked about. And in that case, maybe you do try to trade up depending on the cost. The problem is like, what is the cost? And for a non-quarterback, the cost might be reasonable. And maybe you should do that because you're looking for game changers with your franchise like teams that win have like seven game changing players and then just depth depth depth like even the rams they're like seven game changers and then it's just all depth guys and i mean the vikings right now i don't know i don't like they don't have either i mean they have some game changers but they don't have uh enough to

get over the top if they did they would have already yeah it's it's do you need the more more game changing players or do you need more depth and you need both uh but what moves the needle more is going to be those players that are going to have kind of an outsized impact on the game and i i maintain that it would be absolutely shocking if they traded up, just because it never happens. They haven't done it since 1987, which doesn't matter what past Vikings regimes have done, obviously, but that's just to put it in context. I think you're right, though, that he talked about, I mean, he had a good line that was maybe a little bit of Rick Spielman's shade, that all the seventh round picks

in the world are not going to equate to the value even if even if there's some chart that says it might of of the top pick and of a first round pick so yeah if like Derek Stingley Jr. is falling and you think that the commanders at 11 are probably going to take him you might as well at least call the the jets at 10 or or the seahawks at 9 or whatever it might be and and see what it might take to get that because if it's not if you can do that with like a couple day three picks then maybe um maybe the analytics do say that that's the the correct approach is to go get uh that guy who's going to have a big a big make a big difference difference and fill an important need for you,

which he did address that, yes, they do have needs that they plan on filling. It's not just going to be strictly best player available because they're not going to draft a tackle, like you said, when they already have two in place. Okay, can we debate whether it was shade or not? I don't think it was shade. Maybe it wasn't. I don't think it was.

I mean, I think that when you tweet the quote it seems like shade because like as soon as you mentioned seventh round picks like that was spielman's thing having four or five six or seventh round draft picks but i mean his point is just that like you said like the jimmy johnson chart now the jimmy johnson chart actually overvalues the very top of the draft historically. But that if you have a chart that's telling you how much pick is worth for whatever pick 256 versus pick number one, that even if a team could offer you 30 of those seventh rounders, the chances that any of them turn out are probably less than one first rounder. So when he's talking about trading back, I think his point is just like you have to be careful and this is a mistake that i i think that the vikings did make with spielman that it became kind of like a meme or a joke but you know he'd

be trading back in the middle of the third that's usually the end of where there's good prospects is that middle of the third he'd be trading for the middle of the third out of the third. Like that's the last really horizon of where these guys actually succeed, man. And you're just like taking yourself out of that conversation to even get someone who might be halfway decent there. So you can get more fifths and sixths and sevenths where the odds just plummet after probably the middle of the third

round. And so I don't expect that Kweisi Adafo Mensah will have missed all of that. Here's a question I have for you though, that I think is the fundamental question of this draft. So we know that Kweisi is an incredibly intelligent guy and he's as well researched as anybody you're ever going to run across. He is pressing the analytics people and he's as well-researched as anybody you're ever going to run across. He is pressing the analytics people, and he's gathering his algorithms and all these things. And so this is a big-brained dude. However, one of the things that this team would do in the past is they would acquiesce to their coaches. And it would be like, well, Zimmer wanted this guy, or Andre Patterson wanted that guy. We heard that all the time.

Kennedy Palomalo who was actually great at picking running backs uh but like Kennedy wanted this guy so he stood on the table for him so that's why we picked him I wonder if that's actually going to be different or not you know because they're putting together all their scenarios and they handled free agency like it was very much the coaching staff's free agency and they got what they wanted on the defensive side ed donatel got his players mike pettin got his guy a lot of a lot of people who had connections in the past to the coaching staff right right so is this because quacey would not put it on himself he was like oh well it's not quacey's draft it's the organization's okay i

get that but really whose draft is it because at the end of the day someone has to push the button to make the decision and something that rick spielman was criticized for by people within the team was that he didn't listen to his scouts he didn't listen to the analytics people when they said don't draft this guy or draft that guy but usually you kind of have to be that so i mean is that sort of like passing the buck to, well, it's not my fault if the guy busts or is it like, or, or is it that he's just going to let everybody else kind of make the decision for him? Or is he just sort of saying that? And then he makes the call because honestly, I think somebody has to be the guy in the room who takes responsibility for

the pick. And if you're all, if you're always going to say, well, it was everybody's pick. No, it's your pick. You're the GM. That's why they gave you this job because you are the one in command. And as well read as the man is, I think I want him making these picks and saying, all right, there's a decision between three guys. Quacey, you make the call because you're the guy who's here because you know the most that's why you have the top job yeah no there has to be a balance and it was it was kind of funny that he said like no this isn't this isn't my draft I

don't have any certain stamp on this is our draft like yeah you're gonna you're gonna be the one who ultimately is going to get judged for the success or or failure of these players that get picked and i know there's going to be a lot of collaboration happening with with scouts and with coaches and and with uh your analytics staff and all that but yeah i i think the hope probably for fans is that he's he's saying this and and that there will be a lot of collaboration and that's good and you like like quacey always says you take all of these different um data points and all these different um kind of inputs and you turn it into one one output but he has to be the one to make that choice and he has to be the one to um kind of stand on that whether whether

it works or not um I think there's going to be like the coaching staff and he's he's talked about working uh hand in hand with kevin o'connell and um he praised kevin o'connell for for kind of understanding the personnel side of things and there's going to be input from them uh but at the end of the day you have to take the the player that's gonna fit your scheme but just be the best player and have the most likelihood of turning into a star and um yeah he's gonna going to have to be the one to make that call. And that's what I mean is that ultimately, which is his favorite word, but it's also one of mine, too.

So I can't criticize it. Everybody has one of those words that they use a lot. And I think ultimately is both his and mine. But, you know, at the end of the day, there's another one. Yeah. It's Adam thielen's yes yes yes yes uh we could we could do a whole show on who has the best like crutch word but it's going to be on him like that's who owns the draft that's who the general manager is and

everybody in every front office in the nfl works with lots of other people to gather this information but you have to be the one that makes that call. And, you know, I think that they can drop as many scenarios as they want, but there will always be ones that they don't anticipate of guys who are there. And he's saying, well, you know, the draft was very calm when I was in Cleveland. Like, no, it's not, man. It's usually kind of a mess. Like we know that if you're the gm like there's people making phone calls and there's things flying around and there's trades being done and there's rumors out there and i mean imagine that you're saying oh it's well you know i expect us to have all the answers going

into it and then a dude has a gas mask bong all of a sudden like then what do you do remember lael collins was like a person of interest in a murder all of a sudden like there are things that happen on draft night that are just wild and i guess i'll be interested to see how his comments change through the years and and even through like different times talking with us as he goes along in this job because he seems like a guy who does all the homework and is completely ready for this but there's things that you just can't anticipate um now let me ask you about a different subject entirely because he would not speak on the corners but on the matter of the corners that was i thought

it was a good question of just like well you know what do you think of the corner depth in this draft and will you have opportunities if stingley and sauce gardner are gone like what do you think of the corner depth in this draft? And will you have opportunities? If Stingley and Sauce Gardner are gone, what do you think they'll do? Like McDuffie is the next guy that everybody has on their list. Andrew Booth is a guy from Clemson who's supposed to be like a what? Like lower ceiling, the higher floor type of solid player. Do you think that they would just take a corner there like does do they take a corner that's not named sauce gardener or derrick stingley because i i tend to think that the answer is no but i guess i wonder what you think in the first round specifically in the

first round i guess i i wonder what you think of those other guys i yeah my thinking is that i would be i would be surprised if they took a corner at 12 that isn't one of those two guys, because those seem to be the two that the value is there to take them at 12. There's a high likelihood for both players that they will at the very least be a Trey Waynes level corner who you took at 11 back in 2015 with the chance to be a Xavier Rhodes Rhodes type play I mean he he had a brief prime but he was a very good corner um for a few years there so McDuffie is a really popular pick I've seen in a lot of mock drafts I just you talk about the data stuff and the algorithms and analytics and um all these different variables that you're trying to consider. And he said, like, all things being equal, does this one variable predict different outcomes?

And one of those variables are the measurements and the physical traits. And Trent McDuffie has really short arms. And that's just a thing where you look back historically and you look at all of the cornerbacks who have sub 30 inch arms. And it's like, who's the best? Like Troy Hill for the Rams, maybe the best one out of that group. So there's always outliers with things like physical traits or whatever variable you want to talk about. But more often than not, the NFL is going to be betting on that there's a reason they have the combine and the pro days and they want those numbers like more often than not they're going

to be betting on the it's overused but the Neil Hunter's to the guys with elite physical traits who maybe the production isn't there and there's a lot of things to like from from in Trent McDuffie's game he's extremely extremely intelligent, great instincts, great technique, but at some point, all of that only matters so much when you're facing these freakishly big and fast wide receivers in the NFL. So yeah, to answer your question, I would be surprised if they took McDuffie or anyone else at 12. If they trade back in the first round, that's when I could start to see them. If McDuffie's there, you feel back in the first round, that's when I could start to see them. Like, if McDuffie's there, you feel better about the value there. Similar to last year, like,

I don't know if the Vikings necessarily wanted to take Christian Derrissaw at 14, but at 23, you like that value a lot more. Andrew Booth, Kair Elam from Florida, Kyler Gordon is another Washington corner. There's a lot of corners in that projected top 50 range to the point where if you don't get one of the top two guys, they're not going to feel like they have to kind of reach for one. And I think that's why you needed to re-sign Patrick Peterson and bring in Chandon Sullivan, those aren't stars by any means, but they give you the flexibility to not feel cornered into taking a corner. And this is why you're getting a show here on Purple Insider because of what you just did.

Okay, was there another question to you that stood out that you think that we should answer that he didn't really answer um well another one of the variables that he was asked about was uh in in cleveland there was a recent um kind of graphic or something that was posted where by far they took the youngest players in the draft um and chad graff asked quacey about that and he kind of didn't really answer it I think he kind of alluded to that maybe being a thing that they would prefer if all things are equal would I take the

21 year old or the 23 year old my sense is he'd take the 21 year old but then he was like but there's also things that you don't get with a younger player that you get with an older player he kind of he didn't really answer it which is why we are trying to answer it um so my my thinking is that they would take the younger player just because of the potential for development at at 23 you're usually more of kind of a defined product as a prospect than you might be at 21. And so with a real kind of example of that is like Jermaine Johnson,

the edge rusher from Florida State who transferred from Georgia, Minnesota native, so that would be a cool story. But I believe he's 23, and so I'm thinking I don't know if that's going to be the pick just from the data and analytics perspective and with coming from Cleveland and those past tendencies um I can't think of a younger defensive end off the top of my head where they might take it at 12 instead but um I I would lean towards expecting them to take a younger player like a like a Derek Stingley or somebody like that yeah I would too

and I think that the way he put it was sort of all things being equal so if they have an equal grade on two prospects they'll just take the younger guy yeah you're not taking a younger guy over somebody you have graded much higher just because they're younger but it can be a tiebreaker of sorts I think what the numbers say from you know i read a study that was a little more in depth than what that chart said was that 20 and 21 are okay 22 is probably similar 23 24 is where you should really really be sure that you want to take that guy i mean think of like the brandon whedon's the hayden hurst's the garrett bradbury's like guys who are 24 and up if you're taking them in the first round that's pretty tough because that is a finished product player, and you're not getting a whole lot of development of that guy.

So when you say, well, this is his weakness in college, well, that's going to be his weakness in the NFL. You can't fix it when he's going to be 24 years old. By the way, Football Outsiders just posted the Grinding the Mocs Consensus Moc, which if you follow Benjamin Robinson on Twitter, he will make these charts of all the mocks and where they have different guys and he'll follow their trends, which is hilarious because they'll have been done playing college football so

long ago. And yet they're moving all over the board of their stock rising and falling. And every time it's funny, but he has the Vikings taking Kyle Hamilton in this, that putting together all of the trends and all of the mocks and where they think everyone's value is going to be. He's got Kyle Hamilton. I think that that's something we haven't really talked about is

what would we walk away from saying, wow, I mean, they hit a home run and they just did a great job in this draft. I think, like, for example, when they got Justin Jefferson, I don't know how everybody else felt, but I remember thinking, I can't believe they got Justin Jefferson. I just like this guy absolutely dominated college football, had a 97th percentile athletic score from the combine and they actually landed him in the 20 i mean i and fell because like people thought he might only be able to play in the slot for some reason right and that whole lead up we had talked about and you're not going to be able to replace stefan diggs man i mean it's just going to be hard because i didn't expect that guy to be there um kyle hamilton might be that guy for this draft that if he's there and they take him i think we all go i mean what what a stroke of luck to have this player because of a weird 40

score at his pro day end up falling in your lap but it does seem realistic yeah and i don't pretend to be this this draft expert who grinds all the film and everything but Kyle Hamilton does feel like the perfect example of the prospect fatigue I was talking about because there was there's been a lot of time throughout early in this uh in this draft cycle back in the winter like he was talked about as a top five pick like potentially a top three pick just because he's kind of a a unique player kind of a unicorn of a safety with his size um his speed i think is still kind of a positive trade if you like just his game speed and the way he's able to um id things and then just close and and make plays whether it's against the run or or breaking up a. Some guys, the 40 just isn't great for them for whatever reason,

and that can be different from the actual game speed. So, yeah, I agree. I think if Kyle Hamilton is there at 12, my stance all along has been that you make that pick, and what a perfect scenario for him to come into with Harrison Smith. I mean, being from the same school doesn't really mean anything, but it's kind of a cool little side story if they were to draft Kyle Hamilton. But what a perfect mentor Harrison Smith,

one of the best safeties of the last decade, would be for a young guy playing alongside of him for a couple years, and then eventually the hope would be that Kyle Hamilton becomes that Harrison Smith type player. And Cam Bynum is kind of penciled in as the starter. And I wasn't here last week, but apparently he said he wants to be the greatest football player of all time, which I have to respect that mentality. But he has not. He had two good games last year when Smith was on the COVID list. He is not a guy who you're gonna say well we we're not

drafting a safety because we have camp behind him like um Ed Donatel could find ways to get him onto the field he was a corner in college like you could see give him some reps in the slot in training camp or just play him as like a box defender and or sub packages things like that there are there are ways to make that work that is not prohibitive by any means so I I think Kyle Hamilton would be a guy Kyle Hamilton and and Stingley I've I still Stingley or Gardner those those any of those three defensive backs whether at 12 or with a slight move up I think you come away saying they did really well in the first round so it sort of keeps going through my mind is what would have to happen on draft night for all of us to say nailed it. And for the fans to like,

I think that there's a very large percentage of the fan base who has been frustrated by this off season. And I think you're right. If you're that person to look at this off season and go, how did we help ourselves get closer to a championship in in this offseason and I don't have a good answer for you with the moves that have been made so far I think they got themselves back to where they were last year like at a baseline drafting Kyle Hamilton does not get you closer to a championship like at this moment like if he comes in and plays well next year a safety we've seen this before even the person playing next to harrison smith anthony harris

like that doesn't say championship title you know raise the lombardi but i do think that when you're looking for foundational players who can be stars in the future like that's you either want to come out with a bunch of guys that you traded back for or somebody who you can say that about somebody who could say this is the guy in the future who is going to be talked about as the centerpiece of offense or defense or one of the centerpieces of offense or defense of a great team as you project forward because you don't draft just for this year 2024 is a year where they're going to have a lot of changes on this roster probably the way that they've set up contracts

like by then you want this guy to be foundational piece that you talk about like well look you know this team is revamping a lot of spots but they have Kyle Hamilton Christian Derrissaw Justin Jefferson their first round picks who were home runs. That's what you're hoping for. And I think that you can come away from this draft. It is possible for the fan base to come away from this draft with a player like that, where you would be saying, all right, I don't know how much that changes things today, but I certainly know that this looks like the best possible prospect you could have gotten to be a foundational piece in the future. I think that only about three guys that get mocked to them, and it's Hamilton, Stingley, possible prospect you could have gotten to be a foundational piece in the future like i i think that only about three guys that get mocked to them and it's hamilton stingley and williams and aside

from that then you just want a lot of dudes and then you can have a grand time like oh we had three thirds again remember how much fun that was it didn't matter but it was fun uh but i think they would do a better job than this this This draft is different. If they get thirds in this draft, that to me is way more valuable than thirds last year because there was like half a draft class last year for guys who actually came out. So I don't know. I think that like goals for excitement level for fans should be to land that type of player that you could say you got to steal here. You got somebody who could be a game changer in the future yeah that's interesting that I mean you mentioned this earlier but that you include Jamison Williams in that in that top tier just is that just like the the field stretching ability

that he would bring and I mean he was he was really really good at Alabama there's there's the ACL but um is that you you think that they they might take a receiver like that? I don't know. Yeah, they will. I mean, I think that there's been, you know, a really good argument made for it by me. Yeah. And I had the same. I had the situation.

We were doing a mock draft with all of the SI team sites and all those top defensive backs were gone and i was there at 12 and i took williams as well just because i think like yeah the the upside of uh of what he can bring and i it was we were supposed to do what do you think the team will pick not what do you want to pick it kind of matched up for me but i do think with kevin o'connell uh being right there side by side in this whole process and having input, his presence is a reason that receiver would not be surprising. Because that would be a very forward-thinking offensive move that Adam Thielen's getting up there in age a little bit. Yeah, we have some depth with K.J. Osborne and Amir Smith-Marsad and BC Johnson but are any of those guys ever going to be like a true number two at least or a number one definitely not but so you

take another guy with with the potential to be a number one and pair those two and we haven't really gotten into the the topic that comes up every time you talk about the Vikings yet but if they do eventually get that quarterback sometime in the future, that is going to be the number one difference maker for getting closer to a championship, putting them in the best situation possible. And also, I mean, for right now, giving Kirk the most weapons possible, that adding a receiver could make a lot of sense. Right. The case that's just the most compelling to me is the wide receiver, but most specifically Jamison Williams. Yeah. Because I just think he's a better prospect than the other guys. Yeah.

Garrett Wilson, Ohio State, is pretty dang good. I mean, there's a lot of them, but I think Williams might just have something special over those. Yeah. When you match up, up like the physical traits that he has the even just height and weight like Garrett Wilson is pretty undersized and you know I don't know how much there is to that there have been undersized guys who have success but Williams is just a different speed and that's what I always look for now you know I'm not a scout I read a

lot of very smart people on these guys and i watch a lot of the film breakdowns and everything else to try to get expert analysis and the one thing everybody keeps coming back to with him is just that he has a jet pack on his back and that to me usually is pretty good like in terms of correlating to success and even the low end of the guy is still, you can use him for something special, play this playmaking ability. I don't know if he's going to be there because now there's the buzz that he could be a top 10 pick and the same with Stingley.

So it's like these guys who maybe smoke screens were trying to get to drop. But I do think that the most compelling argument for them short and long term is to take a wide receiver it's just if it's not him the drop off i think is serious enough to where maybe you'd look a little you'd try to trade back a few spots but all i know all i know is if they take drake london from usc the uh the treadwell comparisons made on twitter are going to be uh exhausting and also potentially not completely unfair because he's like he's that big that big mold who maybe will struggle to separate which I think is the most important trait just

having watched Justin Jefferson over the last few years I think you have to be able to to separate and that's something that Williams and and maybe the Ohio State guys as well can do at a really high level that maybe Drake London will be a great, but that is not the pick that I would make. Not running the 40 is pretty concerning to me. Yeah. I mean, why wouldn't you do it unless you knew you were going to run a 4-7 or something, right? I mean, I don't know. But that might be us overthinking it as well.

So let's talk real quick about the quarterback and the fact that nobody had the heart after that, deep into that press conference to ask Kwesi about the quarterback since we had already been shot down on almost everything else. But, I mean, we're kind of at that point where it's like we've talked about every possible option, who we like the most, like what more is to be said about this quarterback class that's not particularly good but answer it as if you were quasi telling the truth okay if i asked you uh hey will adafo mensa like what do you think of you know picking a quarterback in the first or second round of this draft especially when these guys have been

talked about as maybe not being like sure thing prospects and you're you're doing it truth serum quasi yeah truth serum quasi I would say well you know we've done a lot of work on these quarterbacks because this is going back to what he told us at at the combine that he he liked the quarterback class I don't know if how much of truth serum quasi that actually was. But I think it's something you always have to consider, and this is me being Kweisi again, that that's the most important position in football. We have a guy who is a very good quarterback,

but who is also making a very large amount of money, which may be a problem when we have to pay Justin Jefferson nearly as much money, maybe not quite as much, but almost, in a couple years. So we always are going to be looking long-term, and our time horizons, which is one of his favorite things to say. I'm glad you worked that in there. Our time horizons, we're always going to be exploring the quarterback position, and all these quarterbacks actually suck, and we're always going to be exploring uh the quarterback position and uh all these quarterbacks actually suck and uh we're gonna wait till next year

uh yeah you know i know but but seriously i mean if it's an interesting question like it if malik willis is there at 12 do you take the swing and take him, or do you hold the Steelers and pit all those teams behind you in a bidding war to get a bunch of value for moving back? Because I think somebody would probably come up and get Malik Willis if he's there, or maybe even Kenny Pickett or whatever. Teams are going to get desperate with the quarterbacks, because if you don't have one, and the Vikings Vikings for all we say about Kirk Cousins they have they have a starting quarterback who they like and feel good about and um is a is a highly productive player in the NFL they're going to be teams that might might get desperate so it's a very and even like Desmond Ritter in the second I don't think he's going to be there but or or Carson Strong or like would they would they sacrifice the immediate benefit of taking someone who can contribute right away for for kind of the the wild card like lottery ticket? I'm not sure. I think truth serum quasi would tell you that his scouts are telling me do not draft these quarterbacks like that.

Nobody there. Now, maybe Willis and Rick Spielman, of all people. He's come out and been on tick tock talking about how much he loves Malik Willis uh and Rick Spielman of all people uh he's come out and been on TikTok talking about how much he loves Malik Willis I mean it's all just too rich right it's all just too good but Rick Spielman is a scout and he knows how to scout football players scout traits what they do well what the pitfalls might be like he knows that I've never doubted that he really knows how to be a scout in the NFL some of the value decisions not great Chris Herndon but I do think that there's probably a lot of people looking at Malik Willis and saying you have to pick a guy with that kind of arm and you have to pick a guy with that type of speed because even the low end

of that player might be a guy who's dynamic in the running game and still hits on big plays like what if he's like kyler murray in that way that nfl kyler murray who is a much better prospect than malik willis but nfl kyler murray is boom or bust or run like bad bad throws underneath and short great throws deep run run run run run and he's won a lot of football games doing that and maybe if they had slightly better coaching or slightly better roster like that team could have competed for a Super Bowl last year they won what 11 games so like you're right there with that type of quarterback and if you see that you know I think there is maybe a case for it but if it's not Malik

Willis I feel like the scouts are probably saying I think you just want to wait until next year because there's all these other guys. It's just that there's a lot of teams waiting till next year. And you're not likely with Kirk Cousins to be picking in the top 10 to have a chance to do that. So that could that could go back to what I was saying earlier about if you can get a team convinced in Malik Willis, who this may be a moot point because he might go like second to the Lions or six to the Panthers or whatever it might be. But if you can get a team convinced that Desmond Ritter or Kenny Pickett is the guy and you can get them to maybe give you a first round pick next year, that pick could be higher than where the Vikings' first-round pick is going to be. So that could be the avenue that opens you up to getting in the mix for those 2023 quarterbacks. And I guess that's what makes this compelling this year is just the number of options that are on the plate.

In past years, there weren't that many. It's like the Jefferson draft, I mean, they get a transformational player, but we all knew they were going to take a wide receiver and a cornerback in the first round, and they took a wide receiver and a cornerback in the first round. And they took a wide receiver and a cornerback in the first round. I don't know what they're going to do this year. We truly don't know, which is fun. We've made the argument for everything.

So the only thing I was going to add is that I do wonder if they were in the second round or if we got to the 30th pick and say three of the quarterbacks hadn't gone yet, if they would consider getting one, I always think swings at that position are a smart play. That if that guy hits, it's more important than anything else in your organization. So that is worth it. I don't think because of the collaborative nature of this whole thing, I don't think they're going to do that. I think they're going to want players now who can help them. And I also think that their scouts and coaching staff is probably saying, get me next year's quarterbacks and not these guys. But what that means to me though, is if they pass on them and those guys become good or their teams

win, then we get to do the hindsight thing. Just like we do with Mac Jones. We get to go back and say, you could have seen this coming. You could have seen this coming that you wouldn't be able to properly project this because the NFL has been bad at it. So that will be an interesting hindsight thing to do. That's the best thing that we get to do is we get to do the hindsight analysis so we don't have to take the blame for terrible picks. But what I always try to do, though, is everything is about picking the best path when we

come up with opinions. What's the best path? And sometimes, something wasn't the best path. Like, a few years ago, I didn't know Antonio Brown was a psycho. And I thought, man, if the Vikings got Antonio Brown, who won the Super Bowl, by the way, as a wide receiver three, so let's not forget

that. If they got Antonio Brown to go with Diggs and Thielen, my gosh, it would be nuts. And, you know, he worked out to be nuts. Crazy person. So maybe that wasn't the best take, but at least there was the logic there of the best path. And so that's what we come up with here. Like all five quarterbacks might just bust. They might be horrible. But what are the odds of that?

Like not super high so if what if they pass on all of them and one makes it well that's a swing that you didn't take so that's my point but anyway um so there's a difference between like hindsight and yes you could have seen this come yeah uh but why don't why don't we do this though before we wrap with you why don't you put it on record? Who do you think the Vikings will pick? All right. Ooh, putting me on the spot here. Well, you haven't thought about it.

I've been thinking about it a lot. I haven't had one in my head. I think I'll go Kyle Hamilton. I just think it might be overthinking, and he might not actually have any realistic chance of getting past that 6-11 range. But based on what we know right now, I don't think either of the corners, Stingley or Gardner, are going to be there. I think Kyle Hamilton, with the 40 time, there's a real chance that the NFL has questions about that. There's a real chance that they have questions just about the,

the value of safeties and that he gets to 12 and he's there. And the, the scouts are, are talking to Casey and saying like, this guy is kind of a rare prospect at this position who could be a, a long-term kind of foundational piece of the defense so I will they my confidence in that actual pick is like 10 or something but based on what we've what we've got right now that's what I'm gonna go with

well your guess is as good as mine yeah This isn't the final show before the draft. I guess I'll put it on record, even though I've sort of said, like, these are the three guys that if they take will be great. But I'm still leaning toward the trade down thing. And then I have no idea who they take. Andrew Booth Jr. The biggest cop out that I could possibly make. Yeah. So.

All right. Well, thanks for your time, Will, as always. And people can look forward to next week will be the first. What are we going to call it? Like, I know I haven't I've thought about that. I haven't come up with anything good yet, but we'll keep workshopping that. I have something that's not appropriate to say, so I'll just pass on that. But we'll we'll come up with a fun name.

People should tweet us with like fun names for Will for his show. But I'm looking forward to what you come up with, and we'll talk again soon, man. Yeah, sounds good. I'm excited.