Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Can the Vikings take anything from the Rams? Looking at the best fits for quarterbacks on the trade market

Episode Date: February 15, 2022

Matthew Coller checks in from jury duty with Sam Ekstrom, who gets to react to what he saw in the Super Bowl. They talk more in depth about how the Rams force fed the ball to Cooper Kupp in the biggest moments and built a complete team, including an excellent offensive line. How will Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O'Connell follow that path? Plus Matthew makes a list of all the teams that need quarterbacks and they look at who might be the best fits. What's the timeline for the Vikings making moves? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to the Purple Insider episode where I do a Matthew Collar impression, and Matthew Collar is at a courthouse. My name's Sam Ekstrom, filling in while Matthew joins us. Where are you exactly, Matthew Collar? Yeah, I am in the Hennepin County Courthouse, not because of anything that I did, but as I previously mentioned, I got called in for jury duty, and it turns out that jury duty is kind of a big deal. I was hoping that I would sort of show up and then I would tell them that I'm a celebrity who has to be other places here and has to cover a Kevin O'Connell press conference. And they would be like, oh, wait, dude, you are a podcaster. Please go. This is not for you. The law,

people's lives at stake. No, no, no. Your show is way more important. So you go. No, instead, it doesn't exactly work that way. So I'm on a lunch break right now and waiting to go back upstairs and then be led into the courtroom, debriefed by a judge. All these like things that are law and ordery are what I'm actually going to be doing. So I'm not 100% sure how this is going to play out, how this case, if I get selected to be on the jury is going to go, what type of time commitment that's going to be, you know, I will still do the show, obviously, but I might have to actually miss

Kevin O'Connell's press conference if I'm selected for this jury and have to be, you know, like deciding someone's fate as opposed to, you know, being there. So it might be just you. And then we talk about it later. I'm not going to be away from the show. It's not like they're sequestering me, but it's already quite an experience. Yeah. I mean, it might be the case of the century that you're on here. I assume you can't share details with us maybe until after the fact or at all. I don't know what kind of secrecy laws you're bound to, but bad break on your part, getting selected day one.

I mean, from what I know about jury duty, it's usually like the better chance that you don't even go at all. But what we'll make do, you'll make do and do your civic duty as well. There was a game yesterday, the Super Bowl, actually, and I think we need to react a little bit to it. Rams win 23 to 20. I would have won my bet on the Bengals because I thought they were the better play there. They did cover, but they lose the game. I was going for Cincinnati, to be honest with you, but I feel good for Matthew Stafford, the Rams, a lot of likable players on that team. And the Vikings fans don't, I think, have to regret hiring Kevin O'Connell after his performance either, which was, I think, hit or miss. But let's get your reaction to the result yesterday. fans can spin things to make themselves even more sad as if they need help with that like i tweeted out right after the game like hey vikings fans your head coach is showing up with the superbowl

ring like i mean you can't be super mad about that but oh no some people were uh he didn't call the plays hopefully he doesn't bring those second down runs from Sean McVay with him. I mean, Mike Zimmer had a ring as an assistant coach, too, which I believe he was a defensive backs coach when they won in Dallas, which is maybe a little bit different than being the offensive coordinator. I don't know. But the whole he didn't call plays thing continues to exist. And I guess until Kevin O'Connell actually raises a Lombardi trophy of his own, we'll still hear about how he didn't call plays for the Los Angeles Rams Super Bowl win. But, you know, I thought that the main thing I took away from the Super Bowl,

and maybe we just underestimate sometimes is how many good players at once on one football team it takes to even be there and also how many things that have to go right in order to be there and you know I was comparing the Vikings roster for what they have going forward not what they had last year but what they have going forward to the Rams roster and where they stand and how much room they need to make up in order to have a roster that could win the Superbowl. And, you know, you think about even some of the depth that the Rams had, like they lost Odell Beckham. They lost in the first or second quarter early in the game. And, you know, so they're basically down to one wide receiver. They're onto their third tight end. None of their running backs are any good. I mean, they're having to find lots of different ways to create something there. And they needed a lot of

different defensive players to show up. They needed a middle linebacker who's kind of a no-name guy to make some plays. They needed, you know, other cornerbacks aside from Jalen Ramsey, who didn't have the best game, but they needed other quarterback corners to step up in that game as well. And it really kind of goes back to that whole thing where we look for lots of different ways to, you know, cut it up and say, well, you know, Superbowl teams have this. And if, and this team did that, and that's how they won the Super Bowl, which, you know, we're all going to do. But at the end of the year and a team's got the trophy, usually what you can look at is that they needed a lot of really good performances out of a lot of really good players. And, you know, it might be as simple as when we connected to the Vikings as saying they have to stack good players because right now they only have a couple and some of them are you know on sort of the hot seat for players if you will because of their

contracts like Daniil Hunter as we've talked about and so there's there's so much work to do here for Kwezi Adafo Mensah and Kevin O'Connell to build this team to be on equal footing with the Rams you know I think that last year there was a lot of that. Well, you know, they're close with this team, close with that team. They were one score away from this team or that team. But then when you add it all up, you know, the Rams scored a lot more points and allowed a lot fewer points than the Vikings. And so, you know, I, I think that there's,

there's some big gaps there between the Vikings and the teams that were actually, you know actually winners here. And Cincinnati has a very good overall team, too. But even the team with just that one problem they had, the offensive line, it ends up getting them at the end. Usually, if you have some glaring weakness, it's going to keep you from winning the Super Bowl. So how do you build a complete team, not just, hey, you got to get this quarterback or whatever? You know, that's obviously true. If you can get Patrick Mahomes, then a lot of things are smoothed over. But usually you can't. So I guess that's what I what I came away with.

Sam is just looking at the completion of that roster and how good it was and how many players that they drafted late rounds that end up playing key roles, and Eric Weddle randomly shows up and tears his peck and keeps playing through the Super Bowl. I mean, how crazy was that? So usually it takes so many things and so many people to get there that you can see why even a lot of the great quarterbacks did not win all that many Super Bowls because of how difficult it is to actually make that happen. Yeah. And you know, it still came down though, to the best players on the field making big plays. And while you need depth, you also need a few stars to sort

of carry the way. And it was Donald who each of the last couple of weeks, you know, made huge plays at the very end to win it defensively. They needed Cooper Cup to step up throughout the playoffs with huge plays, whether it be the Bucks game, the 49ers game or the Super Bowl. And the piece the Vikings have that's closest to one of those stars is Justin Jefferson. Do you think that Justin Jefferson is a more talented receiver than Cooper Cup or is Cooper Cup like set an entirely new bar with the season that he had? And I guess the question would be if given the same amount of opportunity that Cooper Cup has, would Justin Jefferson deliver even better results or the same or not as good? Yeah, I don't know if it's possible to deliver better results than what Cooper Cup did.

The thing that is always and true forever about wide receivers is getting open and making plays with the football, right? I mean, we look at these scouting reports, and as we go into draft season, you know, you and I have so much fun with them of oily hips and burst and quick twitch and all these ridiculous terms that you hear. And, you know, you'll, you'll see all these breakdowns of wide receivers of all the details of different things they do. But usually what it comes down to is the guys who find a way to get open and the guys who

make plays and, you know, Cooper cup and Justin Jefferson are one in the same there. I think cup is a little more shifty than Justin Jefferson. I think Jefferson's maybe a little more explosive with the ball in his hands. But I mean, very similar as in an upper echelon, truly elite wide receiver that you can build your entire offense around. And I mean, the thing about Jefferson that's so hard to and tell me what you think of this that's so hard to kind of deal with is it's not like he was 25th in targets this year. I think he was like fourth. I mean, so he got a ton of targets, but yet it was still like 40 behind where Cooper Cup was. And you felt like there was so much still left on the table. And even with the Rams in the Superbowl, they ran too often. And it felt like McVay was kind of choking at one point and not getting the ball enough to

Cooper cup. And then eventually they decide to lean heavy on him on the final drive. And that's how they win the game. But they were very Vikings-y actually in their approach yesterday. So I guess there are times where I can't exactly figure out why it was that Jefferson added up to so many targets to have such impressive numbers, but at the same time, why we all felt like, gosh, there was a lot that was left on the table there. And I think that that's something that Kevin O'Connell kind of has to figure out. I mean, game situation is part of this. You know, they played in a lot of close games. They played from behind quite a bit where they had to,

you know, throw toward the second half of games and things like that. They didn't seem to let Justin Jefferson set the tone of their offense and run away from people. It was kind of like there were times where they would get ahead and then they wouldn't continue to lean on Jefferson and they would get a little bit conservative and a little bit tight. Yeah, I guess I guess I felt like the timing of Jefferson's targets was not the same as what it was for Cooper Cup, which was it's always Cooper Cup time. brings that same sort of mentality to Justin Jefferson that he's going to put up similar numbers because I think in terms of talent they're either equal or Justin Jefferson has a slight edge there yeah it seemed like Jefferson was often used as a high-end offensive compliment whereas Cooper Cup is the offense he's the fuel behind it whereas I think the Vikings run first approach Dalvin Cook was the engine.

And then Justin Jefferson was used as like the rocket booster that would kick in when they needed him. Like if they were behind in a game, he would log a lot of those targets late sort of to play catch up. But he was rarely established out of the gate where it felt like, oh, this is one of those 250 yard days from Justin Jefferson, where he's going to threaten like the Vikings record just didn't have a lot of that this season.

I think he's probably a little bit of a better downfield threat than Cooper Cup, but Cooper Cup is like the ultimate intermediate receiver. And I think the ways they use him sometimes on those intermediates, like his second, well, the Rams second touchdown, his first touchdown was a very Jeffersonian route, like that cross field, you know, catch it in the corner of the end zone. And Jefferson feasts on those kind of crossers. Like, I think they can, they can incorporate a lot of the same things that they do with Cup with Jefferson. If O'Connell brings those concepts over and I think he'll be excellent at it. So I think that certainly if you look at it through the lens of let's make Justin Jefferson into Cooper Cup, you can probably get pretty close to that. If you surround that offense with a little bit of protection, obviously, and a few more weapons to distract,

right? Like Justin Jefferson, or I'm sorry, Cooper Cup is as elite as he is because the Rams just have so much around him. You mentioned the depth, like tight end, they just keep rolling out effective pass catchers. They've got running backs that can catch the ball. They've got other wide receivers that are really good. So Cooper cup rarely demands all of your attention. And the Vikings have always kind of had, you know, a one and a two and, and not a whole lot else for defenses to be distracted by. So I think that's going to be, well, and I think that go ahead. Sorry. I was just, I was just gonna say, and I think that the Rams really showed you how necessary that depth is that like when they got down two wide receivers with Robert Woods already out and then Beckham goes down and their offense hit the skids

at times because of this but Van Jefferson is the next guy up and I mean Van Jefferson's a good player right I mean he had I think what 50 catches this year like that's down to your fourth wide receiver and yet it's still not a guy that you think is a complete joke they really had to get down to and i'm not i don't even remember the guy's name their fifth wide receiver before you didn't have much confidence that that guy could really make plays and their third tight end was still able to make plays and even though they didn't have success on the ground they still added another running back uh along the way it was like we just can't have enough playmakers. So acres comes off the injury list, Sony, Michelle, they didn't play well in this particular game, but if we're trying to like glean what the Rams did on offense to create an offense that there was this successful

and that could survive when things went wrong. I think that that's it. And also I really want to know when it comes to crazy Adolfo Mensah and Kevin O'Connell, like their opinion on how to build this offensive line, because you think about their backgrounds now. I mean, O'Connell is coming from a team that's offensive line gave Matt Stafford three seconds to throw in the second half where it was pin your ears back time for Cincinnati. And yet he was standing back there. I saw the stat somewhere for almost three seconds, which is really remarkable. I mean, I think a lot of quarterbacks with that much time to throw would be able to do, you know, not all the same things.

Stafford made some ridiculous throws, but like having time to go through your reads and make plays. That's that's something that, you know, Kirk Cousins hasn't had. And Adolfo Mensah coming from San Francisco and Cleveland, like those are two teams that built around the offensive line as well. So as we try to apply these things, the team that won the Superbowl, what did they do? What can you take? Well, you know, I think a lot of people will take sort of the defensive line, which I think is, is right, but it's hard to get Aaron Donald. I think the all in nature,

there will be a lot of teams that look around and say, Hey, maybe that could be us. Maybe we're that quarterback away, which we'll get to very shortly. but i think if you're the vikings you've got to say you have two good tackles maybe a guy at guard in ezra cleveland who's okay how do you fill these other positions so whoever is playing quarterback for you in key moments is standing back there with time to throw can step up in a clean pocket and make a play to these elite wide receivers. I want to circle back as we kind of put a wrap on the Superbowl talk. Number one, what was your favorite commercial? I thought the Larry David was great. And they even have an

extended cut of that commercial on YouTube. That's even better. That was my favorite. What was yours? I'm going to say it was the, not the electronic dog that jumped off the roof or whatever, but the electronic dog that was like playing in a band and then almost got crushed. And then he got his electricity back. I thought that was pretty good. I mean, I don't think I'm as good of an evaluator of commercials maybe as football. So I can't really say a hundred percent for sure which one, I mean, I watched them, but I kind of like, I agree with you. The Larry David was pretty funny. I don't really understand what Bitcoin is or how it works to be able to say whether the commercial is weird or not. But I mean, I thought it was hilarious. Yeah. I missed a lot of them.

Cause I was traveling back from Alaska, which is kind of wild, but the, um, I watched a mashup of them on YouTube today and I thought that it was a lot of six out of 10 effort overall in the Superbowl ads. Secondly, circling back to a couple of the props we talked about with Andrew, um, wasn't one of them like over two and a half people throwing a pass? And then the answer was like five people, I think, threw a pass? Yes. Yes, it was. It was over under two and a half. Did five people? Oh, yeah, that's right. Because the holder for the Rams ended up throwing a pass. And I think they mentioned that Joe Mixon had never thrown a pass in a game

or maybe threw one in college the entire time. I mean mean you know I really thought that under the category of like galaxy braining yourself and that kind of thing that trying to throw a pass to Matt Stafford was like a little much for me that was I was like okay I understand a running back pass at the goal line I do not understand a pass on what was it third down yes to a quarterback like okay that's a little much don't you think i mean isn't it amazing like how sean sean mcveigh is obviously the best of the best when it comes to coaches and yet still will have these moments

where you just go what like why and the timeouts against san francisco maybe that is maybe that should just tell you that as ke O'Connell takes over as the head coach, we need ways to objectively evaluate the things that he does. Like we had those numbers with Mike Zimmer that evaluated his in-game decisions from that sports analytics company, which by the way, I saw the final rankings had him 29th. So not particularly great there. But we need ways to evaluate these things where we can criticize, but also not lose

our minds. Because if Sean McVay can make some of these goofball mistakes, it pretty much can happen to anybody. Yeah, it seems like the thing that we get caught up with most is often like run pass ratio, like you ran it too much now you didn't run it enough because the run was working and I think we all agree that there's a place for running the ball and that sometimes like you know Mike Zimmer believed that you should run the ball into a wall just for the sake of it like because it helped with play action or it helped with you know put

defensive linemen on the ground and make them work hard and stuff like that. And that was probably too far. And then there's probably, you know, looking too far in the other direction as well. Sean McVay, oddly, last night was a little bit of, you know, the Mike Zimmer. Like, let's just keep running the ball and trying it out. And even though it's not working, we're going to continue attempting this because because I've got cam acres like over 15 and a half carries or something but um I I think that what you realize when you watch these great coaches is you almost always walk away questioning something so you you're not going to have a lot of perfect games it just it's not going to happen but can you can you pitch seven strong innings um

can you give up only a few hits like there's going to be errors but how you, can you pitch seven strong innings? Um, can you give up only a few hits? Like there's going to be errors, but how cataclysmic are they? How frequent are they? Are they at, you know, the most, uh, the craziest junctures of the game? Are they the kind of mistakes that, you know, are only hindsight mistakes? I think that there are a lot of questions we have to ask ourselves in the way that we're looking at it and you're right like it's hard to come up with real criteria for it um but as we see sort of this staff now rounding into place for the Vikings are there any any does anything catch your eye I mean Keenan McCardell um staying in place is probably pretty big and I'm surprised that he's the only one staying to be honest but I think he's the right person like if would have said, is there one coach you'd like to keep?

I probably would have said Keenan McCardell. Hey, everybody. I've been making my meals from HelloFresh, and I have to tell you, I cannot make enough of these things. And if I can make them, literally anyone can. With HelloFresh, you get farm-f fresh, pre-portioned ingredients, seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. Skip the trips to the grocery store. Count on HelloFresh to make home cooking easy and affordable. That's why it's America's number one meal kit. One of the nice things for me as I'm grinding the football tape is that HelloFresh cuts back on the time

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HelloFresh.com. That's HelloFresh.com slash Insider16. HelloFresh.com slash Insider16. Use the code Insider16 for up to 16 meals for free and three free gifts. HelloFresh, America's number one meal kit. Yeah, I totally agree. My thought was that Kevin O'Connell should text Justin Jefferson and say, you like McArdle? If the answer is yeah, then he stays. I mean, whatever Justin Jefferson is most comfortable with is what you want. And it seemed like those two had some pretty instant chemistry from last year. Now, I don't like to attribute the success or failure of players to an assistant coach. I know for years, people have done that with Andre Patterson. He developed Neil Hunter. He developed Everson Griffin. And then the other people would come back with Wright,

but he also developed Jaleel Johnson and developed Jalen Holmes. Like, look, I mean, it's usually the talent of the player. But the one thing that Andre Patterson always had was a relationship with those players. And we could say the same thing for Kennedy Palomalo the Vikings former running backs coach is that he always seemed to have a good eye for what worked and including even you know Kenny Wong where I think that the Vikings talked about Palomalo really loving Kenny Wong and here he he is, somebody that could see a rise next year under Kevin O'Connell. But I think that it's important to find someone that has that relationship that can kind of act as a buffer between the head coach and the player, because it's going to be hard sometimes. I mean, there's going to be moments where the head coach is on everybody's, you know, what list or that, I mean, even the nicest coaches are going to have to lay down

hard sometimes on players. And I think that you need somebody that has a good relationship with the player to kind of soften the blow, even if it's Justin Jefferson and think about last year, how much, you know, kind of trepidation there was with the wide receivers. There was one week where mysteriously Adam Thielen and Justin Jefferson didn't practice, even though we didn't really see any injuries that happened to them. There was Adam Thielen's agent tweeting things out that made it seem like Thielen was very unhappy. There was Jefferson making comments about how they weren't aggressive enough in the red zone. There was a lot that was going on of frustration with the wide receivers. And McCardle is a guy who's been through it all. I mean, he was what,

like a ninth round pick or something. I think a draft pick that doesn't even exist anymore and fought his way up to stardom with the Jacksonville Jaguars. And then his sense become a pretty respected coach. I think that that is, is pretty important. Like, does it fit? Does the guy fit with what you want to do as a scheme and all those types of things? Does he understand what the offense is going to require? And then can he be there to just work hand in hand with your best players? I mean, that's kind of like, I think that those jobs, that's the underrated part of it is just being able to form that relationship. So I think it's a good idea of all the coaches.

If you told me that they were going to keep just one and said, you could pick just one Keenan McArdle would have been that guy. Okay. So pivoting to, I think a bigger conversation that, um, is going to only heat up now that the super bowl's over the quarterback carousel. And we had, I would say three major leaks over the weekend. And we've talked about leaks and the validity of leaks and how they usually have a purpose to serve. There's an agenda behind them. So they're not necessarily fact, but those leaks in, in short are Carson Wentz out Aaron Rogers back, Kurt cousins back. Um, we've heard the cousins refrain now a few times, and I think we're both on record saying

that we question it, and we question whether it's legit. Aaron Rodgers, you know, allegedly going back to Green Bay, or at least Green Bay, interested in, like, messing up their salary cap just to keep them around. That's pretty interesting, And I think Carson Wentz being out is not surprising in the least to, to anybody. But that's just the tip of the iceberg, Matthew. I mean, there's, there's Derek Carr, there's Russell Wilson. You know, there's a number of teams that I think stand to gain from improving their, their quarterback circumstance. So this could be one of those, the craziest quarterback carousel off seasons of all time. If everybody sort of ends up moving that we expect to move, what's your gut telling you on this Valentine's Day?

Kind of where are we going to be at one month from now when free agency starts? Well, I guess on this Valentine's Day, I'd love to give a big smooch to the nfl off season uh because it's just it never stops right i mean we do this show 365 days a year because of stuff like this i mean i was so i'm working on a piece right now just laying out all the quarterbacks that could leave all the teams that are going to need quarterbacks and i have a list i want to ask you who some of the best fits are uh with certain teams but i also want to bring up a couple of different things one carson wentz is a great example of the team that

went all in that had a really good roster does this sound very familiar? All they needed was a much maligned quarterback who had sort of run his course with a previous team, but it had some success in the past that he was the final piece talking about Carson Wentz was the final piece to Indianapolis. And they could be a legit Superbowl contender. If Carson Wentz can just be good again. And, you know, Carson Wentz overall was pretty Carson Wentzy. I mean, he was mostly average. It doesn't look like he's ever going to repeat what he did in that MVP-esque type of season in 2017 with an unbelievable Philadelphia roster.

And I think it's a good example of how you're going to hear every NFL team talk about how the Rams went all in with Stafford and they're going to ignore a lot of the other all in times that teams either signed quarterbacks to big contracts, kept their own quarterbacks to big contracts, or, you know, traded for somebody that was supposed to be the thing that got them over the top. Sam Darnold was supposed to be the guy that, well, you know, he just had this bad team with the Jets. Like, didn't we hear that about Stafford? Just had this bad team with the Lions, just had this bad team with the Jets. So he'll just come to Carolina and change their lives. And it didn't happen. About the insider reports, Andrew Brandt on Twitter, he used to do the salary cap for the Packers. He is so good at kind of cutting through

the NFL team BS. And he tweeted out that he said, it's easy for the Packers to say, we want Rogers back. It's different for them to say, we're not trading Rogers. And I think that's the distinction between Kirk Cousins and the situation now that all of the reports have said they like Kirk Cousins. They have not said we will not be trading Kirk Cousins. Don't call us. No phone calls. We're unplugging our phones. They haven't said that through the insiders. They've only said that they like them. And I think that that's a really key distinction. I think that out of those three quarterbacks, all three of them are going to find new homes.

And we've talked and we'll continue to talk about the situation with Kirk Cousins. But I think Rodgers is gone. And I think, I mean, Wentz seems like a foregone conclusion. But I don't know how you feel right now. I look at their salary cap and they're $50 million over the cap. How exactly are they supposed to put together a great team if half of their good players from this last year have to go and then rogers comes back with half a team i just don't see how that's supposed to work right it sounds like they are willing to restructure every contract

and use void years and use um cash over cap finagling and just make this thing miserable down the road for short term gain, kind of like the Saints opted to do with Drew Brees for so many years. But here's their 2022 cap situation. Rodgers is you think the Cousins number is bad. Rodgers is 46 million plus. Now it's Rodgers. So it's a little less egregious to have a number that big, but you can't sustain that. Zedarius Smith, 27. David Bakhtiari, 22. Kenny Clark, 20. Preston Smith, 19. Jair Alexander, 13. Adrian Amos, 11. Randall Cobb, almost 10, Billy Turner, nine, Aaron Jones, nine. That is one of the top heaviest salary tables I've ever seen in my life. And they could, they could make it worse, like down the road. If they wanted to, they could kick a lot of that money into 2023, 24, and they could

really mess themselves up. Now, if they chase a Super Bowl in 2022, I'm sure they could make it work. All of these numbers are kind of flexible, malleable, fake numbers that it's all monopoly money when you're dealing with the salary cap. I believe that they could find a way to make most of it work, probably losing one or two guys, and then you kind of have a thin bottom of it work, probably losing one or two guys. And then you kind of have a thin bottom of your roster, but you have Aaron Rodgers. So that in theory can make up for it. But also Matthew, that doesn't account for Devante Adams. Devante Adams is the biggest weapon that Aaron Rodgers has, and he's not part of this mix right now. So I'm not, so I, you

probably have to sacrifice somebody big if you want to sign Devante Adams back. Do you not? Yeah. And there's a kind of a key point within this is, you know, does Devante Adams want to keep playing this game? I mean, because if he signed somewhere else, there are teams with 30, 40, $50 million in salary cap space that could make Devontae Adams the highest paid wide receiver in the NFL and give him a five-year contract. I mean, he's already doing well for himself. He's not struggling, but you're talking about life-altering, historic, generational money for Devontae Adams. Is he going to pass that up to come back to the Packers where it's a year-to-year type of thing?

Is he going to sign a five-year contract with the Packers that maybe is not advantageous to him or where he has to take less in order to play one of those years with Aaron Rodgers or maybe two if Rodgers wants to come back for two seasons? And how about some of these other guys? Like Zedarius Smith is a great player. He has absolutely mauled the Minnesota Vikings.

Does he want to be released and hit free agency and make 20 mil a year for being a great player? Or does he want to have his contract restructured and everything else? I think what we really saw this with the Vikings, where, you know, when they had a chance to win the Super Bowl, players did pretty favorable contracts for the team Daniel Hunter is the best example but even Stefan Diggs Eric Hendricks like they were willing to come back Anthony Barr took less money to come back and then all of a sudden when they weren't quite as good everyone kind of looked around and said all right every man for himself and they started holding the team kind of hostage for money. I mean, we saw this

with Kyle Rudolph. We saw it with Delvin Cook, like everybody kind of pushing them to their max of, of negotiation rather than just saying, no, we're good to go because we can win the Super Bowl. And I think that, you know, with the Packers having such a great team last year overall, and still not being able to get where they wanted to go and failing in the playoffs, I kind of have that feeling that that was their last real chance with a lot of these players who might not want to sign these deals. I could be wrong, but that's how it feels. It just feels like there's no way they can keep a roster as strong as it was last year. And they were a good team. They were not an unbelievable team, as we saw.

They were failable. And so now they're going to get worse. I mean, I'm sure that the team would love to find a way to bring back Aaron Rodgers, but if his price isn't going anywhere, if he's not doing a Brady where his cap hit goes from 46 or whatever to 12, I mean, I just don't see any way that that happens. And if also if you're the Packers too,

you can keep a lot of your team together with Jordan Love as your quarterback, or you can acquire another quarterback. and saying, well, look, if one guy goes, then the next guy comes up, which is what I wanted to ask you about with Kyler Murray rumors that are now out there. And it seems like Arizona is not going to trade Kyler Murray, but suddenly his character has come under attack, which I think is maybe really interesting timing as he's going to be looking for a new contract soon, right? All of a sudden, oh, he's a bad teammate, everything else. But, you know, it's very mysterious timing with Kyler Murray. And it does make you really question some people who work for the Arizona Cardinals and who's putting this out there, who's trying to make it known that Kyler Murray isn't doing enough from what I saw one quote in the Mike Sandoe piece doing enough from Monday to Saturday and is selfish and all these things that get said about anybody who wants to get paid. I'm not doubting that maybe there could be some issues there, but I think Kyler Murray has played really well. And my assessment has been more that he's been let down in his by his coach in the second half of seasons also they lost deandre hopkins which i mean is a problem when it's your number one wide receiver if the vikings lose jefferson if the rams lose cooper cup like what usually happens there right

the quarterback's performance goes down so so him being thrown out into the mix here there's other guys that are possibilities to move like tua like r, like Ryan Tannehill's name has been bounced around. Baker Mayfield is making an ass of himself again on Instagram, I see, by criticizing Odell Beckham. I mean, geez, it just seems like if you're the Packers and if you even want to continue to try to win now, it doesn't even necessarily have to be with Rodgers because there could be so many other options out there. Folks, support for Purple Insider is brought to you by Manscaped. They are the best in men's below-the-waist grooming. Manscaped offers precision-engineered tools,

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your confidence and always use the right tools for the job with Manscaped. Yeah, you're not wrong about that. I mean, we saw, saw what nine coach openings end up in the NFL when I think at one point we were saying this there's not going to be a lot of movement this year there might be four coach openings and there turned out being over a quarter of the league turned over so not only do you have all these quarterbacks that want to move but you've got a bunch of new coaches that probably have incentive to sort of start fresh with either a younger or different veteran quarterback. And I think in this era of, you know, social media and player empowerment, the greater platform you have as a quarterback, the more you feel empowered, like you want to play in a good situation.

You want to have the right people around you. and you know, you have leverage because you're the most important position in sports. And if you're not catered to the way you want, uh, you might rock the boat. Um, with Kyler Murray, I can't speak to really a lot of that situation, but I have heard some scuttle, but that Kyler Murray's dad is a little bit of a helicopter and a little bit of a problem. And that might have influenced Kyler in certain ways. That's more from the Arizona organizational side. And again, we, we might be questioning them a little bit right now, but I'm looking at the top, like, you know, 35 quarterbacks here and I can legitimately like, you know, wonder if eight, nine of them are going to be moving,

you know, starting with Kyler, moving down to Derek Carr. Jalen Hurts probably is not going anywhere, but maybe, you never know. Matt Ryan, what's his situation? Russell Wilson, what's his situation? Garoppolo, Wentz. I mean, this is just the tip of the iceberg. So you know what we need, we need two wheels. Now, Matthew, we need a wheel for the quarterbacks and then a wheel for the

teams and then just see if the two line up. Um, so I'm like, no one's, is anyone talking about Atlanta? I mean, Matt Ryan is probably not Stafford level, but he's going to, he's in that mix that no one talks about is what, what Atlanta is doing. I feel like that's kind of a dark horse as well. But do you, do you see this as kind of playing out the way we expect with massive quarterback turnover, or do you think it's all going to be much ado about nothing? I don't see how it's not. I mean, there are just so many teams. I'll read you the list and then we can go with some, some best fits here for these teams. So the teams I wrote down,

tell me if you are thinking about any others than this, the dolphins, Browns, Steelers, Texans, Colts, Broncos, Giants, Washington Packers, Vikings, Panthers, Saints, Bucks. I mean, that is a ton of teams. Is there anybody I missed there? Do you disagree with any of those teams? No, I don't disagree with any of those teams. Did you say Detroit too?

I mean, because Detroit, if they wanted, could maybe ship Goff and go with a rookie, but that's probably but at the bottom of the list it's a good list thorough list yeah and i think that some of these will be draft picks so let's run through them and talk about best fits and if you want to say draft picks say draft um so let's just start off like with the dolphins and this one has seemed earmarked for deshaun watson the entire time and i don't really know what to do with the Deshaun Watson situation. Like, are the Texans just going to sit on that for two years and not move him?

Or like, what is going to happen there? But I feel like this offseason will have some progress on what his situation and his availability might be. Remember, he was never suspended. He just was out and there's it's like very mysterious but that's that's who I wrote down for the Dolphins um it's it's certainly not going to be another rookie like they're too they're too good with average quarterback play to sort of start over and get worse at quarterback I think that it's either Stan Pat with Tua or upgrade

to another veteran. And I think if it's not Deshaun, I think they would have interest in making it somebody else too. And to that, I would say, you know, careful what you wish for Miami, because we've seen quarterbacks, you know, start turning the corner in year three um kyler and josh allen among them guys that are you know of the mobile variety and they have different skill sets sure but just be careful what you wish for when you have that quarterback on the rookie deal if you try to upgrade with somebody who's maybe in that middle tier and not exactly elite someone that's not deshaun watson you might not like the way that turns out. And the AFC East is obviously pretty decent right now with two double digit win teams that really aren't

showing signs of going anywhere in the Patriots and bills. I'm not sure I would rush into anything if I'm Miami, unless it is someone like Deshaun Watson, who I view as it's probably a tier above a lot of these middle ground quarterbacks. Yeah, I really wonder also how Mike McDaniel feels about Jimmy Garoppolo. If they really believe that Tua was not the guy, and I think that they'll stick with him because he's on the rookie deal, and if it doesn't work out, then they can move on and McDaniel can pick his own quarterback.

But you wonder, they have lots of playmakers, and I don't know, I wrote down Jimmy G for another team and that was Cleveland. But it would seem to me that there's a lot of teams who would actually benefit from having somebody like Jimmy Garoppolo. I mean, Pittsburgh is a team, Indianapolis, Denver, a lot of these teams that are ready to win but have nothing going on at the quarterback position. I think Jimmy G makes a lot of these teams that are ready to win, but have nothing going on at the quarterback position. I think Jimmy G makes a lot of sense for them. And I think the way that Baker Mayfield has handled himself over the last year is just screaming for Cleveland to trade Baker Mayfield. I don't know where I haven't written down a best fit for Baker Mayfield

yet. Cause I can't figure one one out but I've just been like wholly unimpressed by the way the guys handle himself and if you're looking for a much more professional type of quarterback who can do a lot of the same things but better you know operate an offense run the play actions come up in some big moments like that's Jimmy G I mean sometimes it's funny that you know we talk about like well Kyle Shanahan is the reason for Jimmy Garoppolo. Okay. But somebody has to still make the throws, right? Like somebody still got to make the plays. That doesn't mean that, you know, Trey Lance can't take them farther or something. Maybe he can, or that Jimmy G isn't hurt too often. I think that's a major factor, but if you are Kevin Stefanski and you're looking for someone who can execute your offense and give you a chance with a great roster, to me, that's Jimmy Garoppolo.

I think Garoppolo would fit in on a lot of rosters that have the running game in place. Like, I think of Philadelphia as well, if they wanted to make a change. And again, I would caution them. But I think that if you can sort of, it's kind of what the Vikings want to do with cousins. If you can minimize what he has to do, I think he's better than cousins at coming up with the big throw, knowing how to execute on third down, you know, not throwing short of the sticks. He's got a lot of late game swagger. I think there's a lot of pieces of Garoppolo's game. And we've, we've talked about his winning percentage. It's off the charts. Um, and he's been surrounded by a

head coach that I would consider probably in the top five offensive coaches in the NFL so that helps him a lot but I think Garoppolo could go to a team and probably have a you know similar but not quite as good effect that Matt Stafford had on the Rams I think that's possible in the right situation. I see Mayfield as a transition quarterback. It's kind of like a golf for teams that want to cycle through the roster, start over, but have not selected their franchise quarterback yet. There's not a lot of teams that fit that description except the Vikings, maybe the Saints, and maybe the Falcons. And the Falcons probably, I feel like they're not going to make that move. There's not a lot of places for Mayfield to fit.

Are you going to sell your fan base that he is the franchise guy? No. So it's a tough one for Mayfield, who probably doesn't have a lot of suitors. He's certainly less valuable than a lot of these quarterbacks that are out there because he's about to hit the end of that rookie deal. I think he's got one year left. So you would need to pay him something. And the only way that that makes sense is if you're saying,

well, Mayfield, that $25 million is still a bargain, which the way that he's conducted himself, maybe that is still a bargain, which, you know, the way that he's conducted himself, maybe, maybe that's still a little bit too much money. Yeah. I wrote down Washington for Mayfield because I feel like they are desperate to find an upgrade and a bridge quarterback so they can draft somebody. And I know that Mel Kiper mocked Malik Willis to Washington. That makes a lot of sense. If Malik Willis is not going to go high or that they could trade up. But, I mean, Mayfield is kind of good for a team that's going to draft somebody and then have that transition veteran quarterback so they don't have to start.

We won't go through all these teams because I am due back in court. Wow. In just a few minutes. So I have Kirk Cousins as the best fit for either Pittsburgh or Indianapolis. Would you agree with that? Yeah, I mean, Indianapolis, you give him the best running back in the NFL for now in Jonathan Taylor. You give him a coach in Frank Reich that is pretty adaptable in his scheme

and I think would find the best way to make that work. Pittsburgh, you put him just on a team that is extremely cousins-y and that it's never, it's going to be threatening every year. It's going to be in the hunt. Whether or not that means it's a true Super Bowl contender, I'm not sure, but you probably have ownership that would be interested in staying competitive and a fan base that, you know, while you can't be big Ben, um, I think it's a fan base that probably got a little bit tired of seeing those wobbly ducks that Roethlisberger was throwing the past few years. They knew that he was no longer an elite quarterback. Um, so it's not like he's stepping into a situation where he just, he can't live up. Um, I don't think it's not like he's stepping into a situation where he just he can't live up

um i don't think it's going to be like that either so i i think that makes sense i i would assume that that either either is probably looking for that type of quarterback so those are probably the first calls that you make um if you're quesi da fomenta So before we wrap up here, I want to ask you this question. As we get to at some point this week, Kevin O'Connell will be introduced as the Vikings coach. I am hoping to be there basically just turning in a guilty verdict and walking out. No, I'm just kidding. But if I'm not, we're still going to do the show like it's not going to get in the way of the show. Just my timing for having to be a certain place, you know, is a little bit thrown off for this week.

But what do you think the first shoe to drop is? I mean, we've spent so much time talking about all the different parts of the roster and all the players that could go or they could stay or the trades that they could make or the, you know, whatever. Like we've got the combine that's coming up in two weeks. And usually that's where there's a ton of meetings between teams, between agents, all these things. But, you know, they have cell phones like they can answer calls on trades or anything else like that before the combine. They don't have to be drinking at St. Elmo's before they make a deal. So I guess,

what do you think is the first thing that's going to happen here for the Vikings off season? Well, I think there's a, there's a cousin's decision probably in two weeks, three weeks, max. I think that, that you probably get O'Connell in here this week. He takes a week to get the lay of the land, probably calls being made behind the scenes. We'll see what he puts on record this week because that's going to be fascinating. And they're not going to let him say too much in his introductory press conference, but we'll take the temperature of the situation. Hopefully you're there to take it with us. So I think that's easily the domino number one, assuming that it does fall. Like if they do, if the leaks are true and they decide to stick with Kirk Cousins, then I suppose we watch

for an extension. But then roster wise, there probably are more dominoes to fall if Cousins stays than if he goes, because if he stays, you're probably pivoting then to Daniil Hunter, because that's then the next most pressing cap relief for you. You can clear cap or you can bring in draft assets if you trade him. So I think that Hunter's probably the next domino, something with that contract. And I would think that one of their, maybe Michael Pierce, maybe another expensive contract,

a restructure of some kind. I feel like you can't really decide. You have to, the big dominoes have to fall first before the little ones do. So you got to see what happens with Cousins and then secondarily, Daniil Hunter, before we can really talk about some of those smaller fish that need to either be restructured, released, traded, what have you. Yeah. There's just been a part of me that wonders if they slow play this to see how

the rest of the market plays out. So there's a rush from us, of course, because we want to talk about it, to get a decision on Kirk Cousins and get going on what they're going to do next. But there's also all those situations that we just laid out. Somebody is going to be the musical chairs person who gets to the end without a chair. So is Kwezi Adafl-Mensah going to play this like game of chicken racing toward the edge of next season with Kirk Cousins and his contract? Or do you know, we thought that was going to happen a couple of years ago, and they signed him on the first day of free agency. And Rick Spielman explained later that

they did it so they could sign Michael Pierce. And it was like, huh? And so, you I wasn't really expecting them to be anyway. I wasn't going to go into free agency and saying, oh, they're going to lock up two or three of the biggest free agents and they're going to go after this thing. Like that's just not where they're at. So they probably have time. And I agree with you on the Hunter thing. Like that's got a sharp deadline, fifth day of the league year, they got to decide what they're going to do. And just a, just a side note, like, I know that people have brought up that you can do the void year thing with Daniel Hunter. That is not a good idea though. Like, let's just make that clear. Like that is possible. And I've seen it out there. That is not a good idea. You have an extremely

unhappy player in that situation and you've kicked money down the road. That's going to hurt you later. Like that's not something that you really want to do. So they have to do the extension or they have to do a move with him. What kind of trade? I don't know. I see people thinking that you're getting a first round pick. I don't think that's possible with his deal. Very complicated situation. But you know, I am not 100% sure that we're going to have an answer by the time free agency starts about Kirk cousins. Well, that's one way to go about it. Certainly. Like if you, if you're valuing, um, more so like getting the best possible deal than being the best player you can be in the draft and free agency, um, you know, that would be kind of the

ultimate long play. If you say, well, if we think that we can let this play out, we can get, you know, who cares about the free agency this year? We'll wait till next year. Who cares about the draft this year? We'll wait till next year. I don't know if that's the way I'd go about it, but I also would point out too that Carson Wentz yielded a first the year following the trade, the year of the trade, it was a third round pick. Same with who else got traded recently. There were, there are two examples where in year one, it was, Oh, it was the, the lions and Rams. I think the first year was like a third round pick. I don't think the first kicks in until next year. So you might not get that first round pick for cousins this year. Anyway, if you

make the trade now, um, you might only get a third or a day to pick. So keep in mind that you may not be able to expect two first round picks this year from cousins. It could be in the future. I guess that's also a way of kind of subtly making sure you're not too good this year. If you do want to go that route and stealth tank that you aren't a player in free agency. And if you look at, you know, what's going to help us long-term, it's probably not patching holes with first or one and two year deals. It's probably more of the longer term deals, three and four, where guys are going to be around for a little bit. And a lot of those guys might not be interested in signing a deal in a rebuilding situation. So I think that that's a possibility caught, Matthew. And I want to make sure that you get back to your courtroom.

So I'll let you go. But before I do, in case you're not there at kevin o'connell let's just kind of do a little a little act out and and you can be kevin o'connell and i'll be the media and i'll ask you about kurt cousins and you can tell me what you would say hey kevin um i'm gonna ask you point blank uh this is sam extram purple insider ask the hard questions uh what are you gonna do with with Kirk Cousins? Is he your quarterback next year? Well, I've made it clear to the organization how I feel about Kirk. I mean, we were together in 2017 and I really enjoyed my time coaching Kirk and we've had some great

conversations, even, you know, just a couple of texts here and there. We haven't really sat down and talked over what we want to do for next year or how things are going to change or, you know, things like that. I'd love to get his feedback on what he thinks that he wants to take this offense to the next level. But, you know, decisions on anything on the roster are going to get made over the next couple of months. I mean, I'm just celebrating a Super Bowl win. I'm happy to be here. Happy to be the Vikings head coach. And you know, we'll get to, we'll get to all that stuff, but you know, I I'm a, I'm a big Kirk cousins guy, big Kirk cousins fan. He pushed me early in my career and hopefully I can do the same for him. How's that? I mean, that is the perfect answer for we're trading him immediately.

Like that's fantastic. Fantastic. You would need zero PR training, my friend. You'd be able to just step up and do this thing right away. So that's coming up. We think people are, I'm already seeing panic. People are already panicking that he is reneged on the deal that because they haven't announced it yet people think that McVay is like passing the baton and stepping down it's not no that's not going to

happen he's going to be the Vikings coach um and if he's not I don't ever want to say nothing something I don't ever want to say something's never going to happen with the Vikings that's the one thing it would be I'll never say that that. I will never say that. It would be shocking, but I'll never say that. It'd be akin to letting the clock run out in the draft on, in 2003. All right. Well, have fun with the Scranton Strangler in your court case. Can't wait to hear about it. And we'll, we'll talk to you soon. Caller. Thanks, Sam.