Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - CBS Sports' Chris Trapasso talks about what he would ask new Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell about the draft

Episode Date: February 16, 2022

Matthew Coller talks with CBS Sports draft analyst Chris Trapasso about how new Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell should approach the draft, whether there will be any QBs taken in the first 10 picks, which NFC North team is most likely to "win the offseason" and the rewriting of Matthew Stafford's career post Super Bowl. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Good evening, and welcome to the NFL Draft. Draft season is here. Come on, come on. There you go. To break down every need. They're not going to pick a quarterback. They need offensive linemen. They need defense.

Every pro day. He had a phenomenal pro day. Explosive, really good in the three cone, the broad jump. And every mock. You could probably tell me if you think the vikings would actually do it i can tell you as a draft analyst that they absolutely should welcome to the chris trapasso draft show on purple insider this is a good podcast to listen to leading into the draft hello welcome to another episode of purple insider mat. Matthew Collar here, and it is another Chris Trapasso draft show.

CBS Sports Draft Analyst Chris Trapasso joining me on the show. Chris, I have to start out real quick with a jury duty update. Still doing jury duty. And the Kevin O'Connell press conference that seems to be going down on Thursday is now in jeopardy because day two of jury duty. Well, let me actually where we left off in day one and we'll get to the draft. I promise you. Let me just tell you where we left off. I was about to go into a room where the judge asks you questions and then you tell them

about yourself or whatever, and then they decide if you're going to be on a jury or not. And so we got up to the, to the room and then they settled the case. So I thought, yay, I go home. No more jury duty. Not true. Back upstairs to the jury room. So all of us, like 30 of us go back up. So then nothing else happens the rest of the day. We come in today, same exact thing happens where we all go down we get ready to go in and decide who's going to be on the jury and then nope this case ain't happening so i will be going in again tomorrow and still waiting have you ever had to do jury dewey i haven't i've gotten like the the uh ticket in the mail but then I call a number and I've never like my number on there, like number 72. They'll always say like, oh, numbers one through 40 report.

Everyone else is fine. So I've gotten lucky. But I feel like eventually over the next, I don't know, a couple of months, couple of years, I'm going to have to maybe go through a similar process. Hopefully not as painstaking as yours. Yeah. So with this, once you got to go in, you are with them for two weeks for whatever they want to do with you. And so now I'm starting to get nervous because if a trial doesn't happen the rest of the week that I end up being on, that goes into next week and I'll have to keep doing this. And then if I get picked for one toward the end of next week, then the combine becomes in jeopardy. If I'm on some sort of jury and having to deal with any trial that goes at length, I don't think that's going to happen because a lot of these end up

being civil cases that only last for a couple of days. And sometimes they don't pick you and then they just say, okay, you're done, but I don't know when this is going to be. So it looks like inevitable that I'm going to miss Kevin O'Connell's press conference. But Sam will be there, Sam Ekstrom, and we'll have a breakdown of it. I'll watch it. I'll be allowed to watch it. It's just that I'll be in this jury room, just sitting by myself near a vending machine with hardly anything in it. So it has not been a super pleasant experience, but I am helping America. And for that, I feel I am a hero. Yeah. And I feel like this adds like another layer of intrigue to this Vikings off season for you.

Like you can update all your listeners every day, like what's going on with the trial, which I don't think you can really talk about the trial. Is that true? But just at least what you're doing and how, I know that you have a history of like, right when you record a podcast, like the Stefan Diggs trade goes down or Danelle Hunter gets placed on IR. So it's just another layer of like being on the edge of your seat.

Like what's going to happen with Matt Collar today? Is he going to be able to report or record a podcast for this you know insert big vikings transaction that will go down in the offseason see i wish that i was even on a jury in a trial that i couldn't talk about but i haven't even gotten to that stage yet my little pool has been rejected both times or the case has been settled both times so i case has been settled both times. So I've just been sitting in a room with a bunch of random people writing on my laptop and trying to find time to record podcasts, which were, you know, like I said yesterday over and I'm not sequestered or something like I can do the show after it's like having

a nine to five job and then coming home. So it's not that bad. It's just that if something comes up that I need to cover, like a new coach press conference, I can't exactly be like, Hey, do you guys know that the Vikings are, you know,

they got a new coach. Can I just sneak over? You can't like record a podcast and like in the room that you're in with a bunch of other people. No, I did use the lunch break though. The lunch break is pretty long. So yesterday I went downstairs and found a quiet spot and did a podcast on the lunch break so

i'm being crafty and using my time wisely but we'll see how long this goes and i'll continue the updates so let me ask you this chris before we get into some stuff we've got a game of talk me into it's been a little while since we've done that. Let's say you were going for me to this press conference, Chris. You always have your eye on the draft, obviously. What would you ask Kevin O'Connell about the draft if you were going to this press conference instead of me and you got to grill Kevin O'Connell? I think I would ask him something pertaining to the fact

that he's, of course, a former quarterback. He's a quote- offensive minded head coach. And the fact that it seems like cornerback is a pretty big need on this roster. Is he well versed in scouting cornerbacks or being able to say, hey, yes, I do want that player on my roster. Is he okay allowing the GM and the scouting staff to have their full input and really just click the button that ultimately picks said player on the defensive side? Or will he be a more active role player, so to speak, in the draft process, even if it is more of a defensive player or a defensive-minded draft early on?

That's a great question. Just in general about the draft. I mean, if we're talking about them drafting a quarterback, of course, the head coach who's a former quarterback is going to have his say. And I wouldn't want to put him with anyone he didn't want. You wouldn't want to say Kevin O'Connell, sorry, man, Kenny Pickett's your guy, if he's not okay with working with Kenny Pickett. But what about the rest of the roster is a really good question because this is an odd thing that I

don't really understand. I've never gotten a good explanation for why it exists, but coaches usually have a lot of say on the process. So they send out the scouts, they gather the reports and then coaches do their own reports. And the Vikings had previously mentioned, well, this assistant coach drafted that player. You're like, wait, what do you mean? Why would that happen? That guy is coaching the whole year. Isn't this the job of your scouts? And maybe that's what they felt is you want people that your coaches are comfortable with coaching. But I feel like the way you win is just accumulate as much talent as you could possibly get and then make all the pieces fit yeah that's a great point I think probably every team has a different dynamic and I'm not a big advocate of like the GM and the scouting staff are their own entity and they just

hand players to the coaching staff I think think it should be, of course, a collaborative effort. And to bring the Bills into this, like I do a lot, it came out that after the 2017 draft, I feel like this came out like a year or two ago from Ty Dunn, Sean McDermott was hired in 2017, like in January. And he admitted like years later, you know, I think it was during Josh Allen's like leap year 2019, where he really took that step that Sean McDermott admitted it wasn't really because he was a defensive guy, so to speak. and oh yeah Patrick Mahomes which led to the Bills being like okay with trading out of that number 10 spot to move back to then oh pick a cornerback for their defensive minded head coach so I think a lot

of the times circumstances like that do arise and that's why I would ask Kevin O'Connell about hey like how do you feel about the the other side of, a cornerback or defensive lineman, edge rusher, whatever it may be on the other side of the ball. But also, I think that's a big reason why January, February, after the season is over, like a draft analyst like myself, Dane Brugler, Mike Reiner from PFF, guys that are doing it kind of year round, they have their board set or pretty close January, February, and then players go up and down because I think February, March, that's when the coaching staff gets injected into the pre-draft process. And I'm sure a lot of times scouts are almost rolling their eyes and saying like, yeah, we've been scouting this guy since his junior year. And now the head coach is like,

tell me all about Malik Willis. I don't know really anything about him because of course, game planning, playing playoff games, whatever it may be. So to have a new coach, you want to see, like, how caught up are you on this draft class to maybe not miss a Patrick Mahomes-type talent. It obviously worked out for the Bills with Josh Allen the next season, but that was kind of a big miss at the time that their coach was just like, hey, I'm kind of behind the quarterback. Let's just wait a year. And it's not guaranteed to always work out in the next draft

with a, you know, top tier quarterback who becomes really good. Ah, yes. The allegedly weak 2017 quarterback draft. I remember it so well. It only took nine minutes and talk about jury duty for me to get to some snark there. But I always wonder, I think that sometimes we over information ourselves, like bad information is much worse than no information at all. And I do wonder, let's say you sequestered the coaching staff

and they were not allowed to look at anything with the draft. They had to just go to Tijuana and not at all think about what was going to happen with the roster for a couple of months. And then they show back up at rookie mini camp and they get their first look at the draft class rather than watching tape, giving their input, giving their influence to what they want, how they want it done and everything else. Like, would that be better or worse? Like, I'm sure that every situation is different with that, but I just wonder how often it happens. And I've heard stories of this where, you know,

the scouts are saying, eh, look, man, I'm not so sure you want that player because the scouts, they don't just watch on TV. They go out to the games and Scott Studwell, former Viking scout, explained how this worked to me on the show, maybe six months ago, where the scouts will go in and watch film with someone from the staff of a lot of these teams. So if you go down to Alabama, maybe you're not watching film with Nick Saban, but somebody on his staff, you're going through players and you're watching them. You're getting information about those guys. You're having conversations. Veteran scouts are really good at gleaning a lot of information and they'll know people after years and they'll say hey you know i don't know about this or that or whatever

else like these guys are good at their jobs and where it really is reflective of that is the draft because you see the players who are drafted the highest are the best and the, you know, next down and next down and next down, like the line goes straight down in terms of the success rate of the draft picks and, and the value that they bring long-term, right? So these scouts are getting it right. I just wonder if you left it entirely to the people whose jobs it was, if you would be that much percentage points better than somebody who's spending 98% of their time in an NFL season grinding away at game planning. And that's what they're good at. And then you're saying, no, no, today you got to be a scout though. And for the, for this one month, you got to be a scout

when for every other month, you're an X's and O's guy. I just wonder if there's too much crossover there. Yeah, I think there probably there probably is and i during the draft process and i'll bring this up a lot over the next couple months i am aware of bias i try to remove as much bias as possible for my evaluations but i will be biased here and i'm saying as a draft analyst i think teams would be better if the coaching staff head coaches coordinators just left the scouting to the scouting department and the general manager for all the points that you just laid out. What I think should happen in an ideal world is maybe right now, right after the Super Bowl, especially if it's a new GM and a new head coach,

get together, maybe one or two meetings, maybe over a weekend, hash out, what do we need? Let's look at our roster. need and then at that point the head coach can say hey i would really like if we had more depth at nickel corner or um i really want to play a lot of cover three so i really want that rangy deep middle safety and then be sequestered go to tijuana and just let the gm and the scouting department find those players and not have the coach tapping the GM and saying, ah, I really liked that guy from Houston that we watched last night where it's like, Hey dude, we've been doing our homework on this guy for two years. He has maturity issues. He gets injured a lot. He's not great finding the football down the field.

I think when there's, that's when there can's when there can be the term there's too many cooks or there's too many chefs in the kitchen. I think that happens with a lot of teams. I think most recently in Las Vegas with the Raiders, it was like, was it John Gruden? Was it Mike Mayock? Were they kind of fighting over who to pick? When they were literally on the clock, they had their big board,

but then John Gruden saying, hey, I like that guy, and then Mike Mayock's kind of arguing with him. I think you run into that a lot more. I mean, who knows what will happen with the Vikings? Hopefully it doesn't for them. But I think either to have your GM and your head coach in lockstep with each other and for there to be that, you know, you do your job, I'll do my job. And that's no disrespect to each person.

I think you would probably get better results. Like you said, maybe just a few percentage points. You hit on one more draft pick, two more draft picks over a two or three year process. That can be the difference in a few wins here or there every season. You remember the Chappelle skit when keeping it real goes wrong. This is like when collaboration goes wrong is when the head coach or, or anybody on the staff, if everyone's involved comes in and says, no, no, no,

no. I love that player that like, we got to draft that player. Even if the scouting staff has done all their work on that. And you hear stories like that sometimes, because especially if a pick goes sideways, everybody wants to know whose fault it was. And it's just like,

well, what was their front office thinking? And we're like, well, the defensive line coach fell in love with this guy. So I don't know. Um, I also wanted to mention on the matter of Kevin O'Connell, the internet was losing its mind about the possibility that Sean McVay could retire and Kevin O'Connell could stay

in Los Angeles, even though there was no indication that Kevin O'Connell would even be the guy that took over. They have someone on the staff and Raheem Morris, who has been a head coach before. So that wasn't out there at all. Just this idea floating in the wind that Sean McVay could potentially walk away. And it seems like there's something to that. But, you know, Adam Schefter and Ian Rappaport were there to confirm, no, folks, Kevin O'Connell will be your coach. And I was ready. I was ready to write a column about like, if this were to happen or if it was headed down that road, I was ready to write like, well, someone will coach the team. Like, I mean, because I don't

know, I want your opinion on this about, about the O'Connell hire. It's like, I think it's i mean because i don't know i want your opinion on this about about the o'connell hire it's like i i think it's the right way to go but if that were to happen it's not like you have to shut down your franchise like trying to figure out which coach is going to come in and take your team to the next level is about as hard as figuring out which draft picks are going to be successful. And I feel like this fan base is always ready to just lose its collective minds over just about anything. And I don't blame anybody for that, considering what they've been through. But I just thought it was sort of a fascinating,

like, look inside the psychology of Vikings fans. Like, look, if they had to hire Raheem Morris instead, your odds of being good eventually are probably just about the same as Kevin O'Connell. Yeah, that's a really good point. And this might sound like I'm like a curmudgeon, which I'm definitely not. But I have the biggest belief in the NFL. Players matter so much more than coaches.

And I'm not saying like, yeah, there could be a good defensive line coach that helps someone like Danell Hunter really reach his full potential. But in general, look at literally the course of NFL history that I always used to use Norv Turner as a great example that like when he had a prime Phillip Rivers and like LaDainian Tomlinson, it was like he was the, you know, God's gift to the offensive playbook. He was the best coach of all time offensively. And then he was like a coach for the Washington football team for other teams, didn't have

the players and wasn't really that good. So I never, if you look at my Twitter, whenever, any year, Black Monday, they usually call it, when all those guys get fired and then a week or two later, there's a bunch of hires. I rarely ever tweet like, that's a great hire. That's a bad hire because different player, different circumstances. It's just almost impossible to know. Chip Kelly, seven years ago, eight years ago in Philly was going to make that team the next dynasty. Falls flat on his face. We've seen coaches that come out of nowhere like Zach Taylor coming off the Sean McVay coaching tree that literally a year ago there was talk

like this guy should be fired then he's coaching in the Super Bowl the next year so to know like how well a coach is going to do especially if he's like going from quarterbacks coach or offensive coordinator to head coach has never coached before, you can't look at, Oh, here's what he did in a previous stint as head coach. I just stay away from it. There's really no way to know. And the players, the quality of the roster of the quarterback will do a lot more than just how well that coach is managing a game or coaching his players on the technique of

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HelloFresh, America's number one meal kit. And Sean McVay is as good as it gets, and he still made mistakes in the Super Bowl. And in their run to the Super Bowl. I mean, the timeouts against San Francisco, if Kyle Shanahan gets one more first down, they can just run the clock out with like five minutes left because McVay has used all his timeouts on senseless challenges. And the way that they continue to run the ball two yards at a time or less against Cincinnati was just wacky. Honestly, I was totally stunned. I felt like McVay was kind of gagging away that game at one point. And what happens?

A guy throws a no-look pass. Cooper Cup is open. Players. The players. Exactly. The players. The players did it. I think that if you have the best coach in the league,

it's going to be percentage points. If you have the worst coach in the league, that will kill everything. You can't have the worst coach in the league that will kill everything like you can't have the the worst coach in the league because matt patricia took over a decent detroit team and totally torpedoed a franchise like that's very possible but everybody else it's it's going to be the roster so uh you've never played talk me into uh i'm excited though here's how it works we just tell each other that you have to talk me into something uh or i you have to talk me into something i have to talk you into something so i'll i'll go first asking you but basically you just have to make the case for the thing that i'm asking you about regardless of whether you believe it or not and you could say in your

answer if you believe it or not um and then we'll try to peel back the layers of the football onion by doing this. So I was looking at Dane Brugler and his new list post senior bowl of this top 100 players. And there is not a quarterback, I think above 35. Talk me into no quarterbacks going in the top 10 of the nfl draft okay i first want to answer if i believe this or not i know in a lot of my mock drafts i i have almost always had at least one but right now and it is well it's it's early we have not had combines we have not had pro days where we can analyze if a player is wearing gloves or not or whatever. I'm leaning toward believing that this will happen. And I will talk you into it by saying we have no idea what's going to happen on the veteran quarterback market.

And we are now in an era, really, Kirk Cousins is kind of the catalyst or the pioneer, where like middle of the road to a little bit above average quarterbacks are going to be on the move like aaron rogers every day it seems like there's a different report they're like he's on good terms with the bike or uh with the packers no he's not they're trying to go all in for him because he's not happy seems like he's going to be on the move i it feels like russell wilson will also be available. The Seahawks are leaning toward, or I think very heavily toward, a rebuild, and it doesn't make sense to have Russell Wilson at 31, 32, whatever he is now. Deshaun Watson, what's going to happen with that?

There's a few other quarterbacks. What's Jameis Winston going to do? What's Teddy Bridgewater going to do? Jimmy Garoppolo, he basically said after the NFC title game, hey, it was a fun ride here, but I'm ready to start somewhere else. They drafted, they traded a bunch to get Trey Lance. I think like the Panthers and the Broncos, a lot of those teams that look like obvious, Oh,

they're going to draft a quarterback and we'll see so many mock drafts up until free agency or when teams really start to trade at the start of the new league year usually that those will be the teams that oh they they filled their quarterback spot they're not going to pick a quarterback and for as much as I usually say the quarterback position always gets pushed up in the draft if there is a draft for it not to happen it's probably this one um i i think to to uh talk about the 2011 draft class where like blaine gabbert and jake locker and christian ponder all went way too early i think it's too long ago i think uh to be you know 11 drafts ago at this point it's not really uh smart to point to that and say oh well hey look it happened 11 years ago. The NFL has changed so much.

Certainly more of a quarterback needy league today. But if there is a draft that it would happen, it would be this one. And we're going to see a lot of movement on the veteran quarterback market. So that's why there won't be any quarterbacks inside the top 10. Okay. I think you did a good job leaning on the teams that are desperate for quarterbacks are going to try to trade for them or sign them because as you mentioned even free agents normally there's no good free agent quarterbacks normally you're getting ryan fitzpatrick or a mccown but this

year i mean not that i think winston is a great player but as far as free agent quarterbacks winston bridgewater uh fitzpatrick is out there and also Marcus Mariota who I think is actually a good pick for somebody Marcus Mariota is just past the age where Kirk Cousins started starting for Washington he's 28 and I believe Kirk was 27 when he when he got this like the full-time starting gig just to tell you like how young Mariota was and how long he's been in the league but there's probably some potential there the Tannehill possibility of someone advances as a quarterback into their 20s or the Rich Gannon or something like that where he develops as he goes along that's unusual it doesn't happen that often that there's good free agent quarterbacks so I

think you make a compelling case but I am not talked into it because I think that there's good free agent quarterbacks. So I think you make a compelling case, but I am not talked into it because I think that there's so much benefit for hitting that it's going to be worth it for some of these teams, especially if you're a team that can also sign one of those players and have a quarterback for next year and transition. And I just think of Daniel Jones being a top 10 pick that when Daniel Jones was coming out, I think a lot of draft analysts said he's an okay prospect. I mean, maybe he's a fringe first rounder, early second round type, and he ends up going way up at the top. I mean, one because Dave Gettleman is insane, but also like if he had hit though, it's so worth it. If he's even okay, it's so worth it. And I feel like it's so worth it and i feel like how are these guys going to look at malik willis run a 4-4 at the combine and watch him throw the ball 80 yards and be like

no i don't know i don't know you know what we need a guard that's what we really we need the center from iowa that's what we need not that guy right like i think the ceiling of malik willis specifically the moxie of Kenny Pickett. People are going to fall in love with these guys as it continues to go on. And someone, if not,

some ones will be picked in the top 10. Those points are all really good. That, that really is talking me into kind of leaning in the other direction with all of my, with all my mock drafts that I've always had one, at least in the top 10, sometimes two.

The, with all my mock drafts that I've always had one, at least in the top 10, sometimes two, the points that I want to kind of expand upon are what you mentioned and zero disrespect to Dane Brugler. He does a great job for the athletic. It's kind of back to our talk last week to not have a quarterback inside your top 32. Like maybe those are just his evaluations, but what you mentioned about had Daniel Jones hit for the giants, they would be all set. They would be a contender. They'd be in the playoffs. They'd have cap space. They'd have a quarterback on a rookie deal. They'd be in great shape. They probably would still have the same coach, same GM because of those reasons. I feel like you have to,

there has to be a quarterback that's worth a first round pick. Like unless it is literally the worst quarterback class in the history of the NFL. And I don't think that's what this class is. It's the same reason why whenever I see someone have a running back, like inside the top 20, I'm like, what are you doing? Where's positional value? If that guy hits, okay, you have a good player for three years and he's he probably will get hurt because you run him into the ground and then by the time he's ready to hit that big payday you pay him and it's probably not worth it or he hits free agency so I like because of that that's part of why I'm thinking on both sides of the fence that yeah you should just pick a quarterback there will be one

picked early even if a lot of these veterans land in some of those spots that have vacancies, because like you mentioned, even if deep down the scouting department, the GM, the head coach says, we don't really know if this guy's going to hit. Well, if he does,

if you roll whatever you bet at the craps table and you hit on that, then you're all set. Like, I think again, very quickly going back to the bills, like he was like, Josh Allen was a boom or bust prospect. on that, then you're all set. I think, again, very quickly, going back to the Bills, Josh Allen was a boom or bust prospect. Through the first six games of his rookie year, it looked like he was going to be a colossal bust, and now look where the Bills are.

They said, hey, we're going to roll the dice. We're going to go with him over Josh Rosen because of the upside, build around him, make most of the right decisions on the offensive side and, and with the defense. And now they're in great shape and they're Superbowl contenders. And there were just as many questions about Josh Allen. He didn't have a very good season at Wyoming. I wondered if someone who didn't have a very high completion percentage could be any good. And his turnaround was historic, but we're also better at turning around quarterbacks than we ever have before in history. Ryan Tannehill is a good example of this.

I think that teams are able to scheme it up. The rules are designed for it to happen. The better you build your roster, the more chance there is. I was thinking about this. If I told you that you would draft the equivalent of Jimmy Garoppolo or Derek Carr, which I think that these prospects are. I mean, those two were drafted in the second round. I think that a lot of these guys, Sam Howell and Kenny Pickett and so forth, are Jimmy Garoppolo-type quarterbacks.

You would take that in a second on a rookie contract because you can clearly build well enough to have, if you have that baseline of play to win and i'll say this if i'm a gm in today's nfl i realize i probably have what two drafts three drafts unless like until i i need to start winning games before i'm really on the hot seat or probably getting fired and of course to become a gm and and have a draft class with a talent like patrick mahomes or the 2018 draft class where there's like five guys that everyone really likes i mean obviously only like half of them at least became quality starters but you could land a gm

job and look at a quarterback class and go oh it's not really that great but if like you're saying hey we could probably get Jimmy Garoppolo level play out of this guy. And then it's on me to build the rest of the roster and on our coaches to scheme open easy throws for him, keep the completion percentage up, move the chains, play good defense. You might just have to do that because it's not in the nineties where you're a GM for five or six or seven years, and you can wait three draft classes to find that, you know, marquee talent. So I think it, as a draft analyst, I probably sometimes forget about that and say, Hey, you know, there's not really anyone outside of Malik Willis that is

that complete franchise changer can be an all pro perennial, all pro for you can get MVP votes. But like you mentioned, I mean, Jimmy Garoppolo has been in the super bowl and was a fourth down conversion away from getting back to a second one. Was he the reason the 49ers were in those situations? No, but John Lynch made a trade for a second round pick to get a slightly above average quarterback play, built a team around him and you can win in that way too.

Well, and your point is right that if you kick it down the road and then miss then, then you're not doing the fail quickly thing. Like if you draft Malik Willis and a year in, it's very clear that the guy's not going to be a good player, which maybe what the Packers are going through with Jordan Love. It's like, what do you do now? You keep trying to talk Aaron Rodgers into it,

but most teams can't do that most teams can't just be like oh we'll hang on to aaron rogers most of the time you have to bail and teams that have stuck with failures get fired uh you know like sam darnold fails and everyone gets fired in new york like that's how it goes but if you i if you draft someone identify it fix it draft the next guy in time, then you give yourself a pretty good chance to get a second quarterback draft pick or to correct the mistake that you made. This is the thing.

If you draft an offensive lineman, as much as I am very much for building up the offensive line, I think it's better to do it with proven players through free agency with all that money you'll have from not spending it on the quarterback. But if you drafted like the Vikings drafted a great right tackle in 2018, what difference has it made? I mean, because offensive line takes five good players. And so they had weaknesses and they've been one of the worst pass blocking teams. Like you don't get to hang a banner because you drafted a good player in the second round. Like it's positional value is a huge deal.

Brian O'Neill is great at his job. You want to keep them. You certainly make him part of the future, but if you draft a guy and he becomes Brian O'Neill and your quarterback isn't good, what difference does it make? I mean, there's a lot like Joe Thomas is the all time great.

He might be the best left tackle ever and never made the playoffs. Like it's just like, that's how it goes. Like there's only one guy who can completely change your franchise, even if he's just okay. If there's enough money to spread around. So anyway, well, we've spent a lot of time on that. Uh, what would you like me to talk to you into? And it can be anything. It could be draft. It can be the future of uh the nfl it can be just anything you want what would you like to be talked into well i've already mentioned a bunch of bills things and being a buffalo guy i'm kind of interested in this and i'm really interested in your perspective talk me into the vikings trading danelle hunter this offseason oh okay i wasn't sure where that was going to go. I thought you were going to say.

Because the Bills need an edge rusher. They need like a top tier, big splashy free agent or trade acquisition that's a veteran that can really get after the opposing quarterback. And I think Danell Hunter would be a nice acquisition for Buffalo. So tell me how that could happen or why it might not. If you said talk me into Rob Johnson starting over Doug Flutie in the playoffs, then I would have shut this off. Talk me into it not being a forward pass.

Sorry, can't do it. Anyway, so as far as the Daniil Hunter trade, though, there is a really good case for the Vikings making a move with him. Now I think that people on the internet, and this is only judging by some memes and questions that I get, think that if the Vikings trade Daniel Hunter, they're getting like two firsts or something back. That's not happening. Not with his cap situation. He is owed $18 million as a roster bonus on the fifth day of the league year. Now you can add a void year, but that's a really bad idea because then he doesn't get paid very

much. He doesn't get the extension that he wants. So he's not going to be happy. Not a good first impression for your new GM and void years are terrible for you. Hey, you know, who's making $11 million on the saints cap this year, drew breeze, right? Like those void years will get you. You have to pay them the, you know, who's making $10 million this year for the Vikings, no matter where he plays Anthony bar. Like the, yeah, bad. So you don't want to do that because it hurts you down the road. And if the Vikings are planning on being good down the road, you don't want void years at that point. So that's a big part of it for me is if you're looking to spend a lot on the defense, on all of the defense to make it better and draft edge rushers, it's better to just take what you can get for an asset and cap space than it is to have one player.

Like, think about this. There were times in Aaron Donald's career where the Los Angeles Rams had only Aaron Donald on their defensive line and their defenses were terrible. Like they needed a lot of players on their defensive line and the greatest player. There's only so much impact that one guy can have on the defense in general. And I think if Daniil Hunter is coming in and saying, Hey, I want to be paid $25 million a year because I'm the best when I'm healthy, then the Vikings have to say, I'm sorry, man, but we're just not really in a position to do that. Much like the Raiders with Khalil Mack, when they moved on from him and Buffalo is in a different

spot because Buffalo has been to the AFC championship and we're 13 seconds away from going to it again. Their quarterback is in his prime. Like this is where you make those all in type of moves that the Rams made and you trade for Vaughn Miller or whatever else is you got to be absolutely sure that you can go to the Superbowl that year to do something like that. The Vikings are not in that spot. They're in much more of a clean slate type of situation. Why would you want to pour so much money into one player, even if I think the guy is fantastic?

Did I talk about that? Yeah, that's a good – yeah, definitely. And because of that $18 million roster bonus being due, it's almost like I could see where Vikings fans are like, don't trade this guy he's he is the you know raw talent that that we developed in minnesota but to your point it's not it's like you would be double dipping the vikings would be getting 18 million dollars off their cap and they would get an asset probably i mean who knows a second round like two second round picks so it

would be like not just letting him walk in free agency, which can really sting. And it's like, hey, why don't you just pay this guy? But it almost feels like to be able to clear space and get a relatively high pick or multiple picks would have, like you're mentioning, more of a impact overall on the roster long term for this team. It's like borderline

playoff team it needs to rebuild a little bit with the right pieces could maybe make another run but it's not really in that legitimate perennial super bowl contender kind of status heading into 2022 i want you to talk me into a team in the nfc north the off season. It doesn't matter which team you pick, but that will come out of the end. And it could be the Vikings. If you think this, that we will come out at the end of the draft and free agency and the national folks will be saying,

wow, this team is really on the rise because of their off season. It's going to be different this year. Watch out for those blank talk me into somebody in the nfc north having a great offseason i'm gonna say the lions and that like everything that you just mentioned i don't remember the last time that that was brought up about the lions although during the matthew stafford era there was a few years where they like made the playoff they're kind of that upstart team that people thought could make a

deep run um and they you know had some 10 and 6 seasons I just think with the two first round picks number two overall and then with the last pick in the first round um the fact that Brad Holmes spent time in LA with the Rams I think he was there like 16 years uh and kind of felt a little bit of that all-in mentality that Sean McVay and Les Snead had there. I mean, obviously the Jared Goff, Matthew Stafford trade was a big part of that. So to not only just have those first two selections in round one, maybe we see not necessarily Brad Holmes, their GM in Detroit, go all in, but show more aggression on the free agent market, maybe make a trade or two, really add to the receiver room. I mean, it's pretty much impossible for the Lions to be less dynamic at receiver than

they were maybe minus the last six games from Amon Ross St. Brown last season. So the bar set pretty low there. The defense was not very good. They played really hard for Dan Campbell. They were like weirdly one of like the most aggressive fourth down teams with this coach that felt like he was in the 1990s and wanted to run the ball like 90 times a game. So I could see with, you know, if they pick Aiden Hutchinson

that everyone's going to like at number two, maybe they swing at number 32 on a quarterback like a Sam Howell or a Desmond Ritter, and then spend a fair amount on some solid players in free agency. The Lions could be the team that everyone's like, hey, watch out in the NFC North. They played hard. They lost a lot of close games last year, and now the roster is a lot better. Folks, support for Purple Insider is brought to you by Manscaped.

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get 20 off and free shipping with the code 20 insider that's 20 insider at manscaped.com 20 off with free shipping at manscaped.com the code 20 insider unlock your confidence and always use the right tools for the job with Manscaped. So I actually do think that the Lions are the team that should wait another year. I know I just was talking you into nobody doing that, but they're so far away in terms of their roster that I'm not sure that they're quite ready to do that, that they could stay with the Jared Goff and then try to pick high the next year. Unless, like you're saying,

they spend their cap space wisely. And some of these developmental players that showed progress for the second half of the year, like they were not horrendous in the second half of the year. And, you know, playing hard for Dan Campbell, I mean, also I think is developing under Dan Campbell as well.

Amin Rasayn Brown and his emergence, emergence hit 90 catches last year. Like no one cares, right? Like, I mean, except for Vikings fans, cause he caught the game winning pass against them for that huge upset. But I mean, no one really was paying attention to what I'm in Ross St. Brown did last year. I think a lot of draft analysts liked him last season and thought, well, this is a good draft pick, but that's somebody to start building around. I also think too, that Jared Goff is not a good quarterback, but he's also not a three and 13 quarterback. If you start to build up this roster, you draft people high, you put some other players around him. I mean, that can be a competitive team last year. And I mean, or I mean, next year, like a 500 type of team with Jared Goff next year.

And whether you're developing Sam Howell behind him or planning to trade up everything to draft a guy at the very top the next year, they just have that vibe of a team that starts to make noise. And every year we think, oh, those teams at the bottom, they can't do anything. But Cincinnati was this team like not long ago. And Joe Burrow is the main part of that, but they also rebuilt the rest of their roster really quickly. They forgot the guard position, but everything else like Cincinnati had weapons all of a sudden, and they had defensive players all of a sudden

because they were able to spend in free agency and they draft high. And shockingly, when you draft high, you get good players. It's crazy how that works. So I, I, I am talked into this as Detroit, like winning the off season and being a fairly competitive team or how we think or projecting them for next year. This is part of the conversation about when people say, well, if Rogers leaves the NFC North can just belong to the Vikings. It's like, well, yes, but I mean, not necessarily because everybody else is trying to get better too. Chicago, I think has a myriad of problems in their salary cap, but if Justin Fields is good and fits with what they're going to do there on offense, whatever they're going to do,

all of a sudden that there's somebody else who's a contender, who's much more competitive than those two teams were for last year. So I think you did a really good job there of talking me into it. I don't know that there's a situation where we say the Vikings won the offseason because if they keep Kirk Cousins, they'll have limitations on what they can do. And if you trade your franchise quarterback, no one's going to be talking about you like, oh, watch out for them, they won the offseason,

even if you can win it by doing that, just saying. Yeah, wait, my question, which I't want to like ask dumb questions that your listeners already know but in a trade what is the general consensus that the Vikings could get for Kirk Cousins at this point in his career first rounder one first I don't think that's a dumb question at all because I don't really know the answer to that I mean Brad Spielberger for PFF thinks if they take back some money they they could get a first round pick. I think you laid it out that there are so many teams that are looking for quarterbacks. And also, I think a lot of teams will believe that this is a weak quarterback draft and think, well, maybe it's better for us.

I mean, think if you're if you're the Pittsburgh Steelers, your ownership is not saying it's OK to take a step back. Your roster is not saying it's OK to take a step back your roster is not saying it's okay to take a step back mason rudolph cannot be the quarterback of that football team if you had the basically the worst quarterback in the league not named sam darnold last year in ben roethlisberger and got to the playoffs because of coaching defense weapons that you had around roethlisberger you could talk you're talking about talk yourself into We could talk ourselves into probably five or six teams as being great fits for Cousins, which to me says first round pick,

but the cap situation is very tricky there. And is Pittsburgh signing him to a long-term extension when they get him, or do you have to take back some of that money? I think that's where it gets really muddy, but I think that first or second is reasonable to think that they should be able to get that. Yeah, and I ask that's where it gets really muddy, but I think that first or second is reasonable to think that they should be able to get that. Yeah.

And I asked that because I agree that I don't think we'll come out of this off season and you can read articles, listen to podcasts that will say, Hey, the Vikings are one of the top five teams that won the off season. But if they do trade Kirk cousins and get a first rounder and suddenly have two first round picks, and then after the draft, you know, they pick one of the best corners, they pick Malik Willis. I think there will be analysts out there, probably former players that will say,

hey, why would you trade Kirk Cousins? Look at his stats. You know, he's 67% completion, 4,000 yards. But if they ultimately flip him and get a first round pick for him and then maybe address the quarterback position with one of those picks I think that would be a gigantic win we talked about it last year nothing against Kirk obviously himself but just to upgrade the ceiling of the quarterback position and then still have another selection in round one to address another need if you trade Danell, maybe you have another first round pick. Maybe you have two or three seconds.

You can really be that team that goes from middle of the pack to a serious playoff contender in one off season. Like you mentioned, we saw it from two and 14 to the Superbowl for the 49ers and from two and 14, two years later to the Superbowl for the Cincinnati Bengals. And that's what I think in terms of the Vikings could have the best off season, it wouldn't get a lot of attention or it would be criticized for moving on from cousins, but it's possible that they could. Okay. So last thing real quick, I did want to mention on the

matter of the lions and Matt Stafford that I have really had a lot of fun watching his entire career be rewritten by people. There were seasons where the Detroit Lions were a good football team that Matt Stafford was not good enough to take them over the top. That happened. We can't pretend that didn't happen. And I saw Richard Sherman has stepped in the bee's nest of saying the guy's not a hall of famer. The guy's not a hall of famer, like not right now. I mean, he wins another Super Bowl maybe. But this season, it was the best team he's ever been on. It would also be the best team that anyone has ever been on for the most part.

It would be the best team Tom Brady has ever been on in terms of a complete roster. And he played good football. He had the game-winning drive. He deserves all the credit. And everybody who loves him can give him his flowers. Do that because you won a championship. He doesn't have to apologize to anybody. I watched the guy get sacked 10 times in a game once.

I watched him throw red zone picks and make all sorts of mistakes to lose games against the Vikings. I've seen them be at the top of the division and fade away because it was injured Matt Stafford trying to play through all the injuries and hurting away because it was injured Matt Stafford trying to play through all the injuries and hurting his team. Like these things, they happened. The Detroit Lions were not so bad for every single one of his years that they couldn't be a little better like they would have been with a better quarterback. He's good. He's real good. He's your sort of like level two type of very good starter those guys

like Joe Flacco can win the Super Bowl under the right circumstances and he did but don't tell me that what I saw him play for 10 years was not what I saw no you're you're spot on with that I mean again no disrespect to Matthew Stafford hats off to what he did in the Super Bowl. He feels like maybe a Hall of Very Good player. Like there's guys like one player that always stands out to me. I don't, this is a random name. Carlos Dansby, the linebacker, like for the Browns and the Cardinals. If you look at his stats, insane.

But you would never think of him as a Hall of Famer. He has a ton of interceptions, sacks, ton of tackles, played for a long time. I would always tweet that Carlos Dansby is definitely not a Hall of Famer. He's a Hall of very good player. That's kind of how I feel about Matthew Stafford. What seemed funny to me on Twitter the last couple of days is that the difference between will he get in the Hall of Fame and should he get in the Hall of Fame the debate to me that's it's it's funny is that i think he will get in if he plays for another four or five seasons and everyone's saying he's going to end top five in passing yards and in a lot of categories given the way the voters are today and hopefully they evolve maybe you'll have a vote someday maybe i'll have a vote someday

that it feels like right now if this current cast of of voters, they would vote him in and say, Hey, he's got a ring. He's top five in passing errors, but you're right. Like just the eye test of watching Matthew Stafford on some bad teams that he helped elevate, but then also on some decent teams that he kind of kept them from really

reaching their full potential to me, not a hall of famer. The one thing that, that stinks about it too, is that I have felt maybe over the past decade or so, the Hall of Fame has gotten extremely watered down. There are way too many guys that are getting in on their 18th ballot. And it's like at that point, no disrespect to the guy's amazing career.

Hall of Fame, I feel like every year should be like three guys. It does not need to be like seven or nine or 10, or like I mentioned, a guy on his 20th try to get in, oh, hey, let's just get him in because he's tried for so long. It should really be super prestigious, the cream of the crop of their eras or whatever. And obviously Matthew Stafford is nowhere near that. So if I was running the hall of fame, I would definitely be like a lot more strict, but it is funny how right after the super bowl, we want to put Julian Edelman in the hall of fame a few years ago.

And then we're like, Oh, after like the dust settles, we're like, Oh yeah. Wes Welker was way, way, way better than Julian Edelman great playoff

receiver accumulated a lot of stats with Tom Brady but it's like people just can't really calm down after a Super Bowl they want to crown someone as Aaron Donald the greatest player ever and then Matthew Stafford in the Hall of Fame usually those hot takes simmer a little bit after we get a few weeks out from the Super Bowl. Yes, people are very drunk on Super Bowl right after it happens. And it's like it's like nothing good happens after midnight. You ever hear that your parents ever say that it's like nothing. No opinions are ever good right after the Super Bowl. Real quick on the the Hall of Fame monitor from pro football reference has Stafford as an equal case to someone like Drew Bledsoe and Carson Palmer and a little bit ahead of Joe Flacco.

I feel like those are perfect teams. Those are great. Those are perfect. Bledsoe is exactly the same way. A flawed quarterback with amazing talent who was number one overall that had one great season that took him to the Super Bowl with an incredible team in New England, but wasn't really good enough to put his team year after year after year right there when he didn't have great circumstances. Like that's, yeah, that's him.

That's Carson Palmer too. The same thing is like really good, but he was not good enough and amazing talent, but he was not good enough to take teams that were okay or bad and make them like legitimate contenders. And I mean, he did it, which is great for him and I'm happy for his legacy, but Matthew Stafford was potentially like a non-defensive pass interference or a defensive pass interference not getting called from no one ever mentioning him ever as a Hall of Famer. So it's funny how we are trying to analyze the right decisions to make in a season,

going forward on fourth down, who's the best team, who has the best EPA, the DVOA. But it can, a lot of times, just comes down to like literally one play or so, and that can change an entire legacy. Definitely being from Buffalo, like the Marshawn Lynch Super Bowl, the Malcolm Butler pick that changes Tom Brady's legacy. Kyle Shanahan clearly has a problem with holding a lead in important games. If that doesn't happen, Tom Brady threw a pick six in that game. That could have changed his legacy.

I mean, maybe not, you know, making him be out to be a terrible or a good, but not legendary quarterback, but probably not the greatest of all time. And it's important. The Superbowl matters. Of course it's the championship, but it's funny to me when like a quarterback like Matt Saffer that started off hot in that game through a couple interceptions, they weren't really moving the ball against the defense that they should have been and scoring a lot of points has a great drive to end the Super Bowl. And then it's suddenly, hey, if you would have not thrown that completion, we would definitely have not have been talking about you as a Hall of Famer. But since you did, now you catapult all the way up to, yes, you're in the Hall of Fame. It's just kind of silly to me. Yeah, no, it is. Okay. Last thing,

I promise. I want you in 10 words or less to, and I'll do this for you as well to talk me into someone winning the Superbowl for next year, 10 words or less. Just one team, pick a team. One team wins the Superbowl next year to get two sentences. Okay.

Uh, San Francisco 49ers because Trey Lance will give that offense a whole different dynamic than Jimmy G. It's like 11. It was like 11 or 12. I will say Los Angeles Chargers because Justin Herbert, comma, cap space. And there you have it.

Yes. Justin Herbert, cap space. That's you have it. Yes. Justin Herbert cap space. That's kind of all you need. You need a top tier quarterback and then fill in those free agents. Do okay. You know, hit a third rounder here, maybe a six round running back and have the quarterback add in the

veterans and your Superbowl contender. We will see. Okay. So as we go forward, we're going to approach the combine here as long. I mean, we'll still be talking anyway but i'm hoping we could even get together at the combine for a show potentially if i am not on a jury of my peers we'll see we'll see i'm i'm hopeful i'm hopeful maybe tomorrow's the day so uh but uh we will have a lot we'll go through mock drafts we'll analyze every position

that the vikings need how strong it is in the draft, all those things. But this was really fun to play a game of Talk Me Into. We will definitely do it again. Make sure you're following Chris on Twitter at ChrisTrapasso and CBSSports.com for all of his draft analysis. And Chris, we will talk next week, man. Thanks.

Thanks.