Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - CBS Sports' Chris Trapasso talks whether the NFL Combine changed his view on the QB class

Episode Date: March 7, 2024

CBS Sports draft analyst Chris Trapasso analyzes what he saw at the NFL Combine from the quarterbacks and whether they changed his opinion. Plus he talks about some of the QB options for the Vikings, the hottest QB takes from the internet and then breaks down how he expects the top 10 to fall and how much the Vikings might have to trade up to get JJ McCarthy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here alongside CBS Sports Draft Analyst Chris Trapasso. We are back in our home studios now. I had a great time hanging out with you at the NFL Combine, doing all those shows. If you missed them, they're all still relevant. So go back and check those out. A lot of great insight from the Combine. But we left the Combine before all the workouts happen.

That's kind of how it works because everybody talks there and then the workouts happen. So I want to know from you, Chris, because I have not had a chance to ask you who changed your mind among the quarterbacks after their workouts. And I know that some of the quarterbacks did not work out but I guess you could factor that in to maybe some of your analysis so how do you feel about

the quarterbacks after some of them did their workouts well I went into the combine very high on Spencer Rattler and I thought beyond just what he did throwing the football at South Carolina after that great freshman season at Oklahoma that kind of had him penciled in as, oh, this is going to eventually be a first-round pick. He ran the football, I thought, in the SEC last year. And then he ran, I believe, 4.95 in the 40-yard dash, which, I mean, you normally wouldn't really care about how a quarterback runs in the 40, but 4.95, like getting beaten by 300-pound offensive linemen, you normally wouldn't really care about how a quarterback runs in the 40, but four,

nine, five, like getting beaten by 300 pound offensive lineman, a bunch of them is kind of a red flag. And you always hear me talk about it. Maybe it's because of my proximity to Josh Allen, but we're big believers. I mean,

I know you are too. Mobility is important. Athleticism really matters at the quarterback position today. And if you're a four, nine, five guy in the 40, and I believe he did like almost the entire workout, nothing was really that good.

And he's like just over 6'2", 200 plus pounds. Like someone that I think, again, as a thrower, Spencer Rattler is probably better than the general consensus is on him. But I definitely downgraded his size a little bit. And I downgraded his athleticism in my scouting grade book because he just is, is a low, low level athlete for the quarterback spot. I don't want to say he's like Baker, Baker Mayfield ask, but it was like Baker ran in college, but it was like, he's not going to be able to run in the NFL at all. And I remember reading scouting reports like, Oh, he can create, he can pick up that third and six and that's really not his game it's like a more intense version of that with spencer rattler really changed my mind because i thought he'd test better than 495 in the 40-yard dash

yeah he kind of looked like a short drew bletzo trying to run there i was i was shocked why would you run the 40 if that's how slow you were going to go, did he not practice it beforehand? I wondered if he had ever run before. I will say that one number that really surprised me was JJ McCarthy in the three cone. And we know that he has quickness with his feet, but there is the same question. I think with any quarterback, if it's not Jaden Daniels or Caleb Williams, that's the high, high level athlete. Can you really be a playmaker at the NFL level? Because we've heard this many times. Zach Wilson is a good example. Well, he's going to be able to scramble and make plays off of schedule. And then he really wasn't a good enough athlete to do that. And he wasn't good

enough as a pocket quarterback, but McCarthy putting up that number that is actually one that people have looked back at and gone you know what that might actually matter a little bit because you're talking about within the pocket quickness or escapability and I thought that just overall that if you weren't sold on McCarthy's draft stock after he did the workouts after he did the interviews after he went on TV with Rich Eisen and Daniel Jeremiah, you probably walked away maybe agreeing with some of those scouts that told you at the combine that he could be in the top 10. Yeah, certainly. Like if you were a J.J. McCarthy naysayer, you had to have left the combine not being as big of a naysayer saying,

okay, I could kind of see it all these rumors that matt and chris are talking about that they're hearing at the bars in indianapolis during combine week maybe there is some credence to that and these people in the nfl in general know what they're talking about because of the mental side the charisma and then again having that big time workout it wasn't like desmond ritter two years ago where we're like whoa he had like an all-time workout and we didn't really see it coming but with JJ McCarthy I think there is a world that five days ago we were like maybe JJ McCarthy I don't think we ever thought was going to test like you know Spencer Rattler but maybe not have that good of a workout. And I think that's

just another box that he checked to say, okay, you could see the film, J.J. McCarthy is not Jaden Daniels. He's not that big scrambler, but he ticks the box of enough athleticism to make a play in a pinch. And with the three cone, the 40 yard dash, all of that with J.J. McCarthy. So he would be another one that I don't want to say he drastically changed my mind, because like I've said on this show, I am a bigger believer in him than maybe a lot of other people going into the combine, but definitely did well for himself and Indy. Yeah.

And I think with McCarthy, at least the playmaking is a part of his game. With Desmond Ritter, even though he was really fast, it was never a part of his game. The guy thatitter even though he was really fast it was never a part of his game the guy that the Vikings just made their quarterback coach Josh McCown has always been one of my examples to go to with the combine not really telling you how a guy's gonna play because McCown had an unbelievable workout and his great size and everything else but when he was actually playing and they even he was such a good athlete. They threw him in at receiver once with the Detroit lions, but he wasn't some scrambling playmaking quarterback. I think that is a big part of McCarthy's game because he does throw well on the run. And you saw some of that athletic ability there, I think in, in the three cone,

which was good for him. And I thought the entire week was good for him, but the actual throwing, what did we think of the actual throwing? Because it was kind of a three-man competition. It was like, you go, you go, you go. And, you know, I think Michael Penix did the most for himself there because you could just see the power in which that football comes off of his hands. And I know that he's a little bit on the older side, but when it comes to ball placement and sharpening up some of the mechanics, and by the way, I really don't ever want to see the reverse angle again. You know how people have flipped it around and show him as a right hander. They stop. That's weird. I just, I don't need that. But I thought that he helped himself a ton. And also the mechanics for Bo Nix, not all the throws looked great down the field especially, but it was a smooth drop back.

It looked like he had timing. And I know this is trying to take away small things, but you kind of just get an extra look at these guys and what they look like kind of right next to each other, which was maybe the most helpful part of the process. Yeah, I agree with that. I don't take too much from the throwing session at the Combine, but I did go into that. I don't remember which episode it was on, but one last week that last year I said with these quarterbacks throwing next to each other, and we didn't have

Bryce Young last year, but what stood out with Anthony Richardson and CJ Stroud was, wow, CJ Stroud's accuracy is just pinpoint. it's just different from any other quarterback and that was my biggest takeaway from the throwing session is that when pennix was up it was like you were ready for a fastball and it just came out of his hand differently different velocity it wasn't every pass wasn't perfect but i think similar to the stroud accuracy disparity you saw that with the velocity and i think with Michael Penix not probably being a big-time athlete like we said he has to sell himself as hey like there are some quarterbacks that don't really have huge arms and maybe in that second or third tier like a Bo Nix Penix has to

sell himself as you can get someone with a howitzer maybe in the second round that's you can't get at really with any other quarterback in that second or third wave so the accumulation of the entire week putting together all that you've studied all the people you've talked to everything else have you changed anything about how you rank these quarterbacks how you grade them where you see them ultimately going um Beyond moving down Spencer Rattler quite a bit, because obviously he did maybe foolishly the entire workout or just about. I didn't really move anyone else. I am looking forward to, this is kind of looking ahead, to Caleb Williams and like Jaden Daniels, if they do any type of workout and we get to see like full measurables and all of that.

But again, I'm not going to take way too much from from a pro day. And if anything, I think it and this is kind of like echoing what I said before, but it just solidified that I really think that there are legs to J.J. McCarthy going higher than we all think, because the workout, like you said, on Rich Eisen, and there were a lot of reports and chatter during the week that he's just a great interview. He's super smart. Like it all is kind of aligning.

Like the stars are aligning for this guy to be like, whoa, he's pick 11 to the Vikings or he's picked the head of the Vikings. Like we heard. So beyond moving Rattler down, just because the quarterbacks didn't really do much, we didn't get a lot of new information. I didn't change much beyond him but i

do feel i don't want to say i feel better about jj mccarthy being an all pro in five years but where he's picked i think there is some credence to that early top 10 ish range or early middle portion of the first round all right so let's see if we can work this out then now after we have all this information from the combine and we know or or at least we think we know, because we never kind of decided but again like we are surprised all the time by the nfl drafts it's just with this one it feels like we've got a really good sense for how this is going to go it kind of reminds me of if you go back to when joe burrow was number one and it was herbert and tua and we weren't exactly sure which teams were going to pick them or if it was number two or number four or number five.

But we kind of had a sense for this is the tiers of this draft. Here's the top. Here's kind of the middle, like Jordan Love, for example. And then Jalen Hurts was in there somewhere. This feels a little bit of the same way. And we'll change the NFL if it turns out like that draft, because that draft very much did. And it was considered a really good quarterback draft. So, yeah, it's just quick point on that, that I've brought up on other podcasts and other radio shows that you have a group every year between three to five quarterbacks, in most cases outside of 2022, that that get hyped as first round guys and you're

like all right if there's five that go in the first round like what do you expect like two to be really good but that 2020 draft class like burrow i'm not a huge to a guy but he's like led the league quarterback rating the last two years justin herbert i think is kind of held back in in that offense in la and can do crazy things and then Jordan Love had a breakout season so that's like a class that I don't want to say it's flying under the radar because Burrow was a big name and of course there was the tank for Tua before he was in that draft that's like an outlier draft class where you would have gone into the 2020 class I probably went and said hey like maybe one or two of these guys are going to be good the other two are going to be on a different team in a couple years and that has that has not been the case. So it's not always a situation where out of the five or

six that go, only one or two are ultimately good. And then when you think about Trevor Lawrence and that draft and how Trey Lance might be on his third team, if the Vikings pick him up, yeah, I guess it'd be his third team. If the Vikings get him for a fifth round draft pick or something, or Justin Fields, who apparently team. If the Vikings get him for a fifth round draft pick or something, or, you know, Justin Fields, who apparently is connected to the Vikings somehow that draft is totally different. We got the,

the Mac Jones. Yeah. There was at least one, at least one ESPN, Jeremy Fowler. Like here are the teams that could be interested in Justin Fields. Why don't, why don't we comment on that one first?

Then we'll get just through this. Like there's tons of rumors with the Vikings and quarterbacks just, just in the last three days, we've got Trey Lance, we've got Justin Fields and we've got Baker Mayfield all being connected to the Vikings. And then our friend Alec Lewis from the athletic throughout a few more names. Sam Darnold has also been in that mix. Ryan Tannehill, which really don't like that unless he's going to be the backup to a guy that they draft. Is there any of those ideas that you like for other quarterbacks that the Vikings should go after? Or should they just be looking to draft and start their guy and have like a journeyman backup type like a Jacoby Brissett. Yeah, see, I think the term like bridge quarterback or stopgap, whatever you want to use, like that is for like you're going to sign a veteran

and then he's going to be your starter for like two years. And then in like three years, you're going to draft a guy. We all know now that the, oh, draft him and sit a year. That does not happen happen it's not the case and I think if you draft a guy and you have to wait a year then that's like a problem and that usually by week eight if your veteran is not lighting the world on fire and most likely he's probably not there's always a push from the fans and and I do think the fans in the media have a little bit of an impact on the pressure on coaches and ownership to just play the rookie.

So we always point back to the Patrick Mahomes example. And I think that is so silly because it was a playoff caliber team. And it just and that was seven years ago now, eight years ago. So I think none of those really intrigue me besides Trey Lance, because he is the come in, have the big arm, the athleticism. He's really an enigma. He's barely played. Of course, at this point, we probably can lean toward he's probably not that good. But 6'3", 220 with like four or five speed and a rocket arm, at least like he could not your stopgap, but your developmental guy.

You have a developmental offensive tackle that you're like, he's not going to start, but maybe in a couple years if we need him, he can get stronger, improve his weaknesses. That's the only one of those, the Tannehill, certainly Justin Fields and Baker Mayfield, that he's different. He would make sense to me. Those three, and even Sam Darnold, wouldold would, I think at best be like her cousin. So I think we would probably both agree that they need to aim higher, just draft a quarterback and let him start from week one. I like the Sam Darnold idea,

the best of all of them, because of course it would have to be paired with a first round draft pick. But the fact that Darnold was the 49ers backup last year with a quarterback who is younger than him drafted later than him by a lot. He's at the very top Brock birdies at the backend. And it seems to have worked out really well. I mean, that that's a skill in itself to be the selfless type of backup, just be ready at all times and so forth and work with the other quarterbacks. And I get the idea that Sam Darnold may have not had the best career to start, but maybe that type of guy who can make that adjustment, like Blaine Gabbert has made that adjustment and was a backup for a long time.

Not everybody is capable of doing that. A lot of first round picks that don't work out just end up out of the league. And also I can be a little bit sold on how bad things were for Sam Darnold, like his, and I know this is stat spinning. It's bad. I don't like to do this, but the last seven or eight games that Darnold played, he played much more competent NFL football when he had ever so slightly more, like just DJ DJ more in Carolina, just ever so slightly. But when you look at his coaches, you look at his top receivers Robbie Anderson Jamison Crowder we're talking Adam Gase here I mean like they had about as

worse of a supporting cast as you've ever seen and the fact that he's willing to be the backup would say to me all right he could take on that role where he is working with the other quarterback for some guys I mean the thing with Trey Lance is I don't want to develop two quarterbacks at once. I don't want to be like, Oh, well, JJ McCarthy,

we're going to put all our effort into you, but Hey, Trey Lance, you also develop, but also you're not really a backup. Cause you don't know anything. Cause you've never even played, right?

Like I don't want, I don't want that. That seems like too much. And the Justin Fields idea, I just have no interest in whatsoever because if he plays okay, then you have to pay him. I don't want that. So I think that this draft class was almost hand delivered to the Minnesota Vikings to say, this is your year. Here's all these guys. And I walked away from the combine. I went in looking for, am I going to now hate somebody

like what happened with Spencer Rattler? I don't ever want to watch a person run like that ever again. That's how I run. It's not good. So like, but that, that was a fourth round pick anyway. But if Bo Nix had looked terrible in his workout or something, or if Michael Penix, his hands were half the size that I thought they were, if there was some big red flag that came out of that or the medicals, especially the medicals on Pennix, who, you know, I've been very much sold on as a guy that the Vikings could make fit with their offense through this whole time. I didn't come away with any of those red flags from the combine on any of these quarterbacks. And the fact that McCarthy had a better week is just a good sign in my mind for the Vikings. If they're looking for him to be their future quarterback,

two things that I'll quickly say on your Sam Darnall idea. I totally understand that he'd also be the cheapest to like, he's not going to command any big salary at all relative to what quarterbacks are getting today. And to your last point about JJ McCarthy and that you didn't really take a lot. One of the last episodes that we discussed, how important it is to have contingency plans and to maybe like more than one

quarterback because you don't know what's going to happen or at least envision, all right, well, if this happens, how is our offense going to look if we have McCarthy or if it's Drake May or if it's none of these guys and it's Penix in round two, like different skill sets, different strengths, different weaknesses. So you're right that the, the top few tiers, I mean, we didn't get anything from the first tier, obviously, but Penix and Knicks like just kind of staying the course and, and performing how we expected is great news for the Vikings because there's

even a world where the Vikings like pick Bo Knicks in the second round. And they're just like, Hey, like, here's our our point guard do what you did at Oregon Kevin O'Connell and Josh McConnell will set everything up for you nicely you got your great weapons a good offensive line so it's again we have to like remember that teams don't always especially when you're picking 11th even fall in love with one guy and like that's it and we hate everyone else and it's important I think for the Vikings to have more than one option and I think this is a great class you talked about it that Kwesi said we started looking at this quarterback class like a year ago like they were prepared and I think that was kind of the ripple effect of some of the moves that they made to kind

of set up departure for Kirk Cousins and then we draft one of these guys in the 2024 in the 2024 class. Okay. I did want to talk real quick before we get to that top 10 rundown and what the board or situation could look like for the Vikings when they get there or who they might have to trade with if they want McCarthy and so forth. But I did want to ask what, what you saw come out on social media that really made your eyes pop out like a take or an opinion because i've got a couple that i'm gonna throw your way and you can think about it uh one our friend tyler dunn at uh go long uh he has bob mcginn doing some stuff with interviews with scouts and then writing kind of what they say right it's a thing he's done for a long time and one of them was putting jayden daniels in the Patrick Mahomes. And we've gotten to the point. And, uh, I think you and I

are both old enough to where everybody was the next Jordan. It was like Vince Carter's the next Jordan, Tracy, the next Jordan, Grant Hill's the next, everybody's the next Jordan. Everybody's the next Patrick Mahomes. So they're putting that, I guess, on Jaden Daniels. They've been trying to put it on Caleb Williams. Please stop. Just please stop doing that. It's just preposterous. We need to cut it out. These guys are their own people. And I thought that this last year, the biggest problem Caleb Williams had was he kept trying to be Mahomes. Every time he got pressured, it was like, I'm going to do something crazy. I'm going to be my homes. And then he would make the worst throw. And it's like, Caleb, stop.

Just throw the ball away or check it down. My man stopped trying to be my homes. And he had one of the worst PFF grades under pressure last year. I think because he was just trying too hard. I don't know why people put this on these quarterbacks. And I think that if even if we're projecting upside is hard to figure out because it's, you know, affected by other things like supporting cast and so forth, like Brock Purdy's upside is not MVP candidate, but yet, you know, circumstance, but I mean, none of them,

I think have Mahomes upside. I don't think that none of them have, I will compete to be the best quarterback in the NFL outside of maybe Caleb Williams. But I just don't really see that from anybody in this class to be at that level. 100%. And that's been my biggest gripe. I got asked, of course, like you probably were, I was on a bunch of radio spots last week in Indy and it was, what's the concern with Caleb Williams or is he a generational prospect? I got asked, is he Patrick Mahomes? And I, that's literally exactly what I said in all three of those interviews. I said, I think he tries to do too much sometimes when he is very accurate from the pocket,

even though he's small, he does have a big arm. He seemingly reads coverages pretty well. And yes, once in a while, and maybe more than, you know, every couple plays, he can show awesome spatial awareness and create. But in 2022, it was like maybe the first time the defenses saw that in the Pac-12. And it was like, whoa, like he can just do whatever he wants. And there were those Patrick Mahomes similarities. But you're totally right that this past year, way too much of that, where as fun as that is for Mahomes, we have to remember that Mahomes is also amazing from just inside the pocket

within the structure of the play. And in that 2018 breakout season, like you just mentioned, that you don't think any of these guys are competing to be the best quarterback in the league instantly. Mahomes was right away. So that's another element to that, where if you don't think that they're going to be a top three quarterback instantly, Mahomes had 50 touchdowns and one MVP in his first full year as a starter at like 23 years old. So we don't,

which is nuts in that season. He did a lot of Mahomes stuff, but he did a lot of just, oh my God, that was a rifle shot like between the free and the, and the, or like both safeties, perfect throw, perfect timing rhythm and all that. I don't know if Caleb Williams is anywhere close to that. And the Jaden Daniels is just like, not that style of quarterback. Like I would, he is much more like Lamar Jackson. You could maybe say like Michael Vick ish. My comparison is Randall Cunningham. I think he's that type of runner that likes to throw it deep, but the pressure to sack rate we talked about is way higher for Jaden Daniels

than it is for Caleb Williams, and then it was for Patrick Mahomes coming out of Texas Tech. So I love that Bob McGinn series, and there's always some pretty, let's say, enlightening quotes that come from it, but I'm totally with you that there are some flares of mahomes from caleb williams but he's not mahomes and jayden daniels to me is like just stylistically a totally different quarterback yeah i think that jayden daniels plays like tyrod taylor and whether that's a good one too yeah whether he can sharpen up some of those things we're going to see

but i don't i don't want to put our official so you mentioned randall cunningham but our our official 90s comps i don't want to put our official. So you mentioned Randall Cunningham, but our, our official nineties comps. I don't want to put those down yet. Cause with those, those take thought that we have two bits that we're going to get to eventually. One is the nineties comps and the other is the bust comparisons that everybody's looking forward to those.

We're not ready yet, but we'll put those together at some point. I, the other one I saw was Chris Sims quarterback ratings, which I now wait for every single year because I want to see what he did that's crazy different from everybody else. And sometimes it's worked for him and sometimes it hasn't, but it's become a staple of draft season. And the one that he had was Bo Nix is number three. And then Drake May is number six, which is totally, totally off of what everybody else has. Now I did text a former NFL scout and I said, what do we think about Nix being that high? And this is just one person. Okay. So there's, when you hear like,

I'm hearing this and whatever else you know, there's lots of different opinions, but this person really liked Bo Nix and said, I could see it as QB three. They had him ahead of McCarthy, which is interesting. Now, I think if you watch the tape, of course, Nix has better tape than McCarthy. Like that's not the point, right? Nix being 24 entering the NFL should have at that point, if we took Nix Nick's tape when he was 21, it would probably look a lot like McCarthy, right? And that's kind of the thing about Bo Nix. But I think it just shows you that even if someone was an NFL quarterback,

even if someone was an NFL scout, these are all inkblot tests. What do you see when you look at this and different teams can see different things that guys are doing with that they like, or they don't like, but putting Drake May number six is pretty wild. I mean, is there, is there any argument for that? Or is that just, Hey, Chris, I don't know what you're thinking, man. I would lean toward the latter, but, and again, we all have misses. I want to say that I looked back last year and Chris Sims quarterback rankings have been like, I don't want to say spot on, like he's never got someone wrong.

But when he started this, it's been at least since the Josh Allen draft class, which was now six or seven years ago like he had Josh I believe at number one and that was like or way higher than most people that were you know like thinking he was not a good draft prospect at all like myself a little bit um and I remember looking back and I was like whoa like some of these were actually pretty good the one thing I would say and I'm not coming from a place of I know more about quarterback evaluations than Chris Sims, I think it, like you mentioned, it's easy to fall in love with Bo Nix because everything was gravy in that offense. It was just no pressure, wide open receivers. And I remember, and I probably say this every year, but I'm going to forever,

I had Tua Tungavailoa as my number three overall prospect, my number two quarterback behind Burrow in, what, 2020? We were just saying. And in my last scouting report, my last big board, I wrote, I almost want to give him an incomplete grade because I don't know what Tua is like when he doesn't have, I mean, little did I know, four future first-round picks that he's throwing the football to and an offensive line that demolished people in the SEC. And what's funny about that is that Tua

now has like a similar setup in Miami and it's like, oh, leads the league in quarterback rating. But then in those big situations, he kind of falls flat. And any other time that a quarterback would lead the league in quarterback rating or be in that elite tier for multiple years, it would be back up the brain struck. He's resetting the quarterback market and it's kind of like uh with two uh so I feel like with Knicks it's easy to watch his film and I you know getting into these offensive linemen and other positions it's like I'm watching them and I'm like oh this I can see why people like him because he's not really asked to do a lot or the system is so good or this Oklahoma offensive lineman like never really has to pass block very much for more than you know one and a half seconds because they get the ball out quickly so I think it makes sense for a

former quarterback in Chris Sims to be like oh I love everything that he's doing because he didn't really have to do anything extra there was really no adversity in that offense last season for Bo Nix yeah no you're right and when you look up his pressure numbers they're very good but he was almost never pressured it's something like 15 or 20 percent of that is really low that's super low it's insanely low and it's not anything like it would be in the NFL but this is a very much production versus tools type of draft because you have Knicks and you have Pennix that put up huge numbers took teams to places that they usually don't go especially for Pennix which is a thing I really like about him kind of reminds me of a

little bit of Dak Prescott who had a you know a team that was okay and never really did a lot and then overachieved with them and i kind of always keep an eye on the overachiever but then you have someone like drake may i think if you just turned on three random games of drake may if you picked the wrong games he didn't look good at times right he was a little bit all over the place at times and And if you pick the right games, you'd go, okay, wow, this arm talent, especially throwing over the middle of the field is absurd. He threw, didn't he throw a touchdown with his left hand or something like he did. He's got some crazy playmaking ability. So you kind of have to believe it. Right. And I think that that's the similar a little bit with

Caleb Williams is you could turn on the tape and see some really bad plays. And you kind of have to believe that whoever he's going to play for is going to work that out. You also have to believe that some of that character stuff, which is real, it is real that you have to be able to trust that he's not going to be all about himself. You have to be able to trust that he's not going to freak out if you lose a couple of games, because I promise you, my man, you're going to lose some games, right? So there's reasons to look at some of these guys that are the top guys and say, all right, I've got some questions there more than when you turn on Bo Nix and just see him complete, complete, complete, complete. So that's, I think, what makes this class really interesting and why a lot of people's rankings

are different. No, that's a funny hypothetical that if you turn on three random games, you could pick one good one and two really bad ones with Drake May and be like, I can kind of see that. I'm not saying I'm pushing back on your hypothetical because it's a good one, but why I would defend Drake May is that even if you did that, he was good as a freshman. He was good as a freshman he was good as a sophomore this is not like a jane daniels ascension a joe burrow a kyler murray a baker mayfield i mean i know baker kind of was good for multiple seasons but didn't really become a draft prospect

major one until his final season drake may like as a i believe he was a true freshman or a red his first time playing at North Carolina. You're like, whoa. Then year two, you're like, okay, yep.

He next year, he's going to be at. So he, you could find three randomly bad games, but I think the track record, I don't have this off the top of my head, but the, the track record for like three,

like step on the scene and look good and have three quality seasons where you're showing those traits and being productive and doing all the little things, running with the football, deep ball touch, all that. I think it's got a pretty good track record. So you're right that there are some awkward moments for me. But I mean, three straight years of all of that, I think is important. I will say that Chris Sims made my life difficult when the Vikings drafted Kellen Mond because he was a huge fan of Kellen Mond and he put him, I think maybe above Justin Fields or above somebody. So when the Vikings picked them, everybody sent me the, did you see Chris Sims loved him so much? And I know this for sure there were people there were scouts who thought that Kellen Mond was higher than Justin Fields like I talked to people afterward who did think that

and then the first time I saw Kellen Mond in rookie minicamp I knew it was over I mean just we all did like oh this isn't gonna work because he just doesn't throw the ball like NFL quarterbacks do and I think that speaks to how hard it is to envision what it's going to look because he just doesn't throw the ball like NFL quarterbacks do. And I think that speaks to how hard it is to envision what it's going to look like on an NFL field. And that's why you believe in someone like Drake may, because let's go around the league. Let's look at Burrow. Let's look at Mahomes, look at Allen, look at Stroud. These are big dudes with big arms and great athletes. Like I know there are out outliers I know that Kyler Murray's a pretty good quarterback as a short dude and Russell Wilson was too but most of the time always in

forever in this league it's usually a big guy with a big arm and sometimes you'll even see a Josh Allen or Jordan Love their last year wasn't as good pressure or you know the team I didn't think the team in North Carolina was very good so you will see that dip off but you know I guess when it comes to this stuff I wouldn't be shocked by anything it just feels like Drake Mays pretty solidified as either number two or number three overall yeah and on that ranking this is of course not to like totally disparage Chris Sims but I think that former quarterbacks, Kurt Warner does this sometimes on Twitter. They give unparalleled insight that I could never give, that none of us could give,

that didn't play the position in the NFL at that high of a level. I think they kind of lean toward the quarterbacks that kind of do it like how a coach would want them to do it, to be the point guard. And that's not, I mean, he has Caleb Williams number one I like I think he was high on Josh Allen like I said but I think the Kellen Mons of the world that are just like here's what the coach would probably want him to do on this play and it's not a strong arm but he makes good decisions and like all those quarterbacks that you reference maybe maybe outside of burrow, like Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes. I don't think they are drew breeze processors, seeing every open receiver and winning that way.

Like Tom Brady did. They're like, Hey, I see it up. Uh, there he is. And then they throw a 70 mile per hour fastball over the middle and they can run over linebackers or never get sacked.

So I think it's like, we're at kind of a, I don't want to say inflection point in the league, because I think we are past it where it's like the big time athletes are what are really thriving. But it seems like the former quarterbacks kind of gravitate toward those

that are like offensive coordinator extensions on the field. All right, so we did this a little bit on the fly when you brought up the buzz from Indy, but now since everybody's buzz from Indy, we thought we were hearing something special. And then we came back and went, Oh, I guess everybody else is hearing the same thing about JJ McCarthy, but let's just go through what we think the top 10 is going to basically look like and where the Vikings sit in this entire thing. So at the top of the draft, nothing has happened to make you change your mind on Caleb

Williams as the number one pick, right? No. Yep. He's number one. Okay. Now Washington and New England are very interesting because I have my friend Chad graph from a new England beat for the athletic on the show. He is very convinced that New England is taking a quarterback with number three. But then there's these weird rumors about Washington and Kirk, which I do not understand. Totally baffling. But they called me the other day. Washington DC Radio called me because they're like,

yeah, there's these rumors about Washington and Kirk. I'm like, what? It's a prank? But apparently it is a new ownership. It's not even a safety. Yeah, true. That's these rumors about Washington Kirk. I'm like, what? It's a prank. But apparently it is a new ownership. It's not even the same team name as it used to be. And man, they need to change it back to Washington football team. But it's been so long since he's been gone. Everything is different.

We also don't know what their ownership thinks. Like, does their ownership think that, oh, well, a rookie is not going to be good right away. We just bought the team. And I remember this is a Zach Lowe ESPN theory because I listen to his podcast all the time. He covers the NBA, right? Yeah. Yeah. In my opinion, the best.

He's really good. Yeah. And he has this theory that every time an owner buys a team they do something crazy and it's exactly right like the guy buys the phoenix suns they immediately get durant the guy buys the clippers they immediately trade for kawaii leonard or sign him or however they got him and then getting like james harden and so forth every time someone buys a team they want to do something crazy and maybe they could. I still think it's going to be some combination of Caleb Williams and Jaden Daniels here, but it

would throw a major wrench in all this stuff. If they went out and signed Kirk or Baker Mayfield and said, we want to be good right away. We don't want to draft the quarterback number two overall. Yeah. I mean, I was ready to say that it kind of feels like we can write it in pen that quarterbacks will go one, two, and three. And I didn't know that Patriot nugget before you said it, but it felt like,

all right, if the Patriots weren't going to pick a quarterback, that's the trade up spot, whether it's the giants, whether it's the Vikings, whether it's the Broncos at, at six, 11 and 12,

that that would ultimately be a spot that would be a quarterback. And maybe it's just ultimately going to be whichever third quarterback is still on the board. Is it Drake May? Is it J.J. McCarthy? Who knows? I mean, I don't think J.J. McCarthy going number three overall is not like out of the realm of possibility. Like we have seen way crazier stuff happen. We are still, what, 50 or 49 days away from the draft um that we've seen ascensions of trey lance and zach wilson and baker mayfield happen a lot further and a lot closer to the draft so it felt like one two three would be quarterback but obviously if suddenly kirk is back

in the nation's capital that would have a huge ripple effect on like every team in the first round. So let's just say it goes the way that we think it's going to go. One, two, three, all quarterbacks, number four, number five, we've got Arizona and the Los Angeles chargers. Do you think that the Vikings have to trade with one of those teams if they are dead set on JJ McCarthy? I do. I think that the giants, they have Daniel Jones, Tyrod played well for them.

There was the Tommy DeVito experiment. That was like Jeremy Lynn 2.0, that whole deal. I think they're picking a quarterback. It would be completely crazy for their GM, Joe Shane and their head coach, Brian Dable to go through or to enter year three and just be like yeah we still have the quarterback from the other regime and like he's not really that good and he's

just came off of what Achilles right they have to pick a quarterback so I think it if again whether it's the Giants trying to move to three or if there's still the quarterback that the Vikings want I think the Vikings would need to get ahead or whichever team would need to get ahead of the giants at six, because that is a spot where unless like they truly just like love the first three and hope to get them. And then if they don't, they'll just pick a wide receiver.

I think the giants are dead set on a quarterback at six. Okay. Which also means that they might know that they have to try to get ahead of the Vikings and they have a shorter place to move up or whatever, however you want to phrase that they don't have to go as far to get to number four or number five with the amount of draft capital, which leads to the next question. Let's say we're at number four on the board. And by the way, the Vikings could do this trade up anytime. So they could wait till Kirk makes it official and the next day start making calls for sure. But they

would have to identify where they have to trade up to. So if they identify four as the place that they have to trade up to, and they think it's going to be McCarthy to be able to draft there, what is too much to give up? Like what makes sense for an offer to move up to Arizona? And what would you be like, bro, for JJ McCarthy, that is just not it. Well, I don't want to give like a general answer. I'm looking up our, because this would obviously be a seismic thing. My former editor at CBS, RJ White, has this draft pick trade value chart.

It's different from Brad Spielberger's and from Jimmy Johnson's. Of course, it's not loading right now. I don't know. I mean, you obviously have to give up next year's first rounder and maybe a day two and then another day two pick. Maybe one in 2024 2024 another in 2025 um beyond that I mean I was gonna say beyond that it's probably too much but I think that's the one position where unless it's like egregious and you're trading away like three first rounders like the Browns did to get Deshaun Watson I don't really think anything to especially get a quarterback on a rookie deal who

you love with the current setup of your offense with how much young talent you have at other positions I think I mean if you're feeling pressure from say the Chargers at five they're saying hey we got the Giants here they want to move up one spot just to assure it and they keep driving the price up of course and I'm sure Kwesi Adafo-Mensah will have everything figured out analytically, like this is as far as I want to go, but unless you have something in your head, there's not something that pops around like, don't trade two first-rounders because I think if they have the conviction

and they like the quarterback, I mean, of course, if it's for Bo Nix, I wouldn't be a fan of it, but if it's for one of the top three, I think it would make a lot of sense i think i would go with the number 11 pick next year first and two seconds and that's about as high as i would that's where i was at that's where i was and for and for this you have to throw out the charts because the charts are going to say you're a dope but if you're doing it for a quarterback it's just a different chart and in this case actually if you're doing it for a quarterback jimmy johnson's chart's probably the most accurate because his is really heavy loaded toward the front because his theory was kind of

like that's where you get the hall of famers and i tend to like that about his chart if we're looking at it but teams have their own values on these things when it comes to a quarterback that's like that's like buying the Gucci bag, where is there any bag in the world that's worth $5,000? No, but it's this one, and that's the one that you really want. I know all about this, of course, buying Gucci bag. I can't even believe I came up with that. So let's say, though, that the New York Giants

are not going to draft quarterback. Let's just say. And then Arizona and the Chargers, they want to just get their players. These are rebuilding teams. They just want to get top 10 draft picks. They don't want to move back. Or that the Vikings don't have a value on McCarthy that high. So let's just say that.

That the price is too high. They're not going to do it. Who do you have being picked by those teams if they stay at number four and five? Well, it's good that you brought that up because I feel like the Cardinals are not going to move. They moved out last year and they see the CJ Stroud, Will Anderson duo, and just take the Texans to a completely new heights immediately. And then they ultimately traded back up into the top 10 for Paris Johnson, the offensive tackle from Ohio state who has upside because he's big and he's super athletic, but did not have a good rookie season. I think in year two,

you kind of have to look at what stage of the rebuild and what year are the GMs and the coaches going into, I think there'll be like, all right, we have the fourth pick, whether it's Malik neighbors, probably Marvin Harrison jr. We need a big receiver. It's a great receiver class, but we can get the top, the pick of the litter of this, you know, quote unquote historic class, or one that a lot of people believe is going to be really good. I think they go receiver all day. I'll be really surprised if it's not Marvin Harrison jr. The chargers, I'll answer your question, but I think the Chargers, to me, because of their GM coming from Baltimore and they were always just a glutton for having so many picks, they're the team that I think is very apt to move back as

well because I think they're like, hey, we're good, but we know our philosophy now is going to be let's get as many picks as possible. We'll move back six picks and still get someone good. I feel like it'll be offensive linemen, though, if they have to make a selection. Because if you're kind of going with Jim Harbaugh, Greg Roman, and the Baltimore Ravens, although they were able to kind of fill their offensive lines over the years with mid-round guys, I think they understand we need better offensive linemen because it's Rashawn Slater. And I can't really name anyone else at this point with Corey Lindsay retiring like on that offensive line, that's a quality player.

And that would be another situation where Cardinals need a receiver, great receiver class, get the pick of the litter, great offensive tackle class. The Chargers could probably be picking, whether it's Olu Fashanu from Penn State, Talese Fuanga from Oregon State, Joe Alt from Notre Dame. Those top three kind of feel like the cream of the crop, just in terms of consensus.

I think it'll be receiver for the Cardinals and offensive tackle for the Chargers. All right, so the Giants are kind of a swing team here, and they may go with something else. It is hard, though, where the regime stands to just be like, oh, let's take the receiver. Let's take the tight end i think that's what they should do i mean they should just take brock bowers or they should just take uh whichever

guy doesn't go whichever receiver doesn't go ahead yeah like if it's right if it's neighbors then take him uh or a dunesay like there's three guys that if you took in the top 10 no one's going to call you a fool for that if you're the Giants, and they need so much more than just a quarterback. They need a whole roster, basically. But I also look at the Titans as a place the Vikings could trade up. At number seven, there's a relationship between the two general managers. I think that they could also move back and still, when you're a team that has all the needs, you should just be like, okay, we'll just move back and then take anything.

Like whoever is there, we will just accept them uh dunes a seems to be the guy that keeps coming up with chicago for number nine and uh you know then we get who's at number 10 am i i'm blanking on number 10 10 jets oh yeah jets right and the jets and they're not uh gonna take a quarterback with aaron rogers they're gonna probably get an offensive lineman. I would think to try to help right away. So that leaves us with the Vikings. If, if say a situation where McCarthy was taken by the giants, I think at that point, the Vikings should take Dallas Turner and then look to trade back in to try to get the fifth year option for a quarterback and take either Knicks or Pennix, whichever one still hangs around. That I think would be a massive successful draft for the Minnesota Vikings if that happened. And I don't know, Turner or Jared Burse, it doesn't matter

to me, but I just kind of really liked watching Turner play football. But whoever Brian Flores likes is fine. If they were to come away with those two key positions, literally the first and maybe second or third most valuable position in the sport with their first two picks, I would be a hundred percent into that draft, finding a quarterback, finding a key spot on the defensive side. And then of course, whatever you do, you, you pair that with the Sam Darnold or whatever else. But that seems like the most likely way this goes if McCarthy is taken high. Yeah, that's the plan.

I mean, being a draft analyst, you have ideas for, all right, this team should do that. This team should make this selection, trade back, pick this spot in round one, wait for this one in round two. But I've learned that it's like, you have to be aware that there's more than one way to skin a cat and that teams have different ideas and there's different ripple effects that start with different picks. Having said all that, that should be the plan. That should be the plan if, I don't want to call it a worst case scenario, but if there's four quarterbacks gone, they don't want to spend an arm and a leg to move up like three or four spots with Tennessee at seven or with the Giants or way up into the top five range,

which maybe even being into the top five would have like an extra premium on it. That is the plan because I think Dallas Turner is really good on film. I think the analytics are going to be through the roof for the GM with the Vikings because of how well he tested, how explosive he was. The pressure generation rate was very high this past season at Alabama. He's a big recruit. The importance of the position, everything that you just said makes a lot of sense.

And then getting that fifth year option is, is huge because you would have to be able to come out of the first round or the first, probably two rounds and who knows what would happen from pick 33 to 43 before you go is Nick's going to go as panic's going to go. You have to make sure that you get that quarterback to me. It kind of having more of an intimate knowledge of the Vikings needs. There's not another prospect there.

Like you wouldn't pick Brock Bowers. You wouldn't pick any other edge rusher. I like chop Robinson, but I think he's kind of viewed as more of a, a little more raw than Dallas Turner. You don't need a receiver. You're not going to pick an offensive tackle. Those are the best players that will be available at pick 11 in this kind of

mock scenario. So go Dallas Turner, the highly explosive bendy edge rusher from Alabama, and then get your quarterback later. All right, let's wrap on this. I want this to be at the end of each show. And then you got to understand, Chris, that the next show we do, we might have an answer.

We might have an answer on Kirk. Yes. I mean, we're going to have an answer. We will by March 13th, but it could even be before that, depending because of that whole legal tampering thing. So we'll, we'll see. So very exciting times, but for each episode, I want to wrap on a Chris's characters, which is we had the Haley's heroes for my former intern, Haley English, who now works with the Detroit lions. And she was awesome

at picking them. She picked out Ivan Pace jr. So that was like her guy. She was, yeah, she was awesome at picking them she picked out ivan pace jr so that was like her guy she was yeah she was using the data to figure it out you use your scouting eye so give me the 30 second elevator pitch on a projected mid-round player that you are in love with you think he's great just a guy a chris's character. How about Chris Abrams drain? So he's a cornerback from Missouri and that's, it's a mouthful of a name. Great. His teammate, his teammate,

Ennis rake straw before the combine was getting a lot of, these are not real names. These are not, I know it sounds like, you know, NCAA 24 is coming out and this is like dynasty mode fake. And it's rake straw was getting a lot of first round buzz from Missouri. So I'm watching him a month or two ago and I'm like, okay, yeah, he's pretty good. He had a good game against Georgia. And it was one of those things that happens a lot when you're scouting

where I'm like, wait a minute. This other corner is like around the football way more often. He never misses a tackle. What the hell? And it's like, oh, he's a little smaller. Well, it gets to the combine and Ennis Raikstra, who was getting all the first round buzz, was like four pounds heavier than Abrams Drain. Same height. So even though it was one of those kind of like he was listed at like 6'1", 190, and he was 5'11", 183.

Abrams Drain was like listed at his right height. He was like 5'11", 180. That's what he was at the combine right around there. He can play on the outside, which he did at Missouri. I think he's someone, great tackler, blitzer. Think like Mike Hilton of the Steelers and then the Bengals. Like just that pesky, annoying dude. That's just always making plays. And because he's a little shorter,

probably day two, day three. And I think in, you know, three or four years and a lot of the, the analytics check out with him. Like the, the tackle rate is very good.

Like he's not missing a lot of tackles was around the football a lot. Chris Abrams drain might be the second Missouri corner off the board in the draft, but I think he'll actually be better than his teammate and a straight straw. And those are real names. I mostly believe you. Chris's characters. We're going to do it at the end of every show,

unless it's next week and Kirk has picked the team. Then we'll wait a week on that to figure it out. By the way, you have set the bar and Haley hats to her, for setting the bar that high to be like, oh, I think Ivan Pace is going to be good. And then he goes undrafted. Then Haley probably feels like, oh, I was so wrong. And then it turns out she was spot on. That's awesome.

I know, yeah. Well, she is smarter than both of us, as is proven by her career so far. But thanks so much, Chris. We'll talk next week. And at that point, we may or may not have this franchise. I hope we do. Yeah. Turning in one major direction or the next.

So we'll see how important all the quarterback discussions about to be. Thanks so much. And we'll talk soon. Football. Football.