Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - CBS Sports draft analyst Chris Trapasso wants the Vikings to trade up for Drake Maye

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

CBS Sports draft analyst Chris Trapasso joins Matthew Coller to react to a rumor that the Vikings could trade up to No. 3 overall with the Patriots and discusses why it would be worth it for Drake May but may not be worth it for Jayden Daniels. Plus, Matthew and Chris analyze a PFF mock draft that has the Vikings landing a QB and an edge rusher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here, along with CBS Sports Draft Analyst Chris Trapasso for the chris trapasso draft show every single week and many times at the nfl combine both of us have booked our travel for the combine we're going to be good to go out there doing a bunch of shows so you're going to want to look forward to that in a couple of weeks but in the lead up we have time to look at mocks to talk about rumors to analyze different draft philosophies, and such and forth. And we also have now a list of those who are going to be at the Combine. And yeah, it's all the quarterbacks.

We have a lot to discuss. But I want to start out with this, Chris. I want to start out with trade-up scenarios. trade up scenarios because one of the biggest rumors coming out at least involving the vikings coming out of super bowl week is that the new england patriots could consider not taking a quarterback at number three and the team mentioned for a trade up the minnesota vikings so why don't you give me your reaction to that and then we can go from there and talk about it. Well, to me,

this harkens back to what the last two or three years that we've had this conversation when it was like we said, it was for Zach Wilson, potentially in 2021 trade lands, whatever that we agree. And I feel like most of your listeners and viewers agree that if it's for a quarterback, that's the one position that me,

this huge advocate for trading down and, and someone that is against trading up, I'm fine for doing that. I mean, you don't necessarily want to trade away the next, you know, three years of first round picks and kind of get yourself into a hole with a young quarterback.

But if number three or maybe number five with the los angeles chargers there's kind of been some rumors about jim harbaugh and their new gm joe hortus would maybe be willing to trade back if you are like oh my gosh our analytics from quessy kevin o'connell loves let's say jayden daniels or drake may and they are there one of those two quarterbacks um or you happen to like both of them and you're like, hey, if we get to five and there's only one off the board or whatever the case may be, if you think you can get one of those quarterbacks, I'm completely fine with it. Even though, yes, you would probably have to stomach kind of a big trade up and probably not

just the normal trade up cost because it seems like there's always a little tax when you're moving up to get a quarterback yeah no question about it and i did an article looking at what it would cost if the vikings even just gave up their first and second and next year's second and how that compares and of course every draft chart whether it's the jimmy johnson chart or the one that brad spielberger and jason fitzgerald put together, they all think that you are not doing the most efficient thing. But if you factor in for getting a quarterback, there is such a massive surplus value that is gaining every single year when you have the

quarterback on the rookie contract. Just to give you an idea, Bryce Young's cap hit will never be over $13 million. Next year, there are 12 quarterbacks and will probably be 13 that are making over $40 million per year average annual value. So that's $27 million difference between what the rookie quarterback is making and what even just your average starting quarterback. And that's only going up by the way as franchise quarterbacks will be at 45 50 million dollars so if you have cap hits that are 45 50 million bucks and your rookie contract for your quarterback is 12 in their third year I mean you are just gaining such a huge advantage that it's worth giving up draft picks because you can fill in the rest of that space by using your cap space to go out and get free agents. But my question is from New England's

perspective, like put yourself in their shoes with three quarterbacks at the top of the draft that are considered potential franchise QBs. Why would they think about moving down? Like, is this one of those, Hey, make us an offer kind of types of things, why would they think about moving down? Like, is this one of those, hey, make us an offer kind of types of things, or are they actually in a position where you believe it might make sense to move out of the third pick? Yeah, I'm going to go with the former there over the latter, that it's more like this new regime there, the post-Bill Belichick regime, Gerard Mayo as the head coach is like, hey, we've looked at these quarterbacks. We like them, but let's stir up some potential trade-up market for maybe more than just the Vikings. If they get three, four, five different deals and they can say, hey, Vikings, we have this deal from the Raiders, this one from the Falcons.

See where the dominoes fall with Kirk Cousins, with Justin Fields. There's not as many or nearly as many veteran quarterbacks set to be on the market. Like last year, there was like Rodgers and Derek Carr, and we're not going to see as much, but there will be a few of those dominoes that will fall that will take some of those teams out of the quarterback market. That's what it seems like to me, because what you're kind of hinting at, and me being someone that watches a lot of AFC East games, I have no idea why a new regime wouldn't be like, we have the third pick. We should just pick one of these quarterbacks right now.

Yeah, and I think there is an argument for both sides for New England. On one side, you could say, hey, look, if you get a chance to get your quarterback at the top of the draft, then you've got to get him. What are you doing? But at the same time, when we look at Justin Fields, I would not be shocked if Justin Fields goes somewhere else and has more success than he did in Chicago because they gave him nothing. And I'm not saying he's going to be a great quarterback somewhere else, but they gave him nothing until really this year when they got, you know, DJ Moore there and

improved their offensive line and so forth. But even their office of coordinator, I wasn't really sold on. If you bring in Jaden Daniels to that situation, you have no linemen, no wide receivers. You're really trying to build a lot of this from scratch. Are you in a better place taking someone else's multiple first round draft picks or maybe a potential player considering that you know Carolina set that standard by trading DJ Moore as part of the deal to move up to number one are you in a better place if you are the New England Patriots getting the foundation getting multiple draft picks at the top as opposed to and look this is a great receiver draft maybe

you could take two of them like you really need wide receivers it's a draft with good offensive linemen at the top those are players that they desperately need would you prefer that to somebody who is a maybe even if it's daniels somebody that's a little more project E that you're going to have to work with and whose success may depend a lot on the supporting cast. Yeah, that's a perfect counter to what I just said. And not that I don't think the Patriots are like, let's try to and expect to rekindle the Tom Brady era. But if we remember back 20 plus years ago, Tom Brady was dropped into a pretty good team. They had a good offensive line. They had a top five or so defense and it wasn't, Hey, Tom Brady, go win us games right away. Now the NFL, of course, looks a lot different. The landscape at the quarterback spot

is not what it once was that a lot of quarterbacks in 2000, 2001, we're very, we're brought along very slowly, but it wouldn't be crazy if Robert Kraft and Gerard Mayo that's been there forever are like, let's not pick a quarterback at number three in year one and just totally ruin him. And he's got, you know, shell shock by year two.

And he's scrambling out of the pocket when there's no pressure there because he had a terrible line. He couldn't throw to anyone. Let's get maybe Marvin Harrison jr. A trade back and get Roman dunes a at 11 or whatever the case may be and build the rest of the team they have a lot of cap space so they could be some players in free agency this is the Patriots by the way so it's it seems like they probably wanted to drum up trade value because I don't think they're just willing to move down for nothing but what you just pointed, because this team is so far away from being good,

and it really feels like they have needed to rebuild over the last few years, that even if you put Jaden Daniels or Drake May and expect them to have a relatively good season by rookie quarterback standards, that team is not a legitimate contender in what has become a really loaded AFC. And I think you do have to factor in Mac Jones into this conversation, not keeping

Mac Jones. What I mean is what happened to Mac Jones, which was he came in. He's obviously not a special player, but he was able to get his team to the playoffs right away the roster then went to hell and then they brought in matt patricia just a disastrous decision decision bill o'brien coming back these are not good ideas and gave him zero to work with and then by the end of the year mac jones is on the bench he's being considered a bust he could eventually have like a ryan tannahill type of comeback somewhere else but he was never going to be the type of guy to survive that. Maybe if you look at Daniels and the way that he can run around, but Justin Fields was able to run around too. If you're not like Trevor Lawrence had a

terrible first year in Jacksonville and it set him back an entire year to where it was just completely lost to how bad Jacksonville was. And I think all of this stuff, it has to be factored. Like if I'm making that decision, if I'm the New England Patriots, the other part of it too is, are you going to be sold 100% this guy is our franchise guy or not? Because I don't think that Daniels or Drake may is a perfect prospect. I think Caleb Williams is still easily going number one. I'm going to, I'm sure here's some stuff. Well, you know, it could be somebody else, but the NFL always tries that. Caleb Williams is going to go number

one. The bears are moving on from fields. That's, that's how I feel at this moment, but between, between Drake may and Jaden Daniels, if you're in the Vikings seat, are they worth it? Are they prospects that would be worth trading up? And you think if you're the Vikings, okay, we gave up three firsts, but we've got our franchise guy for a very long time. Break down those two guys. Would it have to be May? Could it be either one of them? How are you looking down those two guys. Would it have to be May? Could it be either one of them? How are you looking at those two guys? Yes, I think it would be absolutely worth it for either

one of those two. I have Drake May graded ahead of Jaden Daniels. It's not a sizable gap, but it's not like hundreds of a point in my scouting grade book. And again, I'm going to say this a lot, but it's Patriot situation Viking situation in terms of the talent it's completely different the offensive minded head coach it comes from the Kyle Shanahan coaching tree he's gotten you know normal production from Kirk Cousins and like we mentioned in last week's episode Josh Dobbs played well Nick Mullins was having 400 yard games so yes I think they are as good, if not better, than Anthony Richardson and even C.J. Stroud as prospects.

Now, that's not to say that I'm expecting them to eclipse what C.J. Stroud did as a rookie because I do think the scheme has to be kind of factored in. Bobby Sloak did a great job there. But in terms of just looking at them as prospects, what they're capable of doing, the arm talent, the athleticism, the experience at the collegiate level, they played a lot of football and have been good for multiple seasons. Downfield throwing is very good. Drake May, I think is a very underrated athlete in that because he's so good inside the pocket, you just think, oh, he's a pocket passer, but you watch him on film and it's like, man, they're running like QB power and he's breaking off 30 yard run so he brings you that

element too they feel like those they should be number two or number three overall picks and if they weren't in a class with caleb williams number one overall pick type players i really think they're and to me drake may feels a little safer because he went into the season with a lot of hype and maybe wasn't quite as good as 2022, but didn't have this huge regression, even though he lost some talent. Jayden Daniels was on the radar. We thought, hey, he could maybe be one that jumps into the first round. Now, all of a sudden, he's going to be a top three pick. So I think there's a little bit more uncertainty with him. But yes, I think if you're the Vikings, and that's why I kind of have to, I'm grading an entire draft just from a collective NFL angle.

But if you're just narrowing it down to the Vikings, I think they are definitely like clear steps ahead of the, you know, Kenny Picketts or the Daniel Jones or the Dwayne Haskins that went in the first round where you're kind of like, really, are they first rounders this blaine gabbert jake locker 2.0 i think they are bona fide top tier quarterback process let's talk about both individually here uh start with jade and daniels it seems more likely that jade and daniels will be available at number three if that's the deal that could potentially be there but i don't know i mean it's going to be a matter of preference and sometimes we think we know we're like, oh yeah, it's going to go just

like this. And then the NFL draft has a way of being like, ah, you know, someone like Justin Fields is not as high of a draft pick as you think, or, you know, whatever it may be. Daniels to me seems like he has more of a chance to be a player that a franchise wouldn't fully buy into than may because may is so much more of a pocket passer and ultimately playmaking wins we see this all over we see it with my homes we see it with lamar jackson but jackson mahomes all these guys they still spend 60 70 percent of the time in the pocket. And with Jaden Daniels, he had an unbelievable season Heisman season. And I was watching some of him. And one thing that keeps popping up though, when I watch him is in my brain, it's been trained by watching NFL football

for many years to see the ball come out. Like guy gets to the back of his drop. He makes his reads and there comes the football to his receiver. And with Daniels, I feel like it's a little tick late sometimes. And I'm going, throw it, buddy. Throw it, buddy. Oh, and he's taking off and he's running for 50 yards. Oh, okay. While he's running for 50 yards, it's fine. That is my concern there that he would get pressured.

He would take sacks. And here's my worry as well. I mean, this guy gets his ass kicked, like in some of these games sometimes. And with Drake may, I feel like the ball comes out faster and he doesn't take hits all the time. Like sometimes it's Looney Tunes cartoonish the way that Jaden Daniels can walk himself into hits like he's Wiley Coyote or something. And that would actually be worrisome to me because you're there in Buffalo. I was there in Buffalo with Tyrod Taylor, who kind of did the same stuff. And I think he's a better talent than Tyrod Taylor,

who was a sixth rounder. But I always worry when I see that, when I see the ball not quite coming out when it should. And when I see guys that take too many hits because I worry about their health. All right. I'm wondering if you have somehow gotten into my scouting grade book and read my report on Jayden Daniels. So for any of you watching this, I wasn't not paying attention to Matt. I was rereading my scouting report on Jayden Daniels that I did about a month or two ago. And there's a lot of positives in it. But what Matt pointed out toward the end, I wrote, which this is something that you didn't say, but he did not face much pressure at all. Like that's just like normal pressure where like you're saying a lot of times, oh, he scrambles. He must have been pressured.

But no, he really wasn't. He was just like, I'm just going to run here. And being able to pick up 50 yards on the ground in the SEC is not an easy test. So you have to give him props for that. But you're right about the ability or the tendency to just say, I'm just going to take off and run. And then I wrote, can stare down his first option a little too long, which led to pass breakups and interceptions. Doesn't happen often but will so I think at this point this late in his collegiate career being an older prospect again it was easy to kind of

be I don't want to say tricked by it but fall in love with like you're saying all of the scrambling ability and oh that's not even a 15 yard run that's a 40 yard touchdown but oh he had the slant right there why didn't he like make that throw? So that's to your point. I could see the NFL being like, look, if he's unable to really quickly pull the trigger now, I'm worried about the durability and him leaning on that too much in the NFL. Now, certainly Drake may take some hits. Um, but what I've noticed too, just to kind of wrap this point, when I started to say that he didn't see pressure a lot, I have noticed from like Patrick Mahomes on, and there's not any, I don't think there's any study that's been done on this. The quarterbacks that come into the NFL

after a final season that like were pressured like on 20% of their dropbacks, a lot of the times they can have, add in any other attribute, a big arm, great downfield touch. Once they get to the NFL and if they are a top five to 10, whatever, first round pick that they're going to start right away, they struggle early on. It's the Josh Allens and the Patrick Mahomes that didn't have amazing offensive lines and already had to get the experience of, oh crap, what do I do now that I'm pressured? Do I slide up in the pocket? Do I take off and run? Do I ad lib to my left, to my right?

And Daniels, it seems like if you're watching the highlights, oh, he was pressured a ton. Like his offensive line was bad, but in reality it wasn't. And he, it was a lot of self-induced pressure and you being a big PFF guy, I'm a big PFF guy. They always tracked it. Like, was that pressure on the quarterback or the offensive lineman? So you would certainly, if you're an NFL team, if you want to trade up, if you're the Vikings have to factor that in.

And this goes beyond the film. Maybe that's more at the combine interview or during a pre-draft visit. See if you can dive into the processing of Jaden Daniels. Like, why didn't you make that throw here? Why that second read that you looked front side for the slant, then you look backside for the dig, it was there, but then you just ran to your left for 30 yards. And that's not going to fly on a regular basis in the NFL. Folks, have you ever heard of test driving a phone network? I did not make this up. It is an actual thing.

And U.S. Cellular is letting you test drive their network for free for 30 days. You can try out U.S. Cellular wherever you have that spotty service, like on your commute to work, that one spot in your house where your service dips. Test drive U.S. Cellular at your kid's school on parent-teacher night. Okay, maybe still pay attention, but by all means, make sure you test it. It's as easy as doing a little boop, boop, boop on your phone. That was me getting the app to try it out. I know, great sound effects there. Test drive U.S. Cellular's award-winning network for 30 days. U.S. Cellular, built for us. Terms apply. Awards based on open signal independent data

visit us cellular.com for details nate and daniel scares me a lot more as a prospect than drake may does and that's exactly why and you talk about the pff and the stats kevin cole uh did he used to work at pff now does his own thing and has a great newsletter comes on the show sometimes studying analytics studying uh things that translate from college to the NFL and that pressure to sacrate is what they call it meaning if the guy gets pressured how often does he go down and Michael pennix was very good at not taking sacks and Bo Nix was very good at it. But Daniels was not. If he got pressured, he actually got sacked kind of a lot.

Which is crazy because you watch him and you think, oh, he probably ran away from a lot of pressure. But in reality, he didn't. Right, right. And that's, I think, quite concerning for the NFL. Now, that doesn't mean I wouldn't do it. But I think if we compare both guys and you were saying what's the risk level or what does it feel like the risk level is to trade up for Drake May if he was there at number three versus trading up for Jade and Daniels at number three it seems to me that the risk level is a lot less and that the Vikings for Drake May and that the Vikings would be a better fit with Drake May for a pocket quarterback who can make plays rather than someone who starts with playmaking and you have to train to be a

pocket quarterback. Because I think we see this out of the shotgun, long developing routes that you have to stick with as the quarterback, make the right reads. And then Drake may just has a phenomenal football. Like he just throws such a beautiful ball. I've just had it out of my mind that the Vikings could get Drake may. Is it realistic? Do you think that Washington could pick Jaden Daniels number two and then may be available at number three? Absolutely. And Lance Zerline was on on I don't know whose podcast he was on but that kind of circled the week before the Super Bowl he said that he had heard from a few NFL executives that Drake May could be like the Will Levis guy now that would be to me

bonkers if he like fell all the way out of the first round. But he kind of labeled him as the, of course, pretty early, right post-Senior Bowl, the quarterback who could slip a little bit. And there seems to always be at least one in the first round. And he labeled it as Drake May, which I think would be kind of crazy because I think, like you mentioned, he's just a lot safer, but gives you just about all of the same strengths as Jaden Daniels. He's good down the field. I mean, maybe not quite as accurate, although I have like a working theory that downfield

accuracy, in my opinion, we also need to factor in the receivers and how good they are at tracking the ball and throttling up, throttling down, body control that sometimes you see throws, you're like, oh, body control that sometimes you see throws, you're like, oh, that was actually not a bad throw, but the receiver didn't make a play on it. To have Brian Thomas and Malik Nabors probably is a little bit better than what Drake May had this past season at North Carolina. The only real negative I have for Drake May is that occasionally

he misses like behind and low on his wide receivers. Like if he misses, if it's like a deep dig route there might be like not the perfect ball placement it's a little behind but beyond that athleticism size pocket ability huge arm uh he reminds me not not quite the talent but he reminds me a lot of Justin Herbert and and that was kind of a pretty common comparison going into his final season. And I'm glad, again, that he didn't have this catastrophic drop-off where it's like, oh, maybe he's really not a first-rounder. He played very good football on a team that had a bad defense, and they were in big holes, and they had to rely on him a lot. So I, and plugging him into that Minnesota offense, I mean, I was going to say he could be like, you know, that CJ Stroud type effect to push them to the playoffs. But I think if you look at

Houston's roster at the start of this season, this past season and Minnesota's, Minnesota's is better. So who knows how much further Drake may could take them. And I like that again, he has a lot of experience, you know, three, four year starter. That certainly helps a lot in terms of the transition and not being such a steep learning curve. Once he gets to the NFL. All right.

This is going to lead us into our next subject, which is looking at a mock draft that caught my eye, but I want you to rank these things for me for, are they good ideas for the Vikings from the best idea to the worst idea of these? And this, of course, is all if Kirk Cousins is not coming back, but trading everything for Drake May, trading everything for Jaden Daniels, picking JJ McCarthy at number 11 or trading down and picking Bo Nix. How would you rank those four things as far as best to worst idea?

Best idea is trading up for Drake May. I mean, of course, if he could fall to you at 11, you would like sign up for that any day of the week. That's number one. I would say number two, I'm between the Jaden Daniels and the JJ McCarthy options. Now from last week, when I kind of talked up JJ McCarthy and said, I had him graded higher than Bo Nix. Some of the purple insider listeners were like, Oh my God,

I would fall on my sword. If it was JJ McCarthy, there was no way I want him. I, I like him. I think, especially in Minnesota, again,

the fit would be good. It's just, I could understand why listeners would think that because like we talked about last week, he just didn't really throw the football a lot. And he was not the centerpiece of that national title winning team. But I think the tools are there for him to be good enough as a rookie and then eventually really take the reins and become a franchise guy. So I'll go a little bit controversial and say, number two, take just stay put pick JJ McCarthy at 11. Um, and then trade back just cause you get more picks Bo Nix and then trade up for Jane Daniels. So of course I have Jane Daniels ranked and graded

ahead of those two JJ McCarthy and Bo Nix, but you have to factor in, you know, the cost of trading up for someone who we both agree is a little bit of a risky prospect despite you know all the dynamic athleticism and the downfield touch i like your list it's hard for me because trading up for jayden daniels would be so much fun and sometimes i have to like rein myself in of like can you imagine the shows that we would do through minicamp, rookie camp, training camp if they traded everything for Jaden Daniels? But when I watch him, my brain goes,

I'm a little nervous. I'm a little nervous about some of those things. And all that, he might blow all that out of the water, but what you're giving up with a roster that has holes in it is so much and i'm the one who sat here for years talking about how random it can be with quarterback drafts and the one that could resonate with vikings fans is akili smith going number three and dante call pepper going number 11 many times it's not the order in which they're drafted so they would have

to truly believe so much more in jayden daniels than say bo nicks or jj mccarthy for me to say yeah give up the farm that's a totally good idea because you are gonna have to build this roster out and if there's anything the playoff showed us is all these teams that were there usually complete teams they're not just hey look you got a quarterback hey look you got a one you know good receiver or two it's usually in Kansas City Trent McDuffie had to make big plays LeJarius Sneed had to make big plays you can't just be that so are you going to be able to build the rest of your team but if they did it i'd be like this is amazing that like this is great oh my gosh it would be awesome for the next couple months and then into the season for for me on purple

insider and for you for all your listeners you have to look at it and this is kind of stealing from like an idea that like you just had there you would have to ask yourself is jayden daniels like a first round pick and a third round pick and a fourth round pick better than JJ McCarthy? And to me, I would say no. I think he is graded higher than JJ McCarthy to me. We'll see what happens at the combine with how athletic McCarthy is compared to Daniels, all that. But I would answer that question with no. So if you're saying, you know, just stay put at 11, or you can tell me that we can get extra picks

and still get a quarterback in Bo Nix, you also have to factor that in as well. And for as good as we've talked about this Vikings roster is, you know, there are still some holes that kind of need to be patched on defense. I mean, you probably know those holes better than I do and your listeners, but this is not a team that's just like, Hey, Joe Flacco in what 2008, just put him in there. And that's a Superbowl winning team immediately, or, you know, a, a high level contender in their conference.

I think you have to kind of continue to go with the idea of it's a team building process, not only just find any quarterback and you know for the next couple years you're kind of barren with those early picks makes this hard uh to talk about is so i've talked to recently and i was out in vegas and so forth i'm just gonna say three three people who were or are professional evaluators of football okay i'm just gonna say that i'm gonna be very broad okay okay okay and i asked them all about mccarthy nicks and daniels and i got wildly different opinions from all three on these guys one person really loved nicks another person was like nah i don't know one person thought hey the more you start these guys the the better the

chances they are in college the better the chance of success another person said that's not real uh what one person absolutely loved mccarthy another person said he's a game manager type which i think may be a little unfair but he was in college with michigan so that is true i mean there's just like there's such a wide range of opinions, even within the game. So sometimes we're like, well, the NFL thinks, and it's like, well, we, the NFL as a whole thought, well, Levis wasn't good, but a lot of times with these other quarterbacks, it really is just depending on who you want. So it's the, it seems with these guys, there's just a lot of discussion and maybe it will start to get sorted out when we get to the combine

yeah definitely i think this class after caleb williams that you pointed out earlier there will be maybe more of a wide opinion on the order than we've seen i I'm like, this is at the top, one of the, probably the best quarterback class since 2018 with just like, not just two names or three names like last year or in 2019 with Kyler Murray, Daniel Jones, and Dwayne Haskins. There's like four, maybe five. And I don't think there's any like, oh, well, yeah, he's probably number two and he's probably number three. You will get that. We'll get that. I'll get that at the combine. It really just depends on, of course, scheme fit, what you value at the position or not, and the weights that you have for all those individual things, because they're all, I mean, of course, every quarterback's

different, but they were in different type systems. They were asked to do a lot of different things. We kind of talked about this last week. So to me, I think what you outlined with Jaden Daniels and the inability to really navigate pressure and chaos around him and just kind of lean into his athleticism, that is a little scary, even as good as he was at doing that in the SEC. And it's fine if you disagree with this. I'm a little concerned about Bo Nix because he was really in that I mean if you want to say J.J. McCarthy and this will be what we'll hear with J.J. McCarthy like you know they ran the ball 50 times a game he was never really the guy Bo Nix wasn't to me really the guy at Oregon either I mean the 77 completion percentage

and any you know accuracy stats stats, it's like, man, like I know that you pointed out last week that like intermediate level PFF had him graded really highly, but you're going to get the read and see and hear this, that he was really highly accurate, surgically accurate. I didn't really necessarily see that. I didn't think he was, you know, 77% completion compared to mid-60s. He's 10% higher than all the other quarterbacks. The system was a lot different. And if in your final season, if you're not doing that in an offense that's throwing the football a lot, I mean, it's just hard to tell. It's almost like an incomplete grade. And I've talked about this before and

I've written about it. Like with Tua Tungavailoa and with Mac Jones they threw the ball down the field at Alabama and I had Tua graded highly but if you look back at anything that I wrote on Tua toward the end of that what 2020 draft class that it was like I would I kept saying it's almost incomplete because the receivers were so good I don't know what he's going to be like until his receivers are that good. Now, ironically, he's gotten pretty good receivers in Miami, but a lot of the stuff that, that, that extra stuff he could never really do. So is Bo Nix going to get an offense where it's going to be bubble screen, wide receiver screen,

drag out like RPO maybe. And maybe with the Vikings, that's, they would say, look, you don't need to be awesome. We have Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison, Hawkinson, a good run game, a good offensive line. But again, me looking at the draft as a whole, he's the one that scares me because at like 24 years old, kind of just going into this gimmicky role to kind of boost the stats, that scares me a little bit. I would aim, we've talked about this a lot. I would aim higher at the quarterback spot. I want those big time throws more frequently. And I didn't see a ton of those from bone exit org. Well, now that you talk about that, let's get into a mock draft. And I want to do this on every episode going forward here, look at different mock drafts and talk about scenarios involving the Vikings and our friend Trevor Sycamore at PFF does a tremendous job over there.

Love Trevor. We'll have him on the show again at some point very soon, but he put out a post-Super Bowl mock. And here's how this thing played out. So J.J. McCarthy in this one goes to Washington at number 10. And so the Vikings draft at 11, Jared Verse, who is an edge rusher. I assume I'm pronouncing that correctly for Florida state. And then they trade back into the first round at number 30 for Bo Nix. Now you just went over all your skepticism about Bo Nix. I'll just say this to balance that out a bit that people that I have talked to who are a little bit higher on Bo Nix say that they were impressed by how he operated that offense. And he couldn't have put up any better statistics. It's like,

well, were the statistics real or not? He certainly couldn't have done any better. And if you have a guy who has total command of the offense in Minnesota, you're going to find a lot of open wide receivers I mean there were stats on this about how often even Kirk Cousins was throwing to wide open wide receivers and guess what it's pretty high because they have a good offensive mind drawn up route combinations and they have great great weapons and they have good protection as of just last year but that can even get better so maybe there is an argument to even if you don't see this quote like upside for Bo Nix which is funny because he was like a five star and runs a four six uh and I expect him to be fast at the combine but even if you don't see

like this massive arm or this flawless accuracy if he understands where to go with the football and then can make a play out of structure every once in a while you and is very cheap on a rookie contract you could have a lot of success with that i think we've seen guys like that including brock purdy including jalen hertz have a lot of success in being that way so that would be my argument for doing it anyway something like this and even heck like teddy bridgewater was kind of like this he wasn't a supreme athlete didn't have a wild arm or anything that was actually criticized didn't run for a thousand yards but won a division title with them

in his second season by being just effective and probably would have uh improved from there so there there's kind of the pro bo nicks pro drafted defensive end and then trade back into the first how do you feel about it okay so your previous question that i ranked trading back and picking bo nicks is my lead or i guess my what my third were like third best scenario that again makes it seem like I would hate that idea but me being such a trade down advocate I was first thinking you know move from 11 to like 15 and then pick him in this case to just stay put at 11 pick Jared Verse who is as pro ready of an edge rusher. And we'll certainly dive into all the, you know, other positions outside of quarterback in the coming weeks and months,

but very high end high floor edge rusher that you don't have a lot of projection, which is kind of different from what the Vikings have kind of leaned into at that edge rusher spot. After picking Danelle Hunter, we've talked about that a lot and then waiting all the way until pick, what, 30, you said, to get Bo Nix. I like that idea a lot because that just gives you that fifth-year option, of course, and it's a lot better value than just trading up from 11 or doing any other thing with Bo Nix. So if they feel like let's let him operate this offense,

it's going to get guys open scheme wise and just from the personnel, Jefferson, Addison, and Hawkinson, then that I could be totally fine with because again, I certainly could be wrong on this. And I think it's important. One last thing that you've kind of taught me and I've gotten better with this, that when we used to play that game and we will eventually to compare the first round,

like the top first round guys to busts. And I always write that article now at CBS and like the comments on it on Twitter are just like, you're so mean. These guys are not going to be that bad. And it's like every year, like last year. And I'm not patting myself on the back.

I've gotten a lot of guys wrong, especially a quarterback. I was not high on Bryce Young. He was my number three quarterback. And I didn't take a lot of crap, and I get it. That's part of my job. But it was, oh, how can you, like, everyone loves Bryce Young. He's amazing.

He's the shoo-in for the first pick. And he had a horrible rookie season. And Will Levis slips all the way to the second and was actually pretty good early on until some injuries. And obviously CJ Stroud had such a awesome rookie year, winning offense rookie of the year that we have to realize that like, if there's four quarterbacks who go in the first round, two of them are probably going to stink. Like, let's just not be so full of ourselves that we think, oh, this is going to be CJ Stroud 2.0.

This is going to be Josh Allen 2.0. This is going to be Russell Wilson 2.0. So if the Vikings are like, look, we like him, and maybe with other teams he wouldn't work, and they think, let's get that fifth-year option, I would be okay with that that late in the draft in the first round. For a quarterback, the most valuable position on the field, regardless pretty much of who it would be at the top of this quarterback class yeah and i love when you do that article because everyone gets very mad at you and that's really funny because they people want to hear that every prospect is but i always drop your name i always try to drop your name so i can deflect some of it i'm just like hey this is matt collar from purple i plug purple insider but i'm like uh any other hate mail or whatever you want to call it direct

it to matt collar on twitter yes okay but i get enough of that anyway uh what it comes but i i appreciate that because we all want to be told that every prospect is going to be the next whatever and out of 32 first rounders maybe 10 10 become anything. And then, you know, the rest, like how many even signed or get signed to a fifth year option by their teams. It's not that high of a ratio, which is why the teams always feel with quarterbacks that you have to be fully sold. So it's everyone in the organization's fault, not just the GM who said, why don't we just take a shot? It's complicated when it comes to that. So I think with an idea like this, I would be very much in support of it, trading back in and getting an edge rusher. And when you try to do the odds for everything, what are the odds and implications of trading up for jayden daniels

how hard would it be to build around him even if he's good how screwed are you if he's bad and the level of screwed if he's bad is epic if you trade up for jayden daniels you do not have a 49ers roster that you can survive this if you trade back and you blow the Bo Nix draft pick, that's not like you can't draft somebody else. And if you're pairing it with Sam Darnold, for example, whose name has been brought up and you're having a bridge quarterback, or if it's Baker Mayfield or somebody else, like you can try again that if you can't really try again, if you trade up for Jaden Daniels, that is your one and only shot.

And I think with Daniels, I'd be afraid of that. I would be okay with it, but I'd be like, okay, it's either live or die on that guy. It wouldn't feel like that with Bo Nix. It'd be like, all right, this is a good swing. Kind of like, in a way, what Tennessee did with Will Levis, where they picked him. Great job. Great swing. Where Philadelphia picked Jalen Hurts.

Oh, yeah. I mean, that's a swing you want to take. Even the Ravens, when they draft Lamar Jackson, they had already drafted a tight end in the first. That was a swing. Like, well, we can't let him keep falling down the board. Let's just take a shot at him. And if Lamar Jackson hadn't been good, and no one would have said what a terrible pick, they would have been like, oh, well, they took a shot at it with the 32nd pick. The same would be this kind of thing. You're not like every part of the organization has to be all in on this one guy. You can just be like, oh, all right, well, let's see if this works and if it doesn't we do something else uh I want to ask you about uh the top of this draft this mock which has Caleb Williams going to the Bears they got we all think that's happening but this has the Denver Broncos trading

up to take Drake May with the second traffic so they would have to jump over the Vikings. And here's what Trevor's projected price would be, which is 2024, 2025 first and a 20 and a 2026 first. So three first round picks to trade up. If the Vikings and the Vikings are just ahead of Denver, if the Vikings have the chance to do what they did in his mock versus trading up for Drake May at number two, which one of those things would you like? So the Vikings pretty much sending that huge similar trade package to get to two. Yeah.

Is that what you're saying? For Drake May. I, because I am such a big Drake May fan, and he's actually not graded that much lower than Caleb Williams to me, I would be okay with that. I mean, again, it's kind of like I'm trying to play both sides of the fence here because I am such an advocate of trading down. I literally had my wife make me a shirt that said trade down

to wear during the draft last year. But the one exception of course is quarterback and if the Vikings which you talking earlier I was thinking in my head and this kind of works here now to me the biggest question if we're like sure that the Vikings are very interested and are going to pick a quarterback the biggest question of this draft process is does Kevin O'Connell or do Kevin O'Connell and Kweisi Adolfo Mensah do they like the Kirk Cousins style of quarterback the guy that to use a prototype of what O'Connell and what Sean McVay and Zach Taylor and Bobby Slowick and Kyle Shanahan have had their entire

careers like cerebral underneath, you know, boot action, get it out to the first read accurate, pretty much an extension of the, of the play caller on the field. Or like we have been talking about you and me for the last three off seasons, or I guess three draft seasons, are they finally ready to aim higher? Because I think if, if, if it's door one, then you trade back. You almost try to pick, like you're saying, Bo Nix as late as possible. But if they're like, actually, I want to see, and we still really haven't seen it with the Kyle Shanahan coaching tree, now that Brock Purdy has really taken off, a high-level athlete with big-time arm talent in the Kyle Shanahan slash Kevin O'Connell

slash Sean McVay offense. So if it's door one, it's Bo Nix. And to me, the best one in this class, if it's door number two, like let's aim for the moon at the quarterback spot, it's Drake May, obviously after Caleb Williams. And if you're aiming for a quarterback that highly, then you might have to give up three first round picks and if he hits I think the Vikings are again not having a 49ers roster but are good enough roster wise and have enough young talent at key positions to be really good and ultimately in two or three years Vikings fans wouldn't really care that those selections were not you know assets that the team had in 2025 and beyond the kevin o'connell

element of this is super interesting because here's what we learned last year is that kevin o'connell is not going to adapt his offense he is going to run his stuff and if you can't do it and you're not his quarterback which how different is that from everybody else? I don't know. It might not be that different from how almost every coach would approach this. But what we saw with Josh Dobbs is I think the failure of Josh Dobbs was one, just regression. Regression happens. A guy who's not that good to begin with, but also there was not an adjustment of the offense. It was a pass first offense that required a lot of reads and a lot of changes at the line of scrimmage and a lot of timing and a very accurate quarterback. And Josh Dobbs was not ready to do that with the offense and is not capable of doing that with the offense. But yet they went into a game against Chicago and threw 38 times in a game where he was struggling and they were still running the ball effectively. And it's like, they're not going to just completely blow this up because I think Kevin O'Connell believes this thing works when it's run correctly. And it does, as we've seen it from

Kirk cousins. But the problem with Kirk cousins is always that there's physical limitations. There's throws that can't be made arm strength wise and there's definitely plays that can't be made outside of structure and i don't know how you could watch the super bowl and watch what patrick mahomes did in some of the biggest moments running for first downs and being like no we're good we're good with having our guy just sit as a statue dead ass in the pocket and saying hey nick bosa how many points do they score? By the way, if Mahomes couldn't move around, Nick Bosa annihilated the Kansas City Chiefs and they found a way to win still because of playmaking. That has to be noticed by the head coach of this team

that if he makes a bad play call, Drake May can make you right. Jaden Daniels can really make you right. I don't know how much Bo Nix can, but probably more than Kirk Cousins because he's got some wheels. They've got to realize this. So I think that May is in my mind, the absolute best pick because he's the best of both worlds. He's got the arm talent. You can teach him to identify

all the stuff. It's going to take a little while. And that's another thing that they've got to be willing to do is be patient with taking a rookie from North Carolina, but my gosh, you're not in a position to win the super bowl this year. So this is what you should be doing. Can you, before we wrap up, tell me a little more about the edge rushing class, because if they lose the Neil Hunter, do you even know, can you, can you guess who the only under contract edge rusher the Vikings have right now? Do you have any idea? His name is escaping me right now.

DJ Wanham? That is a great guess. He is a free agent. It is in the same range. We actually talked about him because he had a standout senior bowl when the vikings picked him how many years ago are we talking this is i love draft trivia and i should know this three years ago went to pit oh oh yeah um what's his name patrick jones there you go that's the guy that he's the only one yes oh man no. No wonder Trevor had Jared Verst going there at 11.

That's beyond quarterback. That is the number one need, right? Yeah. Because they're losing. Well, they could lose Daniel Hunter, DJ Wanham, and Marcus Davenport. So then that leaves Patrick Jones. There may be other people under contract technically at the edge rusher position but not that played so like patrick jones is the only one who played and if you were wondering out of all people with his

snap count this year he was last by pff grade so not really somebody to be excited about for the future tell me about the edge rushing class because they they need this whether it's at 11 and trade down whether it's second round like this is important good news for the vikings that the quarterback class is good at the top and it's deep and so is the edge rusher group i i don't know it's still too early and even probably more so of course in the quarterback spot the edge rusher range for where they will go gets more crystallized after the combine like three cones and verticals and all that and just like wingspan all comes out it's a really really

good edge rusher class i could see i don't know rough estimate five or six going in the first round there's two from alabama uh dallas turner who was a big recruit and had a great final season chris braswell um liu Latu from UCLA. Chop Robinson from Penn State is like, I don't want to say Von Miller, but he is like the small, bendy, explosive type. Latu is like the bigger, just the name that pops into my head. He's like a Montez Sweat. He's really tall and long.

Braylon Trice from Washington is the lesser athlete, but great pass rushing moves. Jared verse, obviously two back-to-back seasons at Florida state after transferring from Albany and just was awesome in the ACC. Like who, who could have ever known that a transfer portal guy from Albany could really hit the ground running in the ACC. Um, even Darius Robinson, who's speaking of the senior bowl, had a great week in Mobile. He's kind of that more of the Vikings prototype. He's like 6'5", 280-ish, plays inside, outside.

It's a really, really good edge rusher group. They don't have to pick one at 11. If they want to go a different route, they want to go Trevor's route and then trade back up to get a quarterback. Round two and round three, we'll look back in a couple years, there'll be three or four Pro Bowl caliber guys at the edge rusher spot from this class and as you mentioned we will be diving into other positions that are not quarterback but since we just had a rumor you don't have to ask me twice to talk about trade-up opportunities for the vikings in this draft so uh well thank you to

trevor sycam of pff for giving us a very interesting mock to discuss. And maybe we need some music or something. Like I saw that Paramore was doing a Burning Down the House. If you know that song, we could do like breaking down the mock. Do, do, do, do, do. Okay. I like that. I like to play on words.

Okay. I'm down for that. All right. Chris, well, we will do this again next week and then i think is it two shows from now we will be in indianapolis uh pounding out a bunch of shows with all sorts of different angles we'll be hearing from the coach from the general manager we'll be able to talk about all that so i'm really looking forward to that yeah so that combine uh our first episode in indie will be right after you and like a small

group of vikings media will have just talked to kevin o'connell and the gm right yep that at least there's a lot to get to as the schedule is set up right now yep that's going to be how it is we'll be able to break that down so yeah uh man every year it seems like we go to the combine with a lot to find out from the GM and the head coach. And last year we did get a lot of smoke signals toward like where they were standing with Kirk Cousins and different things like that. So we'll see what we can pick up on and investigate this year. So thanks, Chris, as always. And we will see you very soon.

Football. Football. Football.