Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Could the Panthers' trade set up the Vikings with a QB choice at 14?

Episode Date: April 7, 2021

Matthew Coller is joined by Paul Hodowanic, who is filling in his week for Sam Ekstrom. They begin the show with a game matching terrible Panthers QBs who led the team in passing for 1 season to random factoids about said QBs to celebrate the Sam Darnold trade. Then they discuss whether the Vikings will now have a chance to draft a QB at No. 14 because the Panthers traded for Darnold. They also discuss which QB is most likely to be there at 14 and whether the Vikings would consider it and talk about Rashod Bateman as an option for the Vikings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Just throwing that out there if you haven't done that yet. Matthew Collar-Polk, Hodowonik, is here with me again today. symbol a try just throwing that out there if you haven't done that yet uh matthew collar pole hodowonic is here with me again today uh briefly yesterday for a few minutes to talk about the jeff gladney news and now that we've had a day to kind of think about that uh we'll get into it a little more but paul i want to start the show with a game for you are you ready for a game i'm ready i've not been privy to this game. No. I'm ready. There is no prep on this show when it comes to games. They have to come out of nowhere. So here's the game. Teddy Bridgewater is going to be the sixth, now that Sam Darnold plays for Carolina, the sixth in Carolina history quarterback to lead the Carolina Panthers in passing for one

single season. So five other quarterbacks in Panthers history have led the team for exactly one season. Now I'm going to give you those quarterbacks and you have to tell me which factoid that I looked up on their Wikipedia or already knew matches, which quarterback. Okay. So here's the names. Kyle Allen, Jimmy Claussen, Vinny Testaverde, Rodney Peet, and Chris Winkie. So I'm going to give you a factoid about – I'm just going to give you a factoid,

and all of them are true, and you have to tell me which quarterback I am referring to. Okay? Okay. All right. Here's where we're going to start. With a St. Paul native, born in St. Paul, this quarterback won his first start, and it was against the Vikings, and then lost his next 16.

Which Carolina Panthers quarterback was that? Okay. You might need to run through that back half of the names again, because we've got Klaassen, we've got Vinny Testaverde, we have Chris Winkie, and there are some others. Rodney Peet and Kyle Allen are the two you're missing. So which one of those quarterbacks was born in St. Paul, won his first start ever against the Vikings, and then went on to lose 16 straight. Okay, well, it's not Teddy Bridgewater, obviously.

I don't believe it's Jimmy Clawson. I don't believe it's Kyle Allen. I don't know about where exactly Vinny Tessi Verdi, you know, grew up or, and that was a little bit before, you know, I was a big fan of the NFL, so I don't know if I can say that. Chris Winkie, Rodney Peet. I've never heard of Rodney Peet. He seems like someone who would have lost 16 straight games. So we're going to go Rodney Peet on this one.

This is why you're still intern Paul at heart, because you're just a child who didn't watch Rodney Peet. Rodney Peet would have never won. He would have never won one game and then lost 16 in a row. I can tell didn't watch Rodney Peet. Rodney Peet would have never won. He would have never won one game and then lost 16 in a row. I can tell you that about Rodney Peet, an all-time great journeyman quarterback. This was Chris Winkie. Chris Winkie, drafted by Carolina when he was 100 years old, played the one season for the Panthers, and then that was it for him.

But his first game, he beat the Minnesota Vikings, and then was a complete disaster after that. So he had played at Florida State, was a baseball player, I think Creighton-Durham Hall here in Minnesota. And it didn't work out. So, all right, here is our next factoid. This quarterback during his junior season had a Sports Illustrated feature written on him that dubbed him the kid with the golden arm. Now I just, I just want to clarify that none of these are about Teddy. Cause I figured we already know everything about Teddy.

So these are the other quarterbacks that led the Panthers for exactly one season in passing yards. So this quarterback during his junior season in college had a sports illustrated article written about him that dubbed him the kid with the golden arm. Who is this? I'm going to guess Jimmy Claussen. He had that run in Notre Dame where he was doing pretty good. And that was right when I was really starting to like look at the NFL draft and like see where some things were. And I remember Jimmy Claussen and he was one of many, many flame outs that that I probably liked I remember liking Blaine Gabbert um so Jimmy Claussen is of that ilk and he I'm pretty sure this is correct you nailed it Jimmy Claussen is absolutely correct the kid with the

golden arm and that's why you should never trust draft analysis when it comes to quarterbacks uh this quarterback was a former Texas A&M quarterback, and he was once benched for someone named Kyle Postma, and yet still after that season being benched, decided to forego his last year of eligibility to enter the NFL draft, and has had a reasonable backup quarterback career. Is Kyle Allen at Texas A&M? I'm trying. I think so. I think Kyle Allen was at Texas A&M. That slew of just weird times at quarterback of Texas A&M,

it feels like there's so many of these guys that I don't really remember being at Texas A&M, but at one point went through there. So I'm going to say Kyle Allen. That is indeed Kyle Allen, benched for someone named Kyle Posma and has still become an NFL starting quarterback. All right, we are down to two. Vinny Testaverde or Rodney Peet, which one of these guys was on the best damn sports show period and lost his job to Jake DeLome? Jake DeLome took the Panthers to a Super Bowl after this guy lost his job to Jake DeLombe.

Okay, I still don't know who Rodney Peete is, even though you say I should. We're going to go Vinny Testaverde on this one. This is great. No. This was Rodney Peete. This is Rodney Peete. But I'll tell you, I— I could not pick him out of a lineup.

I'm looking it whoever I know. I know. I should have come up with more hints than quarterbacks so I could use this last one, which was that Vinny Testaverde threw 35 interceptions in one season. That was my hint for Vinny Testaverde, and that is true. He actually, you know, Rodney Peay originally lost his job to Jake DeLome, but Vinny Testaverde filled in one season and led them in passing, and DeLome took over after that.

So technically, like, there's some truth to both. But, yes, Vinny Testaverde did throw 35 picks. Holly Robinson Peete is Rodney Peete's wife. Have you ever heard of her? She's kind of a celebrity. No, no, I'm not familiar with the Pete family. I spelled Pete wrong when I just tried to look it up. Every part of this, but I'm looking at his stats now.

It is, it's like he never really, he started, or he played that one season for Carolina, 14 games. Other than that, he always like hovered. Like he appeared in like five games for like four seasons in a row. Never threw more than like 10 touchdowns all but like twice just but he was in the league for 12 years no 15 years or something like that for absolutely classic backup yeah journeyman quarterback for absolutely ever there's lots of good little Rodney Pete things like I mean the fact that he was like a 500 quarterback but never got his chance, and then when he did with Carolina,

he went exactly 500. There's a season in Philadelphia where I think he either – they either bench Cunningham or Cunningham gets hurt, and he ends up beating the Detroit Lions in the playoffs in a game that was 58-37. That's what Rodney Pete is known for. I'm just looking at this now. He played 10 games he played 10

games in 1993 and was sacked 34 times in 10 games rodney pete man classic journeyman quarterback so there's where we're at and uh here's my guess is that sam darnold will add to this list and play exactly one season for carolina and will go 3 and 13 for a inept and terrible Carolina team with management and coaching that knows no idea what they're doing by trading for Sam Darnold. And we will laugh at them. Isn't it great if you're Tom Brady? Like does Tom Brady have voodoo magic over every division that he goes into? He leaves the Bills division and all of a sudden they get a quarterback. And maybe even Miami, we'll see on Tua. He comes to the NFC South where they have good quarterbacks and Drew Brees retires and now Carolina downgrades, I think. And Matt Ryan,

we'll see what they decide to do with him. There's rumors out there that they might draft a quarterback. So he could be going up against Trey Lance, Sam Darnold, and Jameis Winston or Taysom Hill. So congratulations to Tampa Bay on winning the NFC South. So that's not what I wanted to talk about today, though. Though you did a good job, other than not knowing who Rodney Peet was, you did a good job in the game. I did want to talk about the quarterback situations.

And answer me this, Paul. Are you buying that there will be five quarterbacks in the top seven picks as Daniel Jeremiah has mocked on NFL Network? I mean, isn't that what we're led to believe with this Carolina move, that they don't believe that they could get one of those quarterbacks, and that's why they stayed at eight. That seems to be the logic because everything we heard was Carolina is aggressively pursuing a quarterback, but at the same time, that still means if it was in the first seven picks, that they could have gone up to potentially move up for one of those guys unless they believe the first five teams are locked in at quarterback, then it doesn't make sense. And, I mean, yeah, Atlanta maybe could take one, but Cincinnati, they're not taking one. So there always seemed to be like they could trade up and get one of them.

I guess the one they think would be there at the fifth one isn't who they want. Maybe that's Mac Jones. But, I mean, I guess we just have to wait and see what the 49ers are doing. I could see it. I mean, there is no star defensive, um, player in this draft worth taking that high necessarily. And we've seen year after year, teams are just going to go after the quarterback that they want. So I, I, I can see it happening in the top seven. Um, and obviously Daniel Jeremiah knows his stuff, would I maybe,

you know, take Mac Jones over Kyle Pitts or Penny Sewell or some of the other guys that are there? No, but some team might be convinced to do that, and I think it might be a mistake, but at the same time, quarterback's the most important position on the field. Everyone's trying to get a quarterback. If you don't have one, you're likely not going to do much unless you have a great scheme, a solid defense, and really good players around that quarterback. And so everyone's trying to go for it. So I can't really fault someone if they do. But yeah, the top seven, it seems the way it's constructed, unless there are a bunch of trades, it doesn't seem like it would the way it sits. So here's my guess is that the

Atlanta Falcons want people to believe that they are going to draft Trey Lance because they really want to trade back out of that pick and pick up more talent. I mean, this is the ultimate situation for about five or six different teams to trade back and try to get somebody who is desperate, maybe it's New England or Washington or Chicago, to sell the farm to move all the way up. And if you are a team like Atlanta that needs a lot of help, you would be in a good position to do that and still get whatever you need in the middle of the first round.

In Daniel Jeremiah's mock, he's got Jalen Waddell going, I think it's 16. I mean, if you are the Atlanta Falcons and you could drop back into the middle of the first and still end up with one of those top weapons, you are in heaven because then you can ride out Matt Ryan, try to go all in on Matt Ryan's last couple of seasons, and then you can address the quarterback situation later. I don't know if they're going to do the Jordan Love thing where they take a quarterback, despite Matt Ryan's contract really setting up for him to be the quarterback of the Falcons for at least two more

years. And I think that there's probably a case on both sides if you're Atlanta to look toward the future. But also, there's also another argument to just say, hey, look, we only got a couple more years of Ryan, so let's just go for it and see what we can do. But drafting at four, unless you really love Kyle Pitts there, you probably want someone to be convinced that you're going to take a quarterback. And so you say, hey, Detroit, we're going to take the guy you want, or hey, whoever. There's another interpretation, by the way, of Carolina deciding to get Sam Darnold. And again, I don't think that you could trust anything Carolina does because they have looked clueless since Matt Rule and that group took over.

But there might be another interpretation is that they don't really feel like any of the quarterbacks or the last quarterback that's going to tumble is the guy that they want, whether that's Justin Fields or Trey Lance or Mac Jones. There's a debate of which one of those guys will be the one who falls, but somebody probably will. If Carolina decided, we just don't really think that those guys are better prospects than Sam Darnold, then I could see them doing this as opposed to using the number eight pick to decide to pick whichever one of those quarterbacks ends up landing there. Yeah, I, it's confusing to me because right when you hear the Carolina news, it makes

you think that they know something. But as you kind of go through the teams, you're saying, is Atlanta really going to take a quarterback? Okay, maybe they're trading out. Who are those options? Okay, maybe the Patriots, maybe the Raiders. Like I know they, John Gruden's never satisfied. The Broncos could move up a couple picks for one of those.

It almost feels like if Mac Jones doesn't go three to the 49ers, he's going to be that last quarterback. It's like if he doesn't go there, he's way, he could end up where the Vikings are picking, potentially, depending on how far teams want to move up. So if I was one of those teams, and I believe that Mac Jones is that guy that we believe the 49ers are throwing a smokescreen at us, they really want Justin Fields, or they think Trey Lance would fit their system really well, which it seems like he would, and they're just not really telling you.

If I'm one of those teams who still likes Mac Jones a little bit, I mean, what's my incentive to trade up to four? Because I know he's either gone at three, or we can probably wait a little bit, I mean, what's my incentive to trade up to four? Because I know he's either gone at three or we can probably wait a little bit. So I don't know. I don't know who those teams are trading up if Mac Jones is the quarterback there. But I do know just how important a quarterback is to a team. You get enamored with prospects and it's easy to talk yourself into the Alabama guy who put up a ton of numbers has the pocket presence and has the accuracy there's reasons to talk yourself into Trey Lance the great athlete all the all the tools that you could ever want from a quarterback there and

Justin Fields I mean you've talked about it at length about his quote unquote character concerns that we think are total BS. And everything about him says he's going to be a winner. You're overthinking it. So I see why they would be doing it. But if I'm a team like the Vikings or any of those in the mid like teens, low teens, just high top 10, I'm like, take all the quarterbacks you want. You mean Jamar Chase, Kyle Pitts, Penny Sewell, all those guys are going to be available for me. We did not think that was going to happen at all. So it could also be some of those teams want some guys to fall. So they're hoping to kind of push up a narrative that all the quarterbacks are going to go. You

have to get up there. And they're just hoping some non-quarterbacks are going to fall. So I put together a list of the things that would have to happen for a quarterback to be on the board when the Vikings pick. And I mean the top five quarterback, not Kellen Maughan, not Kyle Trask. I don't consider those guys to be of the same ilk as the other five prospects. So the Falcons decide that they're just going to use their top pick with whoever the best weapon is on the board. So they say Kyle Pitts is really special. We're just going to take him at number four. I think also Detroit

would have to look at their roster and say, we have too many weaknesses. We need to take this first round pick. We need Micah Parsons or we need a corner or I mean, my gosh, their roster, you can do anything, but a wide receiver there makes a lot of sense to a Jalen Waddle, Jamar Chase, whoever ends up at seven. So you don're not movable golf is not very movable for his two years you're pretty much locked into that contract for two years so unless you're gonna sit the 33 million dollar man like he's he's your quarterback right exactly so I think that those two things are plausible that the Falcons could say we get the best non-quarterback in the entire draft,

so we're going to take Pitts or Sewell or Jamar Chase, whoever they feel it is, and Detroit decides they're not going to take quarterback. I think those two things would have to happen. And then also, additionally, you would have to have the Dolphins, Cowboys, Giants, and Chargers all say, we're going to take our pick as opposed to trading it down to New England or Washington and this is where it's it's possible and and you put it under that realm of possibility but this is where it becomes a little bit hard because the Dolphins it's hard to see them actually picking at number six with such a valuable pick and so many teams wanting to get there the Eagles in this category would also have to decide that they weren't going to pick a quarterback if that quarterback fell and they're going to stick with Jalen Hurts.

The Cowboys, like why pick at 10? Or the Giants, why pick at 11? The Chargers, why pick at 13 if the Patriots want to move up three or four spots and give you another first round pick for next year? Or if the Chicago Bears feel very desperate to save their butts, Ryan Payson and Matt Nagy, and then they say, okay, we're going to move up from 20 to 10 with, well, maybe they wouldn't do it with Dallas, but you know, maybe they would,

I don't know. They're going to move up from 20 to 10 and give up a bunch of stuff like Buffalo got from Kansas city when they traded for Patrick Mahomes. I think it was the, they went from 27 to 10 in order to do that. And they gave up the next year's first and a third that year. I mean, it just, that's where it seems like there won't be a quarterback on the board unless one of these five guys, and this is our next little game. One of these five guys is just not as highly touted as we think. So Wilson, I believe, is Lawrence, I believe, is Justin Fields, Trey Lance or Mac Jones. Which one of those three do you think the NFL doesn't have as high as we do?

I mean, the the people that seem to be getting fed information would make us, would lead us to believe that's Justin Fields, and this is smokescreen season, so we can't tell if that's true, but that would seem to be the one. Maybe that's because there seems to be an Ohio State stigma in terms of quarterbacks entering the league. There have not been, I mean, Cardale Jones and then Dwayne Haskins. And you can go down the list. There's a few of them, and none of them have turned out great. So maybe there's some sort of Ohio State bias. To me, it still seems like it would be Mac Jones.

And maybe it's one team falling in love with him and some others cooling off on him, that would still be where I want to go. And it's just so hard to discern any information right now, as all the teams are just kind of throwing out anything to get what they want. And so I'm going to stick with the guy that doesn't seem to be fitting the modern NFL, the way that it's moving for the quarterback position. He's not very mobile in the pocket or I mean, he's not

very fast. He's not going to create a ton. And it just, all the other guys fit exactly what, what NFL teams usually want from a quarterback. Trey Lance is that like physical specimen with the great arm and just all the tools that coaches believe that they can work like, okay, he only had a year, but we can work with him. We can get him going. And then Justin Fields is just, I mean, he, he is super accurate. He fits the modern NFL schemes and he's, I mean, barring actual character concerns, like he went out there with with what seemed to be broken ribs

and go out there and win a game against Clemson. So I would still say it's Mac Jones because I am ignoring a lot of the noise. Hey, everyone. We have a new special offer to tell you about with our friends at Symbol. If you go to Symbol.app, that's S-I-M-B-U-L-L dot A-P-P, and sign up as a first-time user with a $20 deposit into Simbull using the promo code PURPLE. You will receive six months free of premium Purple Insider written content at purpleinsider.substack.com.

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So my thing is, are we giving them too much credit? Maybe. There are ways, plenty of ways, that the NFL has become more moderate. I mean, one is no one's going to draft a running back, I don't think, in the first round of this draft. I mean, even the one team that did it last year immediately regrets it. Edward Hilaire being picked by Kansas City. Hey, I bet you wish you got like Michael Pittman or something, right? Somebody who could actually help you in that Super Bowl or maybe an offensive lineman, but instead you decide to go with

a running back for what reason I still don't understand. So I wouldn't be surprised even though there's great running back prospects if they all go in the second. That is a complete change. Najee Harris years ago would have been a first, second, third, fourth overall pick, and instead he's probably late first at absolute best, and you still shouldn't draft in there. You should still wait until at least the second or third round, considering how easy running backs are to find.

So the league is passing more often. It's passing on second down more often than it ever has. You know, there's a bunch of different things. Like teams are just playing defense smarter, even though offenses are setting records. You know, I think that they're changing their defenses to try and cover deep shots and stuff after uh what we saw last year so it's not like teams are all in the dark ages or anything like that but there is the element of well this is this is the guy who we can project easier when it comes to mac jones we know exactly what he's going to be, and that's what we like about him,

rather than Trey Lance, who is much harder to figure out because he's FCS, and he didn't throw a lot of intermediate passes. He didn't play from behind very often. His own team did not have him throwing 30, 40, 50 passes a game. They had him throwing like 19 passes a game. I think it's up between Trey Lance and Justin Fields for the one who drops, but I don't know that. I mean, none of us really know. I also wonder though, what the end game of reporting that it's going to be Mac Jones is for so many

people who are reporting this. And there's just, there's numerous draft experts who are saying it's going to be Mac Jones at number three who are pretty dialed in. And I think Adam Schefter just said that you know that's a very realistic possibility like what purpose do they have to smoke screen they've already got the number three pick and they traded everything for it so I wouldn't be surprised at all there now let me ask this question if it's Trey Lance say are you taking him as the Minnesota Vikings with the 14th overall pick

if somehow all those things I named came to fruition and Trey Lance was there at 14? I would as just like as a fan, as a person who watches this team a lot, as someone for several years has been clamoring for any sort of change and just a breaking of the status quo. I think we know what Kirk Cousins can do with this team. We've seen the floor and we've seen, I mean, I don't know if we've seen the absolute ceiling of it, but we've seen pretty close. And so if you give me a chance to draft a Trey Lance who has all those tools, who is inexperienced, who then can sit and learn from Kirk Cousins while he plays out the rest of his contract, I think it offers

you a way out of this, I don't, just this, it just seems like this never-ending cycle of we either have to extend Kirk or we have to find his replacement. If we don't extend him, then, like, we have to get rid of him. But if we're just going to stay the status quo, we might as well lower his cap hit. Like, it's just always like, well, we probably should just extend him then so we can get more money to spend. And then next year you're going to regret extending him like we are this

offseason, regretting that they extended him last year. And so if he's there, I don't know if they'd do it. It feels like it's something where they'd trade out and try to accumulate more draft assets to fill up the many holes that they have present. Kirk Cousins isn't a hole right now. He is a very solid quarterback who, if he was on a rookie deal, it would be great, and maybe something could happen. But you get a chance to have a quarterback on a rookie deal with a team that is at least offensively set up to do some nice things, and I don't know.

It's just so tantalizing. How do you not try it? I would be interested to hear the scenario in which you don't want it. I guess you really believe in Kirk Cousins, but for me, if he's there, it's just too enticing. I'd have to. I think the only argument against it would be if they watched Trey Lance and just felt like he's not really a first round prospect.

We've just assumed that everyone who does mock drafts is right. But our guy, Jimmy Clawson, the kid with with the golden arm everyone assumed he was the first round draft pick too in fact Mel Kuyper actually said on ESPN that he would retire if Jimmy Clawson did not become a good NFL quarterback well he has not retired but Jimmy Clawson became a terrible NFL quarterback and Todd McShay I think had him number. And we've seen all sorts of quarterbacks in past years not match up with what the mock drafters thought. Nobody had Daniel Jones at the sixth overall pick. In fact, I mean, go back to when I was in Buffalo, nobody had EJ Manuel as a guy who

was the top quarterback off the board or that was very rare. It wasn't a common take. I think a lot more people had maybe Mike Glennon and Geno Smith as the top quarter. That was a very, very bad draft. But even Ryan Nassib, some people were talking about him as a top quarterback. I think he went in the fourth or fifth. They miss a lot when it comes to this because teams are not letting out a ton of information. And if there are people telling you that they know for sure, they're lying to you.

I'm sorry. History tells you they're lying to you. I'm sorry. The history tells you they're lying to you. You just do not know where these are going. Because if people were leaking stuff to reporters that was true, that was getting out, they would try to find those leaks and fire those people. I guarantee it. So I don't think we really have a great sense for if the league is higher on Trey Lance. And because he didn't play last year, I mean, are also coaches and teams going to look at Trey Lance not playing last year,

like not finding a way to play? I don't know. Like, is that going to be some sort of negative because he didn't play? I know that there wasn't his choice. So I'm very aware of that. But like, are they going to say, oh, he should have played in the FCS spring or something?

I don't know. You just, and he only plays one game and it was very unimpressive. The one game that he played against Arkansas State. I mean, he's the one that I think has the best chance to fall because he didn't play for an Alabama. Now, whether that the Vikings would do that or not, I don't know because we don't know how they feel about Trey Lance. But if they had a second, third-round grade on him and didn't love him, and you trade back,

and the Pittsburgh Steelers want to give you a lot to move up, or the New Orleans Saints want to give you a lot to move up, it would be really hard to criticize that move. I mean, even though they're in a position to do it, the one that I would criticize if he was there at 14 and they didn't take is Justin Fields. I would not criticize if it was Mac Jones. I would not criticize if it was Trey Lance because there's reason to believe those guys won't become great NFL quarterbacks. But with Justin Fields, he has so much talent and athleticism and arm and statistics, like just,

and, and terrific play on the national stage and all those boxes that you want to check. If you pass on him and he could be the oppo Kirk, like run your offense, but do it with athleticism and with elite arm talent. That's the one where I'd say, okay,

like you never know who's going to be a bust, but that guy is a pretty good bet to at least be decent, and I would criticize that one. But I don't know. I mean, I feel like everyone's trying to put stuff out there about Justin Fields because they want him, and maybe I'm completely wrong, but he came into the season as the number two prospect, and I just can't figure out why he would have dropped completely off of the radar.

Yeah, and it's been a little weird. We've heard all this Mac Jones hype. We've heard all this, you know, Justin Fields slander, but we haven't heard much just about Trey Lance. It seems things are kind of pretty quiet on that front, and that just makes me feel like kind of right where he's going and right where people kind of expect him to go, maybe that he was a destination for Carolina, people loved him there,

probably wouldn't make sense. Would it make sense for Denver potentially? It just feels like if he was going to slip, maybe we would know a little bit more about it than we do right now, which is why I would push back. And, yeah, I think I wouldn't criticize if the Vikings didn't take Mac Jones or something or potentially even Trey Lance. I would still do it.

I would understand if they traded out and if they accumulated assets to go and fall back. But if they're just going to go take Jalen Phillips anyways, and Trey Lance is on the board, then that's where I would be a little upset, because you can either recuperate a ton of value from someone else looking to trade, or you can take a swing on the most important position in football, and it's not like the defensive end you take is going to be a guaranteed star. Jalen Phillips, the name that's hot right now for the Vikings, has some serious concussion issues that could really derail his career

if those continue to happen. It's not like you've got Joey Bosa right there ready to take, and so you just have this, well, we had to take this guy. We couldn't. He's just a can't-miss talent. And so if you have the opportunity to draft a guy who could change the course of the team's direction and you just don't do it, it would strike me just, and are you going to be this high for the next couple years?

This seems to be kind of the season that from hell, the way the defense played and the way the offensive line worked out, it feels like you can be right around eight and eight the next few years. Are you going to get another chance? And then you're just stuck in this cycle. So so if they didn't trade out I would probably be upset but if they traded out got a second round pick back got another first round pick for another year back then yeah I can't fault it if they don't love him but if they just stand pat then that's where I would get upset because if they are ultimately planning on moving on from Kirk Cousins

then you still have another year to figure that out. You still have another draft before the end of his contract, and you could let his contract play out. It feels like it was built into his deal to have movement there before 2022, but it's not against the law to let that thing play out and maybe try to, I don't know if they can do this or not, but move money around a little bit to lower the cap hit. I'm not sure if it's set up that way or not, but even with the $45 million cap hit, you could work around it and you could play it out and you could draft somebody instead and go that way if the guy that you like isn't there. And so instead you decide to trade down, but you make a good point about how like anybody can be a bust at these positions if you draft you know whoever if you draft raishan slater like he hasn't played in a year either and he has this great game against chase

young when he was in college in 2019 but that you know garrett bradbury had the great game against dexter lawrence and everybody fell all over themselves over one great college game. But ultimately, he's turned out to be just a guy in the NFL. And so I think that there's this thing with Vikings fans where they're worried very much about the bad outcome is going to be really bad. If it's Christian Ponder, it makes you never want to watch football again. And I totally get that. But with Kirk Cousins and how much he costs you kind of know where you can get to and you brought up something that kind of piqued my interest when you said like

have we seen the peak of Kirk Cousins well I mean he set career highs the last couple of years in you know a lot of the whether it's PFF grades or whether it's traditional statistics, my question would be, so like that 2019 is his best season. I, you know, at least their offensive production is at its best. Quarterback rating was a little higher this year, but I think some of that is the whole league's quarterback ratings were higher. His highest ranking by PFF was 2019. Most wins was 2019. And, you know, so the highest rating for the offense as a whole.

Is this situation, is this team right now better than the 2019 team that won 10 games, that had an okay season and got to the sixth seed? I have a really tough time saying the answer is yes right now, that this team is somehow better than what they had in 2019. Yeah, I think we don't know what the defense looks like. The last time we saw this defense, they were getting lit up week after week, but there's no question that 2019 defense was better with who they had out there. Anthony Harris was playing at a really good level. Obviously, you still had Everson Griffin.

You still, I mean, your linebackers were, Anthony Barr was younger and playing better. Harrison Smith was younger. You had Mackenzie Alexander. You had Trey Waynes. You had a, on the decline, Xavier Rhodes. But, I mean, and then you had Stefan Diggs and Adam Thielen. And Justin Jefferson is a pretty good, you know, replacement for that.

But is he to the level of Stefan Diggs? I don't know. At best, I feel like you could say this team is as good, but I don't see a scenario where right now you can say that they're better. Yeah. You, you would say it's probably a wash between Diggs and Justin Jefferson. The offensive line was also bad, but they had Riley Reif. So we were sure what they had at left tackle right now, so we were sure what they had at left tackle. Right now, we don't know what they have at left tackle.

They had a Kyle Rudolph in 2019 who caught a bunch of touchdowns for them, and Irv Smith was just a rookie. Now your number two tight end is Tyler Conklin, your number three wide receiver. Actually, that year, B.C. Johnson played pretty well. On the offensive side, there's a lot of similarities similarities but delvin cook played great the last two years he ran every single play last year i mean he's you know on a pace over 16 games had he played 16 games would have set the record for touches um so yeah i mean it's hard to say for sure that he's going to be as good next year as he was this year. But on the defensive side specifically, not having Everson Griffin, not having the 2019 version of Anthony Harris, which was the league leader in interceptions, we don't know if these corners will play as well as Trey Waynes

and Mackenzie Alexander did that season. And actually, Mike Hughes was serviceable that year outside of one bad night in Dallas but at the at the best though you have to kind of talk me into it like how this team right now would be better so it's you're probably thinking about similar results and if that's the case that it's similar results it could be a good season it could be a playoff season and then you never know what happens in the playoffs but it wouldn't be a great case for you can't absolutely cannot draft a quarterback to think about the future and think about your cap and think about the the athletic element of it and where the league is going like 10 10 wins this year would

not convince me oh you have to stay with Kirk Cousins and as you mentioned if Kirk Cousins was the same cost as Mac Jones, then you could build this team up around him. But I think we saw in free agency how you really can't. How one luxury pickup in Patrick Peterson all of a sudden means, well, you're kind of out on a bunch of other things then. And that's where it kind of brings it into focus. I think the argument for if they're there at 14, despite all the other needs with one of these quarterbacks, you really have to consider it. Anyway, I wanted to mention your piece, by the way, on Rashad Bateman and Benjamin St.

Juice about you wrote today at the website just about how the Vikings should consider those guys. I've been very high on the idea of the Vikings thinking about Rashad Bateman. You're a little closer to the Gophers because you are a Gopher. So tell me the argument for the Vikings looking at Rashad Bateman. Yeah, I covered Rashad Bateman the last two and a half years. Basically, since he got here, that was when I started. So I've watched his maturation. I think I wrote probably the first article like, okay, this guy could be better than Tyler Johnson,

probably just because the Strib and the Pioneer Press were saving it for the end of the year when more people were ready to read it. But, no, I think he would work perfectly in this offense. He seems pretty, you know, like, scheming Gnostic. Like, he could be anywhere, and he could do really well. And it just pushes you – it pushes the Vikings. If they made the selection, it would mean they're investing in a different type of offensive philosophy

or open to a different type of offensive philosophy that is more focused on three wide receivers and is more focused on passing, which I think is important. And so it being Rashad Bateman, I don't think is as important as them getting a talented third wide receiver, something that you have been on for a long time. But in terms of what they get in Rashad Bateman, he can work on the outside. He can work in the slot. He ran a 4-3-9, which I think probably is more like mid 4-4s if he was at the combine. And I don't know, he doesn't do anything extremely, extremely well. Like Chris Trapazzo said on the the podcast he's kind of the jack of all trades master of none but he runs good routes he's physical he he does everything you want he is a great guy to be around you don't have to worry about any sort of quote-unquote character concerns and he just lit up any defense that he was and he found open holes so yes i think that would work really really really, really, really

well next to Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen. But my thought process was Bateman is kind of the conduit to talk about the third wide receiver and the need for the Vikings to address it or just the possibility of them addressing it and what that would look like. And so whether it's Bateman there or if one of those wide receivers fell, like Jalen Waddell or Devontae Smith and one of them addressing it and what that would look like. And so whether it's Bateman there or if one of those wide receivers fell, like Jalen Waddell or Devontae Smith and one of them were somehow there, you'd really have to consider it. I think Bateman is someone you could get a little bit further back if you wanted to make that trade.

Maybe you are swapping with the Steelers or something like that and still potentially getting him or the Colts or anything like that. So some of those teams that are looking to move up potentially. So, yeah, I think it would be a great addition, and I think just investing something in the third wide receiver would be awesome, and the fact that it could be a first-round pick, that just creates so many opportunities for this offense and so many cool things that could happen on the offense,

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directly to find out how Scout Logistics can minimize risk and overperform and go the extra mile for your company. I think, first of all, with Bateman, there's that possibility that you can trade back and he will still be there, which is exciting if you're talking about best player available. And that's really your strategy, which it rarely is for the Vikings. But that could be the case if they were to move back and try to get a second round pick and draft in the 20s and still get somebody who made an impact but the the argument that I that I'm not a fan of is when people say sorry Mike Zimmer will just not allow them to have a number three wide receiver I get where you're coming from with that but I also think that they played so much too tight end because they had two tight ends it's not like this offense just falls apart if you add a three wide receiver set. And the other thing, too, is that like even Chad Beebe and B.C.

Johnson, if you add up their snaps from last season, they played kind of a lot. I mean, not like all the time, but I can get this. I'll look this up as I'm talking here. Like this is a position that ends up on the field quite a bit. And if you are of a mind that you are going to take the best player available, if that ends up being Rashad Bateman, I think they'd be making a huge mistake not to take Rashad Bateman and make an impact on the offense.

And I also think too, that everyone is going to want an offensive lineman here, but if you're talking about wanting to also have a good season next year then a wide receiver three is probably going to do a lot more for you let me see here with uh the targets between bc johnson and chad bb so they ended up with 48 targets and 34 catches so let's say that rashad bateman ends up being drafted in the first round by the Vikings, plays a little more than that. So instead of around 50, it's around 75 targets. And instead of 34, it's around 50 catches and he can actually go down the field and he can actually get open on third down and he can

actually be a threat for them. Like all these things I think have to be considered. I don't think we should just throw it in the garbage as a discussion just because they have run two tight ends. They need one more weapon here unless they're considering Tyler Conklin to be that guy, which would be a mistake. Which would be a mistake. There's two ways to look at it. The third wide receiver hasn't been a big part of this offense because they haven't had a capable third wide receiver. So Mike Zimmer has said, okay, we're going to do two tight ends. We're going to do two wide receivers and we're not going to do it. The other way to look at it is they've never prioritized it. And that's why the people that have ended up there have ended up there. And so Mike Zimmer is going

to run the two wide receiver set. And that is less about the player and more about their scheme. And because their scheme doesn't really prioritize it, they haven't prioritized it in going out and getting guys. So the argument can go both ways. I think if just inserting Rashad Bateman onto this team, it would mean that they want to do that more. They are invested in bumping up those targets to the numbers that you talked about. So if they drafted a wide receiver, that would be the storyline. It would be, okay, that person is

going to take Chad Beebe and BC Johnson's targets. He's going to take probably some of Kyle Rudolph's targets, and hopefully they're going to bump it up even more. And that just, it doesn't mean that the offense suddenly becomes Kansas City and they're passing on every down. It just means that they make minute changes, and that's what would happen if they invest the type of capital that a first round pick is on a wide receiver and so the it's just it's this cat and mouse of whether you think the lack of a third wide receiver is because they just haven't had someone or if it's it's because that they just don't care about it. But if they drafted Rashad Bateman, it would be a clear indication that, yes, we do care about it.

And I think it has to go along with a trade down to pick up whatever you're also going to need. If you decided that, look, Jalen Phillips is too much of a risk, quiddi pay, we don't really believe he can develop the pass rush moves. Like if you were looking at some of the other pass rushers that would be available in the second round or the offensive linemen that were available in the second round and thinking that they're close, that would allow you to do something like getting Rashad Bateman. But I just, I think that when you look at the actual targets and you think, oh, well, they never, they never used that position. But then, like you said, if you're taking some of Kyle Rudolph's there

and then adding them with B.C. Johnson and Chad Beebe, you got very, very little out of those guys actually being on the field quite a bit because they're out there on third downs. So if you even got 30, 40 catches, but they were way more effective catches out of Rashad Bateman, that would be a huge boost. The other thing to keep in mind, too, Adam Thielen, next year, his cap hit goes up to 16 million. The year after, it's over 17 million, and they can cut him with a very small dead cap after next year. Now, I'm not saying that the demise of Adam Thielen is upon us. We may see a Larry Fitzgerald type of career here

from Thielen where he plays his whole career in Minnesota but you know I also think it's something where you have to look down the road and say like this guy is getting to be in his 30s and you know it might need a little more support from from another wide receiver so like I sorry I know I know we've been over the wide receiver three train thing I'm not going to get off it I'm not going to stop being the conductor. It's just when it's Bateman and it's another guy in your backyard, when you just missed on two guys in your backyard last year, you have to wonder, like, will you amend that mistake from last year? Okay. So Ben, yeah, I was just going to say, I don't, I, the reason that they, or the fact that they missed on Antoine Winfield and Tyler Johnson shouldn't be a reason just to go back to it. Like, oh, we missed on it and we can't have that mistake again.

Maybe it does creep into the mind. But yeah, I think notwithstanding the news that we just learned about Jeff Gladney, like when I started writing this, it was still, you would easily take Antoine Winfield over Jeff Gladney bar, like taking away anything that happened off the field you'd easily take that uh Tyler Johnson was picked like 15 picks before KJ Osborne uh I think Vikings fans would make that move as well and so yeah I uh continue with what you're gonna say well I just was gonna bring up Benjamin St. Juice and ask you if he should be on their radar now in the middle rounds with the situation with Jeff Gladney. I don't think that corner suddenly becomes a first

round pick because they are still pretty set there. At the same time, maybe a little more depth would be considered. Like if there is a Cameron Dantzler type prospect that ends up in the third and maybe Benjamin St. Juice is that guy. Yeah, I mean, I think the best draft picks are when you're not reaching for a hole that you have immediately. You're looking at what are my holes two years down the line? What are I know teams can't always do that because they have immediate holes that they have to fill. So it's easier said than done that.

OK, we have we're thinking about Adam Thielen in two years. Maybe cut him so maybe we need to invest in a first round pick like that sounds all well and good when but then you look over at the guard position and like we're playing guard so it's it's hard to look at the future and then also try to be you know proactive but that's what I try to be and if we're looking at cornerback that seems like the exact spot you want to look at, because you look at the moves that they made this offseason, and yeah, it looks pretty solid for next year. You have Patrick Peterson. He's on a one-year deal. You have Mackenzie Alexander, but he's only on a one-year deal. You have Mike Hughes, who is probably gone after this year. You have Xavier Woods, another one-year deal.

So yeah, maybe one or two of those guys comes back if they have a good season, but it's not like you have much of a long-term future at all there. And so third and fourth round picks are, you're hoping that they can come in and contribute, but if you are relying on those third and fourth round picks like they were last year to come in and contribute, we saw what happened there.

So I think Benjamin St. Jude should be on their radar. I think cornerback should be on their radar. I think it probably should have been on the radar. Pre this Jeff Gladney news, it's only year one. We've only seen year one of Jeff Gladney and Cameron Dantzler. We talked about it a lot at the beginning of the season that you really don't know what you have in a cornerback after one season. So we don't know, even if Jeff Gladney didn't have this issue,

we don't know if he would have turned out to be good, and I still would have been okay with them taking a cornerback. Now with the Jeff Gladney news, I think I would be even more okay with them taking one. St. Juice fits the profile of a guy that probably wouldn't have to start right away. He's got the physical intangibles that Mike Zimmer, you're hoping, can coach up, the cornerback guy. He would seem to like someone who has all those skill sets, and if he just needs a little bit more refinement,

what other coach are you trying to send him to than Mike Zimmer? So I think cornerback should be on the radar. I'm sure St. Justus is one of many. He had a great senior bowl. It seems like a guy that you'd want to look at. And cornerback, I think, especially after this newest news, is something you have to look at. I agree with all that.

So let me just tack on one more point about Rashad Bateman. I just like him a lot. And that is I was talking with Jim Monis for an article who was a former scout for the Saints and the Eagles, and he was the Bills player personnel director. And if you haven't seen the article, purpleinsider.subsect.com. But I talked to him for this article about, like, what if there was no pressure to be fired and you could just make decisions that you thought were the best for the long term to win?

And one of the things he said was, I would just draft great players and I wouldn't worry about coaches and systems and schemes that will make it work with great players. And when I look at a lot of the other players who are in the first round, what their question marks are, their possibilities of hitting their ceiling, what they could mean to you if they succeed, that's where I get kind of stuck up on Rashad Bateman because there's so much attention for these other wide receivers who are going to get taken high that I feel like he's gone under the radar. And having watched not every single game, but a lot of Rashad Bateman's games, as you have as well, I just feel like he's got a very good possibility of being a, maybe not a Julio Jones superstar level, but a very, very, very

good NFL wide receiver. And how valuable is that versus some of the other guys that have questions? So that's where I kind of gotten stuck on this idea of liking Rashad Bateman, though I will acknowledge, and you will as well, that the chances are probably not super high that they end up going with it. So, okay. Well, the next time you and I talk, Paul, will be for the Friday Roundtable. Arif Hasan is going to join us for Friday Roundtable. Also, Lawrence Holmes from 670 to Score. I brought him on specifically to mock the Chicago Bears and their quarterback decisions because now they look even worse that Jimmy G and Teddy Bridgewater are available for trade,

and they already decided on Andy Dalton. So thanks for your time, Paul. And I will talk to you on Thursday when we record the Friday round table. Thanks, man.