Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Dak signs, Saints QB situation with Nick Underhill and Q+A questions

Episode Date: March 9, 2021

Matthew Coller gives a quick reaction to the news that Dak Prescott has signed a mega contract with the Dallas Cowboys and what that might mean for Kirk Cousins's future plus a franchise tag for Brandon Scherff. Then Matthew is joined by Saints reporter Nick Underhill to talk about how the Saints' QB situation is being overlooked. And how will they get out of cap hell? And then Matthew answers questions from listeners about how the Vikings should build their roster and about how to look at a team analytically. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, presented by Scout Logistics and by Symbol, your stock market for sports. Before we get into my conversation with Nick Underhill, who covers the New Orleans Saints, we talk about their quarterback situation and their cap situation as well. Want to get into some breaking NFL news. Dak Prescott has signed a monster contract with the Dallas Cowboys. And I mean, monster, ridiculous, outrageous, preposterous contract that is going to be worth up to $164 million and $75 million is coming in year one for Dak Prescott, which is going to be the most in NFL history, according to

ESPN's Adam Schefter. And let me give you the Viking spin on this. It now becomes possible that Kirk Cousins could aim to play out the rest of his deal in 2021 and 2022 and try to hit the free agent market. And let me explain why, because this points to big money coming into the NFL. We've been thinking about the possibility of a new TV deal and what that might mean to the salary cap fans coming back a 17 game season. But all of those things were sort of up in the air. Now with this contract, I don't see any way that all of those things are not going to come to fruition and restore the salary cap and then some and leave room for the possibility that Kirk Cousins $45 million cap hit in 2022 could actually work for the Vikings. Now, I still think that there's a crossroads that comes with that contract that was written in for them to either extend him or

trade him. But now if the salary cap goes way way way up by 2022 which seems to be what Dallas must be projecting with this deal then Kirk Cousins might aim for free agency again or try to put himself in a similar situation to Dak where the Vikings have to give him a historic deal if he has a good 2021 and 2022 season, or he could try to hit the open market as he did with Washington. This changes how I view Kirk Cousins' contract situation a bit, because the money is so out of this world for Dak Prescott that Jerry Jones, I'm sure, did not sign this deal without knowing exactly where things are going in the NFL. So that will be something to watch as we go forward is some of these other contracts for quarterbacks and where they end up being.

Because now Dak Prescott has set the bar extremely, extremely high. Another bit of news, Brandon Sheriff, Shreff, Sherf, that bit unfortunately has come to an end where we make fun of nobody knowing how to pronounce his name because he has been franchise tagged by football team. What that means is Joe Thune is the guard on the market for right now. Now there's reports that a number of different guards could be released as cap casualties in the coming days. Kevin Zeitler is probably the biggest name there. He's playing for the New York Giants. I believe he was part of the Olivier Vernon deal

that sent him to New York. And so now some players that have these big contracts, teams are trying to move on from them. And it has been suggested, probably rightfully so, that teams are using the salary cap a little bit as an excuse to get rid of players that they thought were making too much money to begin with. And that might be the case and to the Vikings benefit. But the biggest fish on the market that's a guard, Brandon Sheriff, is no longer.

He has been franchise tag. So we'll be doing updates here on the show every day courtney cronin's going to be on jeremiah searles requested to stop by for a free agency preview podcast i mean we're going to have dominoes falling i think every single day so let's get to my conversation with nick Underhill, and then I'll have a little bit of the Q&A from the Apple podcast comments after that. So here's Nick. We welcome into the show in the brotherhood of doing your own thing. In fact, a trailblazer in that area, Nick Underhill, who also i don't know how you got this but i love this

new orleans dot football how did you get dot football dot football is incredible yeah i don't know i was just looking for urls and i typed in new orleans and like it suggested dot football and i was like oh well that's that's the one like a very literal name but it works and yeah it's unique enough to be like decent marketing. So yeah, it worked out. I am jealous. I am extremely jealous of dot football and maybe we'll, maybe we'll have to change that purple insider dot football at some point. The reason I wanted to have you on Nick, other than that, I admire your work and what you've done with new Orleans dot football. You've built it up to be a, you know, incredible resource for saints fans. And if people want to check it out, who are listening to this,

who want to hate read about the Saints, because I don't know, do you know this Nick that Minnesota Vikings fans really hate the Saints? I think that they hate the Saints almost as much as the Packers, like Packers will be number one always, but there's like a different level of vitriol toward the Saints, even though in recent years, the Vikings have owned the Saints in the last two times they've played in the playoffs. Yeah. You know, it's surprising how much emotion and passion there is in this because the saints have the Falcons. And I think that's probably one of the best rivalries in all of sports,

but the Vikings, the level of legitimate animosity, I guess is how I would put it. It feels like it's right there and right behind it, and it's comparable. And I can't speak more highly of the passion of, you know, I think it's awesome. Like when the fan bases are charged up, it makes doing the job more fun, and you kind of feel it, and there's a little bit more excitement those weeks. Minnesota's basically in the NFC South at this point, just with the way these teams are, how often they play, how much emotion's behind these games. And, yeah, I mean, it is definitely right there. And, you know,

you kind of have to know everything that's going on with the Vikings, just like you do with the Panthers and the Falcons and everybody else in the division. So yeah, it's turned into a really, really good rivalry. And, you know, Sean Payton's probably helped out a little bit with some of his sad line antics. And I get it. If Minnesota fans don't love the Saints, I can, Sean Payton's probably helped out a little bit with some of his sideline antics. And I get it if Minnesota fans don't love the Saints. I can. It's very easy to see why. Well, I mean, it really goes back to the Brett Favre and the bounty gate and all that. I would say, look, the Saints didn't throw that interception to themselves. The Saints did not put 12 men in a huddle in that game.

You put 12 men in a huddle in that game you put 12 men in a huddle you did that to yourselves the Vikings you should have been going to the Super Bowl but instead you couldn't figure out how to huddle up in a key situation or you know Brett Favre couldn't throw it away or check it down or run for a couple of yards and by the way I don't think the Saints and this is not to apologize for the Saints for this because bounty gate was messed up i don't think they were the only team that was trying to hurt brett farve in football games so i don't know i like i get and i get it um and i enjoy it like you do but i also think like if that's what it's about i'm not sure that's really the person that you should blame for having not reached the super bowl day yeah that's that's fair. But you know,

the skull clap from Peyton and all that stuff charges it. And yeah, so yeah, definitely, definitely some bad blood there, but I'm here for it, man. It definitely makes it way more fun. Oh yeah. And you think about the recent games, I mean, you have Elvin Kamara scoring six touchdowns. You have Minneapolis miracle. You have, do you think Kyle Rudolph pushed off? I think probably a little, I mean, yeah, I mean, there was definitely a little something there. I don't know if we should have been called or not. That's kind of one of those where you let them play through it, but you know,

saints guys. And I, I think it's, it's understandable. They feel a little snake bitten and cheated and they feel like the world's against them. And I mean, there, there probably is a little bit of reason for that, you know, the year before they, you know, they, they get screwed against the, the Rams Marcus Williams, obviously that you know the year before they you know they get screwed against the the rams uh marcus williams obviously you know he misses only a couple tackles that year and there's like the worst play of all time in that moment against the vikings um you know the bounty gate thing it stems from that i mean there's a little bit of that you know in everything and i'm sure

people outside of this area you know they're tired of hearing people complain but you can find legitimate reasons and that that you know you know, just coming off that Rams game. And then it's like, well, here it is again. You know, it just wasn't, you know, it was, there was something there, but it's, that's a play. I think in a normal situation where you say, let them play through it. You are at the goal line also.

I mean, Adam Thielen makes the great over the shoulder catch to set up being down at the goal line anyway. So I'm not saying that they guaranteed score in that situation, but if you're the saints, I mean, even if he does push off, you have to say, but you let them get to the goal line in overtime in your house, the loudest stadium and us bank stadium is very loud, but the loudest stadium atmosphere I have ever heard in my life covering football was that overtime in the

Superdome I mean you could not hear anything and you know this as a reporter you're kind of out there like there are some like even in US Bank Stadium where I sit it's kind of blocked off a little bit from the noise so I hear it but it's not like directly in my face that I mean that is insane I mean that you are uh hashtag blessed to have games of course not this last year with no fans but with that type of atmosphere um I don't know where you rank your your like best atmosphere games for covering the Saints but for me that was my favorite road trip ever because I'd never been to New Orleans before but then being able to be in that atmosphere in the Superdome is ridiculous yeah it's it's definitely way up there, man.

Like some in those playoff games, it gets so bad that like the water inside your bottle, like it is legitimately moving. And yeah, look, and that came to, I think the Saints played flat the whole game. Like I, you know, there was a lot of things that, that went wrong for them, you know, and you get the push off, you get the push off. There's a lot of reasons they lost that game. And they happened much earlier. And then, like you said, you let them drive. They just got beat.

There's no complaint, the Rudolph thing or not. They didn't deserve to win that game. Well, Taysom Hill was the best player on the field at that time. And if that happens, then that's usually not great for you, I think. So let's get into this then. Because I totally agree that I have to follow your work closely to see what you're saying about the saints, because even if the Vikings are not set to play the saints, like they probably will see them in the playoffs or something.

Let's start with with Drew Brees. I mean, what's the deal? Like there's, there's a Zapruder workout film of Drew Brees. And I mean, I guess we all assumed that he was gonna walk away. But then the choice to go with Taysom Hill over Jameis Winston, I feel almost like you've probably answered this on many radio hits, but like what is going on here

with the quarterback situation? Well, starting with Drew, I still think he's gonna retire. He already reduced the salary down to like a little bit more than a million dollars, which allows them to lower his cap hit now. And then when he retires, they file it on June 2nd. And then you can split that out over two years.

But if he had stayed on the roster, they would have to carry a 20 some million dollar hit all the way up to June 2nd. So then, you know, getting I don't want to get too deep into details here, but you got to clear that money. And then, you know, to be able to spend it before June 2 2nd you have to be cap compliant by the start of the new league year so they'd have to cut other players when it's just drew's gonna go off so unless you think he's gonna come back and play for a million bucks when he's a guy that's fought for his money his whole career you know i just don't think that's gonna be the case here so i think he kind of just retired

on paper i've talked to some people close to him over the last week after the video came out and doing the sled work and all that it looked like a guy that was preparing to get ready for a football season but people around him just said like look he's been playing football for 30 years it's hard to make that public declaration he's doing a lot of soul searching he set himself up for life after football but it's just really hard to let go so i think that's just kind of what's going on here and i still think 99 he's going to retire but i will say last year everybody around breeze thought he was going to retire and then he ended up coming back out of nor i i don't think it's going to happen he's got new hair he looks like a guy that's going to sit in an mbc booth in call games but you know i'll leave the door open just a little bit you

looked up to brett farve if there's some brett farve stuff going on here i wouldn't be completely shocked but i'd be you know pretty pretty pretty surprised based off everything i've heard um as far as james and tasem you know last year i i think part of it is is a like if you watch the way tasem played i i think that it's very easy to see why they thought he was going to be better than he was because when everything was perfect in the games against Atlanta, especially he was able to sit in the pocket, throw the ball down the field and he looked like a legitimate pocket passer. And the very first game he played,

that was the biggest shock in the world. Cause I think we all kind of thought that it was going to be like a Baltimore Ravens type offense. And here he is like sitting in the pocket and throwing the ball down the field. And he looked much better than he did against Denver. Things got messy. They pulled them with some coverages. He looked horrible against Philadelphia. He looked horrible. So I think, you know, in practice, when he's sitting back there hitting these passes, it's hard to replicate when things get messy and he has to go off script and all this stuff. And things got messy it got bad but it makes

sense why they liked him why they thought he could do something he did win a lot of games for them you know he went three and one it wasn't it wasn't horrible it just wasn't nfl starter caliber so they had to find out what they had i i understand why they had to explore it i understand why everybody doubted tasem and i don't know if you're validated in that if if you were out here making all these like crazy declarations, but yeah, I don't think he's, he's Steve Young in the QB of the future, all this crazy stuff that was coming out. I think that's been found out. But I wouldn't take that as like, oh, they, they thought Taysom was significantly better than Jameis. On the other hand though, if like Jameis was tearing it up in practice and was a million times better than Taysom in those situations, going with Taysom over Jameis, that's how you cause a revolt.

There wasn't a revolt within the team. There were a few people that I heard from that thought Jameis should be playing, but I don't think anybody was super upset. Him winning those games, I think, probably calmed those waters pretty quickly. But I do think that they liked a lot of the stuff that Jameis did. Jameis was there. He got there late in the offseason there was no offseason program if he wasn't fully comfortable with everything you know that that's another element of this too I think that maybe Taysom just knew

the offense a little better was an easier way to just drop him in you know Jameis got an opportunity the week before Taysom took over and you know it wasn't like he shut the door on the possibility of somebody else coming in it was a little bit shaky so you know i think all these things um they do like jamis a lot i don't think that they're convinced that he has to be the guy i just think that like if you're looking at the stack of babies that you know wentz trubisky uh sam donald like you just go with the one that that you know you try to bring them back and and you roll with it and if you don't have to give anything up to get them sure but i wouldn't be shocked if in a year they're looking for a quarterback but also the theoretical version of jamis is you know a number one pick a guy with a lot of ability i wouldn't be shocked if he becomes

good but you know as we sit here now i don't think that they're 100 percent convinced, but I do think that they like the possibility. The galaxy brain people who think that they played Taysom Hill to drive down Winston's value to resign in this year. Like, wow. Talk about, you know, your sports conspiracy theories. No, they usually play who they think is going to win when you're trying to win the Super Bowl. The other thing you pointed out is, look, man, we don't get to see practice every single day and know who knows the offense better. And if Jameis Winston wasn't getting people lined up right or wasn't getting the details or whatever it might be because he was a new quarterback or maybe just he wasn't getting it, they're going to play someone else.

I mean, we went through this in a preseason one time fighting over the two backup quarterbacks. One of them couldn't get the guys lined up correctly. It was like, that guy's not going to be the one that wins the job. All right. If you can't get them lined up correctly, or you don't know every single detail to a T they're not going to trust you. So that might be the case or, you know, that they felt he wasn't ready or whatever. It wasn't made at random is the point. So I thought that was kind of funny, but the Jameis thing though, the internet loves Jameis. They really love Jameis. I don't know why, because he threw 30 interceptions the year before, but, and it's always baffled

me. He doesn't have a winning record. He doesn't have like great stats in any season, but the internet just can't get enough Jameis. So I don't know. I think at very least you'd be able to see, okay, he gets a shot with someone like Sean Payton in a year where New Orleans doesn't necessarily have any expectations and maybe he signs cheap. So I guess for me, it makes a lot of sense to do it. It's funny that you say there's no expectations

because I think people around here still expect them to be a 10 win team pretty, pretty easily. If they can keep this core together, you know you know they some players are going to go like their cap situation is bad it's not as bad as people make it out to be like you go through you start doing the math like there's ways to keep things together but I mean they've won a lot of games the last two years with Teddy Bridgewater who Carolina seems to have determined isn't good enough to be an NFL starter the whole world is determined Taysom isn't good enough to be an NFL starter and the core of this team has been good enough that they keep winning games.

I, you know, do they remain a Superbowl contender or anything like that? You know, that that's where I think things probably start to change for them a little bit, but I think there's an expectation of still being a good team, but you know,

the quarterbacks we're talking about, I think you can win games with them. I don't think that you're winning games because of Taysom Hill or Teddy or whoever. And you get into the playoffs at a certain point, your quarterback's going to have to win you a game. And that's where I think things fall apart for him. But look, Brees hasn't been that guy either.

And they just won 12 games with the, you know, I don't think he ever really looked good. There were moments and there were moments for hope. And it was like the whole year you just kept waiting like, hey, is he going to get better? Is he going to get better? And like get better and like he just he just never did but um I still think you know if they keep this team together that they're gonna be competitive and I don't think it's a no expectations situation if it was a no expectation situation I think you see that

roster come apart and you just start over but I think they're gonna try to do everything they can to keep it together and I really believe that the team itself like thinks they're still going to be a good team that's interesting because i was feeling like all right breeze is leaving your cap situation is not good so how do you keep it all together and how do you remain competitive to be a playoff team um so i guess explain to me the salary cap part, because I see you on Twitter sometimes swatting away people with, hey, look, they can't possibly get under the cap without wrecking the entire roster. And when you call up over the cap dot com, Nick, it's ugly.

It's ugly. It says almost 70 million over the cap. So lay it out for me. Well, you go on the over over the cap and you just hit the calculator and you play around with it for five minutes. You'll start seeing all the ways that they build their contracts. There's like built in restructures, you know, instead of signing bonuses, there's roster bonuses and things like that. And they do high base salary. So then they just convert them into signing bonuses.

And this isn't even doing the same stuff where they, you know, they'll take a three-year roster and just add two voidable years on the end so then they can stretch out that 19 million dollar base salary over five years and then that 19 million dollars goes down to four and you can get them 20 million dollars under the cap like not cutting a lot of key players 20 million right away like they got to go 65 million like 20 million right away on if you just extend ryan ramchek and marshawnattimore you can clear off 15 of that you know 15 of the 20 million that's on the book so now you're at 40 you cut Malcolm Brown there's another six uh you restructure Tron Armstead Michael Thomas you know there's just a lot of stuff they can do and they like I said they can get 15 20 million under the cap and you're cutting

Malcolm Brown Emmanuel Sanders Quan Alexander and maybe Thomas Morstead, you know, and it's, those aren't franchise changing players. Like, yeah, you want to keep Malcolm Brown. He's a great run stuffer, but if you lose them, you lose them and you find, you know, somebody else, you put them in there and it's a little bit of a step back, but it's not a significant step back. If Jameis is your quarterback of the future and Tays is convicted that he's a he's a quarterback and he wants to be a quarterback you can let him go and save some money like there's a lot of things they can do to create a little bit of cap space to even sign some players and it's not going to be like like i said there's going to be some some things that hurt you're going to take some shots

and you know your your arms and maybe a couple in the leg but like people are acting like they're going to be in the middle of the street like bleeding bleeding out. And like, I just don't, I don't think that's the case. And if you don't even have to get into like the crazy saints stuff, like I said, like they do stuff that's extremely aggressive and you know, there seems to be this, this attitude that like, you know, Oh, well we said in 2014, like their cap situation was going to get them in here. It's like, it took a pandemic for this to happen. Like this strategy has worked for a very long time. And if you want to, if you want to take three credit cards and do a charge off every single month and you have the nerve to live on the edge, you can do that forever. And yeah,

you'll pay a little bit of interest at time, but like you can avoid paying that bill if you just want to do that forever. And that's your financial financial strategy it's not sound it's it's dangerous something can happen to hurt you which is happening right now but look i mean i i think the year for them it isn't even this year i think it's next year if there's no fans the salary cap stays down i think 22s a year because at a certain point if the cap isn't going up and you aren't living on that 15 bump every year at some point you can't push anymore and i think next year's a year where that, if the cap isn't going up and you aren't living on that 15% bump every year, at some point you can't push anymore. And I think next year is a year where that hits, if the cap doesn't go up. Hey everyone, I want to tell you about our friends at Scout Logistics.

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ScoutLogistics.com or call 855-217-2688 extension 232 to connect with them directly to find out how Scout Log logistics can minimize risk and overperform and go the extra mile for your company. And this is what happened to the Vikings really last year. I mean, age played a role in this too, that guys weren't performing really to their contracts. And that was part of it that maybe you're not going to deal with, but last year was the bill coming. So, you know, when you saw the Vikings this year, I'm sure as a reporter, you were like, who is playing defensive line? Like who are these corners? Because you were used to seeing Trey Wayans and Xavier Rhodes and Linval Joseph and

Everson Griffin. And all of a sudden those guys just all had to go at once. And the Vikings did the same stuff, push it down the road, push down the road, but eventually the bill came. But where you're in a decent position is the quarterback spot because the Vikings are paying a quarterback, a ton of money where now it seems like if the saints want to play their cards right with James Winston and make him their quarterback, it's probably not going to be super costly. Yeah. Look, and that's, that's a good point, too.

I think part of the cap thing is like you get into these situations when these contracts start getting bad. I don't think the Saints have bad contracts. I think what they're going to do now trying to get under the cap is create bad contracts in a few years, and now you're tied into these aging players. And that's when the bill is going to come due, and that's when it's going to start to hurt.

But right now, you don't mind being tied into, if you have to do something crazy to keep mike thomas or turon armstead or ryan ramchak or whoever like those aren't bad deals now but they will be in time when they get older and they're underperforming like cam jordan's like you know you do something else with this contract and now you're tied into him longer andrews pete's another guy that you know like signed and i think there's an out after this year probably but if you do something with this contract you're eliminating that out now you're tied in them so you do turn good money into bad now where i think that that's what they've been able to do with these like charge offs and all that stuff is they've been able to avoid getting

in the bad situations and now they're gonna so yeah at some point the bill can become due and this year might accelerate some of that i think though if this year hadn't happened like there's there's an avoidance of that and they can keep going and there's a little bit of debt of money but i don't think it's ever they could have kept going and now the pandemic caught them but again a pandemic is the reason that right their cap strategy is kind of backfired a little bit and i will say that i have been hard on them about kirk cousins and the way that they structured the contract to be a low cap hit in a year where they were transitioning with the roster. Like that's not how you wanted to structure that, but they believe they were going to win last year. If you had known that you were going to go seven, nine,

you would have tried to flip that around to make, you know, it structured differently to have cheaper years in year two and three and not in first year anyway. So are you watching Mac Jones film or Trey Lance film or Justin Fields in the case that Justin Fields shockingly drops? There's always one. What are you thinking about that? Are you feeling like you need to watch quarterbacks this year for your draft coverage? Yeah, I think I will. I'm not quite there yet.

Right now, I'm kind of watching Jameis film, Jacoby Brissett film, Teddy Bridgewater filmed. So those are the guys that I've kind of been watching right now. I feel like I need to know them first. Real quick interjection. How bad are the Panthers? When you watch the film, like early on I Joe Brady was doing a good job and I get that but like their offensive line is a joke and their defense is a disaster and I think that everybody kind of figured out what was going on there Teddy got hurt it was

like this roster has almost no good players on it I mean outside of like with DJ Moore Robbie Anderson but McCaffrey was hurt. I just, when I was watching them play the Vikings, I was going like, this is, this is a bad team with maybe not a good coach. Yeah. It's, it's interesting. I'm, you know, I'm not sold on Joe Brady either. And he kind of runs the saints offense, but like there's some stuff, you know, I just don't know if they have the same feel for it in his rise has been crazy. I couldn't believe that he was getting the head coach looks like maybe that'll come in time. It feels like he needs to figure out what he doesn't know before somebody asks him to know everything yeah so it's uh it's a weird team i'm interested to

see how they they go forward you know i don't know if getting like deshaun watson is going to be the cure-all like that they seem to think it would be if they were able to acquire him. I think there's a lot going on there with that roster. I was surprised how well they were, you know, able to get production out of running back without McCaffrey. That was a little bit surprising last year, but yeah, I, I don't, I don't think they're coming together quite as hoped in year one of that program.

I I feel like I have very few great skills in this world, but picking out coaches who don't know what they're doing is one of them. Like x-ray vision for like, nope, this guy doesn't know what's going on. And you didn't really win at Baylor. And then they give you a gazillion dollars. And then you hire a college guy to be your offensive coordinator. It's like, I don't know, something doesn't quite smell right. And then when I watched them play the Vikings, I thought, oh, this team is a coach very well and doesn't have anyone good on their roster, but like Teddy, maybe pick a

different team, bro. I don't know. That's it's just like not a great choice for him. But anyway, just, that was just an aside. I just wondered if you're drafting a quarterback, if you, I just had to jump in with like hey how bad is carolina am i right yeah as far as the quarterback thing i think you know the thing i the line i always go to is like when you have breeze like you can afford to have lazy eyes like you don't have to have peripheral vision you're just looking straight ahead and when you don't have that sure thing a quarterback like your eyes have to wander constantly and i don't think whoever they sign if it's jamis i don't think you're sold on them right away look Look, it's like when they signed Adrian Peterson

and then they had the chance to get Alvin. You go and get Alvin and then you compete and now Peterson doesn't fit. I wouldn't be surprised if they draft a quarterback and they sign a quarterback. And if that one-year guy, the veteran they signed right now, gets supplanted this season or a season from now, it wouldn't surprise me. But they need to be in that business of looking for a quarterback every single

year, draft one every single year. Now, like that would be, you know, the thing I started writing that in 2015 and people were mad at me like, ah, you got to get players out now. Well, not like, this is why you got to be looking at all the time constantly. And if you have the opportunity, you get one and, and they needed to be, you know, and they tried, they tried to draft my homes. Uh, I know Sean likes to say that, you know, that was the best quarterback workout he's ever seen in his life. Well, then like you should have traded up for him and got him. But yeah, but, um, yeah, they've, they've tried, they drafted Garrett Grayson. It didn't work. Um, you know, they tried to develop taste them. They tried to develop Teddy. It was maybe didn't go as planned or it was just a year too late. But yeah, they, they need to, if someone falls, they got to be ready to make a move for sure.

And it's it's going to be an interesting time for the Saint. I mean, Drew Brees isn't going to be the quarterback, which is just kind of crazy after all this time. Right. Very bizarre. We go through that here too, with like, would you draft Trey Lance if he's available at 14? And some people say, no, you need a guard or something which is true it's not you know this you watch you watch their guards try to protect kirk cousins but like is that really the most important thing for the

long term you got to be thinking down the road and when you draft your garrett grayson's you're probably lighting a pick on fire like you've got to do it like a real investment like if they were drafting patrick mahomes or something um the last question I have for you, Drew Brees, I've always had a respect for his game. I mean, of course he's one of the best quarterbacks ever. We know that, but the Minneapolis miracle game, second half of that game is the best quarterbacking I've ever seen. Hands, hands down in person, the best quarterback play I've ever seen in my life it was insanely loud it was the number one defense they're down 17 points and he brings them back just I mean make some of the best throws I've ever seen there's a touchdown over Eric Hendricks to Elvin Kamara which is just mind-blowing it's fourth down and long at midfield I mean this is

the best third down and fourth down team in the NFL and he completes a 20-yard pass I think Willie Sneed of all people not exactly Jerry Rice and so I was just wondering from you like covering Drew Brees if there's something you can sort of tell me about Drew Brees that someone who covers him would know as opposed to somebody like me who sees him on national tv and uh you know once a year i get to see him man well first that the minnesota miracle game i wrote three stories i was working for a newspaper so there was final whistle deadline i wrote three stories one was like you know at halftime i wrote the story odd like they just completely dropped the

ball team wasn't ready and then like i started writing you know drew has this amazing half at least the loss is respectable young team they can grow from this and then it just was just complete disarray but yeah that that second half from him was was incredible and you know that was the second stanza maybe the third stanza his career like that was the beginning of it when you know they started to draw everything in and then in the playoffs like he showed he still had it and then 18 i think he had it for like half the year and then it kind of just went away i think he got hurt on the uh the thanksgiving game against uh was that atlanta atlanta and then they played dallas and and it was just you know downhill from there in 2018 for him and i don't think he ever was the same after

that um as far as the stuff about drew the thing that stands out to me the most i guess when i think about him is just you could set your clock just to every single thing he did in practice. Just his stretching routine was the same exact thing. Every single day he'd pick up his helmet at the same exact time on his media day, he would walk through the locker room to the same door, the same stride at the same minute every single day. And it was just always clockwork. Everything just happened, you know, exactly as it did every single day and nothing was ever really out of sorts with him um and when it was like it just you always knew something was wrong like it near the end of 2018 like drew's schedule started to get a little bit off and you just you just kind of knew something was wrong with him

and i think going into the game against ph against Philadelphia if you watch like they they were very conservative like down the stretch they go into the playoffs they're playing Philly and I think they thought Breeze was healthy like the very first play that game he tries to go deep and gets picked off um and you know that was just it was just always so easy to tell when something was a miss because he was just so exact and I think that's the thing that made him good and I think that set a tone for the whole team. And, you know, I think taking him out the field as a player is something that they're going to miss.

But just the example that he set in, you know, that routine, I think is something that probably a lot of people on the team fed off of, followed, learned from. And taking that out, I think is going to probably be even a more significant thing to replace, just because I think his play has dissipated a little bit and but that leadership is just the example is was so big for this team and I think that's kind of what what really set a tone for them there's uh something to it and a player who played with Tom Brady told me this about Brady is when you show up at the building you know he owns

it like you know he's in command there's no question about who are the leaders on this team and who owns the locker room and who's the friend? Like, no, that's not a question. It's Tom Brady's it's drew breezes for a long time. It was Ben Roth, those burgers that's probably faded a little bit, but those types of guys, Peyton Manning, the same thing, you know, who's in command, you know, who you're following and who's, who's right all the time it's that guy so that's interesting I just to me it was the most impressive and this even goes for the game that they lost in 2019 I think if they win a coin flip they probably win that game they get down like you said they're New Orleans looked rattled early on and they found ways to get after Drew

Brees which was very rare, but the Vikings were able to do it with Mike Zimmer scheme that day. And yet still at the end of the game, here they are in overtime because drew breeze will not go away. And he's making throws. It was like, there are some guys who just have this ability to never, ever, ever get rattled or get knocked down. And no matter what the score is, they're going to keep coming at you and um even though i i can't phrase it a better way but there are very few people who are like that who like you could look at the score and be like i don't know could still do it breeze is one of those guys yeah look even this this playoff game he couldn't it felt like he couldn't throw

the ball at all against tampa bay and they were still in that game until jared cook fumbled like and they might have won if he hadn't which as bad as he played like he had a chance to win that game so yeah he's definitely he's definitely that guy he definitely instills that confidence in everybody and you know those are the things that I don't you know we talk about you know earlier hey they're still gonna be a good team like I think there's just some intangible things that that might not be being calculated all the way through I still think they'll be a solid team but yeah i mean that there's just that belief and you take that belief out of the huddle like you know what happens does tasem lead them in those situations i don't know like that's what they're gonna have to find out yeah it's probably not the

same with james winston i was gonna throw that out there he does eat the w but um i don't know i don't know if that ever got anybody too excited uh you can follow nick at nick underscore under hill and new orleans.football and i know that a lot of vikings fans don't want all the latest information on new orleans saints but you do tremendous tremendous work so i think they should follow you anyway even if they sort of hate the team that you cover, but you do awesome. Hey, we'll take them. And like I said, I mean, it's been super cool to see you do the same thing that I have done here with purple insider with new Orleans dot football.

And I congratulate you on your success, man. It's been really cool to see and inspirational for, for somebody like me. Yeah. Likewise, man. Seeing what you're doing is, has been, you know, I take some ideas off of you, so I'm watching what you're doing. So yeah, definitely. It's been great. I hope this is the future. Hopefully we're kind of laying a path for people here and, you know, it's just the support of the people, you know, like anybody listening, just throw, throw a couple of bucks into it. Even if you just listen to the podcast,

support my guy, help him do what he wants to do, Let him be here for you. And as long as we're independent, we can do things the way we want to do them. And you know, if people like that vision, support it. Well, that's a well said, well said, and I appreciate the kind words and we'll do it again, man, for sure. We're going to make people listen to New Orleans Saints talk now and then. So we'll do it since you're a great guest. We'll do it again soon, man. All right. I appreciate it, man. Hey, I want to tell you about our very cool new sponsor,

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original Minnesota sports inspired goods, code Purple Insider for free shipping. I made a promise on some episodes earlier last week, and I want to fulfill that promise that if you leave a review on Apple, I will go in there and I will read your question and I will answer your question. And I want to do that now. So if you've had trouble finding out where to leave the comments, I'm sorry, I realize it's a little bit convoluted. You have to, if you're using the app search purple insider and

then click it and then go down to leave a review. If you're just using it where it pops up. Um, I struggled myself to find where the comments were. So that's what you have to do. Type in to the little search thing, purple insider, go leave a comment there and a five-star review. And I will read your question and I will answer your question. First. Let me say thank you to people who left five-star reviews and didn't necessarily leave questions, but Brent and Marty Football left them recently. Really nice stuff, guys.

I appreciate that so much. Appreciate you listening. And Brent, I'm glad that I have helped you become a more enthusiastic Vikings fan. Sometimes I think I make people more of a sad Vikings fan, but I'm glad to hear that. So I got a question here from N Metro Man, who says, what about drafting to rebuild the defense for a couple of years, tanking through the end of Cousins contract, and then drafting your next star quarterback to play on a rookie contract just as the defense matures?

Great question. So tanking is not really going to be a thing that they can do as long as Justin Jefferson and Delvin cook and Adam Phelan and Irv Smith are all good at football. Seven and nine is probably the worst it's ever going to be with that collection. As long as you have a quarterback whose worst record is seven and nine, and always has the capability of getting you to the playoffs. He's been to two pro bowls. It, the floor for Kirk cousins is having a good season, especially when he has those weapons around him. So you can't really tank, but I agree with your overall sentiment that one thing they can do here is form the foundation with all

the draft picks that they had last year and this year. I know we focused a lot on not having a second round pick, but they have a ton of draft capital this year in the third round, fourth round, fifth round. And so you build that up. It's not a bad idea to build up the defense. Everyone knows here that I'm on the train of wide receiver three and lean into the Kirk and all those things. You signed him for all that money. You might as well try to do everything you can, but an alternate approach that does make sense is trying to build up the roster to be as strong as it can be for when Kirk is done with his contract and then put another quarterback in there that doesn't cost much and fill in the pieces with free agent money and hope that you can find that golden ticket of a rookie quarterback on a good contract. who are not better than Kirk Cousins, but have been put recently on teams that are very, very good and talented when they're on rookie deals and they get a lot out of them. Baker Mayfield sophomore season was ruined by Freddie Kitchens, but Kevin Stefanski got his hands on them with a great offensive line, with some weapons, with a lot of free agency players that they brought in

on defense, and they were able to have a really good season and you saw it with Carson Wentz they built up their offensive line they built up their defense in 2017 and he's playing like an MVP so your argument for building up the supporting cast to eventually hand it off to someone else I think if you're not a believer in Kirk Cousins that this plan makes a lot of sense and if you're not a believer in Kirk Cousins, that this plan makes a lot of sense. And even if you are a believer in Kirk Cousins, you have to live in the reality that his contract is up in 2022. And he might just tell you, sorry, guys, I don't want to sign an extension here. I want you to trade me somewhere else so I can eventually hit free agency. They have to be aware that that is a realistic possibility.

And no matter what direction this team decides to take, whether it's buying in completely to Mike Zimmer and all in on getting a number one defense someday again, or if they were to move on from Mike Zimmer and become an offensive team, you've got to be better than one of the worst pass rushing teams and one of the worst coverage teams in the entire NFL. And even your star players on defense are not super young like Harrison Smith. Eric Hendricks is still in his prime, but that's not going to last forever. We'll see how long Daniil Hunter and Anthony Barr are even here. So they have to start restocking the cupboard and they have to do it through the draft. I wouldn't be surprised this year if the majority of those picks end up going to the defensive

side, the vast, vast majority. So great question. There's one from Tony here who says that he wants to know, can you talk about some of the most often used stats in the analytics world and explain what they are and why they matter and stick to offensive line and quarterbacks since that seems to be a recurring theme with the Minnesota Vikings? Well, let me get to the offensive line and quarterbacks a little bit later in another question that was also asked on the Apple reviews. But let me talk about some of the big picture statistics that you hear a lot and I'm not sure are often explained. So first of all, I want to say that all stats need to have context, bigger picture statistics. You should always be asking, well, what is this telling me? What does it really mean? So an example of this is DVOA, which Tony mentioned and war. Let's, let's talk about DVOA. That's a football

outsider stat that you'll see media people use a lot. Um, the best way that I could put it is that it factors in your quality of competition to how you perform with yardage. So if you get 500 yards against the bears and 500 yards against the lions, those two things are going to be treated differently because it's trying to contextualize that the lions are a horrible defense and the bears are a good defense. So if you perform really well against a good defense, you deserve more credit than if you perform really well against a bad defense. And it's the same way. If you perform poorly against a good defense, you're going to get dinged less. So that's what DVOA tries to do. And you know, the shortcoming of that is that it can change pretty quickly.

So halfway through the season, the Vikings defense was mid pack and DVOA because they gave up a lot of yards to Tennessee and Seattle and green Bay. And those were great offenses. And so they weren't dinged as much, but if you were watching them, you knew it was a house of cards that was one injury away from being a really bad defense, and then they gave up 52 against New Orleans, and they did not finish super great in DVOA, so it's kind of like this is something that is supposed to tell you about trends. It's supposed to tell you about regression and where something might be headed. Um, but you always have to figure like, well, what's coming up,

what might happen that could change this number and what does it mean for us say now I wouldn't use this in the Vikings context, but let's say that the Vikings were 29th. Oh, I'll give you an example here. Tampa Bay in 2019 was something like 27th in points allowed because Jameis Winston kept giving up interceptions for pick sixes, but their DVOA was, I believe, like top 10. And that pointed to this defense can be good if your quarterback stops throwing pick sixes. And that came to fruition in Tampa Bay with mostly the same group was really good. I'll give you another big picture statistic that I like to look at, and that's expected points added. So what this one does is it takes performance on each play versus expectation, which I know sounds a little like get my brain together here. But all it is is you're expected to get X number closer to scoring in every situation. So let's say it's first and 10 from the 20 and you get a first down.

Okay. That got you closer to scoring by more than expected. If you get sacked, that's negative. That's taking you farther away from scoring. And what we find is that the top five passing teams that are overachieving. So the farthest above expectation, those are the teams that win the super bowl. Those are the teams that get to the championship games. The top four teams

this year in passing EPA were in the championship weekend. And I think what that number also does is it helps demonstrate a little bit like how certain teams pass to get ahead, even if they're known as more of running teams. So I'll give you an example. The Seahawks were known as a running team in 2013, but they were fourth in EPA and passing, even though they had the seventh fewest yards. So it works to contextualize how successful you really are in the passing game. And the same thing for the 49ers in 2019, people were talking about how they were running team and it, that wasn't really the case. They were a top five in EPA passing. So they were getting ahead with the pass running when they were winning. Um, the biggest thing that I would say for all broad statistics,

and I know this doesn't apply directly to offensive line and quarterback, but I can get to some of those. The biggest thing with broad statistics is you want to ask what you're trying to learn and what EPA, what I like about expected points is it will kind of give you an exact number of how far away you are from the teams that are the best. So the Vikings were 10th in passing EPA, which is good, but they were 130 points passing behind the bucks,

which is a lot. I mean, that's nearly double what their number was for EPA. So you need to be a lot better through the past to play with the top four. And the top four, Tampa Bay, Green Bay, Buffalo, and Kansas City, those teams were way above everybody else. It wasn't even really close. So all of that's just sort of the tip of the iceberg on big picture statistics.

But I think you should always ask no matter what is, what are we trying to learn? So if it's wins above replacement, you're trying to compare players or it's a PFF grade, or if it's pressures allowed, you're always trying to say, well, what, what am I supposed to be taking away from this? A PFF grade on a quarterback might tell you how well that quarterback threw the ball when they threw the ball. It doesn't tell you about their sacks a lot of times. It doesn't tell you about, you know, did they scramble successfully? I mean, sometimes that's baked into it with their running grade. But, I mean, there are things that it doesn't tell you.

Their situation, their offensive line talent, all that. So you have to dig deeper and you have to look to, okay, what was the situation they were playing in? What was the scheme? What led to the number as opposed to here's what the number means. And so sometimes you'll get, you know, Hey, look, our DVA was this. So we're actually better than our record. No, no one's better than the record. Your record is what it is. Um, they don't let you in the playoffs for having a good EPA or DVOA. But what it can tell you is kind of how far away you might be, what your schedule factors into this,

the good or bad luck, all those types of things. So Tony, that's a really great question. And there's, I mean, so many different ways that you could interpret a bunch of different stats, but that's the way I look at them is you try to figure out from a statistic, how it's put together and what it's supposed to tell us. Here's another one. This comes from skull 90 on the Apple reviews. Who has a very different opinion from pro football focus that you like to follow and listen to and

what makes their opinions different and why do you like them? That's a great question. So here's what I think. Um, one thing that PFF actually has started doing and we've done on this show for a long time is bringing former players in on the show to give their perspectives on certain findings. Um, so Richard Sherman, for example, does a show with Chris Collinsworth on PFF. They had a great interview with former cornerback Darius Butler on there. We have Sage Rosenfels. We have Jeremiah Searles come on this show. And I don't think it's like – I don't ever look at differing opinions in football

from statistical sides or former player sides as some sort of political type show where it's like this side believes you need to watch the game and this side believes stats are real. I think we've moved past that by probably about 15 years. It's more like different perspectives that certain people can bring that go beyond what statistical analysts for PFF could tell you. For example, I mean, Richard Sherman said that he thinks that good coverage comes from pressure. And I also think I agree with him that they're connected, that pressure and good coverage are connected, but also good coverage and pressure are connected. And so figuring out which one you need

more to succeed, but it doesn't tell you just because of the results, how you get there exactly. And that's where I think someone like Sage Rosenfels or Jeremiah Searles, I like to tell those guys about numbers and then they tell me why it's happening. So if I tell Jeremiah, Hey, the left guard is giving up a lot of pressures. He can say whether that is something technical, whether that is scheme, whether it's, you know, just bad matchups or whatever the same with Sage. I remember telling Sage that PFF found that quarterbacks are responsible for their pressure rates. And I wanted his opinion. And he said, yes, the system and the quarterback, they control pressure just as much as the

offensive line, because you're the guy who has to get rid of the ball. Now he's done it. He's been pressured in the NFL before, and he can tell me, you know, just how much that is true, or if he feels like that might not be true. So I think that the best way to go about any of this is to combine people who have actually been there, who have drawn up schemes, who have executed schemes, who have been in meetings upon meetings upon meetings and played hundreds of plays in the NFL to know what is actually going on out there. That is an experience that 1% of the population has, or probably much less. And compare that with what the statistical people are finding and see if we can get as close as possible to the truth. And from a reporter's perspective, I try to gather all of it and contextualize statistics.

So if Xavier Rhodes has poor coverage grades, then I'm going to want to say, well, why was that that he had great grades the next year? And we can put together different things like maybe he was injured and it kind of seemed that way. And here's some comments that you may have pointed to that. And here's how the statistics might be small sample size, or it might be schemed. If somebody who is, you know, knows cornerback play, watches it and breaks it down. So we try to use everything to learn. So I don't want to say that there's anyone specifically

that is just like anti PFF and anti stats who I like to listen to. It's more of different perspectives. And I think that those are always worthwhile. The other thing too, is there's great interviewers. There's great storytellers and you can learn all sorts of things from those too. So I try to grab a little bit from every type of basket and put it all together.

But I think that that is a great question about, yes, we sort of say these are certainties because they're statistically proven, but let's try to figure out more about those. You know, and I think that's one of the things that makes sports great. So those are two very good questions. If you want yours answered on the show, put a five-star review on Apple, leave your question and I will answer it.

Quick thing to add before we wrap up is just that I've been doing draft Sims after dark on the locker room app. Usually I tweeted out at Matthew collar for where you can find it, but if you have the locker room app and you go follow me on there, then you could find that Thursday nights and Saturday nights. I'm going to be doing draft Sims entirely leading up to the draft and also posting the audio on this feed as well from time to time when I don't mess up the draft Sims. So make sure you're looking out for that.

And thank you so much for listening to this episode of purple insider.