Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Danielle Hunter leaves Vikings, CBS Sports draft analyst Chris Trapasso analyzes Sam Darnold and Justin Fields' trade value

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

Matthew Coller and CBS Sports Draft analyst Chris Trapasso react to Danielle Hunter joining the Houston Texans and then go rapid fire through topics like the Falcons in the draft post Kirk Cousins signing and Bo Nix's pro day https://surfshark.deals/PURPLEINSIDER Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, along with CBS Sports Draft Analyst Chris Trapasso. And Chris, we were talking about this at the Combine this day, where we would be able to podcast reacting to Kirk Cousins' exit. And we've got actually some breaking news to jump into. So why don't we start with the news that has just come down as we're starting to record here that Daniil Hunter is a Houston Texan two-year deal, $48 million fully guaranteed for Daniil Hunter, a huge dollar figure of fully guaranteed money.

Give me your reaction to Daniil Hunter leaving the Minnesota Vikings for the Houston Texans. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense for a Houston team that went from having the second overall pick in the draft to, wow, this team's actually pretty good in good shape. They were aggressive to get Will Anderson after drafting C.J. Stroud last year. They've made a bunch of, I wouldn't say huge free agent signings until this one. They lose Jonathan Grenard, which we can tie right into the Vikings here. They had a pretty big need because of that, even with Will Anderson at the other edge rusher spot. So to get someone in Hunter that I wouldn't say he's in his prime, but he's not like, you know, a Justin Houston signing somewhere at 35 years old, still a pretty good upper

echelon edge rusher. Makes sense for a team like Houston that's really on the rise to really be able to spend that much money with that quarterback on the rookie deal like they have with CJ Stroud. Yep. And I won't snark as I have so many times about teams with quarterbacks on rookie contracts, spending huge money and going out and getting top free agents. But that's exactly what this is for the Texans that they know over the next four years, they are all in on the rookie contract of a rising star quarterback and CJ Stroud. So every year is Superbowl or bus now for them.

That means you go out and you get a guy for $24 million a year guaranteed fully, which I think is probably what would have held up the Vikings. That is a lot to give and not a lot of salary cap flexibility when you guarantee the contract, as we so well know from Kirk Cousins history. Now here's a question for you. Would you rather have Jonathan Grenard and Andrew Van Ginkle or Daniil Hunter? Because the Vikings spent essentially a little bit more than that but essentially that kind of dollar figure on getting two players rather than going in on one two is always better than one especially in the NFL with injuries and the amount of games that

these guys have to play these days I always think to the NFL draft when it's would you rather trade up for one guy or get like five in the second and third round? And for as appealing as it is to get that marquee blue chip prospect in the first round trading up for him, it's usually better to just diversify. Like I kind of like to say in the NFL draft, I can go in for a while. I don't know if we're going to talk about it specifically later, but Van Ginkle being a Buffalo guy, he was a pain in the ass for the Bills the last three or four years. Had over 50 pressures on 321 pass rushing snaps last season before injuring his foot. He had a scoop and score touchdown of a Josh Allen fumble in the playoffs two years ago. He's just that long, like overhang linebacker who can drop into

coverage a little bit, but he's like kind of a mix between like a burst guy and has some power, some pass rush moves, plays at a hundred miles per hour, every snap. And then Grenard, I had a second round grade on him a few years ago, coming out of Florida, big physical, the bendiness is there. He's kind of like more the prototypical, like, hand in the dirt defensive end. So nothing against Hunter. And I wouldn't say this to his face because you've told me he's one of the most intimidating people on earth. But at this point of his career, what? Is he 30 now?

29, 30? Yeah. 29, but I think we'll be 30 by next season. 29 turning 30. At this point, I would rather have two younger options at that defensive end spot for, like you said, around similar money for the Vikings. It's this is the game, right? The game is not only the players, but it's also the economics. And when we look at this much guaranteed money, if Daniel Hunter were to suffer another injury and miss more time and you've guaranteed him this much money, it's risky as opposed to now.

I know Grenard has a little bit of an injury history, but the age and the history with Daniel Hunter's neck is concerning. And to go all in like that for a shorter term deal, I think it's probably better that they spread out that wealth and also sign contracts in Grenard's case case that's a little bit longer can be manipulated a little bit more for the salary cap but I will say this let's not act like Daniil Hunter's replaceable because there are very few players that are on Daniil Hunter's level and and few yeah he is intimidating but also one of the nicest people that you will ever meet in a locker room. It is ironic. Yes, the biggest, most muscly dude ever is also the most soft-spoken, the hardest working, the most detailed, the best teammate. Like, just immense, immense respect for Daniil Hunter.

He deserves to be in the ring of honor. He's one of the greatest Vikings to ever play. So I think that's hard to part with a player like that and say, hey, economically, it's better to have these two dudes than that one. That is not an easy thing to do, but the Vikings are trying to rebuild a whole defense. So they have put their money into three players rather than giving everything to Daniel Hunter. But good for him. He goes to Houston. That's a team that has a great chance to win, and he can be a centerpiece of their defense along with Will Anderson.

He earned that contract. It was hard earned. Offseason after offseason, it seemed like there was always some battle going on between him and the Vikings for his contract. So we knew it was probably going to happen after they signed Grenard, but this is a, this is a special player. So these other decisions have to work out for the Vikings or they're going to be looking over at Houston and going, ah, Daniil's got 14 sacks again. And our guys are, you know, whatever. So it is, I think it is a little bit on the Viking side,

a roll of the dice to try to spread it out rather than go with one player who is excellent. Yeah. I mean, I think that is all well-deserved. Like what you just mentioned about Hunter, it just from afar being just like a national analyst, it feels like this move makes sense for everybody.

Like the Vikings, like you said, like we're going to want to put up close to 50 million fully guaranteed dollars for a player that's had the injury history. They know it well, who's going to be 30, the Texans because of their, their rookie deal with CJ Stroud, they can do that. They can be a little bit risky on the financial side. And like you're saying, I think the most important part, the Vikings have to rebuild the entire defense. They have to diversify. Like I mentioned earlier, this is kind of like trading down in the NFL draft but doing

it in free agency saying yes we would love Daniil Hunter but let's get Van Ginkle, Grenard and Blake Cashman instead because they're just bigger holes on that side of the ball we joked I think a few episodes ago they're like maybe the Vikings will just go all in on offense and just let the defense be terrible and try to win games 38-35 of course it's a lot more reasonable that this regime is like, yeah, we have holes to fill up front, and they'll probably do so in the secondary as well. So I think just for the Texans, for Hunter, for Van Ginkle, who finally stepped into kind of a full-time role in Miami,

had a breakout season, same with Grenard last year. He stayed mostly healthy in Houston, that they get new landing spots. It just makes sense for everybody, finances, and just where these teams are in their team building process. All right, let's go through a bunch of different stuff. I have a whole notebook of things that I want to talk to you about. This is what happens when we don't talk for a few days and then all hell breaks loose in the NFL. But hey, Kirk Cousins is an Atlanta Falcon. Did you hear? I want to know from you, Chris, how this impacts the top 10 in the draft, because we tried to project how everything was going to play out. But now that we know Cousins is a Falcon,

we also know Gardner Minshew is a Raider. And we also know that Denver did not get Sam Darnold or anybody else of significance. Russell Wilson going to the Pittsburgh Steelers. So there are teams now in the Vikings ballpark of the draft order who look like they're going to be aiming to get quarterbacks. And here now is Atlanta at number eight that we are certain is not going to draft a quarterback because they just went in multi-years with Kirk Cousins. How does this impact the Vikings in their need to draft a quarterback? To me, what's so interesting about this is that even before the Kirk Cousins signing

happened, we didn't really hear a lot about the Falcons being in on this quarterback class, but I think we probably should have, even knowing what we know today, like this was a team picking in the top 10, their coach comes out at the combine, basically throws Desmond Ritter under the bus and says, if our quarterback play was better, I probably wouldn't be the head coach. So it was one team that I thought was kind of a dark horse, like, Hey, maybe they're the team that goes from eight to five with the chargers or into the top three to get one of these quarterbacks. So like you said, of course it removes one of those teams. And like you're saying with all the musical chairs,

as we're recording this, Justin Fields still does not have a new home. Will that be Denver? Is that aiming high enough for Sean Payton? It feels like that would kind of be doing something similar. I mean, probably of course, not as much as signing Russell Wilson or trading for Russell Wilson, but a similar style quarterback that can run around, but doesn't really see things with a lot of anticipation. I think it heightens the chances that the Broncos are going to be ultra aggressive in the draft. And then really again, just removes one of those teams. And maybe now the Falcons are a club where there's not really, like the Bears at nine,

they're probably going to already have their quarterback at one, but maybe that becomes a new landing spot for a potential trade-up for a team like the Vikings at 11, the Raiders maybe at 13, or the Broncos at 12. So let's try to play this out a little bit. If you are, say, the Arizona Cardinals, and there's no guarantee that the top three are all three quarterbacks someone could drop one of those teams might not be sold one of those teams might be saying we'll draft a quarterback but they actually don't want to do

that because say for example new england's roster is a horror show so maybe they could not do it but i think after they signed jacoby bette, that was a big red sign flashing, drafting quarterback, Jacoby will help him. And that's why you signed Jacoby Bursette, to be the friend of your drafted quarterback. So if those three teams at the top take QBs, now you are Arizona sitting at number four, and you're getting phone calls from the Vikings, Denver,

and the Raiders all trying to potentially trade up. This seems like the price could be pretty high in order for the Vikings to move ahead of the New York Giants, which also, by the way, the Giants, if they want JJ McCarthy, they could be fighting those teams off with a stick as well. Yeah, it's going to be fascinating and I don't see I mean of course we still have the Justin Fields domino to fall but it kind of feels like that's pretty close to what like right now in middle March that's where we're gonna be on draft night like those three or four teams are going to be vying to either get to four or maybe get to five to get ahead of the Giants. And like you're mentioning, the Giants might be like, hey,

let's move up two spots to ensure that we get that fourth quarterback. So the Kirk Cousins thing changes maybe a little bit inside the top ten, again, just removing one of those teams. But it's probably going to come down to, again, just which team wants to offer the biggest deal to move into that spot. And I think we've talked about it for as much as it's like two of our kind of core philosophies for as much as we've been all in on, you know, trading up for a quarterback. That's totally fine. Don't be too concerned about how

much you're giving up. We talked about last episode, like what would be maybe too much. I think it is important for the Vikings to really start to think of those contingency plans, because who knows that with their, with the GM in Denver, George Payton and Sean Payton being like, if we don't get this quarterback thing, right, we could be fired like midway through the season. And for as much as Antonio peers with the Raiders has a lot of momentum,

you know, they signed Christian Wilkins. They have Max Crosby. Like they're kind of forgetting one thing that you're in the AFC West with Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert you need to have a good quarterback better than Gardner Minchu and Aiden O'Connell so I there could be very aggressive teams that are willing to give up like multiple future first round picks and I think that like all those contingency plans of other quarterbacks beyond Sam Darnall, which we'll get to, need to start.

I don't want to say come into focus for the Vikings, but they have to have those kind of mapped out situationally and literally like use mock drafts to be like, all right, if this happens, where do we fall back to? Are we fine picking Dallas Turner at 11? Whatever the case may be, I think that just opens up the possibility a lot more. And Rick Spielman mentioned something on his podcast on CBS with Ryan Wilson, which I'll get to, that really stuck out to me, a potential idea that might work for the Vikings.

Not that Vikings fans want to hear that you're going to use Rick Spielman's ideas, but I actually like this one, so we'll get to that in a minute. But you alluded to Justin Fields his uh trade value right now it seems like it's just maybe a shade higher than mac jones's i mean this goes to uh sometimes the internet is fake folks sometimes when you see all these media people and uh you see all these fans saying that Justin Fields had this amazing year, this breakout season, and he's going to fetch a second round draft pick and so forth, that that was fan fiction, as Jeff Schwartz put it on Twitter, that that was not going to happen. And I remember us comparing Atlanta with Kirk and Fields, and it just never made sense to me that you would want Fields

because there's just no proof. And one thing that drives me kind of crazy, Chris, is when we have to play in imagination land. Oh, we just imagine, oh, if this quarterback was only on San Francisco, just imagine it. And like, well, I don't want to have to imagine it. I want to be able to actually watch the guy play, which I have in person probably six times and see a first round quarterback, not have to be told that I have to go through like, Oh, well watch this game or look at that game. Justin Fields has never put up the numbers. He's never put up the winning. He's never elevated his team and he's never come across as some sort of blood and guts type of leader who his guys would just go to the ends of the earth for many times. You see, if he struggles, he just kind of melts. And so I don't think that there's a lot of huge Justin Fields fans and every team knows if you trade for him, that's going to be a big thing.

It's going to draw a lot of attention. You probably have to start him. And I just don't know that there's too many teams that want to dive in. We might see the Chicago bears just wait until a quarterback gets hurt. Kind of like the Philadelphia Eagles did once upon a time when they drafted Wentz and waited until Teddy Bridgewater got hurt to trade Sam Bradford. Yeah. It's funny that everything that you just mentioned about Justin Fields, I think is spot on. I,

I was, I didn't think they were going to get like two second rounders, but I certainly didn't think it would be close to Mac Jones, but it's funny because I think it is going to be pretty close to that. And maybe we will see that redux of the Sam Bradford, Carson Wentz from back in the day with the Eagles. To me, and this is not to say that every team makes smart free agency decisions.

Of course they don't. It kind of feels like what you were just talking about, that teams want to be able to see it. It's one thing when you're scouting the draft and you're like, okay, I've seen this guy do it in the SEC, but we really don't know in the NFL. I've seen him do it in a great bowl game but we really don't know in the NFL. I've seen him do it in a great bowl game, CJ Stroud against Georgia. That was pretty close. It feels like to me, especially when you're talking about a quarterback that will come with all that, I don't want to say baggage, but all those labels, like he's your starter. He was a,

you know, a former first round pick. He's going to be your starter. Teams are like, we want to have been able to look at NFL film from you these pro scouts and say yep we've seen it for long stretches you know maybe there was an injury here or while the the game management the play calling was really bad and to your point it just really was never sustained for Justin Fields I could still see the Raiders maybe being interested I know Gardner Minchu was signed and they have Aiden O'Connell, but I don't think either of those two are real needle movers necessarily. And it will just get to the point similar, I think, to Russell Wilson,

where, I mean, not the exact same financially, but where it will get so cheap where it probably does make sense for a team that needs a quarterback to just say, all right, let's kind of see what happens with Justin Fields. So that is the, probably the most surprising development early on this off season is that there was not really a market for Justin Fields. Well,

and the Raiders don't, they have Luke Getze, which kind of makes that like, Oh, that's true. It makes it a little awkward. Right. Definitely awkward.

And I think we know that Luke Getze was was not able to build an offense around Justin Fields in Chicago. That's, I think, the biggest trouble here. So when, say, Miami traded a second round pick for Josh Rosen or Carolina traded a second rounder for Sam Darnold, which I thought was pretty hefty when they did it. And we'll get to Darnold. But both of those quarterbacks would have been guys who you could put into your system because of their arm talent and their skill in the pocket, where with Justin Fields, you better be prepared to build your whole team around him. And I actually thought that the best location for Justin Fields might be kind of an ironic one. It might actually be Pittsburgh

to build it around a quarterback who's more of a scrambler and say, hey, Kenny Pickett, Russell Wilson, Justin Fields, rolling the ball out in training camp. Whoever loses, kind of like that scene in Batman where they just throw the broken pool stick in the ground. All right, whoever loses goes kind of that way in training camp because I don't see any other team that's going to say, OK, come to us and we'll just build this whole thing around you. No, that's a really good suggestion. It would be more of a circus than we probably ever seen

in Pittsburgh. That's really not one of those organizations that leans into those. But I mean, it, from what you just said, makes a lot of sense. The one other team author out there, this is not inside info. I could see Seattle being into Justin Fields because the Mike McDonald as the head coach there he was obviously in Baltimore with Lamar Jackson who was not this super advanced passer but an amazing runner improved as a passer this past season but I don't think Lamar Jackson is you know an elite pure passer and different you know offensive play callers not Todd Munkin It's actually Michael Penix's offensive coordinator. His name's eluding me right now.

Ryan, I totally forgot his name, but he, oh, Ryan Grubbs. He was the, or Grubb, he was the University of Washington offensive coordinator. Spread it out. I mean, it's not really what Justin Fields thrives at, just like reading a field, but that's a team where I could see, given Geno Smith's age and that his contract is not a,

you know, five year deal. That could be a team that could swoop in that would just make sense to me. And that's like kind of, I'm grasping at straws doing that. Cause there's not a lot of teams that seem to make sense for a lot of the reasons that you pointed out for Joseph Fields. Folks.

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Us cellular built for us. Terms apply awards based on open signal independent data visit uscellular.com for details yeah and so we'll see how that market plays out and they might be in a very awkward like remember when trey lance and jimmy garoppolo uh were you know that whole thing and j and Jimmy Garoppolo were, you know, that whole thing. And Jimmy Garoppolo is still on the team, but they're trying to trade him. But then they don't trade him and then he ends up playing. And like, I don't know, maybe it's better to just leave Justin Fields there.

But that is not, I think, feasible within a locker room to draft Caleb Williams. And then you're going to have if Caleb struggles, you're going to have people going, have well, you know, we played okay with justin fields you need to have him in a different place because it becomes the quarterback controversy uh all the time so the uh idea that was pitched by rick spielman was to draft michael pennix with a 30 second overall pick for someone to trade back in maybe the Vikings to draft Michael Penix. Now this kind of connects to something else today as well. So I'll tie these two things together. Bo Nix had his pro day. I watched it. And isn't it fun that we're watching a pro day with like, not hoping and dreaming, maybe there could be a draft pick, but knowing that the Vikings need

a quarterback adds a little juice to the old pro day watch I didn't see anything from Bo Nix that I didn't already know he completed a bunch of passes to his receivers on air through the ball downfield like that I don't know basically Daniel Jeremiah said on TV as long as you don't totally melt down at your pro day it's not going to change a whole heck of a lot about how teams feel about you so i don't think bo nicks changed any minds today there is a wide range of opinions on bo nicks some people think he's terrible and he's like a third round pick some people think that he's a field general and he's a playmaker and it's fascinating how this can happen so let's put these two things together if you have any

hot take on Bo Nix's pro day feel free to share and with Michael Penix the idea of potentially waiting for him to drop rather than picking the quarterback at 11 and trading back into the first as Rick Spielman suggested well this comes all full circle talking about the Vikings and trading back into the first and pro days because the last like horrible quote unquote pro day that I remember is Teddy Bridgewater where he wore the gloves. I believe it was outside at Louisville in 2014 and he was so polished coming out of that Cardinal program. It was like, oh, he's going to be a mid first round pick that could even go higher than that has a terrible pro day. I don't even remember watching it, but I remember being on Twitter and taking it all in like, Oh my God,

he was just missing throws and it's tanked his stock. And even then 10 years ago, I was like, why are we doing this for pro days? And the Vikings and Rick Spielman ultimately trade back in and get Teddy Bridgewater. So it's kind of funny that now Rick Spielman is suggesting that not for Bo Nix, but for Michael Penix. And as for Nix, I agree with you. I saw some clips on Twitter, nothing that changed my mind on Bo Nix. I wasn't expecting him to suddenly have a cannon or suddenly be scattershot with his accuracy. And Daniel Jeremiah's point is probably the only one that matters really that he didn't do anything to hurt his stock I'm not as high on Bo Nix I could see it working in Minnesota and if they want like

I've been kind of pounding the table for more athleticism than they've had in that system really ever I could understand that and whether it's Nix or with Penix I'll kind of finish with this I think that is like a quasi idea where he's navigating the draft, moving up and down, and sees, hey, you know what? I'm not in love with trading up, but to get a quarterback after we missed out, we could have traded from 11 to 3 and sent a bunch of future first-rounders. It won't cost us a ton to get back into the first. We get the fifth-year option.

We get a quarterback. We plug him in. We have Sam Darnold there. That kind of feels – I don't want to to say galaxy brain like with the insinuation that it's stupid but almost like that is what it seems like quacey would be interested in doing just because of the draft navigation and i think the value in even getting that quarterback at 32 as a as opposed to the second round i feel like the consensus opinions are sort of coming around on these guys where uh everybody sees a little something different with mccarthy but the

outside opinions if you thought that he really stunk you're coming a little closer to okay i could see him being a top prospect if you thought he was really great maybe you watched him throw the ball the combine and went like okay there's some stuff to work on still there, and there are weaknesses to his game. So I feel like the opinions are being squeezed on everybody, including Michael Penix, after he throws at the combine. It's like, all right, everybody relax about the national championship game. That team was way overmatched. Don't freak out about that. Look how this big, giant man, these huge arms big hands look, look how he throws the football,

right? So nobody lose their minds and all right. He's a good prospect. I think we all agree with that. Nix is the one that I see like former quarterbacks. I'm going to read you a tweet from Dan Arlovsky saying, you got to give this guy more credit. You're not giving Bo Nix enough credit. And then I also see a lot of people in the draft community saying, no, no, no, we're going to pass on giving Bo Nix any credit. So here's what Dan Orlovsky said about Bo Nix. He says, man, you start tweeting, man, you're a former football player for sure. Bo Nix taped both games versus Washington and Oregon State

about as impressive as you can get. He says, everything you want to see here in the Oregon State game, arm strength, touch throws, anticipation, hanging in the pocket, throwing on the run, ball placement. And then Jeff Schwartz is the first response. Of course, Oregon guy says, but he's the check down King Dan. Didn't you know? Snarking on Twitter.

But that is quite an analysis there from the former journeyman quarterback. Why do we think it is that like Kurt Warner and Dan Orlovsky and some former quarterbacks have watched Knicks and really like what they saw, but maybe the draft analysis world has not been as in on Bo Knicks? We talked about this last week, but I think it's, it's not surprising because I think even like one of our first episodes, I was like, I'm, I'm lower on, on Bo Nix, but I can see that. I don't know if I said, you know, Kurt Warner and Chris Sims and Dan Orblowski, but that coaches and offensive coordinators will love him because he did everything inside that system perfectly. I I'll kind of say it's similar to like Brock Purdy.

Like if there was a league above the NFL where these guys could graduate and go to like the NFL plus, you wouldn't necessarily be like Brock Purdy is your number one overall pick just because of the – look at his stats. Look what he did. They were in the Super Bowl. You would look at his traits and go, oh, okay, like yes, he he can operate an offense very well and the mental side of the game is certainly important probably more important at quarterback than any other spot on the field we can all agree there that's kind of how I feel about Bo Nix and that's why I'm saying I'm not just hedging a bet here

I think with Kevin O'Connell as his head coach Josh McCown as his his, what, quarterbacks coach, right, or offensive coordinator? Oh, yeah. Okay. Quarterbacks coach, yep. I was thinking offensive coordinator, but then I realized that Kevin O'Connell calls the plays. And everything that we've talked about for now two years, the offensive line came together with a Derrisa pick and O'Neal

and Justin Jefferson in the Hawkinson trade. You could get Bo Nix to be similar to what he was at Oregon. Now me scouting it from afar and say, you throw him on the Denver Broncos without Jerry Judy now with the number 12 overall pick and suddenly, which I get Sean Payton, you know, certainly worked well with Drew Brees very well, but I don't think if the situation is great, he can overcome that. And I think a Jane Daniels, even though we've talked about his negatives can do that. great he can overcome that and I think a Jayden Daniels even though we've talked about his negatives can do that Caleb Williams can do that Drake May lost some guys on

offense still was really good can make all the big time throws I didn't see that on a consistent basis from Bo Nix I think he's the most situation dependent quarterback in this class yeah I think that's a great way to put it. And I was thinking about Sam Darnold. This is a good transition into a Sam Darnold discussion with you and how much of the conversation around Sam Darnold is look at what he had with the Jets, look at what he had with the Carolina Panthers. And what we know is that situation greatly affects success for quarterbacks. Now, I think that there greatly affects success for quarterbacks. Now, I think that there's a handful of quarterbacks in the league who would have been really good

almost no matter where they went. Josh Allen is the best place to start. Josh Allen's team in 2018 was a absolute laughingstock from a roster perspective. And yet he wasn't even developed yet and found a way to grind out a handful of wins that season and keep them in close games even though he was just this ball of clay that had no idea what he was doing pure athleticism and arm talent and they were able to win games i've heard before the homes wouldn't be my homes if he wasn't in kansas city i'm like well let's talk about some cause and effect here i think and that's that's Andy Reid's an all-time great coach.

But I noticed Eric Biennium wasn't the greatest offensive coordinator when he had Sam Howell instead of Patrick Mahomes. Pretty sure Patrick Mahomes makes Kevin O'Connell look like a genius or whoever. If Josh McDaniels was his coach, I bet he would have been fine. Josh McDaniels would still have his job. That's an all-time great player who could make anybody look really, really good. I don't know if they win three Super Bowls, but he would not have been a bust if he didn't have Andy Reid.

And then there's probably a dozen quarterbacks in the league. I mean, this is Brock Purdy. This is Jalen Hurts. Or is Jalen Hurts actually that good? Is Tua actually that good? This is where when people try to rank quarterbacks on a year to year basis, that quarterback can be eighth or 22nd or whatever just recently happened to them because they are so circumstance dependent.

But from my perspective, that sounds like something that should make you run away screaming, except for when you factor that this team has the best circumstance. So I have never been terrified of that particular thing, but I do think that teams can be. And so I'm not confident that someone will fall in love with him, like say at number 11 overall. Yeah, I think that's the perfect way to put it. And it's kind of like a cushy landing

spot to be on this Vikings podcast and go, well, yeah, you can kind of plug in any quarterback. And in your mind, you can ask them to not do tons of heavy lifting. They wouldn't have to do that much. Even in year one, where everything for even a Patrick Mahomes or a Josh Allen or a Justin Herbert, everything is moving too fast and they do lean on their legs a little bit and they do make bad decisions and they have to learn November and December. They look like completely different quarterbacks than they did in September and October. That's why it's, you can kind of talk me into any of these quarterbacks, but I I'm on here to give just my general analysis and what you said, like that a lot of teams should kind of run away screaming from Bo Nix

because he is circumstance dependent. That's kind of where I fall on him. I think lesser Michael Penix is. I'm a little worried about his mobility. But just like you've said very generally, the way he throws the football is totally different from Bo Nix. And he wants to push the football down the field. I saw more tight window throws, which to me, I think, and this is probably some Josh Allen being in the Western New York area bias. That's the big separator today that even watching what the chiefs have done, it's quick

decisions. It's getting it out quickly. It's scheming guys open. It's yards after the catch. And then in critical moments of a game or in the playoffs or in the Super Bowl, you need your quarterback to make that, you know, sideline throw against cover two or between both safeties down the seam. And if you don't have the arm strength, just the willingness to do it, the boldness to do it, and then the accuracy,

it either gets intercepted or it gets knocked away. And that's a missing play for your offense. That's why I think you could probably easier. would be easier to talk me into michael penix because i think he can do those type of special things with his arm more so than bonix can well i think one thing that i'd like to look at a little closer so we're going to do a bit going forward leading up to the draft where we're going to look at some good and bad games from all these prospects and talk about what we see. We'll both watch the same game back, talk about what we see from these guys to add like a different layer of analysis and kind of look back at their college seasons. But I was thinking about how inside of a room where say Josh McCown and Wes Phillips,

the Vikings offensive coordinator, Kevin O'Connell are having a conversation about which guys they like the most. I think they would look at specific concepts and how a quarterback through specific, like here, here is, here's a deep cross here. You know, here's how this works together. How did his footwork work on that throw? How accurate was he on those throws? Maybe use the data as well with a data-driven general manager to to drive that decision because you know if if you're running a lot of and this is i brought this up probably before but they love running the dagger concepts and it sort of is what it sounds like somebody clears out somebody runs you know a dig route behind them and and you got to hit that on time. The ball has to come out

on time. And it's a long throw too. It's a long throw. Does it have to be flawlessly accurate? Not with Justin Jefferson. Even Nick Mullins could make this work because he threw it on time, not accurate, but on time. And if Michael Penix can't throw this, you know, on time or with, you know, the most precision, then he might not be somebody that they like to look at so that's the level of detail that's hard for us to cut into and i will say one thing about his pro day bo nicks's worst throw is an underneath route that's five yards in front of him it's almost like he just has this weird he just cannot throw this accurately like the the the one that your dad would throw to you in the backyard, we just run

in front of him and he just has to go like, boop, just give me the ball, Tommy like that. He just can't throw this round. So that kind of made me laugh because he immediately threw it like to the ground for his running back and then delivered some really nice throws. Otherwise, let me get your opinion on Sam Darnold. And I want to know what your opinion was back in 2018, so many years ago of our lives when we were young, what you thought when you were analyzing Sam Darnold coming out in the draft? I was not a fan. And that was, that's what I call my baby, the 2018 draft class, not

because of Josh Allen, but that was my first year at CBS Sports, like evaluating an entire draft. I had done it for other sites, but that was like my first one. Everyone loves Sam Darnold. They saw the anticipation. And if you remember like before his, his second to last season at USC, you could probably look this up. Daniel Jeremiah tweeted like, oh, everyone's already excited for this USC quarterback. Cause like as a red shirt freshman, it was like right after Jameis Winston had the really big red shirt freshman season. It was like,

Darnold's the next one. He's going to be the top pick. He's amazing. I went back and watched and was following him during that 2017 season while I was at CBS. And I just saw a lot of turnovers. He led the NCAA in turnovers. There was,

I don't think enough conversation about the awkwardness and the length of his delivery. He kind of like brings the ball down. It's like a slingshot motion. And for as many impressive throws as he made, and I just talked about those with Michael Penix, and that he flashed anticipation, his arm and his decision-making, the combination of those two things were not so good that he could just lean on his anticipation. A lot of times he kind of felt like, oh, there's this dagger concept. That's going to be open. I'll start my delivery now. And it would take an extra split second. The velocity wouldn't quite be there and the ball would be tipped and then

interception by the safety or on a deep corner, kind the same deal he was kind of in no man's land where he couldn't just fire the football in there be late but throw a Josh Allen fastball but he wasn't like Drew Breeze or Tom Brady like anticipating like two seconds before the the route came open that he would let it go and I thought he was kind of in no man's land athletically too, that he could move a little bit. He wasn't a statue in the pocket, but fumbled the football a lot because he would get chased from behind and inside the pocket. So I was kind of like, I definitely missed on guys, including Josh Allen in the 2018 draft. But I think I had Sam Darnold like at the end of the first round as my quarterback four. And I took a lot of heat for that because he was universally loved because of what he did at such a young age, making those big time throws. I could just never get over

the turnovers and they kind of followed him once he got to the NFL. Folks, if you don't know what a VPN is, you might actually need one and not even realize it. If you already know the positives, you also might not be using the right product. In either case, you want to check out Surfshark. VPNs keep your information safe and anyone who tries to track what you're doing online will not be able to do so if you are using Surfshark. IP addresses, what you're searching, what games you're playing, or what shows you're streaming will belong to you and you only. Plus, if you use a VPN, you can virtually travel the world from the comfort of your own home,

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You heard me right, three extra months for free. That is surfshark deals slash purple insider. Try to take sometimes from busts or success at lessons from those guys. Like what do we learn? And I learned from Jameis Winston that you can't talk yourself out of turnovers. You can't sit there and go, and this is probably true for sacks in college as well. Oh, well, you know, his offensive line. Oh, well, you know, his wide receivers. If you throw the ball, the other team, if you take a ton of sacks, if you fumble, it's pretty hard to just go to a much, much, much more difficult league and be like, I'll just stop doing that. Don't

worry about me. I'll stop making mistakes if the the defenses in college are atrocious and it should be easy you should be able to light them up you shouldn't be throwing them the football you shouldn't there how many corners in college can catch a football i mean really there's not that many there are guys who come out in the draft who have zero interceptions so if you're throwing a bunch of picks and you're getting strip sacked by what how many edge rushers do you face that make the league like two in a year maybe especially in the pack 12 that's what i mean like you should not be having those things happen right so i had the similar skepticism about sam darnold uh that draft i was also wrong about josh r Rosen and Josh Allen. Should have had them

flipped and then really right about Lamar Jackson, just because the running ability and so forth. And I thought it was overstated, the struggles with the passing, but that's not neither here nor there. The Sam Darnold point is he's never been able to get rid of that. Exactly what you're saying. He's never been able to reduce the amount of turnover where he plays and i think it puts a ceiling on what he could be now could he have a year where the other team doesn't catch them i mean yeah of course we've seen that before i mean could he have a season where it's it's good right exactly oh my gosh that's the uh where his head coach is saying there's a horseshoe around his neck. It does happen, but I don't think there's any, there's like a lot more ceiling here of, Oh, franchise quarterback. I like that. There might be some upside and some coaching,

but I think the thing I like about it the most is that he survived New York. He survived Matt rule. He spent time with Kyle Shananahan like this is now a journeyman quarterback sure who is only 26 going on 27 i like his maturity and i think that he's just going to be a good fit for their culture which is really important to them and then if there's more to it and he surprises us like geno smith or something hey wow then you hit the lottery but if you don't you still have a quality person there as your backup quarterback. Yeah, I certainly understand it. And relative to other free agent quarterback deals that have happened, this one makes a

lot of sense too. You figure Kevin O'Connell can call up his buddy, Kyle Shanahan, and be like, hey, how was Darnold in practice? He didn't play a lot. So he probably got signed off there. And everything that you mentioned at the end, that he seems like a good guy. He's understands that he's a journeyman. He's not trying to, I mean, technically he'll be trying to win the starting job, but I don't think he's like, I need to be the starter to sign this deal. The one last thing that I want to mention,

just to kind of reiterate, I believe Darnold was like the youngest or one of the youngest players in that draft. And he literally, I got to say this again, he led NCAA in turnovers. Imagine if Caleb Williams or Jaden Daniels or Drake May was going into this draft as like maybe the first pick. And this time in 2018, it was going to be Darnold or Josh Allen to the Browns at one Baker was not on the radar until like two days before the draft imagine if one of those guys was like oh well by the way we think the Bears are going to pick Caleb Williams but he's like 20 and he led college football in turnovers it would be like I mean that's learning

a lesson you don't want to just point to one statistic, but it's almost like, why did we not see more that that red flag was like, hello, like this is going to be a problem for this relatively inexperienced young quarterback. But the anticipation will be there. And I think, especially after being with Kyle Shanahan, he, I don't want to call him, you know, Brock Purdy-esque, but I think he can manage an offense where they say, look, like you want to maybe try to make that anticipatory throw deep down the field, but maybe let's not do that. And maybe just hit the check down to TJ Hawkinson or to Aaron Jones out of the backfield, something like that. If you can kind of corral his assertiveness, because it does lead to a lot of turnovers i think

you can get a decent stopgap quarterback who is still relatively young you know i think about sam darnold and what is the age gap between he and jordan love it can't be that much right it might be might be a year between him imagine if sam darnold had been drafted by the new york jets and did not play for his first three seasons and all they did was work on technique understanding the offense all that stuff and then he had played this is i think maybe if you're making an argument for there might be upside here last year almost a development year in the middle of his career that might ultimately work out well for him and this is where because love was a turnover machine in college he was and he

went in the 20s right and when he first started starting for the packers that was kind of the report on him like yeah he's just kind of throwing the ball up for grabs way too much and then in the middle of the season it stopped happening and his coach built the offense to his strengths. And you could see where all those development hours put into learning Lafleur's offense started to show up and he's operating that offense. Like he's been in the league for 10 years. Now I'm not saying that definitely could have happened with Darnold, but when you throw somebody who's that young and that turnover prone into a spot where he doesn't have good receivers or good coaching, like I do think that he got the bad end of the stick as far as his career. I don't think that proves he's going to be great. I just think that that is a fact of the matter. If you're looking at the like potential

sunny side of bringing in Sam Darnold. And stylistically, it's funny that you bring up Jordan Love. I don't think Jordan Love and Sam Darnold are that different. There will be some like, wow, like arm talent plays and throws from Sam Darnold. I feel like there was one like, was it last year in the preseason where he was like rolling left? This is Sam Darnold rolling left and like fit it between like three defenders, like at the intermediate level. And like the thing on Twitter was like, Oh, if Patrick Mahomes did this, everyone would lose their minds. It was kind of like chuckling reading that you see that

from Jordan Love a little bit too. He's probably a bit more athletic than Darnold, but like that gunslinger, I probably trust my arm and my decision-making too much mentality is definitely there with Darnold. Like it is with Jordan love. And what's so ironic about all this, the floor being someone that knows Kevin O'Connell and is from the Kyle Shanahan coaching tree. It is the most quarterback friendly system in football. So there is certainly a very feasible reason to look at the sunny side of if

Sam Darnold does have to play now well into his career and in this quarterback friendly offense he could be at the very least similar to what they got from nick mullins last season all right i want to wrap on this the biggest move that surprised me of free agency was the green bay packers paying josh jacobs as much as they did. Josh Jacobs was not good last year. And I don't know. We saw Christian McCaffrey become good in San Francisco after struggling and battling injuries in Carolina. So maybe I hesitate a little bit to call it flat out crazy what they did.

But I think it was pretty crazy what they did to put this much of an investment into a running back who's got a ton of mileage on him over the years even going back to college where he was used like crazy at alabama um if you have a take on that move please give it to me but i also want to know is there a signing for you that you thought was either surprising or that you just really loved around the NFL? Something where you're like, oh dude, this signing is really something. Yeah. I don't understand the Josh Jacobs signing whatsoever, especially the Packers are not usually

big free agent signing team. Like they, they going from Ron Wolfe or from Ted Thompson, from Ron Wolfe to Ted Thompson, to even Brian Gutekunst, they just haven't done that. And it's like you have Aaron Jones there. You apparently approached him for a pay cut. I didn't see what the differences in the deals were, like average per year. I know Aaron Jones only signed for one year with the Vikings. Just felt like that made more sense for Green Bay to just run it back with him

and draft someone. And, oh, by the way, they still have A.J. Dillon, who is that kind of bigger between the tackles guy who's been good when the blocking has been good. I didn't understand that. And I will stay close to home. The Blake Cashman signing, I absolutely love for Minnesota. You've taught me or told me and kind of taught me about this Vikings defense that it needs so many pieces and that the run defense has been a problem for years. And I remember loving Blake Cashman coming out of Minnesota. I had a third round grade on him. He goes in the fifth round, dealt with a bunch of injuries early with the Jets.

And then he's been in Houston for the last couple of years, finally healthy. And being a draft analyst, when you see one of your draft crushes finally get a chance, finally, even at 27, like this is the year. You always think, and a lot of times you're wrong, but with Blake Cashman to go over 100 tackles, five pass breakups, he was really good on that Houston Texans defense and can really do it all. He is a legitimate three-down player, speed to the corner, can cover linebackers, good blitzer, reliable tackler.

I don't, again, remember specifically how much money they gave him, but he just feels like an ascending player who finally is healthy and looks like the guy he was at Minnesota, big-time athlete that can do it all and can be someone, I don't want to say that will transform the Vikings defense, but finally be a stable piece at linebacker that the Vikings have been missing since the heyday of Eric Hendricks and Anthony Barr. Well,

and I think that there's a mobility factor with him that Jordan Hicks did not give them like there's there's speed. There's athleticism that Hicks at his age was not giving the Vikings. So they kind of had to mitigate that. And also I think, you know, that Cashman's defense did not ask him to get after the passer where Brian Flores asks everyone to get after the passer where Brian Flores asks everyone to

get after the passer. And that might be somewhere where he thrives because he is so quick and powerful that, I mean, as far as fits go, uh, Brian Flores linebacker with his kind of skillset, I think is a tremendous fit and similar to tight end. I think of linebackers and tight ends like this, that wait, let someone else draft them and then pick them up when they're fully developed three years, four years late after their rookie contracts. Like Patrick Queen, for example, the guy just became good last year.

It takes so long for a linebacker to become good that by the time they really understand the game and they've developed their instincts, then they're leaving on their contract. So rather than drafting them, unless they're like a freak, like Ivan Pace was and just knew it right away, but most of the time they're not. And that's Blake Cashman is you're letting somebody else develop a fifth round draft pick over years. And then you get that guy as a fully developed quality player. So I agree, like everything that the Vikings have done so far and sort of feel almost a little bit like a fish out of water that I don't have anything to be like, I don't know

what they're doing here, because usually we've got at least something. But all the pieces have come together so far, Chris. So as we go forward, so much discussion about this quarterback class. We're going to go through lots of different options. We're going to mock war rooms. We're going to mock drafts. We got our comps though. I think we should start next week with our nineties comps and our bust comps, which is always an episode. Everybody looks forward to each year. We're going to watch back some games of these guys. We're going all in on this quarterback class. So, Chris, great stuff as always.

Thanks so much for coming on and we will see you next week, man. Thanks, Matt. Football. Football.