Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Danielle Hunter will not attend mandatory minicamp

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

Matthew Coller reacts to the news that Danielle Hunter is not going to attend mandatory minicamp and debates over whether the Vikings should extend or trade him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Oakley. Express yourself. Build a look that's made for you. When you wear Oakley, there really is more than meets the eye. Try it for yourself. Oakley is not only the best looking, but the best quality. So head on over to oakley.com for more information today. Hey everybody, welcome to the great Daniil Hunter Debate. Matthew Collar here with you for another episode of Purple Insider, and we're live on YouTube as well, so I would really appreciate everybody engaging in a discussion that I feel like we've been having for a little while, but is now getting serious. It just got real with a report today from NFL Network that Daniil Hunter will not be

attending Minnesota Vikings mandatory minicamp. We will be out there tomorrow and Wednesday watching minicamp. And of course, there's no word yet on whether Justin Jefferson will be there. I think that there's a much higher probability that Jefferson will be in attendance, even if he's not doing anything. It doesn't say mandatory you have to actually go run routes. It does say that you have to be there to not get fined. But Daniil Hunter is going to take about $50,000 in fines. And I wish all of you the success in life that you could take $50,000 in fines and be totally fine with it. But that sort of speaks to, you know,

Daniel Hunter has made quite a bit of money in his career and he can let this play out for a long period of time. And so they could trade him today. They could sign them tomorrow. They could wait until August. We really don't know how this is going to play out. But what I do know is that it is a fascinating argument to make on both sides of the Daniil Hunter discussion. So the other day we were playing golf, Alec Lewis from The Athletic, myself, Sam Ekstrom, and Dane Mizutani, we're all out there playing golf. And as we're going hole to hole, we're all having this discussion about Daniil Hunter. We're all arguing this discussion about Daniil Hunter. We're all arguing with each other about, well, should they sign him or should they trade him?

Or what's it worth? Or why would you do it? Or when would you do it? So I'd love to get all of you who are watching involved in the great Daniil Hunter debates. And we can go back and forth on what it's worth to trade him away. Is there a case to do that? Or is that a bridge too far for the rebuild? I want to get your thoughts and we'll have that discussion. I think the best place to start is with Joel's comment here. What would you take to feel okay with trading Daniil Hunter? And

that is a really interesting discussion because as we were debating it on the golf course, I think what most people said of our little foursome that was playing on Friday was, well, look, a first is obvious, right? Of course, I think we would all agree that if you can get a first round pick, then you do it. And if you remember, that was part of the logic, even of trading Stefan Diggs, that even though Stefan Diggs did force his way out, which Daniil Hunter might kind of be doing right now himself, it wasn't until the Vikings got a first round pick from the Buffalo Bills that they actually decided they were going to pull the trigger and make that trade for Stefan Diggs. So we could see

the same type of thing from Kweisi Adafo-Mensah, where it's like, we're going to hold out for a first round pick. Eventually some team is going to say, you know, what we really need is some more pass rush. And that might be today or that might be weeks and weeks from now. It might be in training camp where, you know, somebody gets injured and a team desperately needs it, or it could be some win-now team. You know, there's been discussions about Kansas City and DeAndre Hopkins.

What about Kansas City and Daniil Hunter, right? And their cap situation's a little shoddy, but they could probably move some money around and make that happen. And they're, you know, without Frank Clark, they lost him. So they could go looking for a little more pass rush. They're in win now mode all the time. They could do that, but would they be willing to give up a first? A couple of years ago, they gave up a first for Orlando Brown, who is not a comparably better player at their position than Daniil Hunter. So there will be win now teams that are calling the Vikings and apparently already are.

But I think if they had gotten a first round offer, they would have already done it. So then it's where does your price point end with potentially trading Daniil Hunter? And nice to see you, Chuck Aoki. First rounder would be good if they can't get that if they can get that I think you almost have to do it well that's right and I agree with that that if they can get a first round pick for Daniil Hunter it's really hard to say no as good as Daniil Hunter is you're not only talking about a first round pick that could potentially replace him you not only talking about a first round pick that could potentially replace him. You're also talking about a first round pick that could play into a move up to draft a quarterback. And the more that they do and the more players that go out the door who are veteran wind now players, the more it looks like they are drafting a quarterback next year.

And it's so funny because we already knew that Delvin Cook wasn't going to stay. We knew that they were moving on for Delvin Cook for months. And yet it seemed like, and even I had this feeling as well, the minute that they did it, it was like, oh man, rebuild on, rebuild on, Delvin's gone. Even though we knew it still was like a pull the lever down. And I look at Daniil Hunter as much more of that. But when you go through the roster, it is remarkable. They only have a couple of players who are over 30. It's like the long snapper and then Kirk Cousins and Harrison Smith. And those are all and Jordan Hicks.

Those are the guys over 30. They don't have almost anybody else. And so they already have entered this rebuild type of mode, which I guess would be the other part of the debate. And the argument is, would you do it for something less than a first? rounder for a team that projects to be bad too. I mean, that's always possible that if you kind of have a team that's a little desperate and is looking to get a veteran player that can turn their defense around, we know the teams do this. And Yannick Ngakwe was kind of part of that at some point where, you know, the Vikings were desperate and they traded a first for Yannick Ngakwe, or I'm sorry, a second for Yannick Ngakwe. And that, you know, that ends up turning out to be a desperation move where they thought Ngakwe could be their pass rush for that season. And

he wasn't that kind of player. So maybe there's another team that feels the same way about Daniil Hunter, but that kind of plays into how good you think Daniil Hunter is going to be? And Scott asks if Bradley Chubb is the best trade comp. I don't think so because, well, one, Miami was pretty desperate. So maybe there is a desperation element. It seemed like Miami thought that that was the last piece for a championship. So you are looking for that type of thing. Bradley Chubb is younger. Daniil Hunter is more accomplished.

Maybe the price that, yeah, i don't know let's see let me look up what bradley chubb was traded for um i thought it was a lot though and i'm just not expecting it the other part is uh to this that there is the part where the vikings have to trade him i'm sorry i'm scrolling and talking it was a 2023 first rounder. Did they get something else to go along with that? Sorry if this slows down my internet as I look. Oh, it was a fourth rounder as well for the following season. Yeah, a fourth rounder and a fifth rounder. So yeah, first, fourth, and a fifth.

Well, I don't think that that's unreasonable for as good as Daniil Hunter actually is. But as we saw with the Delvin Cook situation and we saw with Zedaria Smith, when other teams know that you are moving on from a guy, then they just offer less. It's like, well, you got to do it because he's not playing for you with that price.

So you guys either sign him or trade him to us for a second round pick. The second round pick is where the real Daniil Hunter debate becomes because we can talk about this all day with a first rounder. And I think we can all agree, but if the league is not offering a first rounder, does that mean you have to sign him to be one of the most expensive players at his position in the entire NFL? Does that mean 25 million a year or more for Daniil Hunter?

And that's where it gets really tricky. So Cody says a second rounder and a day three pick. And that sounds to me like a very reasonable trade offer that teams would be making is, all right, let's give you a fourth and a second for next year. And you give us Daniil Hunter. And by the way you know the team acquiring him has to pay him so much money uh that you know how do you like justify that because if you're the other team you're like hey we got to pay him this huge contract so we're not going to give up our entire franchise and pay him that and it it's a good question from Cody. Do they have leverage

for a first? And the answer is kind of yes, because Daniil Hunter is one of the best sack artists in the entire NFL. And when you go through, I think it's like 45 sacks in the last 56 games. It's very impressive. It is a very impressive resume. However, it is not a secret that um Daniil Hunter has had some injury issues it's not a secret how expensive he's going to be and how much his side is asking for see Daniil Hunter is kind of it seems to me and I don't know this for sure but it seems like Daniil is kind of chasing the past a little bit here when it comes to his contract so he signed a contract that was less than what he was worth and what he produced in 2018. But you can't go back in time and re-sign that contract and get

that money back. It kind of seems like he's trying to make up for the money lost and the prestige lost from signing kind of a bad contract before. And I say bad as in ish. I think he made 20 million in cash last year. So I think any of us would have done okay with $20 million. But you get my point. Like he has believed, and I think fairly, that he's one of the best players at his position in the entire league. And a lot of the numbers back that up, although I ran across something very interesting that goes against that,

that I want to talk about in a minute. But, you, the numbers back up the sacks, the pressures, the PFF grades back up that he's one of the best players in the league. So he wants to be treated that way. But if you're the Vikings, you do have to have a price that you won't go over for Daniel Hunter. And it sounds like they tried to kind of patch things up in the short term, which to me sounds like sandbagging. It just sounds like with all of these players, well, you know, we tried to work it out with Delvin Cook, but he just wouldn't take nothing. So, and we tried to work it out with Patrick Peterson, but he wouldn't take nothing. So, and it might be a little bit of the same thing here. Matthew says it's either a first or you hang up and let him sit on the bench.

I don't think that he's playing for less than $20 million. I don't know that you can play that hard of hardball when it comes to a first round pick. First of all, we have to recognize that all of us always overvalue the things that we have versus what they're actually worth in the market. So there's a bunch of different factors that all come into play at once with a trade. I mean, the guy's contract, his age, his injury history, his future projections, which by the way, your analytics GM isn't the only one doing future projections on these players. What the cost is, who the comparable players are, what scouting departments see in the nuances of someone's game,

how many teams does he actually fit in with? I tend to think a lot, but all of these things, how many teams are actually able to buy? So it's not 31 teams. It's more like probably six that could actually afford him, want him. He fits with their timeline and they're comfortable giving something up. That's pretty high. So, you know, when Cody asked earlier, do they have the leverage for a first? I mean, they might, but leverage really depends on what everybody else is willing to give up. So I don't know. And the option, here's the one option that's off the table is to just let them sit there. That is the option that's off the table. This team is in a position where they need draft capital or they need good players. So

Daniil Hunter's a good player. So they need that and draft capital. They don't have, they still don't have a ton for next year. I looked at some chart of the draft capital and they were still like 20th for next year. So they need to jump up those charts and draft capital. If they are rebuilding most, that you're, you're looking at probably projecting him similarly to what Mario Williams did in his career, where I think he was 32 or 33 before he started to fall off the table. I think there's similar kind of rushers and players, bigger guys, super freak athletes, just great, great players that, uh, I think could sustain that production going later into their careers. And I think, you know, you could reasonably project three to five more seasons of

great production as long as Daniel Hunter is healthy. So the Vikings could use that because I don't think that they're planning on a five-year rebuild. I think they're planning on like a two year rebuild. And so he could be a part of that. Well, you need that. That's great. You need to have that. That's important. But if he won't do it at your price, then you would need draft capital as well, because

you're in a position where you're trying to potentially trade up to draft a quarterback. You can use a second round pick along with a first rounder and a next year's first or something to go from let's say they are 16th let's just kind of split it down the middle they're drafting 16th next year but your top quarterback is going to go in the top five and there's not another one you like how are you going all in well is it just this year's first and next year's first is that going to be enough or can you add a second can you add a second and a fourth to get a team there to give you that deal? I think that that's, you know, really, really important potentially. So, you know, I do think

that when it comes to the second round pick, that there would be a lot of people that said, wow, Kwesi got screwed a second round pick. How could he only get that? But I also think that second round pick could prove to be pretty important. And if you look at the second round picks, even if the Vikings have some other quarterback option, or they're bad enough to draft their quarterback high, or don't have to part ways with the pick, Vikings have gotten some pretty good prospects in the second round in recent years, including Brian O'Neill and Dalvin Cook, by the way. So second round is usually filled with a lot of good players that they could

use to potentially rebuild their team. So I don't look at it as, oh, well, if they can't get a first, then this conversation is over. Because if the conversation is over, then that means you are paying whatever his price is. And that could be very, very high. That could be 25 million or more. And I think that in a second, we got to have that conversation as well about how much he's worth for dollars, how high you'd be willing to go. Daniel asks, does some kind of chase young and picks for Daniil Hunter intrigue you. Um, you know, the thing is with trading Daniil Hunter for someone like chase young is chase young to me is a huge, huge risk. He has been hurt and he has been bad, uh, aside from his first year. And now if you're a rebuilding team, if you're trading like a third round pick to get Chase Young or something, or even a second, maybe that's worth the risk. Or I guess even if you're a team that's ready to win, trading a second round pick or something

for like him is worth the risk. But if you're moving Hunter, I think you got to be aiming for the draft capital route, or if not, some younger actual star. But that's hard. Chase Young has kind of done nothing in his career. He had a good start. And then after that, it has been kind of kaput. I mean, I think that rebuilding teams should trade for players like that, but with a team that doesn't have that much draft capital that needs it, I'm having trouble feeling like it could work unless it's Chase Young in a second, but that seems like too much for Washington to

give up. I also would have the concern that they were trading him. So if Washington is trading this guy who they picked as high as they did and who did show potential, I mean, that means that they think that he is totally cooked because otherwise they hang on to players like that for a long time. You know, that most of the time, I mean, even Laquan Treadwell kept coming back for the Vikings. If you draft someone in the first round, they just hang on to them and hang on to them and hang on to them. From Dunn Outdoors, if the Vikings trade Hunter, does that make this a rebuild?

And if so, why not explore trading Kirk to San Francisco for Lance? I actually completely agree with you. I don't know if San Francisco would do that. I think San Francisco would be worried about getting egg on their face by trading away Lance and then having him be good. The Vikings would be less concerned about that because they're in a rebuild mode. So if Kirk goes to San Francisco and wins, oh well. But if you're the San Francisco 49ers and you

trade for Kirk Cousins, let's say he's just, let's say he's 2018 Kirk and it doesn't work out and Lance turns out to be good and he's in your conference and he's in the playoffs all the time. I don't know, man. Usually when teams trade away their high potential Sam Darnolds, they usually trade them to the opposite conference because just in the case that the guy turns around and ends up being good, they want them over there and not playing against you all the time. So I'd still have always wondered if San Francisco would actually do it, but if they're trading away to Neil Hunter and we're looking at a defense that has essentially nobody left. And then on the outside of Harrison Smith, and they've got a lot of potential, a lot of interesting players,

but proven players, Harrison Phillips and Harrison Smith. And I guess you could say Dean Lowry is a proven player, Jordan Hicks, but they're just, you know, kind of guys. So you're looking at having almost nothing there. You'd be very hard pressed to convince me that Brian Flores is just going to blitz his way to that defense, being good enough to make them any sort of contender with the younger players. I do think that they could improve based on how many of those younger players might actually be better than the corpses of what players were being rolled out there last year, plus having a better scheme. So I would still think that they could be better than 27, but not good enough to

really compete. I looked at this last year that 90% of teams that made the Super Bowl within the last like 10 years, they still had very good past defenses. There's a couple of examples of teams that didn't, but it's pretty rare. So you still need to have a good defense to make the Super Bowl, even with a great offense. And the offense is in transition more than we think, too. You're taking out a proven Adam Thielen. You're taking out a proven Delvin Cook. We don't know what Jordan Addison or Alexander Madison or Ty Chandler are going to do. The interior of the offensive line is still unproven at the guard positions.

So there's a lot of factors here that are so rebuildy that why wouldn't you want to take a shot at a young quarterback? And the benefit of the Trey Lance idea is, and this is again, if you're trading Hunter, then you're really going full rebuild. But the benefit of the Trey Lance idea is that you'd get them for a year. And if it doesn't work out, you can always walk away and draft a quarterback. And if it doesn't work out, you're probably drafting pretty high with that quarterback. So I kind of liked that idea, but how that could ever happen. I mean, I don't really know. Folks, I've been wearing Oakley's now for a few weeks. And let me tell you, there is a reason that Justin Jefferson and a bunch of other football players wear these things because they are awesome. I've got the matte black prism,

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When you wear Oakley, there really is more than meets the eye. Try it for yourself. I've worn sunglasses in the past, and I can assure you that Oakley is the best looking and best quality out there. So go on over to oakley.com for more information today. Oakley, express your style and build a look that's made for you. Let's see. Scott says, any comp you get will be for 2024. Sit them until you get your value.

Sitting them is just not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. It never happens. Look at all the contract disputes that you've seen in the last five years and tell me one where the player was sitting out by the end of September. It never happens because you want to get that draft capital back. The longer you let him sit, the more teams know that you got to move on from him. I mean, right now, what the Vikings have as far as leverage is we could sign them.

We could sign them. We don't have to trade them to you. We could sign them. And but by the time you go past go and let them sit, then they know that you can't that you can't just resign them and you lose any leverage that you have. Then you're not getting anything back for them. It just lingers over the team. It's much better to just get something for him than to let him sit and let it just be a big distraction. I think it's much better, much better that way. Andrew says problem is when Hunter was injured,

the defense was not good when he was playing, the defense was still not good. He's a superstar and wants to be paid like one. I would trade him for a one or high two. Well, it's hard to say what a high two is going to be. So I guess like trade him to a bad team or a team that you think is going to be bad. That's the thing is you got to do it now and take your guess. But your bad teams are probably not trading for Daniel Hunter. Here's how I know you're a bad team, at least at this moment, not a great team,

right? So it's really only the really good teams that are going to want to trade for Daniel Hunter. I would think that it would only be teams that are trying to win right now and going all in. That's why I said that I would project only six to eight teams are making the phone call because they have to be in the right winning window, have the right amount of cap space and be willing to give away their future draft capital for him. But your point with the defense overall, I mean, that would be an argument if you said, look, why keep playing him if the defense is going to take two years to rebuild? And so then you just burn two years of his career on mediocre or average defenses. Let's say he gets you 12 sacks next year and the defense ranks 23rd.

Like what good was it? And that's a really good argument to trade away Daniil Hunter. What difference does it make if he gets you 14 sacks, but you end up 23rd in defense, which is probably where I'd predict them to be right now. I mean, you're not going to just snap your fingers like one player at the edge rusher position in a defense that is always about your weak parts of which they have numerous weak parts right now. Then why pay one player quarterback type of money or superstar receiver type of money? It's like on offense. And we've seen this one receiver can drag your offense. One great quarterback can even make up for not having certain other parts of your offense. That is

not the case with defense. And that has been the case all over the place. I mean, even Aaron Donald's the best player in the world. And yet at the same time, you see all sorts of ups and downs for that Rams defense over his career because it's just not about one person. And that would be an argument to decide to trade him away because if you're paying one person as if he's the quarterback of the

defense, but you need all these other parts on defense, well, that's where you need to draft. And the other thing is too, and this is something that there usually are pass rushers on the market, whether it's the trade market and Bradley Chubb gets traded or Khalil Mack has been traded twice. I mean, think about how good Khalil Mack is. It's been traded twice that there's always pass rushers kind of coming into the league. There's always situational rushers that you could patch that together if you have cap space. So if you have cap space and you could pay a couple of guys, I mean, what was it? Melvin Ingram shows up last year with, was it the dolphins or the chiefs or somebody, uh, Pittsburgh? I don't know. up last year with, was it the Dolphins or the Chiefs or somebody?

Pittsburgh, I don't know. He's been on a couple of teams and he contributed to everybody. And we've seen Philadelphia bring in a bunch of pass rushers. Chris Long at the end of his career comes into Philadelphia and plays pretty well. You can draft them.

There's lots of different ways to approach that position that doesn't have to be with, you know, paying Daniel Hunter that much money. Jason says trading Hunter is not a full rebuild. As long as Kirk is here, it is not a rebuild. Well, I don't agree with that because Kirk is not under contract through the future. Now, if Kirk was under contract for five more seasons, then I would say, well, of course, it's not a rebuild. I mean, like you're always trying to win as long as you have Kirk, but they're not they're not doing everything to try to win. Like it's a rebuild. I mean, they are rebuilding almost every part of this roster.

The skill positions were still keeping an eye on the interior offensive line. We're looking at defensive line, rebuild linebackers, secondary is a complete rebuild outside of Harrison Smith. They even got a kicking competition. So, but no, no long snapper rebuild. We know that Andrew DePaulo is the guy, but when almost every position out of 22 starters, what is it like 16 players are going to be unproven. That is a, that is to me a complete rebuild. The difference is that it's not a tank. If it was a tank, then they would have gotten rid of Kirk and started Nick Mullins or Jaron Hall and tried to lose every single game like Chicago did last year. It's not going to be a tank, but they are rebuilding so many parts of their roster.

Now, if they extend Kirk cousins for a three-year extension or something, then I'm just going to be completely baffled. But not signing Cousins to the long-term extension is a part of why this is a rebuild in my mind. Now, if you were going to replace him with somebody else this offseason, you have to have the option. Trey Lance is the option. Or drafting someone, Will Le you have to have the option. Trey Lance is the option or drafting someone. Will Levis would have been the option. And then they could have moved on from Kirk and

started their rookie or their young quarterback and gone forward from there. But at least the way that they handled it was no long-term commitment. So you're rebuilding every part of the roster. There's no long-term commitment to the quarterback. To me, it is semantics though. Like, let's be honest. It is semantics. Is it a rebuild, a retool, a reworking, a refreshing? I mean, whatever way you want to put it, the reality is they're not locked into Kirk long-term,

which to me means your options are wide open for the quarterback position. And in that way, it's kind of the most interesting situation they've been in a long time. Matthew says, I wouldn't mind the Lance trade. Worst case scenario, we bought them out and draft a top quarterback. I completely agree. I completely agree that the issue is, can you make San Francisco do it? Like San Francisco seems to be buying into Brock Purdy. Okay. He's only played a handful of games. So I don't know

if that's the right thing to do or not. But if you're talking about a deal where they're interested in trading you, Trey Lance, I think you have to do it at this position now, if they trade away Daniel Hunter. But even then, have we just gone past that anyway? I mean, if you sign Hunter, then it kind of looks like, all right, they want a really short rebuild. And then who knows what they do at the quarterback position? Because I was looking into this, like teams that have been very similar situations that had one quarterback for a long period of time.

And then that quarterback's time came to an end, like a Matt Schaub. And then what those teams did after. And a good number of those teams drafted a quarterback right after like a Jalen Hurts or toward the end of when their other quarterback was there. And they bounced back pretty quickly, but a team like the Houston Texans, they had Matt Schaub for a long time. And then they still had a very, very good roster, but they ran through Ryan Fitzpatrick, Brian Hoyer, Brock Osweiler. You don't want to get into that. You don't want to get into this. Well, our roster is really good. So we have to go out and get this

mediocre quarterback to fill the spot and hope that we survive. That's that is like Taylor Heineke land. That is Sam Darnold land. You don't want to be in that spot. You want to be in a position where you are ready to draft a quarterback and make him your next guy. So whether Daniil Hunter is here or not kind of goes that way, but if he's not, then it is a barren wasteland. This roster outside of cousins, Justin Jefferson, Christian Derrissaw and Brian O'Neill. Then it is just almost nobody proven, which might turn out to be good for them very quickly. In fact, it might, depending on how you hit or miss Kansas city is a great example.

A lot of people went into last year thinking Kansas city was rebuilding their roster. Then they hit on like four draft picks and all of a sudden they weren't. So these things can turn around very quickly and a lot has to go right in order for that to happen. But the point just being that, you know, I think that if Kirk is still here for one more year and then they draft a quarterback, then I think it will have been a rebuild, like a two year rebuild because you're going to play that rookie quarterback next year. And then it's the following season where you really push the

gas pedal down and hope that you hit on that guy. From Chuck, he's difficult to replicate, meaning Daniel Hunter, but if he wants top of market money, I don't know if that's an investment you can do. Is he worth $25 million a year? I think he's a notch below Miles Garrett and Joey Bosa or Nick Bosa, probably you mean. Yeah. So this is where I wanted to bring up a chart that I saw. I love internet charts. They're so telling about sports.

So let me see if I can do a little screen share for you good folks on YouTube. And if you can see it, there's a lot of small writing. So I'm hoping that this can work out with a screen share. But there was a chart that showed the double team rate along with the pass rush win rate. Let's see. Let's try to bring that in. Let's make that big for you guys. I don't know how well you can see that. I'm sorry if that's kind of small, but I'll use my mouse. I don't actually, can you see my mouse? Maybe you can't

see my mouse. I'll use the mouse. If you can see it to point to Daniel Hunter, but what this chart shows, if you can't see it very well, is that Daniil Hunter did not rank particularly high in double team rate or pass rush win rate. And if you look to the other side of the chart, you can see that Z'Darrius Smith ranked extremely high in double team rate. And I know that this was also the case when Everson Griffin was around and playing for the Vikings as well, that, you know, he drew a lot of the double teams and Daniil Hunter didn't. So when you compare him to these other guys who made $25 million a year, you know, I think what you see is that there are some guys like Micah Parsons, Miles Garrett, Nick Bosa that draw so much attention and yet they still win like

crazy. I don't know that Daniil Hunter is quite that. I think he's very, very, very good though. And he's somebody who could play on a championship team and be a main pass rusher for a championship team. But is he the one that is terrifying the opponents to the point where they're constantly giving their attention to him. I think what that chart shows is the answer is not really. Bob, always a part of these live streams and I appreciate you, Bob, but sometimes you're on the harsh side, Bob. I got to say, Bob says, I don't trust their drafting. They'll pick a bunch of busts. Well, drafting has always been random, man. I mean, it's always been a year-to-year kind of thing.

Just like with Rick Spielman. 2015, he's genius. 2016, he's stupid. But what you can do is you can weigh the draft in your favor. And one of the ways they did it this year is that they drafted a lot of premium positions. So they draft a wide receiver, they draft a secondary, and they drafted players who were very, very good in college. I think they decided to go that way. They were really productive in college, what I mean. They graded high by PFF. They had tons of catches. They had interceptions. They had all those things.

And I think that was an interesting way to go about it. So maybe weighs it in their favor. But you know what weighs it in your favor? Having more draft picks. So if they trade away to Neil Hunter and get more draft picks, you get more opportunities to pick somebody. I mean, you can always be Christian Ponder guy, but let me tell you, Christian Ponder guy's the worst. That's the guy where you're in a sports bar or you're at the water cooler. You're having a conversation with somebody you just meet and you say, you know what? I'm excited about this Vikings future. Aren't you? They could draft quarterback next year. And the other guy says he'll probably turn out to be Christian Ponder. And it is just the worst dent, dent, dent. You know, it was just the worst who wants to don't

be that guy. Don't be that guy because it could be Christian Ponder or it could be Dante Culpepper who had he stayed healthy he was a franchise quarterback nearly won MVP and won a playoff game in Green Bay so it you never know it could be a great quarterback could not be it's kind of random but what you're trying to do is weigh your odds to give you the best chance so the Vikings in their setup what they have offensively gives the next quarterback, pretty good chance to elite tackles, elite wide receiver, potentially a very good number two wide receiver. I mean, running backs that might all have potential. I think that sounds pretty good as a setup. That's what they're trying to do here is weigh the odds in their favor, but just don't be, what about Christian ponder guy. So, you know, but I want to circle back

to what Chuck was asking about the 25 mil. How much is it worth for like to do it? How much would you do it for? And if I had to guess, I think the Vikings, if it is just a pure guess, this is not sources or anything else like that. I would say that they probably would go around 2021, but I don't know if they would go 25 to 30. That if it's $20 million a year

and they have flexibility, and remember the Vikings in these contracts like to give themselves flexibility. That's maybe the center of the issue with Justin Jefferson's extension is that they would like to have their most flexibility and the player have the least flexibility. That's what teams always try to do. It's just that 25 is probably too high, but it's, you know, what is too high though? If you're going, it's almost like if you're, you know, you're buying something and you're in an auction. I mean, the way that these auctions always kind of jumped the price up is you go, well,

I'm already in to buy this, whatever painting at 150. Why would I not be in at 175? So you raise your little thing. It's the same kind of thing where it's like, if the Vikings were in a 21, why wouldn't they be in a 25? It's not that big of a difference.

The only way it's a big difference is if it's more like 30, but this is what makes me think that their price is probably very low and that they would rather move on and trade them away than they would to sign them. And the fact that they were trying reportedly to sign them to some short-term little bridge, little patch the thing over, we'll address it later. I mean, if you're Daniel Hunter, you're like, what? I've done that every year. Why would I do that? That to me sounds like we'd rather trade him, give us a call. That's what it reads like. But I think if we're trying to put together what's a reasonable price for Daniel Hunter, we can look at the comparables here and we can figure out what different guys make and who we think is similar to Daniel Hunter.

I think we've established that he's not quite in the Miles Garrett realm, but he is still extremely, extremely good. So let's do a little screen share again here on YouTube and I'll pull this up for the edge rusher market. And again, hopefully you guys can see this okay. And you can also see that the targeted ads, can you guys tell what my hobby is with the targeted ads? We got guitars everywhere. Guitars are taking up this entire thing. Hopefully you can see where the pass rushers are in the middle of the screen.

But the top in the league, and I searched this by average per year, is TJ Watt at 28, Joey Bosa, 27, Miles Garrett, 25, Max Crosby, 23, Khalil Mack, 23, Bradley Chubb, 22, Vaughn Miller, 20. You know, if it's 22 and it's on par, and actually this might've been what somebody in the comments was mentioning earlier about a comparable of Bradley Chubb. If it's 22 to 23, that doesn't sound that insane to me. And that's where it depends on whether they actually want to do it or not. Because if you're talking about 22 to 23 million for Daniil Hunter, I think that's pretty good

considering what you get. But if it doesn't match up with your timeline, then why do it? If you're wasting two to three years, then it doesn't really matter if he's worth 21 or 23 or 25. And of course, if he wants 30, then this is just completely out of the conversation. But I think that's what it comes down to is that after trading or releasing all those other players, does it really match up with where they stand right now to have Daniil Hunter waste his time for two years with this team while they put together, you know, kind of a roster again? This from Daniel here.

I know people are saying that Flores will fight for Hunter, which might be true, but let's not forget that he learned from Belichick, the king of trading stars before it was too late. It's a great point. Yeah, it's a great point. And I just think that Brian Flores doesn't really have any say here. That would, I mean, I don't want to say for sure, but this is a much bigger thing than him. This is like, he's got to do his job and he's got to develop these players. I think that was a big part of bringing him here was developing players. But I don't think when it comes to the bigger picture decisions, you know who's making those. That is Quasey.

That is O'Connell. And that is the Wilfs. Those are the only people who are making those decisions. It is not. I know that there's the whole collaboration thing and everything else. But like, no, it's only the top decision makers who are making calls on the bigger picture direction. They're not asking a defensive coordinator. And if you're trade away, Daniel Hunter, sorry, man, like figure it out, go, go make a DJ want them into a star, uh, you know, and things like that. So, um, Matthew

says hiring Flores was the best thing that Kwesi has done. Still irrelevant in the big picture because he'll be gone if he's successful. Don't agree with either one of those things actually, Matthew. I think that the best thing Kwesi has done is not get fooled by 13 wins. When you look at winning 13 games, what most teams do when they win 13 games, what do they do? They go, well, if we only had one more right guard, and then they go and restructure every contract. And I've got plenty of evidence to back this up because the Spielman Vikings did this over and over again. Well, if we only signed one more nose tackle, yep. That's what most GMs do after winning 13 games, because a lot of times their owners think well we

should do that again and so they make all these moves to try to win now and it doesn't work and I think that Kwesi not being tricked by a mediocre team or an you know okay I don't want to say that a good team that was not a great team last year that was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs not trying to bring it all back and run it all back against the harder schedule and hoping for the same luck that they got last year. To me, that is the single smartest thing that he's done. And not extending Kirk Cousins is also the smartest thing that he's done because leaving a really big amount of flexibility with the quarterback position could end up paying huge dividends. The Flores hire, I think, you know, could he end up getting a head coaching job? Maybe. He's suing the league, by the way. I don't know if he's going to get a head coaching job or not, but Flores

could be here for a few years and he could be a big part of developing these players. And I think that's a really good hire for them, but ultimately it doesn't really matter to me who the defensive coordinator is. It matters how you build, uh, the, the roster up. And, you know, I, I, I do think, and, uh, Chad brings this up. Why does everyone hate Casey now? No, I don't think, I don't think that's true. I think that there are, there are some people who are being very hard on Quasey about what direction they've taken, and I'm not going to be one of them. I was hard on Quasey last year because of the direction they took. And they won 13 games,

and they won way more games than I ever thought they were capable of. And so I'm not going to take that away from them. They won the division. They picked a good year to go all in. So I don't, I don't want to say that they did everything wrong and I was right or whatever. I was kind of, it was both. We were both right. Like they were right that they won more games than the year before and had a great season, regular season, but ultimately didn't get on the positive side of point differential loss in the first round. Everybody got to be right. But the whole, the whole point is that last year, I thought there was more reason to be critical of Kweisi Adafo Mensah,

where the draft didn't make a lot of sense, where the moves to bring in older players, to me, did not make a lot of sense with the situation. That was last year. This year, it feels like what I felt like they should have done last year, which was to move on from a lot of the veteran players. Don't hurt yourself with the future salary cap.

Don't extend the quarterback, all those things. And look, you know, I mean, we could replay it a thousand times. If they had tanked last year, then they would have ended up with, you know, maybe one of those top quarterbacks. I don't know. And will they work out? I don't know. A lot of

this is a guessing game and you sort of take your best shot at it. They wanted to see if it was the culture and if it was the, you know, the, the Mike Zimmer effect, if they could be a better team than they were the year before and they proved that they could. So I, you know, in that way, they did the right thing and they made a lot of moves to be a good team like getting Zedaria Smith. They really just hired the wrong defensive coordinator. I think if they had Brian Flores last year, they maybe do win a playoff game or are more competitive in the playoffs or do end up with a positive point differential. Don't give up 400 yards, five games in a row or whatever. So they they made a big mistake there.

That's the thin line that you walk. This year, I have been much more on board from the very outset it was like that was it that was your chance you won 13 games you're never going to have that again with this group everybody's older and every and everything is harder going forward after this and look here's another thing Justin Jefferson had an all-time great season last year it It doesn't always happen. Even look at Kelvin Johnson's career. So there was a lot of things that came together.

You never, ever get eight fourth quarter comebacks. Like everything happened. And so Kwesi recognizing that to me is by far the best thing he's done. It's the best thing a Vikings general manager has done in a long time, in my opinion. So I think that being understanding of the bigger picture is much more important than, well, he didn't get enough for this guy or he didn't get enough for that guy. Derek says, Quasey likes to talk out of school and trade down for not much value. Other than that, he's great. I don't know what you mean by talk out of school.

I mean, there was the one article where he said the thing we all know about Kirk Cousins and where he also said that great quarterbacks win Super Bowls, which happened. And he also talked about why you don't go all in and go full Rams because if it doesn't work out, then you're kind of screwed, which the Rams were for last year. So I don't go all in and go full Rams because if it doesn't work out, then you're kind of screwed, which the Rams were for last year. So I don't know about that. I mean, maybe that was saying a little too much. I'm not going to defend everything he said or done, but I feel like some of these criticisms are a little bit on the nitpicky side compared to taking the right direction with the franchise and trading down for not much value depends on a matter of opinion, I suppose.

You know, his first draft, there were some people who liked it and some who didn't. And then this year, his trades came back from all the charts as being on the positive side. So I don't know. I prefer the general manager who is going to be honest with us. And I really felt like, by the way, if you go back and listen to me after the combine, after three or four of us sat down with Kwesi at Alphamensa, and I came back and said, you know what, guys, I would prepare yourselves for them to completely overhaul this roster. And they did. And Kwesi gave us an explanation of why they would do that. I appreciate that because then I can relay that and understand that better.

So I don't know about talking out of school as in more, just being a little more revealing, I guess maybe is the wrong word, but helping us understand a little bit better what's going on. And I think that he mixes in some things that are joking around or whatever that I think if you take too seriously, I don't know, because I'm kind of looking for the information more than he kind of makes a joke about music or something. So I think we're, and again, last year, plenty of reason to be down on the moves that they made. It looked very Spielman-like. I couldn't tell the difference. If you told me Spielman was still in charge, I would have said, yeah, okay. This year it has been very different. Very, very different. From High Times KG, Kweisi is in charge of fixing Rick's mess. Rick dealt some ugly contracts, Hunter, Cook, Harrison Smith, terrible drafts. That's right.

Now that doesn't excuse other things that they did last year that hurt them long-term. Okay. So, you know, when you sign feeling when it was pretty clear that there was some regression going on and then you extend feeling and hurt yourself for the future, that's not great. Uh, and maybe they felt like they couldn't replace him with somebody better. So there are moves that, that quasi has done that last year did not help them for the longterm. And they're paying for that. And I guess we're going to find out what happens with that Kirk Cousins, you know, $28 million dead cap hit. If there's an extension to spread that out, or if they're just going to have to deal with that next year and work around that, that's, that's pretty tough.

That is pretty tough. In, in my opinion, I think they're going to have trouble working around that in the first year. So there are things that we can say on a micro level, didn't like this, this isn't going to work out. And there's no excusing in my mind, the draft where you take a safety in the first round, even if he turns out to be good, how valuable or hard to replace is that the guard again, we'll see how it works out taking him in the second round but then this year i think we saw much more of a quacey approach of taking players at almost all across the board premium positions outside of what a fifth round nose tackle which you know

it can be important so um let's see from david i wonder if Casey originally struck an agreement with the Wilfs that he'd have to wait a year or two before he could do a rebuild. I think, and it's just putting together the tea leaves. So Eric Hendricks told us that they had a meeting with the Wilfs after the Mike Zimmer thing to talk about what they needed. And they vehemently argued that they could be a good team if they had just had a better culture and so forth. That was something he said on the record. And I think that the Wilfs believed that. And I think they proved that to be true last year,

that I agree that there's a very good chance that they wanted a general manager who was going to kind of stay the course for a year and then see what happens. You know, I, I, I, that's, that's what, that's what I think. And if that is indeed what happened, it all kind of makes sense where it's like, okay, we gave that a shot. We came close, sort of ish, won the division. But now we got to think about reality and the future. And the reality is if they tried to bring everybody back, where would they be? I mean, they would be a team that we'd be projecting for eight or nine wins. Still,

it probably wouldn't change a whole lot. Like, because this guy would fall off and, you know, they would be in cap problems in the future. You would much rather see them, um, definitely living in reality. And, uh, sorry, I, I'm not exactly sure how to pronounce your name. We'll call you Sue. Glad we didn't run it back. And with the same roster, 2009 to 2010 memories. Yeah. I mean, I totally agree that the times that they've run it back and I did math on this, by the way, I did math on this. I looked at all the teams that won 12 or 13 games that did not have Ben Roethlisberger, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, or Peyton Manning. You'll never guess what happened. Almost every single one of them had a bad year the following season. And the teams that had good years still lost two or three fewer or

still won two or three fewer games. We're talking about like the Carson Palmer Cardinals or the Andy Dalton, 2015 Bengals, the following season, the Oh nine to 10 thing, the 2017 to 18 thing happened every time. Um, boy, I, you know, I think, uh, Matthew, if you're going to say things like this, that you probably just shouldn't watch. Uh, I'm not going to read it out loud, but if you're going to say stuff like that, you should just, you just, just beat it, man. So don't say stuff like that. You can, you can participate in the conversation, but if you're going to say stuff like that, you got to go. Um, let's see, uh, from Daniel it's year two after 10 years of a whole different school of thought and practice with Spielman and company, Lack-Quasey

Cook. Well, that's the thing is, what's important to me in evaluating this whole deal is like, let's see, try to see the bigger picture, right? Let's try to see through the GM's eyes and then ask, does it make sense? That's how I evaluate. It's not complicated. It's sports. So if you put yourself in the general manager's seat and you look at your roster going into this offseason and you have two options, you can move on from a lot of these players who have meant a lot to this organization, but have not gotten them far enough over the last, as you said, over the last decade.

A lot of those guys were a part of this thing for a long time, and they're a really good players. But did that get you where you wanted to go anyway? No, it didn't. So is there an option to move out some of those players, but then move in other free agents? Not really, right? There isn't really an option to move under a bunch of expensive free agents in to fill those spots and immediately be good. So then what's the other option? The other option is to try to set ourselves up the best for the future. And if we go through thing by thing, not extending Kirk, drafting a wide receiver to set up the

offense for the future, moving on from your older running back, drafting a lot of secondary players. That's going to be really important. It's easier to me to replace pass rush than it is secondary. So I think all of that makes sense. All of that makes sense to me. Does that mean it's going to work? No, I don't know that it's going to work because what I found in researching, and you're never going to believe this guys, you're never going to buy it. What I found in researching the rebuilds or competitive rebuilds, whereas like the chargers, for example, end of Phillip rivers, and then onto the next, it almost always depended on what happened to quarterback almost every single time.

It's just the reality of the thing that when the chargers drafted Justin Herbert, all of a sudden the rebuild worked great. And when the Buffalo Bills tore apart their roster and then all of a sudden they, you know, all of a sudden they get Josh Allen and then their rebuild works. And the Philadelphia Eagles, same thing. All of a sudden in the Philadelphia Eagles, Jalen Hurts takes that big step forward and it all works together. And the teams where it didn't work, they drafted your Daniel Jones to replace Eli Manning. And you know, I, that's the trouble. That's the trouble is when it feels like it's out of your hands, then, um, you know, that it's, it makes it a little more difficult to accept when it's like, well, really depends

on what happens next to quarterback. But I think for the rest of the roster, what you're trying to do is time out your roster to be peaking when that quarterback is in his second, third, fourth year. That's should be the goal, right? And this is where we can sort of circle it back into Daniil Hunter. But if you're trying to time out where it all works together. So let's say that a lot of these young defensive players, you find out that five of them are good. Five of the young defensive players are good. Great. So when you get the cap space, you can fill in the other spots, five or six, let's just say are really good or good enough. So you fill in the other spots in free agency when you get the cap space. You already have a great receiving room. You already

have great tackles. So you can replace a guard, right? You can go replace a guard, but you're giving your quarterback the best possibility to be good. And I look at Jalen Hurts as a great example. I think if Jalen Hurts plays for a really bad team with a really bad roster that, you know, he might still be good because I think that he made a ton of progress, but he's got the best offensive line in the league, great wide receivers. You can give that to your next quarterback. You can weigh the odds. Carson Wentz was not that good of a quarterback, but he was able to win 13 games, legit lead one of the best offenses in the league because of the talent

that they were able to put around him. And I think that's what they're trying to do. So if you're talking about, you know, Daniil Hunter, does he play into this, right? That's the question. Does he play into this where, you know, Daniil Hunter's timeline for his career? And if you think that he's going to be good for another five years, then of course he does because your target is within the next two years. But if you think that he's probably only got a couple more years left of being an elite player, then you move on and get the draft capital. So I think that's what it really comes down to. But this is kind of one of those inkblot tests where everybody sees something different.

And I appreciate Michael coming in at the end and saying, if we sign DeAndre Hopkins and overpay Hunter, we have a chance for the Super Bowl. No, I don't think you do. I don't think you do. That's the problem that's why they have to be where they are is because even if you signed deandre hopkins you would not have a good chance to win the super bowl here's how i know they've always had great receivers they've always had a good offense and they've never been able to put it all together i don't think they have enough on defense unless there is a stunning amount of development over the next two years. So yeah, I think that they are with this Daniel Hunter thing sort of at a little bit of a crossroads and they've already gone a certain

direction. But it's more like, let's say they come to the fork in the road and they've taken a few steps down the rebuild road and they're kind of looking what does it look like down there what do you see you see some cap space i should have had my uh sunglasses on you see cap space down there you see high draft picks you see a rebuild you see a tough season in 2023 what do you see down there and uh once you decide that Daniil Hunter is going to be traded, you're not looking down that road. You are down that road. And so that's how I look at this. When it could happen, I have no idea.

Could happen soon. Could happen August. I really don't know. But I think that they've gone so far with this rebuild that they should probably just pull the trigger and move on as hard as that is. So Chad says on the topic of Hunter, if it ends up in a trade, do you fill the roster spot with a named veteran or throw young guys in and see if there's anything there? Definitely the young guy route for me.

I mean, you could bring in a veteran just to have them. Like Davenport's not going to play a thousand snaps. That has never happened. It's never come close to happening. So you might need another person anyway, just to fill in a spot. But if there's somebody with, I mean, and this is hard at this point in the game, but Davenport and Byron Murphy were the perfect draft picks for this team. They were young-ish players that could be with you for a long time if you really liked them. If Byron Murphy and Marcus Davenport work out this year,

then you can have those guys be good for quite some time. Those are the types of moves that you want to make. Those guys aren't out there anymore, but you might need a body. So I, but I'd rather see DJ Wanham and Patrick Jones play. It might be bad. It might be, but let's find out. That's kind of how I look at it. I look at both of those guys as having some potential. So let's find out and, you know, see what happens there.

But I would also say if they signed Daniel Hunter, it's not like a rebuild travesty because he can be a good player over multiple years. I just think that there's some risk there. And it's always the math that you're always doing is if I gave you $25 million, what could you do with it? And the answer is kind of a lot. Could you replace with another pass rusher? Sure. You can be the team that makes the A.J. Brown trade or the Bradley Chubb trade down the rope. And it doesn't have to be that far from now, but it's going to be weird in between,

especially with Kirk Cousins still a quarterback. So anyway, well, fun as always, guys. Fun discussion as always. And there's going to be more of them, I assume. Tomorrow night we'll have hot routes around 8 o'clock. So doing our usual thing. But when there's emergency pods, that I don't know. I don't know with this Daniil Hunter thing.

Because if you remember with Khalil Mack, that played out all the way through the summer. And there was a trade right at the end. That's funny, Daniel says. Don't worry, an Anthony Barr reunion is coming. played out all the way through the summer and there was a trade right at the end um that's that's funny daniel says don't worry an anthony bar reunion is coming could be but uh if there's a move soon we'll let you know i'll be out there for the next two uh minicamp practices on wednesday i'm gonna record a podcast with will raggetts and dave campbell of the associated press and uh tomorrow we'll definitely be here for hot routes but i'll talk about otas as well and what uh you know i've gathered from there and we'll see

what we hear about daniel hunter or if justin jefferson there or anything else so uh oh derrick i'm sorry i'm letting you down that i haven't yet talked about the kicker battle but maybe tomorrow hey they kicked last time and they both kicked well. So there we go. Chuck, Chuck, if there's a emergency, if they trade them tonight, will you emergency pod at 2 AM? Absolutely. Absolutely. There is no question about it. It does not matter what hour, what time, if you have to wake me up, there will be emergency pods if anything goes down. So make sure you keep it here, but thanks for all the participation really enjoy uh talking to you guys as always and we will talk to you again soon thanks everybody