Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Data scientist Tej Seth answers how we can evaluate Kevin O'Connell with numbers

Episode Date: December 2, 2023

Matthew Coller and data scientist for SumerSports Tej Seth dive into what the numbers say about Kevin O'Connell's offense and coaching and then Tej imagines what's going to happen in the future at quarterback. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Pollard here and joining me on the show, data scientist at Sumer Sports and co-host of the Stats and Scheme podcast, where you'll never believe what they do to break down stats and scheme in football. Tej Seth returns to the show. What is going on tage how are you good yeah thanks for having me back you know i know it's the bye week for the vikings but i'm glad that we're still able to get talking here a lot of stuff to talk about today as we're you know discussing pre-show so i'm excited to do it on the show here well what we were talking about before the show is my email inbox which has been more or less a train wreck over the last couple of days since the Vikings lost to the Chicago Bears. Now, mainly, Tasia, I want to ask you about coaching because this is something that has suddenly come up. Funny how two weeks ago when the Vikings were 5-0 without Justin Jefferson

that Kevin O'Connell was being talked about by fans as a potential coach of the year, and after two losses in a row, now some folks want him sent to the moon with Josh Dobbs. That's a rocket reference. How do we evaluate coaches statistically, Tej? Because this is one area that is very tough to measure. We can look back at all sorts of, well, they ranked this way and that way and this stat or that stat. Now with O'Connell, since he's gotten here,

they have more wins than losses by quite a bit and have the eighth highest point total of any team in the league since he took over. I think it's probably a good place to start with O'Connell, but it's far from a perfect way to look at it. How would you evaluate it if I told you, Tej, I'm not going to tell you anything else about this coach. I'm only going to throw you a bunch of spreadsheets your way and you've got to evaluate it. What would you evaluate it if I told you, Tej, I'm not going to tell you anything else about this coach. I'm only going to throw you a bunch of spreadsheets your way

and you got to evaluate it. What would you look at? Yeah, I mean, it is a great question. And I think both me and you, we watched a decent amount of college football. And in college football, it's pretty easy to evaluate a head coach because they control the roster and they control the development of the players and in-game decisions and all that stuff.

In the NFL, it's a little bit more difficult because you don't know how much control a coach has over their roster. There can be Bill Belichick types where they do control a lot of their roster. There can be other head coaches where it's very siloed between GM and head coach. So when you're just looking at a head coach, especially one that specializes in an area of the game like Kevin O'Connell does with offense, I think you can look at some of the things he does to help out his offense in regards to scheming up plays that make it easier for the players to execute. So my main thing I like to look at for this stuff is how often are you using play action as an offensive play caller and how often are you scheming up passes over the middle of the field? All the data shows us that you can't do these plays all the time because defenses would figure it out. But the more often you do these plays,

it's correlated with how well you do on offense. So the Vikings have the fourth most passes over the middle of the field this season, which I think, you know, stayed true going from Kirk Cousins to a little bit of Jaron Holland and eventually to Josh Jobs here. And then they also have the fifth highest rate of play action passes over the middle of the field, which is something that the Shanahan offenses really specialize in. We've seen Mike McDaniel do that a lot with the Dolphins this year. So in that sense, I think Kevin O'Connell is doing well from a play calling aspect of making it easier on his quarterback because they've had many different types of quarterbacks this season. Well, and there are different metrics, too, that look at how often the defense makes a mistake on a given play that I think PFF started working with.

And you guys have carried on some of that stuff at Sumer Sports. And that's really interesting to me because I think that shows you when you're able to dial up route concepts that are causing problems for the defense. And I don't think there's any question that Kevin O'Connell knows how to do that. But what other parts can we quantify here? Like game management is definitely a thing that the fans have really latched onto over the last couple of years. I think because fans understand aggressiveness and going for fourth downs and things like that. And I think with Kevin O'Connell, the big picture is that he's been pretty good at that, but I don't think that any coach has come into the NFL and just decided they're going to break

the game and they're going to go for fourth down all the time. And they're just going to go full Madden mode. Nobody has done that. So do you have a sense for, and I know I'm throwing this at you a little bit on the fly, but just kind of how, how we look at that, like the game management and how much coaches are separating themselves in that way. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's a great thing to bring up as well. And, you know, Brandon Staley did try to go full Madden for a little bit, but obviously had to reel it back. So, you know, when you look situations on average, we could expect a 1.5% increase in win probability of going for it in these specified situations. The Vikings go for it about 50% of the time, which is a little bit above league average in these situations when they should go for it. So I think from that sense, he's doing a fine job in the game management thing. The interesting thing and like something that gets knocked on a lot with these younger type

of offensive minded head coaches like Kyle Shanahan, like Sean McVay in these past couple of years is they have been pretty conservative on fourth downs. And that's always something that's brought up in the sense where you should feel confident in your ability as an offensive play caller and someone who's ahead of the game on that side to go for the ball or to go for it with the ball because you like should have a good play call for that situation. I think Kevin O'Connell seems to have more confidence in himself than McVay and Shanahan do in those situations, which I think has been a good testament to him going for it there. Yeah. And the other night he goes forward on fourth and

seven, which when you look at the punt models, I think it was basically a coin flip for those decisions. Now, something that I've been thinking about with Josh Dobbs and look, they've won two out of the four games with Josh Dobbs, a quarterback, which to me is always what you would expect is the best case scenario for having a backup quarterback. The problem is that they've lost them by one point and two points. And when you have these close games and when you have a backup quarterback, who's making mistakes, then everything is, is highlighted. Everything is blown up every single decision that you make. And O'Connell has kind of reminded me over these two years of Andy Reed, when he did not have Patrick Mahomes me over these two years of Andy Reed when he did not have

Patrick Mahomes. The main conversation about Andy Reed when he did not have Mahomes was this guy can't manage a game. He's always blowing the clock, but objective people would look at it and go like, well, I mean, sometimes, you know, not, but, but nowhere near what the reputation was. And my theory is that Alex Smith kept him in games just enough to reveal that he wasn't perfect when it came to game management. And every time he blew it, then everyone was ready to jump on that. Now, I don't think that O'Connell's reached that level of everyone jumping on him. What I do think is that quarterbacks will make you look worse if they are Josh Dobbs. And that when you're going to play in these close games and you're playing in a defensive battle,

if you want to call it that, or an offensive mess like they were against Chicago, every coin flip decision you make, if it comes up the other side, you probably just lose the game. Like when it came to punting at the end of the game, again, that was one that I looked up. And unsurprisingly, total coin flip.

There was 65% chance to win. If you go for it, 65% chance if you punt it away. But what Kevin O'Connell couldn't anticipate is his punter shanks the punt. And then, you know, Justin Fields suddenly in that moment finds a game-winning drive, which he couldn't find all year long. And so I guess we can look at this upside down sideways, left and right. But I just feel like I'm going to come to the conclusion that Kevin O'Connell has been an A plus hire for this team and should receive criticism when it's due. And there are things to criticize coming out of that Chicago game, but let's not lose our minds

while we're doing it because we have to understand the evaluation just changed when you no longer have a franchise quarterback in there. Exactly. Yeah. I agree with so many things that you said there. And I think the good thing is even if he's not necessarily nailing the timeouts and the clock management, that's not a fixed skill. That is something that can evolve over time. He's still so young, you know, both career wise, second year as a head coach, but also like he would be young enough to play quarterback for the Vikings if they had an emergency, emergency situation. But when you look at like the Vikings as a whole this year, you know, we talk so much about their one score wins last year, 11 and 0 in the regular season to five and six and

one score games this season. And I think so much of that has to do with just like variance in those games going back to coin flips, but also their turnover luck has been really bad this year. And that's not something I would necessarily put on anyone on the coaching staff or necessarily anything on the players specifically. I think it's just a lot of variance and the way that these coins flip sometimes in regards to the Broncos game, you have the couple fumbles, you know, especially at the end of the game that swing the game in the game against the Bears, you have the interceptions throughout the game.

And like, that's not something that we see like stack up week and week, week after week, where you're not just going to be able to count on the Vikings giving away the ball three plus times. Like, as long as that kind of comes back to the mean outcome for them, they should be fine in the long run, which is what I kind of see with that. And that kind of ties back to Kevin O'Connell and his reputation and the way people view him right now. Well, let's talk about that a little bit too, because there's a chart that has been bouncing around out there about the luck metric and how much win probability of total the has been lost due to luck and you know i think when your team fumbles and gives away a game like they did in denver what's very hard as fans as analysts

as reporters is to just be like well what are you gonna do because that's not what we do in football if football was like that then we wouldn't have any fun talking about it because second guessing everyone is like what we do. At the same time, it seems like they should have a couple of more wins just based on that sheer luck metric alone, which last year we spent a lot of time talking about how they had gotten lucky at the end of all of these games. And that variance has swung back the other way.

So my question is how do we evaluate the true strength of this team also factoring in that there's this murky quarterback situation as well yeah i mean yeah it's something really interesting to bring up and the graphic that you were talking about i believe that tom bliss from the nfl puts that out and he has the vikings that like losing two games from luck this year when you add it all up. When I looked at it just on the offensive side of the ball. So this isn't accounting for like the turnovers they get back on the defense, but they've

lost 343% of win probability this year from turnovers, which is, you know, a ton. And that would probably go around to that 200% mark that Tom Bliss found once you count for offense and 116 total expected points lost from turnovers this year, which both of those marks are the most in the league. So again, like the turnover luck has been really bad this year. And I think that's why you can come back to some of their underlying like success rate metrics or just kind of even what you see on the field where they look like this team that is good enough to compete

for that six or seven seed in the NFC. And I think they were more than that with Kirk Cousins. And now with backup quarterback situation in there, they're probably like right on the outside looking at looking in at that situation. So I think that's kind of where the team stands up. You know, NFC is a little bit weaker than the AFC. So maybe you see them as a team that is about like average in regards to the looking at the whole league, but that's kind of how I'm evaluating the Vikings right now. Well, Tej, how should we look at Josh Dobbs is how many games do you need to call it an era and have it be unironic? Or do we just call everything eras like because of Taylor Swift but he's played four games and he comes to Minnesota wins a game in Atlanta that will probably never be repeated

where a guy doesn't know the offense and is thrown into the middle of a game and has his coach explain the offense through the headset and somehow finds a way but one thing that we understood in his first couple of wins was the possibility that he could fall off the face of the earth. However, he really only fell off the face of the earth for one game. And if we go through even Kirk Cousins game log, I can circle a lot of games that were pretty rough. Maybe they weren't four interception games that were total disasters. Though one of the interceptions bounced right off of Jordan Addison's face. So I'm not sure that was entirely, uh, Josh Dobbs' fault, but you know,

if we were using even PFF grades, there have been games. I think Dobbs was graded like a 54 or something. There have been games where Kirk Cousins has been graded a 54. And that's why I wonder as we talk about, should they bench Dobbs jobs they bring in Nick Mullin should they play Jaron Hall if you sort of as Kevin O'Connell and as Vikings fans just have to live with the idea that sometimes he's going to play like he did against the Saints and sometimes he's going to play like he did against Chicago and there's probably not like a situation where he's going to play too many games in between it's either going to be pretty darn good or pretty darn bad. And you have to hope to string together pretty darn good in order to get into the playoffs. Or you're talking about a quarterback in Nick Mullins who hasn't played since 2020

and was not good in 2020. Exactly. I mean, you summed up so many of the things that, you know, I was going to talk about there because it's like Dobbs is a very high variance quarterback. We saw that with the Cardinals. We are seeing that right now with the Vikings. There's some signal in him getting traded twice in the past calendar year. And I think that factors into things, but I think he's done enough to prove that he's right on that border of bottom tier starter to high end backup. And like, I think that's what you're going to have to expect from him, but he's not a backup in a sense where he can come in and he's, you know, not like a Teddy Bridgewater where like, he won't lose you the game, but might not win a game when you're like a five point underdog or something. Like, I think the

good thing that he gives you is he has that super wide range of outcomes where he can beat a team like the Saints or Falcons, where even though they're underdogs in that game, because they had him in, like he can go in and do that. But, you know, he's also going to lose games like the Bears game where, you know, some of it is his fault. Some of it's the outside circumstances, that situation. On the year, he ranks 28th ina per play out of 36 qualifying quarterbacks like i think that's about what you know you're going to get with him and like the only way i would move on from him is if you had this young quarterback that maybe you took in like the third or fourth round that you really wanted to know whether or not that they were going to be like capable of

being an nfl starter kind of like what the the have done with Will Levis here. If you feel like you don't have that type of backup quarterback on your roster, I think you can try to make the playoffs with him, get that back-to-back playoff appearance under your belt for both Kweisi and Kevin O'Connell and feel good about yourselves going into next season. Folks, I hope you've enjoyed listening to us talk about prize picks this year, but if you've missed it here's how it works you go to prizepicks.com and it is simple you pick either more or less between two and six players stat projections and that's it now you're playing so if it's x number of yards for a quarterback you just decide are they going to throw for more or less than that

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of picks. So go to prizepicks.com slash purple, the code purple daily fantasy sports made easy. Well, how screwed are they? Uh, when you're talking about having the 28th quarterback in epa as we look at the playoff race because now i i you and i tweeted together and i used what you gave me in my postgame article about the vikings playoff odds if they lost the game and there was a massive difference between if they had won and if they had lost like that. I think everybody just even inherently felt that gut punch of if you're going to lose this game to the bears, we can't really believe in you. We can't believe in a magic carpet ride, which I completely, completely get. And that was how I walked out of the stadium feeling as well. Like, well, that was fun. Well while it lasted. However, they are not out of the playoff

race and they are getting a gentleman back who plays wide receiver, who last I checked is pretty good at football in Justin Jefferson when they go to play the Raiders. And then they play Cincinnati with Jake Browning or maybe AJ McCarron starting. And then it's the three games in the division, two against the Lions, one against the Green Bay Pack packers how do we figure out what we're even supposed to expect here with all these factors i mean the schedule is manageable to get into the playoffs the other teams that are racing for them not super impressive for the number seven spot but also there's uncertainty at the quarterback position what am i supposed to think of this yeah i. I mean, I think at this point they've, they've won too many games where they can't go like what the Bengals are doing here, where the Bengals are going to just

kind of send the season in, end up with the top 10 pick and get a player that they wouldn't have gotten if Joe Barrow had stayed healthy the whole year. I think that because of the offensive supporting cast and because of how many games the Vikings have already won that they can, they might as well try to try to make this playoff push here. And they even would get to send out a division rival if they make the playoffs, because it's, it looks like it's going to come down to them and the Packers for one of those last spots in the NFC. Packers are playing the Chiefs this week, like you mentioned. And so if the Packers were to lose that game, we would have them drop down to around a 53% chance to make the playoffs. The Vikings currently sit at a 44% chance to make playoffs. So there's not much separation between those two teams and the Vikings will get their

opportunities this season, like you brought up. So I think that when you look at where the Vikings are, like they do have less of a chance to make the playoffs or to miss the playoffs and to make the playoffs but I think that there's still a fair enough shot where you can feel good when you get Justin Jefferson back and you get to see him with Dobbs or whatever other quarterback is starting for the first time since he's been injured and you can start to piece together what the rest of the season will look like for this team how are we supposed to quantify what just the Jefferson can bring in terms of value when he's not playing with Kirk cousins, because Kirk cousins, I mean, fantasy players, I'm sure know this. He is a wide receiver one monster. I mean, just leans his entire career, just leans

super heavy on his top wide receivers, which has played out really well for Justin Jefferson as offensive player of the year last year. It's like they go five and two without Jefferson. And if those games had been ordered differently, we would feel a lot differently probably at this moment, surviving his absence at the same time, like Kevin O'Connell's talking about the quarterback's got to have timing, anticipation, all these things to get Justin Jefferson the ball in the same way. And now we're at chicken and egg type of situation of like, can Justin Jefferson make literally anyone good? Or is Justin Jefferson not going to be able to do what he does because whoever's playing quarterback is not going to be able to get

him the ball? Yeah. I mean, I do think that the uncertainty increases when you have Justin Jefferson with a, you know, not in Kirk Cousins quarterback, which we really haven't seen much of before, but I mean, yeah, your point that you brought up about Kirk Cousins loving to target, target wide receiver ones, I think is like, is something that holds true with him. And I assume that they're going to try to get that same type of impact from Jefferson when he comes back with a back quarterback. But when you look at Jefferson as a whole, and like I have a model that I've been working on that puts wide receiver yards and touchdowns into context agnostic from their quarterback. So not including the quarterback that's throwing to

them. Jefferson is still, he would rank top five and receiving yards, receiving touchdowns when you don't know which quarterback was throwing him just based on opportunity alone. So I think as long as the opportunity is going to be there, he will produce on that opportunity because he has, you know, one of the most impactful wide receivers in the NFL, as you know. Yeah. I mean, this offense is built entirely for Justin Jefferson. Like that that's from training camp from day one. I mean, you even go back. The season ends. Kevin O'Connell gets together with his coaching staff, and they're pulling out whiteboards and putting number 18 there.

That's where it begins, right? And then it's everything else around that, which I think is one of the reasons why with him he gets so frustrated at times when the timing of the offense or something else isn't right because he knows that if you could get the timing of the offense or something else isn't right because he knows that if you could get the ball to the right places to Justin Jefferson, really good things are going to happen. Assess the Green Bay Packers for me.

I have watched a little Green Bay Packers football like on Thanksgiving, but suddenly when I'm looking at the charts that Sumer Sports is putting out, their little green helmet is starting to move toward the good teams. I'm like, wait a minute. And the helmet is starting to move toward the good teams I'm like wait a minute and the offense is starting to move toward the good teams I walked out of Lambeau Field other than being totally shook by what happened with Kirk Cousins and everything else thinking like I don't know this Jordan love thing it probably ain't gonna work uh do they have a situation on their hands where Jordan Love is developing and everyone could start talking about, man, you know, you sit a quarterback for a couple of years.

That's what you should be doing because Jordan Love, or is he Daniel Jonesing where he's just good enough to get his team to believe in him only to soon disappoint? Where do you stand on Jordan Love's recent play? Yeah. I mean, it's still so early on Jordan Love, but I mean, like you mentioned, like that Vikings game. And I think even the game after that, he didn't play that well. And they were still so young on offense. And now you're starting to see all the pieces put together, but like the Packers have done a really good job of basically having a competitive rebuild that, you know, we've talked about with the Vikings before. I think, I think the Packers have done a really good job of basically having a competitive rebuild that, you know, we've talked about with the Vikings before. I think, I think the Packers are kind of going through that right now where Jordan Love is 25 years old.

Christian Watson is 24. Romeo Dobbs, Jaden Reed, Dontavian Wicks, they're all 23 years old. You know, AJ Dillon's 25, their top two tight ends are 23. Like they're just so young on offense right now. And I think that you saw that youth, a big part of the early season struggles that they had on offense, the passing game wasn't doing that well. Aaron Jones and Christian Watson were on and off the injury report. And now you're seeing Christian Watson healthy. You're seeing Jordan Love and Matt LaFleur have a better synergy on offense. And then some of those younger wide receivers are starting to step up. Like I was a little bit surprised the Packers didn't try to bring in a veteran receiver, but obviously they believed in some of the culture that they have. And, you know,

we're still figuring out which receivers are going to be like their, their starting receivers. But I think like between Jaden Reed and Christian Watson and those types of guys, you're starting to feel better about where they are in that sense of players that can make plays for you occasionally, and they just need to become more consistent. So I think the Packers, again, are very similar to the Vikings where they're going to have that 50-50 shot at making the playoffs this year. And I don't think it would be accounted against them like the Vikings that if they don't make the playoffs, because this necessarily wasn't supposed to be their year. It's all about 2024 and getting Jordan Love playing time and reps with the offense. So I very well could see them end up making the playoffs. They got a very tough matchup

this weekend against the Chiefs. But if they do end up making it, I think that this year was very successful for them. And if they don't end up making it, I still think that they have things to feel positive on going into next season. You know, when Mike Zimmer was the head coach, I used to decide how I felt about other teams, quarterbacks based entirely on how they handled Mike Zimmer. And if they could do anything against Zimmer's defenses, I was impressed because those defenses were so good. And then that went away for a while.

And Mike White had a great game against the Vikings. I don't think that matters anymore. Cooper Rush one night beat the Vikings defense as they fell apart. Now I think I'm starting to feel the same way about Brian Flores, where I look at Justin Fields and I see Chicago Bears fans and media celebrating Justin Fields and people are using his game log thing to tweet out his last 17 games. That's what it looks like. I don't know, guys. I don't think so. I think that you're still going with Caleb Williams there, number one in Chicago. But with Jordan Love, I am really interested to see the next time they play each other because he'll have seen Flores' defense once, clearly messed with his head. Also, the

Packers dropped like eight passes in that game, but he but it was, he wasn't good and how he adapts to that. I think we'll show how much he's grown. The Vikings also have two games against the Detroit lions. You are from Detroit and, uh, you have grown up with the pain and sadness of the Detroit lions. And, uh, well, they, uh, they ruined your Thanksgiving, uh, by playing the way that they did the crazy thing about, you know, the Detroit lions with Jared Goff is they did the the crazy thing about you know the detroit lions with jared goff is they can play the best game offensively and look like they are an unstoppable force as if kurt warner and tory holt and isaac bruce and the greatest show on turf just dropped in there or they can look like terrible and and i think it entirely depends on if anyone makes jared goth move in any way left or

right or forward he's used to going backwards so any other direction except for a straight drop back or a bootleg and even the bootlegs he's not that great at so uh what are what are you making of like this team has really uh done well and and they have restored the roar if you will but they still have these problems on defense and i'm not convinced that they have restored the roar, if you will, but they still have these problems on defense and I'm not convinced that they have a good defensive coordinator and they still have the shortcomings of the quarterback. They're like in this world between the real contenders and the teams like the Vikings scrapping to get in. Yeah. I mean, yeah. On the lines, like first off, I don't know what it says about me that Lions lose almost every year on Thanksgiving. It's still like probably my favorite American holiday. I might just love the food that we eat on there. But, you know, specifically going into football about the Lions, like I think that when the Vikings made their defensive coordinator change to Brian Flores, it was in a large part to what the Lions did to them, especially in that second game last year, where Ben Johnson was able to scheme up anything he

wanted because he knew what the Vikings defense was going to be in a lot of the times you think about the Jamison Williams deep shot early in the game. And then what he was able to do with Brock Wright and Amon Ross St. Brown throughout the game. And then even the Penny Sewell trick play kind of at the end to close off the game. Like I think the Vikings had to make their defensive coordinator shift because of that game. And I thought that the Lions had a really good understanding of the Vikings defense last year. This year, that's going to be a lot tougher when you have Brian Flores in there and all the exotic blitz packages that he's going to throw in. Like, I think that it's going to muddy the water for golf a little bit in this game. The Lions will probably lean on the run a lot when these two teams end up playing. They've

been doing that a decent amount this year, especially on first and 10 and second and 10. They really like to get David Montgomery and Jameer Gibbs going. And I see that when they play the Vikings, their offense versus Vikings defense. But on the other side of the ball, I think Aaron Glenn is a fine defensive coordinator for the Lions. I think that the pieces that he's been given haven't necessarily been great. They really don't have a second pass rusher. Their secondary has been so-and-so, so much they're starting an undrafted free agent in Jerry Jacobs, who's been up and down and different things like that. And I think he's tried his best to account for that. He tried the one double against

Justin Jefferson last year and just didn't have the secondary players to cover the other players. And like Adam Thielen had a big day and different stuff like that. So I think he's going to try some unique stuff against the Vikings this season. But the one thing that Aaron Glenn has always struggled against in his time in Detroit has been mobile quarterback. So I do think it's the Vikings' best interest to play someone like Josh Dobbs in this game because Justin Fields did really well against them and a different mobile quarterback. Lamar Jackson had a career day against the lions earlier in the season. Like I think that Dobbs could really make this game close because of his rushing ability, because of the scrambling ability and the lions have a

tendency to not be able to finish off sacks. And I think that's Dobbs' best skill is getting pressured, but not taking sacks. So I think that they match up well on that side of the ball for sure. Yeah. The Aaron Glenn thing, maybe I'm just watching Brian Flores and what he's done with this personnel and thinking, I don't know, I guess everyone should just be able to do this. But Flores has really had a special year considering the group that he has. And we're seeing a lot of young players develop as well. Just feels like every broadcast I watch of the Lions, they show Aaron Glenn. They're like, man, up and coming. Great coach.

Where are the Lions rank in defense? 27th. So like every time. So I don't know. I guess I can't tell if it's personnel or if it's Aaron Glenn. Before we wrap up the Teja, I want to play a little imagination game with you. Okay. So I just want you to imagine with me some scenarios and then give me your reaction. Okay. So imagine with me a scenario where the Vikings, the rest of the

way go two and three and they disappoint, they miss the playoffs. They go into the off season with a very difficult decision to make at the quarterback position. So imagine with me that you are in a quasi Adolfo Menta's office and he's asking you, he's like, Taze, you're one of the best up and coming data scientists in the world of football. There's probably better in the actual world, but at least in football, you're great. What should I, what should I do here? I need your, I need your advice. I need you to tell me, should I bring back Kirk? I mean, it's hard to find a quarterback in the draft and if I've picked the wrong quarterback, I'm going to get fired. So,

so, so what should I do? Imagine, imagine this scenario and what you would tell Kweisi Adafo Mensah today. Yeah. I mean, like you mentioned this, this is going to be one of the more interesting decisions in the entire off season across the league. And I think I flip-flopped on this multiple times, but I do think at this point, I would say that Kirk Cousins should be the starting quarterback for the Vikings next season, as long as there's some contingency plan in place and that could be going out and drafting quarterback in the first round, maybe in Kirk Cousins on a one-year deal. And you, you work that quarterback into the game, like, you know, Patrick Mahomes sat and we just talked about Jordan Love sitting for a couple of years and maybe you go that route or you take a flyer on a quarterback, second, third round. And Kirk Cousins gets like a more of a two-year deal where he's, he's still, you know, because of the guaranteed money, still cuttable after that one year. And if you feel really good about that second or third round quarterback, you roll with them.

But I think that I would put Kirk Cousins back into the Vikings next year because you have to feel so good about their offensive supporting cast around him right now. And then the defense has taken this big leap under Flores. And as long as he doesn't get a head coaching job, you can feel pretty good about that coming back, especially with the draft and adding pieces to it. So that's kind of the plan I see for the Vikings from where they're sitting at right now. This show is being brought to you by BetterHelp. Folks, the holidays are an exciting time for buying gifts and spending time with

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I won't sing the imagination land song, but that on the phone with you is Kirk Cousins' agent. And he's saying, Tej, we got multiple offers here. Should I come back to the Vikings or should I go to the Falcons who are also calling? And I think Kirk Cousins' wife is from Atlanta, so don't quote me on that, but there's some Atlanta connection with Cousins. Is this what he should be aiming for? Should he, for the first time in his life, take a pay cut to stay with the Vikings

if they're going to make that offer, even if there are other teams that might potentially want? Yeah, I mean, pay cut and Kirk Cousins don't go well together. I think, I do think that he will feel the lot of, of, you know, offers like, like you mentioned with Atlanta or maybe some other teams that are looking to do something similar. And so I don't think that it would be in Kirk Cousins' best interest to take a pay cut to remain with the Vikings. I think that when you look at him and, you know, someone at his age, but that still can play at a decently high level, like we saw this

year, there's going to be a market for you. I think that he's a better free agent than Derek Carr was this off season. There was a decent market for Derek Carr. So when you look at Kirk Cousins and his opportunities to make money and to put himself around a good supporting cast on a team that should be competing for the playoffs, there will be opportunities. So I don't necessarily see him personally taking a pay cut to stay with the Vikings. If it was similar offers and just because I've seen that his family likes living in Minnesota, maybe he decides on that. But if it's a $5, $10 million gap in pay like i do think that he would end up leaving the vikings i think so too uh i mean length of the contract is gonna matter last off season it was reported that he wanted a three-year contract and they wouldn't budge

and is he gonna bring that number back based on his achilles that's something we don't know either uh would he say all right i will take your oneyear deal. I will take your one-ish year deal. But the thing is that with Kirk Cousins' agent, you can't just kind of sneak it by him. You can't just be like, oh, it's a two-year deal. But like, no, no. I mean, you know what's happening. The dude's getting all the guaranteed money in the world

because that's what he's always been able to do. I do think that if they view next year as their window to win the Super Bowl, then you do it. Do I actually think that they're there? I don't. I don't. I think they need way more talent on defense. I think this has been the blood out of a stone situation with Brian Flores that he's gotten everything that he could possibly get out of them. But they need, I think, like four more players on defense if they're going to be talking about playing with Philadelphia, playing with Dallas, playing with San Francisco. And that's going to be the standard for, is it, hey,

we want to get back to the playoffs, so we bring back Kirk, which, by the way, has never gotten them past the divisional round in all these years. How old were you, I don't even want to ask in 2018, like think about that's when they signed him and they have not gotten to a, you know, championship weekend and only been in the playoffs two times and not his fault this year, but they were four and four, uh, when he gets hurt. So, I mean, like, what are we talking about here? Just, you know, repeating history. So let's just imagine another question for you i just have

two more uh actually no it's gonna be a nine hour podcast with all imagination scenario no i'm just kidding but um so quacey says to you tage i need i need the numbers go in your lab dial up me some numbers how likely is it that i draft the right quarterback because one of the things i asked a quasi at the first nfl combine when he got hired was how random do you think the draft is and he said pretty random and he said look it's pretty random and uh it how much has that played out in the last two years the 2022 draft is horrendous. The 2023 draft, their first two players are among the top graded rookies. And then they find an undrafted guy. Who's the highest graded rookie linebacker in the league. Like, I don't know. That's how it is. Um, but drafting higher gives

you a better chance to win. Uh, if you're going into that situation of saying draft a quarterback, but you can't have the number one or number two overall quarterback. What are the odds that that ends up working out for them? Yeah. I mean, it, yeah. I mean, you nailed it. Kweisi nailed it when you mentioned how random the draft is because it truly is. I mean, even if you look at like Kirk Cousins in Washington, like they drafted RG three first round that year, they take him in the fourth round, they get five, you know, good level play out RG3, injury happens, and they're still able to get good level play out of Kirk Cousins.

Like that kind of just shows what ends up happening in the draft. And I think that, yeah, you're just making a bunch of calculated risks and stuff when you end up drafting a lot of these players. And when you look outside of the top 10 for these quarterbacks, that's where it starts to dip a little bit below 50% when it comes to the hit rate. And I think like you mentioned, like in this scenario where the Vikings end up finishing two and three, or maybe they lose an extra game or something and they're picking borderline top 10, that's probably what you can expect when you're selecting a quarterback is like

the chance that they get a second contract from us is going to be right below 50%. But that's maybe a chance we want to take because we understand how valuable a starting quarterback is on a rookie contract. So whether that quarterback is Jaden Daniels, who might be around that range, or they trade back and they take someone like Bo Nix or Michael Penix Jr. from Washington, like there'll be opportunities in this draft to take quarterbacks. And I wonder if they even go with the multiple dice roll where they take a quarterback in the first round and then one later on in the fourth or fifth round

and just give yourself two opportunities to fix that position. Yeah, I mean, the way I look at it is if you can get inside the top 10 with a trade and I'd be willing to give up quite a bit considering where they stand and the cap space that you will get eventually from moving on from Kirk cousins, it would be in the second year of the rookie quarterback contract that you're going to end up with this windfall of cap space, just being rid of cousins and his contract. And that can make up the difference for what you have to trade in draft capital. That's the way that I would look at it for trying to move up.

I've already got the plan worked out for Jaden Daniels. And I mean, a guy with that athleticism, I think we've, what we've seen is they can over-perform what they're expected as passers. Like Jalen Hurts has been a really good passer this year. Lamar Jackson has been, I think one of the better versions of himself passing the football this year and has improved over his career because the athleticism is just on a completely different level. And then, you know, the, the playmaking of course goes along with that. And we've seen it even from Dobbs, like the value of that playmaking. All right. Last one. Let's say, imagine this say imagine this uh today when you leave the sumer sports offices you get hit by a bus but it doesn't kill you you're just in a coma and so you're in this

coma until midway through the 2025 season you wake up out of your coma and you being you you say can i see the nfl standings And so I bring you my phone and I pop up the NFL standings and I hand it to you and you look and you go, oh, wow. What are you seeing in the NFC North? Well, I mean, first off, I hope I'm getting some money from this bus hitting me here. Like, I think that'd be a pretty hefty settlement on the bus company's end. But, you know, after, you know, knowing that I have a good deal of money coming my way out, I think I would see the Packers at first, actually. We talked about this on Summersports.

I think that I'd really like what the Packers are doing right now in regards to, you know, how young they are and the capital that they put towards. And they have that extra second round pick this year from the Aaron Rodgers trade. I would see the Lions in second, the Vikings in third. And I still think that the Bears would be in last in the NFC North. I think that the Bears have the widest range of outcomes there, because if they do draft Caleb Williams williams and then also get

like marvin harrison jr or something i mean montez sweat they've added he's terrific i saw that the other night they had dj moore is another guy i mean if someone could throw the ball to dj moore the dude is going to be an absolute monster at some point in his career. He's already a monster with Justin Fields and that's a disaster. That I think has a chance, but also who could ever trust the bears? We say this about lots of teams though. I would have said Texans come on. Right. And then, but look at them.

And the same thing goes for Bengals like, Oh, Bengals, man, there's going to be bad forever. And then they weren't because they got their guy so I could very much see the Chicago Bears being in first place midway through 2025 I could also see the Vikings continuing to build on what they have uh the Packers are a little bit harder I guess I need to be more convinced that Jordan Love is really good like I think their roster building is okay. Like going super young and so forth.

And we always love that, but I just need to believe that Jordan love can be more than like a 500 quarterback. Cause that's what he's played like this year. And he's had his ups. He's has downs as all 500 quarterbacks do. And then, you know,

the lions are a tough one. Cause I, I don't know, like how much are they paying Jared golf in 2025? Are they going to stay with Jared Goff? Is the roster going to be better? Cause they draft well or worse because they don't, or, you know, where's it going? I think that by trying to use your crystal ball and look into the future, it's very hard. I think you can make a case for almost anybody being there at that point. Yeah, no, I agree. I think, yeah, I mean, it's definitely tough to slate like how these teams will look in 2025.

Some of my, you know, some of my reasoning, like I put the Lions, you know, right now they're in first place in the NFC North. I assume that they'll be favorites next year to win the division. You know, not like heavy favorites, but probably around, you know, a decent size favorite to win it next year. But like when you look at the Lions, and I think some of the moves that they've made, taking non-premium positions in the first round and doing the trade-up for Jameson Williams that isn't looking great right now, I think that they're going to end up,

especially if they end up extending Goff this offseason, where they're that team that has the average outcome of finishing second in the NFC North and competing for that wildcard spot because they maybe never took the leap to try to become a true Super Bowl contender by going out and finding a young quarterback on a rookie contract. And yeah, so that was my reason for that. And then the Bears, like you mentioned, even after that Monday night game where their offense didn't look good, I'm just starting to talk myself more into their process on the team building side because they've had so many resources

and they nailed the DJ Moore pickup in that trade with Carolina. Montez Sweat looks like a great player, even though it's taken a top 40 pick and a big contract to get there. Like I think they just needed to add talent and Tremaine Edmonds makes some plays from time to time. But yeah, I mean, it comes down to the quarterback

and if they're able to give him the support that he needs. And I don't know if I fully trust the Bears to go out and find multiple receiving options to maybe help that or to really shore up the interior of their offensive line. And that's why I don't know if they'll be able to foster growth around Caleb Williams like maybe the Texans were able to this year well uh nobody should reject arguments based on the past dictating the future more than

someone who's watched the Detroit Lions forever right like they they are in first place despite all the Lionsy things although uh there's still enough time for that to change so uh we'll see I think I would probably bet on the bears just because tanking has the highest ceiling, but it could also go completely sideways if they don't draft Caleb Williams and talk themselves into fields, or if they draft Caleb Williams and he's not good because that does happen sometimes. So a lot, lots of different ways it could play out. And look, if the Vikings draft the right quarterback by 2025, he'll be developed in midway through his contract with Addison

and Hawkinson and Jefferson and Derrissaw. And it's going to be a pretty good situation there to be in. So a lot of the future just entirely dictated on that position. Anyway, well, I'm sorry I had to have you get hit by a bus, but you needed to also relate to how Vikings fans felt after that game on Monday Night Football. So, Tej Seth, Tej, T-E-J-F-B analytics is your Twitter, but also people could just type in your name. It'll pop up. And the Stats and Scheme podcast, Sumer Sports, great stuff that you guys are putting out with Thomas Dimitrov, Eric Eager at the helm there, our friends. So great stuff.

Great to get back with you and really appreciate you bringing the data-driven perspective on the Viking situation, man. Thanks. Yeah, of course. I mean, it was great to come on and you've always been so good to me with, you know, interviewing me for the book you wrote on PFF and donating some of those books to a club I used to be part of at the University of Michigan, the Michigan Football and League Society.

So I really appreciate everything you've done for everyone here. And it's always great to talk on your show. Is that my self-promotion music? Yeah. If you're looking for a Christmas present or whatever holiday you celebrate, football is a numbers game. I did profile, Tej, your story of an up-and-coming data scientist in the football world. Maybe that's not the most compelling tease, though. Also, talk to Chris Collinsworth there.

Buy the book that's so interesting is so many people from different backgrounds having a chance in football when they never would have had before. And I actually made fun of how skinny you are in the book as well. So that's a reason to buy it. All right. Okay. No more self-promotion.

Thanks, Tej. And we'll catch y'all later.