Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Emergency podcast: Aaron Rodgers is FINALLY traded to the Jets

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

Matthew Coller reacts to the Packers finally trading Aaron Rodgers and the end of an era and answers Vikings draft questions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. Hold on just one second. You got to tweet out the link for everybody to join on Twitter that wants to check in and talk about the biggest news of the day, which is Aaron Rodgers is no longer a Green Bay Packer. You know, I always thought that we would get here, but I got to tell you, it being finalized is really something. I mean, think about how long Minnesota Vikings fans have been tortured by this man. I mean, so you get done with the Brett Favre era and you think,

okay, well, this next guy, there's no way that he's as good as Brett Favre, right? And so he starts out his career first year. It's kind of up and down, maybe shows a little potential, and then it takes off and becomes a Hall of Fame career. And there's no way to downplay it for Vikings fans, how good Aaron Rodgers was. I mean, of course, Vikings fans cannot say he only got one Super Bowl because they have no Super Bowls. You know, year after year, winning the division, beating the Vikings in big games,

putting up a quarterback rating against the Vikings in his career that would win someone the MVP in general. I looked this up a few weeks ago that he has something like 112 quarterback rating in his career against the Vikings, which was higher than the NFL MVP last year. I mean, it is mind blowing how many of these battles that the Minnesota Vikings and Aaron Rodgers went through. And I know that I have said that somewhere deep dark inside you Minnesota Vikings fans that you will miss the battles but I don't think that you'll miss the all-time great throws even last year when it was just maybe an Aaron Rodgers that wasn't as good as he used to be in his past the fake out of Brian Asamoah the running for a touchdown I mean it's just you know even when he was not at the best of the best, he was still an incredible quarterback that tortured this team. Although, you know,

the one thing that you would miss is beating him because of course the Vikings did not beat him all the time, but they beat him quite a bit. And especially during the Mike Zimmer era, those battles were really fun they were I mean Zimmer's defenses at the top of the league versus Aaron Rodgers and there were some big victories that the Vikings got 2015 going down to Lambeau Field winning to win the division going to the playoffs of the home playoff game I mean you got to admit it was a little sweeter when it was Aaron Rodgers but I know you won't miss him. So here's what I would love to know from the comment section is, are you concerned

that this legacy of great quarterback play will carry on with Jordan Love? Like give me a one out of 10. How worried are you? Because look, one thing that I know, and I did not grow up in Minnesota, I understand, but I came from a place that was very much like this in Buffalo, that karma is one of those things that Minnesota sports fans believe in. And they always believe that it's the bad side of karma that is going to go their way. So wouldn't it be just the irony of all ironies if you finally rid yourselves of Aaron Rodgers in this division where he has completely towered over this division for all these years and Brett Favre, of course, did before that,

that Jordan Love will do the same thing. So the early numbers coming in here, a two from Ken. He's not worried at all about Jordan Love. I don't know, Ken. Not at all. You're not at all concerned after all this that they may have picked another good quarterback. Todd is 10 out of 10. And Kyle is a seven or eight in part because Jordan Love did look good in the one time

that he played. Andre is at a two. I am shocked that some of you are coming in with enough confidence to say a two. I mean, come on. We don't even have any real sample size of Jordan Love playing. Ben, you bring up a good point here that,

whoops, I clicked the wrong one. There we go. That they begged rogers to come back but ben we're talking about aaron rogers here i mean he had won two straight mvps of course they begged him to come back he was playing the best football of anyone in the universe for two straight years uh him and patrick mahomes right so i don't know if you could say that they begged him to come back have it have anything to do with jordan love i'm pretty sure that had to do with him winning 13 games and being the mvp

of the league uh that's probably why they were asking him to come back now i think that this is my answer right here from nathan says a five we don't know what he's going to be. And the one big maybe thing for me would be, okay, so I couldn't tell you either. Because whatever he did in college does not matter. It does not matter. He's been in the NFL this long, and they are confident now enough to go with Jordan Love. So that kind of, you know, Ben, I'm kind of turning your logic against you a little bit here. Like they were confident of this year to be completely done with Aaron Rodgers and move on to Jordan Love based on, I would assume what they saw from last year, or maybe they thought that Aaron Rodgers

was going to retire if he played for them and he wanted to go somewhere else. I don't know for sure. No one really knows what Aaron Rodgers is ever thinking I think that's become very clear over the last couple of years but you know they are confident enough to turn the entire franchise over to Jordan Love based on what they've seen from him in his development but we can't really go back and say well this is what he looked at was at Utah State this is what he looked like in college and he had this stat or that stat or this analyst liked him or that analyst didn't like him. None of that makes any difference. He's been in the NFL for several years now developing with the Green Bay Packers and

has gotten into some games, played some preseason action, and they have enough belief to go forward with him. That certainly doesn't mean that he's going to be a star, but I would put it at five because I think that one of the things they are going to miss out on is the rookie quarterback contract advantage. Maybe you guys have heard of it since we bring it up all the time. But if Jordan Love had come in this year as a rookie and was going to start next year, then they would be getting the big advantage that you would be worried about because the bar for how good he would have to be is not

that high, right? He could be just a decent player and still, you know, end up with a great team around him. But as it stands right now, I mean, if he plays really well this year, then you're talking about a contract extension already. Now, we did see from Jalen Hurts, though, that if you set up your contract extension as a young player in the right way, that you can stretch out that advantage longer. And that can happen if you sign a deal that has whatever, 150 million guaranteed, but 250 million total, you can fiddle with the numbers a little bit better than say the fully guaranteed contract, which remains the issue with Lamar Jackson and whoever he wants to

sign with and not getting any potential contracts from anybody else. It tends to be because that lacks flexibility. When you give a fully guaranteed contract, it is really hard to work around that thing without getting yourself in a lot of trouble. So the Packers could reasonably stretch this thing out for maybe like three years of him being fairly cheap. Now their roster right now is, I would just say pretty meh. I don't think that it's a great roster. They need receivers. They need offensive tackles to put around Jordan Love. They have a lot of talent on defense, Jair Alexander, Kenny Clark. I mean, some of the old characters that have been there for quite some time, Rashawn Gary. So they do have a very good

overall talented defense, but is it good enough to be a defense that takes them to the top of the division? Probably not, but it's anybody's real guess about what Jordan Love is going to be. One thing we know is that the guy has a big arm and he's a fairly good athlete, but he's not like a running, running quarterback. So he's not what Justin Fields has done he's not what we expect Anthony Richardson to be but he has some mobility and he's got a really big arm and he hasn't played any actual football it's going to be a real test case though I think because there has long been this discussion about sitting quarterbacks for a year. Mahomes did it. Rodgers did it. But we actually don't have a whole lot of examples of that happening because most teams that draft a

quarterback, and I know Chicago had said that they would have preferred to do that with Justin Fields and then got a couple of games in. Andy Dalton was hurt and then they wanted to go forward, whether it was ownership or the GM or whoever, they wanted to go forward, whether it was ownership or the GM or whoever, they wanted to go forward and continue to play Justin Fields to develop them on the fly. But I do wonder about how much development happens if you play versus is it a better idea to sit somebody for a couple of years? So, you know, I mean, I do think that with Jordan Love, it will be one of those rare examples that we get to see, like, is this a better idea? And that does pertain in some ways to the Vikings and whether they want

to draft a quarterback and rest one. Not that they're going to learn anything from this, but I think everybody knows that that's something you'd like to do, but how many teams get a chance to do it? And Green Bay has had an advantage. So I guess this would lead me toward, there is an advantage for Jordan Love that even though he's inexperienced, he's not coming in as a complete rookie. I mean, he's been their quarterback in OTAs and in mini camp and in preseason and all those things because Aaron Rodgers wasn't showing up or participating in those things. So he was getting some opportunities to develop. But as far as whether he becomes a good quarterback or not, we really don't know. And, you know, Nathan brings up a point here where they are truly not locked into him, which is another part of this example as we go through it with Aaron Rodgers

leaving the Green Bay Packers for the New York Jets, and we could talk about how much they got for him and whether it was a favorable deal for the Green Bay Packers to rebuild. But I think Nathan brings this up, that if he doesn't play well, they can just replace him in the following season. And if you're talking about, is it a good situation for the Packers? If he doesn't play well, they probably lose a lot of games, which could set them up to draft someone else. Because it is hard because they're forced into a decision where you have to make it

based on one season, but they should know by the end of the year, like, was it good enough? Is this guy someone you want to have as your longtime quarterback we make this argument actually all the time for trading for trey lance that if you trade for him and it doesn't work out that means you're going to draft high and the packers do have that advantage so as you continue in the comments to leave how worried are you that jordan love is going to be good um i think we're good this is part of the range of outcomes that we have to discuss, that even if Jordan Love isn't good, it could end up working out for them. But if he ends up with what's the most likely for him, which is probably being a middling quarterback, then that could leave the Packers in a very different spot than they have been for a long time. And I do agree

with you, Kyle, that experience is best for quarterbacks and mental reps only go so far. But when you're talking about practice every single day, preseason games, the occasional very rare, but the occasional getting into actual games and developing to be fully ready. I think that it's better to do those things and then get your chance when you're ready to handle the NFL than it is to be thrown to the wolves and have no chance and just get eaten alive right away. And that's it. And then your career falls apart. Now that's not to say that I think, you know, Sam Darnold or Zach Wilson or Justin Fields at the moment, or any of the busts would be different.

I don't know that that's impossible to know, but I do think if they could do it again, they would all the ones that didn't work out, want more experience because they were so far in over their heads right away. So it is an advantage for Jordan love. I think it sets him up to potentially succeed right away and he has some physical tools. So you can't really put it at

a one or a two. If you're a Vikings fan of how concerned you are that Jordan Love becomes the next good Packers or great Packers quarterback, because he has a first round draft pick for a reason, because he does have the arm that he has and that he has developed. But at the same time, there's almost no way, right mean the the vikings have never had since fran tarkinson a quarterback of that level the packers have had nothing but that for 30 years uh it would be it would just defy every i mean think about the jets they're trading for aaron rogers because they have failed every draft pick and And here's the Packers. The Colts fall into this category as well. And yeah, I guess that's the best case scenario for Vikings fans.

If the Packers now become the Indianapolis Colts, where they just kind of hunt for quarterbacks. And maybe some years they have a good roster and they're a competitive team. And other years they don't. And that's 90% of the teams in the league. There's only a couple teams that have an Aaron Rogers and that's Joe Burrow, you know, Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, that's about it. And everybody else goes kind of up and down rides the wave and the Packers all of a sudden become mortal. What I have found very interesting is that Packers fans were ready for

this to be over. And that's going to kind of stay with me for a while, I think, is if this goes sideways with Jordan Love, or even if they just have to live in the rest of the people's world who love the NFL. I mean, again, 90% of NFL fans are cheering for some team that does not have Aaron Rodgers at any point in history. And I see a lot of Packers fans and content creators and so forth who are celebrating the end of Aaron Rodgers. And look, I get that it was the best choice to make. The roster wasn't there for him to win a Super Bowl next year. His play is not

at the level that it was for him to win a Super Bowl. Again, that window closed, I think, when the 49ers blocked the punt in the snow in the playoffs. But at the same time, it feels pretty weird to be celebrating the end of Aaron Rodgers and going on to whatever is behind door number two when, you know, I mean, you really don't know what that's going to be like. So a fascinating thing to see this come to an end. And now I think for the Vikings, you kind of look at yourself and go, how did we time this out right? You know, I mean, they have to think about this as well.

And I know that Kweisi Adafo-Menz has been asked about it in the past of like how much does it matter what's going on in the division and last year was the year to strike the division was terrible uh the you know the lions were an average team overall to all together horrible in the first half great in the second half but overall an average team the packers were an average team the chicago bears are you know had the number one draft pick and traded it away so they were and a half, but overall an average team. The Packers were an average team. The Chicago Bears had the number one draft pick and traded it away. So they were absolutely horrendous. So, you know, I mean, it was a very easy year in the division for the Vikings last year when they

kind of pushed the chips into the middle of the table to try to win by bringing back players like Patrick Peterson and signing Zedarius Smith. But now you're kind of looking around going, okay, well, the Packers are unlikely to be as dangerous unless Jordan Love is a superstar, but unlikely, I think is fair to say that they're going to be as dangerous as they were with Rogers. So now you have Chicago that's on the rise, but I'm not convinced they're ready to really compete this year. What do we think? Maybe like six wins, seven. I mean, I could see four. I don't think Chicago still has a great team and Detroit does have a great team and they could

win, you know, anywhere between 10 and 12, unless the roster gets completely shut down by some gambling scandal or something like that so if you're the vikings this is very interesting uh that cj that's funny all hail our new lions overlords yeah i know right well things change fast but if you're the vikings do you feel like if you had started the process of competitive rebuild and so forth earlier that you would be peaking now where the Lions are when the Packers are finally fading? Or do you feel like you've timed it out well that the Lions are getting this little window and your window is going to come in later. I mean, it's the whole thing always just fascinates me with the timelines of NFL teams and how it gets timed out to try to be successful in certain windows. And, you know, I think, you know, for the Vikings, of course, if Jordan Love doesn't turn out to be great,

the Packers could end up in quarterback purgatory and just float around with, you know, backups or draft picks that don't work out or whatever. I mean, that's exactly what's happened with Indianapolis, where they brought in Phillip Rivers and that kind of worked, but then he retired. And then it was on to the next guy, Carson Wentz, and now on to a draft pick. And they're realizing that Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck are not always there, right? And I wonder if that will happen to the Packers. But these other teams got the head start.

That's my point is if you were the Lions, you timed it out with Aaron Rodgers leaving the division with your team on the upswing and ready to peak. And the same thing kind of goes for the Chicago Bears, where the Vikings still remain at this moment in the same place that we've seen them for a long time. That could absolutely change as we go forward. If the Vikings draft a quarterback, then their timeline would change. But at this moment, it still feels like kind of

sitting there in the middle. From BRoth03, do you think Rodgers leaving could force the Vikings to continue to try to win now versus build for the future like they probably should? Yeah. And well, the thing is that, I mean, we've kind of known that this was going to be over for a while and it doesn't seem to have influenced how they've acted, but there's so many different ways this could go. That's why it's hard to figure out. Him officially being gone out of the division could make them say, look, we can win this division this year. Why would we let go Daniel Hunter? Why would we let go Delvin Cook, who

there's a lot of more rumors coming out today, which I wanted to get to, or why would we let go Zedaria Smith? And they could try to do everything they can to keep those guys, to run it all back, to try to win the division, knowing that Rodgers is not there to bounce back from last year, which usually when he has a down year, he comes back the next season kind of with a vengeance. So yeah, I mean, I do think that it could influence them to do that. But at the same time, I think you could also make an argument that you are behind where Chicago and Detroit are

in trying to build these kind of juggernaut teams with high draft picks and with cap space to sign free agents and so forth. And maybe you need to try to catch up because they are surpassing you in that race to take over the throne that has been there for so long of the Green Bay Packers. So I guess that there's two arguments for it. The other argument is also the Vikings just might not have any other choice.

I mean, what we saw with Eric Hendricks and Adam Thielen is eventually these players do get old and they do get expensive and you just have to let them go one way or the other. Like you don't really have a choice there. Um, but they have not done a lot of rebuild things this off season. I mean, if we're kind of making a list of what did they do that was rebuilding? What did they do that was competitive? Uh, you could put, um, Byron Murphy and Marcus Davenport and Josh Oliver all into both categories. They're somewhat rebuildy because you can sign those players to long-term contracts if you like them. They're kind of like good swings at players who have potential, but maybe haven't maximized

it yet, but also have experience and you can kind of project them. So there is that that's like kind of in both buckets., letting Adam Thielen go without the June 1st designation, I thought was a little more on the rebuild the side, letting him go in general and not, you know, extending him. Of course, not extending Kirk Cousins was on the rebuild side, but only if they draft the quarterback or have plans to draft quarterback next year. So it's, they haven't really done like anything crazy win now, but they did add void years to certain contracts, including Byron Murphy. I mean, Dean Lowry, is that enough to call it a win now move? I don't know if it's significant enough to

call it that. But, you know, having to move so much money around into the future is more win now ish. And I saw Andrew Brandt, the former Packers cap guy, tweet this out that you can move any amount of money into the future that you want and make anything work if you want. If you think that you have six months essentially is kind of the way you put it. If you don't think anywhere beyond six months. So there were things that they did this year with the salary cap that I thought, is that really a long-term type of play or is that a short-term? So I've been very much wavering on this, but I do think that Rodgers leaving could kind of influence them in both ways. I guess you could make an argument either way, but I think if they start to make moves where

they're looking to acquire players, and I have list i wanted to read um of players that greg rosenthal of nfl.com put out there that could be on the trade block if they start looking to trade for players on draft day then well all of a sudden we're talking about wow okay i guess they're all in because rogers left um but i haven't really seen enough evidence either way. It's a great question. I think that's a fundamental question of the offseason. From Ken here, what are each team's timelines in the NFC? Yeah, I mean, I think that the Lions are all in. They are win the division, compete for the Super Bowl. And at this moment, who am I to say that they can't?

You look around the NFC, you got, you know, your San Francisco quarterback situation is a little unclear and Philadelphia. And then a lot of questions. I mean, Dallas should be a very good team again. And right. I mean, if you're them, you've got to be thinking New Orleans will be competitive with Derek Carr. Are they a real Super Bowl contender?

Probably not, but they will be good, I think. Atlanta with Desmond Ritter, unless they get Lamar Jackson or trade for Kirk Cousins or something, they're not, in my mind, a real contender. The New York Giants are probably not a real contender either for next year. So if you're the Detroit Lions, you're like, yo, door is open and it is swung wide open for here's Detroit, everybody. We've been stagnant since 1991, but we are back. So, yeah, I mean, I think that the Lions are in win now mode. The Chicago Bears, and I'm going to have a podcast coming out tomorrow with Courtney Cronin about this.

They're really looking at two years from now. And the Packers have to be looking at this entire season being about finding out what their timeline is, because if Jordan Love is very good for them, then their timeline is win now. And it's win now as long as they can keep Jordan Love being cheap, which will be a couple of years if they sign him to an extension. For the Vikings, this is much harder to figure out the way that it looks though, is that that timeline for the next quarterback and for how they build up their team

really becomes either about 2024 or about 2025. So next year, I think they're a competitive team. I will likely pick them to win 10 games or nine games this year when that schedule comes out. And I think that's very realistic, making the playoffs very realistic for this Vikings team. So they're going to want that. But then after that, it's, you have to transition into a new quarterback because that's how you've set up your off season to be. And whether that new quarterback can step right in, Is it a rookie who needs a year to develop and it's 2025 where they're great? Or is it the Jimmy Garoppolo type situation

or Rodgers, I mean, honestly, where this good quarterback becomes available and wants to come here and you just stay in that win now mode? Or are you trying to set yourself up to draft for next year by trading for next year's draft capital? All these things are on the table and that's what makes this situation so interesting and so hard to tell you exactly what the timeline is. I think that we begin to find that out this

week. If they draft Hendon Hooker or they trade up and draft CJ Stroud, whatever, I don't know, then, you know, clearly the timeline begins 2024 to try to build around a rookie quarterback. And this year is about essentially one last hurrah for Kirk Cousins and then we'll see going forward. But we know the plan. If they don't draft a quarterback, then we still don't know the plan. From Matthew here, do you think that the length of Kevin O'Connell and Quasey's contracts affects when they would consider their time horizons for picking a quarterback? Probably want to show improvement by year three. So this is a really

interesting subject because after winning 13 games last year and after uh having you know such a good season and being able to rework the culture of the locker room become a destination place i mean that is a real thing that buys you time right i mean if the owner and think about if you're if you own the team they think about this one and they did a study of all the owner and think about if you're if you own the team, think about this one. And they did a study of all the players or all your if you owned anything, if you owned a whatever, a pizza shop. And they took all of the employees of all the pizza shops. And it came back that your pizza shop was the best to work for. You'd be beaming. You would love the management right so i think that that nflpa study

how happy the players are how good the environment and culture is winning 13 games even with the disappointment of the playoff game they have got to be in very high standing with ownership right now so i don't think that at this moment, their contracts are part of the discussion. I know that they're shorter and that was significant, but I think at this moment, and I'm only saying this right now, because things could change. You win four games next year.

Maybe the studies change, right? The players aren't as happy or whatever. Things will go wrong. But at this moment, I don't think that can be a major consideration. Like, I don't think that you go into this draft and say, you know what, we really got to pick one right now. So that guy's ready to go by 2025 because our contracts are going to be up. I think they could say, let's all make sure we're on the right page

and that we're all buying into this quarterback. So because, you know, one thing is if you panic and then pick the wrong quarterback and look, it's random, it's all random. I saw Sam Monson tweet out a poll from years ago that had most people saying clearly Ryan Leaf would be better than than Peyton Manning. It's all it's a lot of it's random. But think about it this way. What's not random is the discussion that goes on inside the building.

So if everybody's on the same page with a quarterback prospect and it goes sideways, it's very hard to look around and say, oh, actually it's your fault or no, it's your fault. I mean, think about the Spielman Zimmer is that on Spielman's side

and the ownership side, they decided Kirk Cousins was the guy. That was not a Mike Zimmer decision. And Mike Zimmer always seemed to resent the fact that they made that decision to get Kirk Cousins and use all of the cap space that should have gone to his defense. He always seemed to feel that way. And the minute things went wrong, it became the blame game. And that's what happens if you're not on the same page. So they have to make sure that they are strongly considering that when they are discussing when to draft a quarterback, if they're going to, is let's make sure it's everyone feels

like it's the right time and the right decision. But it is true, though. I bring up all this stuff about the work environment, everything else that if they were to draft the wrong quarterback, you're probably getting fired. I mean, that's just the reality is if you draw, I mean, you draft the wrong guy, you draft the next Christian Ponder, no matter how long your contract is, you're getting fired. So I think it's important to just make the decision when they feel like it's the right player and the right decision, and then go from there. Because no matter what happens, if it doesn't work out,

you're not going to have a job. And if it does work out, you could go to the Hall of Fame as a head coach. That's just how this league works um sometimes fortunately and unfortunately uh jason says the lions will win the division with 11 wins the bears with nine vikings seven packers with four wins see this is uh it's going to be one of the hardest divisions to predict because we don't know what the packers are going to be. Now, I have a tough time looking at their roster and saying, oh, okay, yeah, the Packers could win 12 if Jordan Love is good. No, I think if Jordan Love is good, then they're more like a 10-win team or a 9-win team

because they just have a lot of weaknesses. That could all change. There could be more trades to come. They could draft the next great player with the now 13th overall pick because for some reason they needed to swap 15 and 13 this must be a draft chart issue when it came to the value value for them wanting to move up um two spots but i mean okay or they have someone targeted that they want that they think is going to go before that. I mean, I really don't know, but it's hard to say that the Packers have a chance to be anything more than about a 10 win team in their best case scenario, but in their worst case

scenario, Jason, you could be exactly right. Of course they could win four games. I mean, if this doesn't work out and Jordan Love has no idea what he's doing out there and they spent all this time developing him and hyping him up as the next quarterback and he's just not good, which we've seen many times, then yeah, they're a four win team. The problem with them being a four win team is that next year they get to draft Caleb Williams or Drake may, if they are really, really bad and finish the way that you think they will. I don't know that the bears are going to finish second in the division. I thought if I was doing it right now, I would probably swap those two. I would probably have the Vikings winning nine and the bears winning seven. And of course, one of those wins is at soldier field

because it has to be how lucky were the Vikings to play the bears at soldier field at the end of last season. So they couldn't have, so the bears were tanking and they couldn't have anything tragic happen. All right. This one from a CJ here, Kwesi Adafo Mensah and Kevin O'Connell are mirroring us foreign policy and a strategic ambiguity. Well, I don't know much about us foreign policy, but I'll take your word for it there. Can work in the long game. Just make sure that you're actually playing the long game. Yes. And I know you're just joking around, CJ.

But yeah, I mean, that's that's the thing, right, is what we have seen from the Vikings so far has not been playing the long game in a really, really long time. You have to go back till, is it 2014? When the Vikings were actually thinking about the future? When they draft Teddy Bridgewater, when they take Anthony Barr with the top 10 draft pick. I mean, you really have to go back in time a long way because everything else has been win now mode. I think

the ultimate win now move was trading for Sam Bradford. And then the other ultimate win now move is signing Kirk Cousins, but everything in that entire run after 2015, they win the division, everything from then till present the entire time for me covering this team starting in 2016 was just you're going into the season where if you're anything less than an NFC championship appearance it's a disappointment and they did it once in 2017 and then it's been a lot of seasons that have just not been good enough throughout that time and I do think that, you know, ambiguity, I agree, can be good. You could call it flexibility is really what you want. And I think that that is good. I mean, I think that having a lot of options on the table for them is a good thing at this moment where if you don't

like Hendon Hooker or whoever else, if it's Will Levis, I don't know, Peter King's out here mocking Anthony Richardson to the Vikings, just like left field, he comes in with a haymaker mock at the end or whoever else if it's will levis i don't know peter king's out here mocking anthony richardson to the vikings just like left field he comes in with a haymaker mock at the end right before the draft but if uh your entire group is not in on somebody this year the strategic flexibility maybe quacey can borrow that from us cj uh that's good that's good to have a plan a b c and d so all right we don't like any of the available quarterbacks here we're not going to go crazy and pick one on to next year's options and hey you know i haven't really looked at this and if anyone has any nominations give them to me but

every year there are quarterbacks who become unhappy or untenable with their contracts or whatever that become available. And maybe next year there's one of them. It does make it a little harder that Kirk has that $28 million dead cap hit, but maybe you can work around that with the contract in some way. So you have random veteran that just seems to come up every year. Stafford got traded, Brady changed locations, Rogers changed locations, Russell locations Russell Wilson we so we have that then you have the 2024 draft and you could potentially trade up if your team was good like there that options on the table I mean I guess I have to contractually mention because

it's possible of Kirk signing an extension at that point I don't think that's likely but that still is possible. So you leave all of those things on the table for this strategic flexibility you're talking about. I don't think that's bad because you're not forced into a corner. And I do buy into, to some extent, the old saying that the worst time to pick a quarterback is when you need one. Now, of course, there are certainly exceptions to that rule. If you're the Cincinnati Bengals, it was a pretty good time to pick Joe Burrow, but a lot of other teams have picked quarterbacks before they necessarily had to. And that's put them in good shape. So, you know, the Vikings might have to

be in that position next year in 2024, and then it gets a little harder. So, you know, the Vikings might have to be in that position next year in 2024, and then it gets a little harder. So, you know, they have lots of different directions and paths that they could follow. And I don't think that that is a bad thing for them. It's just very unclear and hard to figure out for us and how that times out with Aaron Rodgers leaving the division and potentially the Packers no longer being a powerhouse. And all of a sudden it feels like the Wild west. I mean, everything is open now. The NFC North was closed for so long, except for that random pop-up season. And now anybody can win it any year. So are you going

to be kind of ready for that with the complete roster? Because right now I don't look at this team as being ready to really compete for a Super Bowl. So how are you going to get there? And all of that ties back into the quarterback position. From Kaysen here, if Jordan Love turns out to be a top quarterback, would that be a clear indicator that quarterbacks need to sit for a year or two? Yeah. I mean, I don't think that anything is a perfect rule. I think Paxton Lynch sat for a while and was just bad. So I, you know, nothing is perfect. Nothing is a hundred percent, but if Jordan Love, I mean, think about like his first start and I think his only start against

Kansas City and how horrendous he looks, look totally in over his head, totally lost. And then the next time we saw him was filling in that game where Rodgers got hurt, and he looked completely comfortable. And when he played in the preseason, he looked really comfortable. It is the hardest position in the world. And really, I kind of grew up in an era where a lot of quarterbacks were developed as backups, many of them actually behind Brett Favre. I mean, Matt Hasselbeck, Mark Brunel, Kurt Warner. There were a lot of guys who did develop over the years and then eventually got their chance and turned out to be good. We've just become a much more impatient world because you have to

draft someone, throw them in, they win on the rookie contract, and it's kind of like sink or swim right off the bat. And there isn't a lot of patience. That number three quarterback thing, it does help that practice squads almost always have a quarterback, but there's not a lot of patience for developing these guys over years most of the time. So I do think that if Jordan Love succeeds, maybe some teams will look themselves in the mirror, but there's also just not a lot of time for that. I mean, if you're like the New York Jets, for example, you know, Zach Wilson kind of starts, gets hurt, and then you, you know, you have to kind of just hope that he's good and

throw him into the fire. I mean, maybe Zach Wilson was a guy that really needed a year to sit, but that's very hard to do when you draft a quarterback really high. There's so much pressure from the ownership, from the fans, from everybody else, that everybody in the organization, I mean, think about if you were the Jets and you were just playing Joe Flacco and losing every week, like everyone's going to say, Hey, it's time to just play Zach Wilson. You can only really do that. Uh, when you have an Aaron Rogers, I mean, that's the only time you can really do that is just if you, if you have someone who's so great, or if it's an Alex Smith, or if it's a Kirk cousins, someone who's really good and established, and they are going to take a competitive team somewhere in that year and then leave. That's the only way you can really do it. And that's what the Packers thought they were going

to have happen. And we'll see if it works out actually in their favor or not. From Travis, I'm surprised that we haven't gotten there yet. We're 40 minutes into this conversation. And Travis says, history tells us Aaron Rodgers for us next year. And you know, of course, for a long time, I've wanted to say, okay, let's not be ridiculous. Let's not ever bring this thing up, but you never know. You never know. You never know. I mean, it's followed so closely the Brett Favre career for him to go to New York that I just, you know, I don't ever want to count anything out with this team. I mean, that's always the number one rule is because you guys, and I love that you guys do this, always come up with a lot of crazy stuff, a lot of wild scenarios. Could this happen? Could that happen?

And you almost never hear me just say flat. No flat. Absolutely not. Never, never going to happen because it's the Minnesota Vikings. And that's why. And you would have never dreamed that a million years, Brett Favre would have come here to Minnesota after all those years with the Packers to try to get revenge on his old team, but it happened. And you know, who else is a vengeful guy? Aaron Rogers is a very vengeful guy as we've noticed. So yeah, I don't want to count it out. I don't think it's going to happen. I think if I had to guess, and let's try to play this out a little bit in our scenario. I mean, plus, I mean, think about this too. I guess they could trade Kirk. But if he's got that $28 million dead cap hit, I don't

know how you would actually fit Aaron Rodgers. I mean, even talking about the scenario seems a little kind of goofy, but I don't know how you could make that actually work to have Aaron Rodgers, but he did love Justin Jefferson. So, you know, but I do think about Rodgers in New York that he does have a lot of advantages there and a similar system that they want to run with the Shanahan kind of stuff, play actions underneath stuff, bootlegs that he's been doing for the last couple of years. And their setup is very good. Brees Hall's coming back.

He looked really good. We saw Garrett Wilson dominate the Vikings. Not that everybody didn't, but I was very impressed with what I saw from Garrett Wilson. And so they've got a good group for him to work with. I think an offensive line that is capable and he could win a lot of games. They have a good defense that I think will run back and still be good. I would still pick Buffalo to win that division. But I mean, that could be like a 12 wins and 11 wins type of thing.

So I think what ends up happening is that Aaron Rodgers probably stays in New York for a couple of years before his retirement. But the guy is so unpredictable. Who knows what's going to happen there? He could could end up in purple. I don't know. Who knows? From Nathan, I think of the Vikings draft the quarterback early this year.

Next thing we'll be talking about for the next month will be a post June 1st trade for Kirk. That is unless it's Hendon hooker. Yes. And I don't like the idea. And I know this would be, this would be tough for Vikings fans. If they draft, let's just say crazy scenario. No one ever sees it coming. They get CJ Stroud. Whoa. What? Okay. They get CJ Stroud. It's crazy. We never sees it coming they get cj stroud whoa what okay they get cj stroud it's crazy we never saw it coming everyone will want cj stroud to play right away not me i will want them to play this out to try to be competitive and win this year and to let that player sit no matter who it is even in stroud is the most i think refined player of this group and I would still say let him sit because I would rather see him develop for a year and then have it be all on him than trade away

Kirk unless I mean gosh unless they're giving up a first round pick which is probably not going to happen but even then I think there's so much value in letting the guy sit for a year that you're right. A lot of the discussion would be, will they trade him away after June 1st? I would say do not do that. That is not a wise long-term move. From Craig here, are contracts different enough in today's NFL that the Favre situation could never happen again, where Rodgers could retire to get away from the jets and become a viking you know that's an interesting question i don't know exactly what the deal is with that uh when it comes to the contract i don't think you can just retire and then go to another team like that's

i don't think that's the case and i I honestly don't remember what Favre's contract situation actually was like, was he a free agent after that year? Was he still under contract? Or I don't remember the details. Maybe somebody else does for how the Vikings actually made that work. And I remember there was some talk back then about the Vikings being over the salary cap, but the whole salary cap wasn't real, was actually a thing back then. I don't remember. But if Rodgers was trying to do that, to get out of his contract by retiring, no, you're not able to do that. In fact, I don't think retiring actually means anything as it pertains to that. Let's see. Now, does it, I mean, of course, if you are retired, your team gets the cap space, I think. But do they now that is, you know, I haven't thought about that.

Like, does the does the dead cap space just disappear if you retire? Maybe a cap expert can tell me that because I have not thought about it if you were actually to retire. But I don't think so. Well, void years wouldn't dead cap wouldn't that was already kicked down the road. So, yeah, we do know that from like Tom Brady, that they're still going to be paying Tom Brady. So you can't know you can't make it go poof by retiring. But that's an interesting question.

Something to look into is how they actually made that work from Crits 0022. Do you think if the Vikings trade for Trey Lance, it would happen prior, during, or after the draft? Yeah. I mean, because they could trade, I mean, this is very realistic that they could trade for Trey Lance and then trade away Kirk Cousins later. Cause in that scenario, if it's Trey Lance, they got to trade Kirk Cousins after June 1st. I think that they could trade for Trey Lance during the draft or just prior. I mean, we're only a couple of days away, so prior is extremely soon, but they could trade for Trey Lance during the draft. Let's say it's number 23 that they trade number 23 for Trey Lance. Raj walks up to the microphone. He says, we've got a trade to announce. The Vikings

have traded the 23rd overall pick for quarterback Trey Lance. Let's just say. Now, John Lynch said today that they would rather see Trey Lance compete for the job. We'll see if he's telling the truth or not so far, the actions, or he's saying up the price. That could also mean that could also mean he's saying up the price uh then the vikings would have to wait till after june 1st to trade kirk but i think the trade lance thing could happen at any time if they want to do it if they want to get it done they can do it i don't think that his cap hit is so high that they couldn't work around that i think that they've held the brian o'neill restructure in their back pocket for just such a scenario. Also Delvin cook,

which is being rumored and seems like it's more likely than not that we'll be doing another live stream to react to Delvin cook getting traded, or he could get traded on draft night. That steam is just building. So they could make some cap space by doing that to fit in a Trey Lance, but yeah, it's anytime it could be before, during or after.

But I mean, during makes a lot of sense. Ron, Jordan Love led the nation interceptions his last year in college. I just, I know, I just don't, at this point, I just don't think we can really make much of college. Like he's been in the NFL for a few years and they've decided that he's their guy. And if he looked horrible behind the scenes, which we have seen happen before, where guys look bad behind the scenes, Kellen Mond is one of them and their team gives up on them early. So they had every chance to give up on him over these last couple of years. They could have traded him away.

And instead they decided like, no, we want him to be our quarterback. So to me, the interception thing from college is kind of like way too far back in our minds to really be all that relevant. Unless you're a Vikings fan and you desperately want him to be bad, then you want to bring that up. From Duke to God. Nice to see you duke uh let's see i think this regime has to continue to build in the trenches offensive defensive line teams like philly san francisco dallas are physical teams with talent can't take the next step over the next few years until we do so they have invested a wild amount in the offensive line. And the fact that it is not bared the type of fruit, bored the type of fruit that they wanted is a big disappointment, truly. I mean, to have

multiple first and second round draft picks making up the whole offensive line and not be good is kind of crazy. So when you talk about invest in the trenches, build in the trenches, they've tried on one side and normally they've had in the past, you know, your Lindvall, Joseph, Everson, Griffin, and so forth. That's not me saying that they shouldn't invest in that. It's just, I think we have to think about like how they went about this and whether it was the right way to do it rather than going into free agency and filling guard spots with veterans, drafting a tackle in Ezra Cleveland, moving him to guard. It's never really worked out. Resigning Garrett Bradbury, a move that I was not against,

but also like, okay, you know, I mean, it's been one year that was good. And so a lot of the decisions there have to be better. I think that's what I would say is the decisions and how you invest have to be better. But also if you are dealing with better cap situation, you could spend on one of those guards. I mean, there was sort of it out there and it was a very twins like thing where like, oh, the Vikings wanted to chase Joe Tooney a couple of years ago, but they got priced out. It's like, of course they got priced out. They've got priced out of everything over the last five years. That's the price you pay when you have that quarterback and a bunch of other expensive

veterans on the roster that, you know, we can't leave that point out either. Now to your point though, Duke, the defensive side, the trenches over the last few years have been very meh. Last year was the best they've been in a while with Z'Darrius Smith and Daniil Hunter and Delvin Tomlinson. Still, they end up toward the middle bottom of the league in sacks. Still, they were not a special team against the run and they invested again. They invested a lot. I mean, they paid Daniil Hunter to stay around. They signed Zedaria Smith. They paid a ton of money for Delvin Tomlinson. They paid a ton of money for, or I guess, considering

who the player is, a good amount of money for Harrison Phillips. And yet, you know, that was just an okay defensive line. Some games it was great. Some games it was not. But I do think that goes to the kind of Kalijah Can't see the Nolan Smith ideas like that to get defensive lineman. Cause I do agree with you. I mean, offensive and defensive line always in forever are going to be massive advantages. Usually, you know, you have to build the whole complete team to win anything, but the defensive line and the future of the defensive line, that is a really interesting

discussion because we may be weeks away from having no edge rushers that are proven. They've already lost Delvin Tomlinson. Harrison Phillips and Dean Lowry are probably solid players, but not needle movers. What's the future of that position? From Deontay here, thoughts on Anthony Richardson in this offense could be special. Totally agree. I mean, you sit him for a year, of course, but I, the thing with Anthony Richardson, and I hate to say this as, as all of you guys know, one thing that has guided me throughout my entire career, looking at the NFL is advanced numbers, analytics always. Right. And they have done a lot more good than bad when I've tried to follow the numbers. Right. And even last year, they learned it, leaned into the

passing game for the first time and they had a top 10 offense. And I thought like, yeah, that's right. You know, sometimes volume over efficiency can be good when it comes to leaning into a passing game and trying to create a top 10 offense and things like that. But with Anthony Richardson, I truly think you have to throw out his college numbers and just look at the skill set of the player because the numbers almost in Trey Lance like fashion, there's just such a tiny, tiny sample size of someone that didn't have any experience before. And he's very young still and can grow, I think, significantly within a year.

And if you look at how Jalen Hurts threw the ball in his first year as a quarterback in college, it wasn't good. And if you look at Lamar Jackson, it was really bad in his first year. And those guys who are on the same athletic level as Anthony Richardson were able to grow. And I don't know what kind of mindset the guy has, but I watched a lot of them in college and I was very impressed with the way he handled himself. I think his character is very, very high for being a leader of an NFL franchise. You take him, you put him with one of the world's great receivers, you run the ball with them, you throw downfield. I mean, I think there there's as good a chance as any that that's going to be

special. Yeah. I mean, you use the word special. He's probably the only quarterback in this draft that you could say, could it be special? It could be, could it be horrible? Yeah, that's possible. Of course it is. It's always possible. But, um, you know, I, I also think that you're right. That if there's one quarterback where it could be special, that he would be the guy, uh, CJ it's been a while since non-win now. I know, I know I've never covered it and I don't know that I will. Uh, I guess we'll have to find that out. I mean, if they draft a quarterback this year and then sit him and play him in 2024, it's still win now.

Like that's entering a win now mode. I don't know that there's ever gonna be a rebuild year unless it just goes total disaster. If the Vikings start out one and five next year and they trade Kirk Cousins to whatever team's quarterback got hurt, then it will be not win now. Then it will be fully rebuilt. Think about this. Even the Vikings meaningless week 18 games were win now for Mike Zimmer, not for me or the standings or the playoffs, but they still won them

those two years that they had meaningless week 18 or 17 games, or was it three years? They always wanted to win them. So, you know, you know, Nano Joe being a little harsh here toward Kirk Cousins. Rodgers gone cool. Kirk Cousins still chokes in big games and rarely beats great teams. There is truth to that.

I don't know about, I don't know if I would say chokes. I mean, I guess you could say that in the playoff game on fourth and eight, but I thought he came through in the clutch a lot last year. And I've never believed that he wasn't clutch. I've never thought that. I've always thought that he was just limited enough to have as many ups and downs as anybody else, or even more ups and downs than your great quarterbacks. That you're Patrick Mahomes, you're Joe Burrow, you're Josh Allen. Those guys don't really have a roller coaster. It's when they don't play well, you go, wow, what?

That, oh, okay. You know, when Josh Allen didn't play well in that playoff games, wow, Josh Allen just had really struggled that day. That's shocking, right? Uh, with Kirk cousins, it's a roller coaster, but that's how quarterbacks who are the 12th best quarterback in the league. And the thing to think about with, when we talk about cousins like that is it's great to be a top 10 quarterback, but the difference between the, the, the 10th best quarterback and the 15th, isn't that much the difference between the 10th

and the fifth is freaking enormous. I mean, it's just the fifth best quarterback or fourth best quarterback in the league is a hall of famer. And the 10th best is kind of just a guy who needs everything around him to work. So I don't think that Kirk is a choker and I don't think he can't beat good teams. I think that asking him to have full seasons of great play and four playoff games in a row against great teams is a really tough ask, and especially at his price tag building around him. And that's the story of Kirk Cousins. Kirk has been better than they could have predicted based on what he did in Washington. And it still didn't work. I think that shows you more about the process than it actually does about Kirk. And that's not just the process of signing him, but the process of how they handled everything around him as well.

Kind of says a lot about that. Let's see from Ben. And I'm really glad that you guys are continuing to fire questions my way. So I'll continue to answer them. Uh, usually we kind of shut down the stream around now, but I'll continue to answer some questions here. Cause these are great.

I'm having a good time. Uh, let's see from Ben. Do you buy the hooker steam or is it a smoke screen for the Vikings? At this moment, I am not buying it, but I mean, what does that mean? Like, does that mean 45, 55, like 45, not buying it 55, buying it because it's just so hard to know. There are people. And I think about this. There was a earlier, um, a conference call with Mike Tannenbaum, who was a former NFL gm and i wanted to ask him a question about wide receivers for a story i'm writing so i did and you can look forward to

that story but uh mike was talking about hendon hooker and he brought up the vikings and he said that he thinks that if not for the acl injury hendon hooker would be talked about as a top 10 pick in this draft which i think is a little rich maybe but all that says to me is that that's somebody who is a pro evaluator and that a lot of people are going to see good things with hendon hooker uh he put up amazing statistics he apparently is incredibly smart and has a great recall for offenses and things like that is very impressive in the meetings. So it's more of a 40, 60 or 45, 55 of, no, I don't really buy it. I don't think that's what they're going to put their futures on as we were talking about earlier. But I also do think that it's possible.

Yeah, that I would say it's possible, but I'm not going to say that it's completely likely. But then when you think about, and Aaron brings this up too, he said, It's possible, but I'm not going to say that it's completely likely. But when you think about, and Aaron brings this up too, he said, watch the 33rd team video on Hooker. Mike Martz knows a thing or two about quarterback play. That's true. Everybody's right and everybody's wrong about quarterbacks. But one of the things that I think Mike Martz would see is that Hendon Hooker, when he's

given a clean pocket and throws downfield, guy's good. He's just got a good arm. I mean, he can throw accurately down the field. There's no question about it. So if that's what Kevin O'Connell is looking at and then meets with him and is impressed with him, I don't think it's impossible. I don't think it's impossible at all that they would go with him. It would just still, it's one of those things where the steam kind of gained and you don't really know if that's really true or not, because we've seen that happen so many times before where a bunch of steam builds up before the draft. Oh, this guy could shockingly go in the first round and then it doesn't happen. Sometimes it does. But if they went with Hendon Hooker, where I stand on this is if they go with Hendon Hooker, then I will say, look, I think you're taking a pretty big risk here with his age. The injury doesn't bother me. It's really the age that he won't be able to improve and won't be able to develop from where he is right now. But I will say it's ultimately the right decision to take a shot on your guy that you evaluated

and you liked. I'm not fully convinced that they will, but if they do, I'm not going to be against it even if I think, ooh, wow, you're taking a big risk here considering the guy's age. And I never really looked at him during the college season as a potential top draft pick. And now that it's been a long time since the college season, we are looking at him that way. So yeah, I mean, I probably one of those things where you kind of hold your breath a little bit and wince, but you go, ultimately, this is a better thing for them if they believe he's the guy for them from Nick. Did the jets overpay? No, I don't think so.

I mean, ultimately, what did they give up? They gave up essentially a first round and a second round pick because if I, if I remember offhand, I'm not, I'm not going to look it up, but they, so they gave up what a second and a conditional first, but the condition is that he's going to play a lot of football, which he always does anyway. Yeah, I mean, I think that's pretty good for them. And then they swapped picks. Sure, that's okay.

Maybe they didn't expect to give up so much. They had to cave a little bit and go to his side. But look, the Jets don't need draft picks. They need somebody to throw the freaking ball. Like, that's what they need. They have a great team. They have a really, really strong roster. So I think that they did the, the right thing, um, in trading kind of whatever it took to get that job done outside of not giving up the full 13. They only gave up two

spots, which is just weird, but they still get that middle of the first round draft pick. I think that was important because that could be an instant contributor for them, but everything else you got to go for it. You got to take that swing. Especially if you're the jets, you've been so bad for so long for Jason, unless a quarterback falls past 10, I see us trading back. Yeah. Same. I mean, if we're rating the percentages, yeah, same. I think that more likely than not the way that everything seems to be laid out for this draft. And I have to say seems is that, yeah, they'll probably trade back and take a corner in a defensive end or something more likely than not, or maybe a receiver. That's how they'll handle it. But there's always that chance. There's always

that chance, uh, from Todd. from todd if anthony richardson falls to us i'd be elated beyond belief i'd be just straight up shocked i mean i would be totally shocked because everything that i have heard about anthony richardson is that teams are really really wowed by his talent and if he were to just sink in the draft, it'd be like, wow, really? We're doing this again after it happened with Lamar, after it happened with Jalen Hurts, we're really doing this again. We're really letting a guy like that fall. I don't know. And sometimes it comes down to the, you believe the guy's a beast. I think Anthony Richardson. Yeah. I mean, I'll take my chances with somebody who's a beast, somebody who's just physically more gifted than everybody else on the field, but we'll take our chances. Yeah. So I think

that somebody will, I think there's so many teams that are good fits for him outside of the Vikings that he won't drop that far, but if he does and they take them, Oh, it's on. I mean, Holy cow. That, that, that's going to be really something. And think about the live stream for that one. Oh, by the way, since you're all here, I should tell you all that on Thursday night, first round right here, be the place to be going to be doing a live draft stream. So make sure you guys come and show up and have some fun and get in the comment section. We'll have a great time. The last time I did a live stream, we didn't really like have a comment section going

and that was really dumb. And so this time we'll do it again and hopefully all of you will be here. So we'll look forward to that on Thursday night. Then Friday night, I'm gonna be out at TCO Performance Center and cover the second and third round there. So anyway, from Deontay,

Hooker will be there at number 30, or no, Hooker will be 30 years old after his rookie deal. And we will be right back here. That is a serious, serious thing that you have to think about. Is that he's going to be 30 years old after his rookie contract. I mean, that's crazy to think about. I don't worry quite as much about them as I do about development. That if you take Anthony Richardson or you take Bryce Young and these guys are young and you're

looking for them to make huge growth. So they're great college players, but you have to get way better to play in the NFL, right? We all agree on that. As a 21 year old, that's kind of a time that young twenties where guys take big leaps. If you're already 25, can you take the big leap? That's, that's the biggest question that I have. That's what somebody like Brandon Whedon couldn't do. Chris Winky, they are less athletically gifted than Hendon Hooker, but you know, I think that that is a factor. Uh, let's see. Can't wait for the draft to see what the Vikings do. Trade up for a quarterback or trade down and fill out the roster. Yeah.

Sue King, I feel the same way. I'm really, I mean, this is a draft where I really don't have a clue. And I keep saying it, but I really don't. I really don't know. I mean, this could go so many different ways. We can't just kind of, you know, sort of finagle to try to figure out like, okay, well, they obviously need this. So they're probably going to do that. Um, you know, it's, um, it's a, it's a draft that could go so many different ways, uh, from Derek for Daniil, how much can we get for him to use,

to move up in this draft? draft. That is a unfortunate technicality that they really can't trade Daniil Hunter on draft night. Or if they can, I don't really know how based on the salary cap, because if they trade him before June 1st, it's a huge dead cap hit. If they trade him after, it's fine. It actually creates cap space for them.

And you can't trade for someone, as far for them. And you can't trade for someone. As far as I know, you can't trade for someone on draft night and then give them Daniel Hunter later. Like you can't designate it for June 1st. I think you actually have to do the deal after June 1st in order to make that work. So in next year's draft, it could help if they got a second round pick for 2024.

I'm kind of thinking that if they do trade him, that's how it ends up going. From Ken, do you remember from last year if the thought was this year's quarterback class was going to be good? Yeah, it always varies, man. I mean, we knew Bryce Young, and I think we knew CJ Stroud, and Will Levis was being talked about as a top three pick for sure because he had played so well in 2021. But Anthony Richardson and Hendon Hooker came out of nowhere.

Maybe Hendon Hooker. Anthony Richardson definitely came out of nowhere because he hadn't played at all. And then after his first college game against Utah, all of a sudden, I remember listening to Mike Renner, formerly now of PFF, after that game. And he was talking about how Anthony Richardson made himself a potential number one overall pick by his debut because he had shown so much talent. So things change. Things change a lot.

I mean, next year is supposed to be a quarterback class that's pretty good. And whether that actually plays out, I do not know. Dustin, you said you missed the beginning of this. Well, guess what? Yeah, you can go back to the start, man. And never do that again, by the way. Never miss the start of the... No, I'm just kidding.

Great to have you here. Todd, you're going to be here on draft night. Appreciate that. That's great to hear. Having guests on the draft show, working on that. But my hope is to have my pales that are out there at TCO performance center for night one, checking in during, uh, the first round. So, you know, get Will Raggett, Sandra Kramer, guys like that. I mean, and there'll be busy out there eating

tacos or whatever they're going to have, but, uh, we should be able to get them to pop in and kind of do a little check-in and things like that. So that will be really fun for a draft night. Dustin Hendon hooker is so old. The hook by blues travelers was his my space page song. Wow. You reached into the bag for that one, but that's, yeah. I mean the blues travelers. Yeah. That that's I mean, you're going the full millennial style by bringing that up. But, you know, that is true. I mean, change it when you logged on to my space. The kids don't understand. And you change that song.

People took notice. Or if you put the little message at the top, which people used to kind of hate on each other, that was like the original tweet. And then you had the top eight. Somebody drops out of the top eight. Yo, why am I out of your top eight? Did I do something? You mad at me?

And a lot of times, yeah, that was it. That was the original subtweet. So let's see here. Let's see from Todd. What type of quarterback do you believe will go for a Kirk type or go for the rest of the league and draft a mobile quarterback? Yeah, I do think that they want to go with tools more, more in the, in the line of maybe it's not mobile, but it's as in running, like there's a difference, right? Joe Burrow,

to me as a mobile quarterback, he doesn't run, he runs for like a hundred yards a year, but he's a mobile quarterback. He doesn't run. He runs for like 100 yards a year. But he's a mobile quarterback. He moves around. He's a playmaker. And there's also just the arm strength. I think that one thing, at least my observation on this, and Kevin O'Connell's never said it, so I'm not quoting. But I think he needs somebody to throw into tight windows.

I think a lot of this offense asks the quarterback to fire it into tight windows sometimes down the field. Not always, of course, everyone's trying to design wide open stuff, but at some point you need someone to make a freaking throw. And that goes for Matthew Stafford. Like sometimes you need a guy to drop back and let it fire Matthew Stafford, no look pass, something special. Why are you an NFL star? That's why. And Kirk has made some great throws, so I'm not going to take away from that. But does he have the pure arm strength to be off balance and let it rip to dodge tacklers and fire it down the field into a tight spot? Or does he have the aggressiveness for that? Like, no, I think that they're going to look for some of those things

that Kirk doesn't have. Otherwise you wouldn't look to upgrade. Otherwise you just extend him. The mobility I do think is a factor, but I don't think that they're necessarily saying we've got to get a running quarterback or bust, but they also saw that if your quarterback can even halfway decent run like Daniel Jones, you can get a lot of first downs out of that. Let's see from Derek Hendenhoeker had a low S2 cognition score, better than CJ Stroud, but still under 50. Evidently 80% is the cutoff for bust or prosper for quarterbacks. I just can't put any stock into it. I just can't. I just don't think that we've figured out one test that's going to project quarterbacks. I just can't put any stock into it. I just can't. I just don't think that we've figured out one test that's going to project quarterbacks. I really don't believe it.

And I also don't even know if those numbers are even real. The numbers that have been put out there from people, even the founders of the test have said before that some of the numbers that are being put out by people are not what they've actually found. So to me, it's just not a factor, really. I mean, the team has to decide what their takeaway about that test is going to be and not just say, oh, well, one test decided that this guy's a bust. I don't think it works that way. I don't even think the founders of the test say that it works that way based on what they've said publicly and what I've read. So I'm not, I wouldn't be that concerned about it. It might tell you something about Hendon Hooker, about how he sees things or about how he learns

or whatever. More for me is that Hendon Hooker gets sacked a lot. And I am always very, very, very afraid of quarterbacks who get sacked a lot in college. Because I think if you get sacked a lot in college, you get sacked a lot in the NFL. I don't know if you just flick a switch and all of a sudden, you know, you're getting rid of the ball. That's not something that Hooker did very well. So I think that that is definitely a concern. Let's see from Holden.

Are you doing second and third round live for day two? I wasn't planning on, I was planning on going out to TCO performance center and covering it from there, just reporting on it and then doing like a podcast after just a regular one that'll probably be up on the YouTube page and so forth. That's the plan as of right now. So we'll see how it goes.

But that, that second and third day with only at this moment, one pick now it could change. Look, if they trade back and we don't have anything in the first round, maybe I'll change plans and maybe I'll do a day two as well. So we can actually talk about some real draft picks. If they pick someone on day one and their next pick is until 87, I probably will not do that. I'll probably just cover it from out there. And that's, you know, those guys do press conferences after the picks and the scouts talk. So there's a lot to take away from that, but call it, um, uh, unclear day two is like the Vikings future, not entirely clear.

So, uh, anyway, okay, let's get this one more Hendon hooker joke in here. You guys are really going to have to have them ready. they actually draft Hendenhooker. Hendenhooker was actually young when the Killers released when we were young. That's a great place to end. When we've jumped the shark with Hendenhooker jokes, that's a great place to finish it off. And yes, Derek, it is prime BS season. That's still true. Okay, I'll answer this question. Are you still

a bills fan or become I'm not sure what that word is by, from any NFL fandom, but yeah, Caloost, is that the word? What is that word? Do I not know that word? So, you know, I was never actually a bills fan. That's the funny thing is I grew up in Buffalo, so I'm extremely familiar with everything that happened and I watched all their games. But when I was very, very young, I was talking like five, they were going to the Super Bowl, like five through eight. So, you know, okay, I'm cheering with the rest of my family as a really young kid, Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas. I remember those teams pretty well from being a little kid, but after that they were bad. I mean, they had the Flutie and Rob Johnson thing. I liked Doug Flutie. My parents had Flutie flakes, but you know,

they traded for Drew Bledsoe and they lost and they lost and they let Antoine Winfield go. And they were just a really irrelevant team. And even the entire time I worked in Buffalo, they were a really irrelevant team. And so I was much more into playing Madden all the time, watching every NFL game, every national game. I was watching every week and then the playoffs and everything else, buying football cards,

like all those things. It was in the entire league for me. It was never one team. So, you know, I guess I've always just considered myself. You know what? I'm Rob Lowe. I'm the Rob Lowe gif or the picture of Rob Lowe, the meme where he just has the NFL hat on.

Like that was just me, just football. So, you know, this kind of works well for me because I I've always kind of been objective observer person when it comes to football so anyway uh great great great stuff super fun and hey look at all of you you don't have to watch Aaron Rodgers play your team anymore look at you guys good for you how about that what a time to be alive we finally made it to the end of the Aaron Rodgers era and now begins a new era of Jordan Love. So it's exciting and glad to have an emergency podcast

before the draft. Thanks so much, everybody. Remember Thursday night, but also we'll be back tomorrow doing hot routes and everything else. So we'll be here for you. And any other news breaks, they trade Delvin Cook right here.

I have no plans for this week nothing at all so right here football so thanks again guys we'll see you later