Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Emergency podcast: Vikings defensive coordinator candidate Ejiro Evero picks the Panthers

Episode Date: February 5, 2023

Matthew Coller and Paul Hodowanic were in the middle of doing a different podcast when they stopped to react to the news that Ejiro Evero, the Vikings' reported top candidate for defensive coordinator, decided to sign with the Panthers. What does it say about where the defense stands? Also there's a reported interest in the Vikings signing Ezra Cleveland to an extension. Is that a good idea? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here with you and want to tell you what happened on Sunday afternoon. As so often happens with this podcast in the off season, there was breaking news in the middle of a pod. Luckily, we hadn't finished up podcasting, but instead we were talking about quarterback landing spots. And then it turned out that Jiro Evero decided that he was not going to talk with the Vikings or become their defensive coordinator, but instead agree to sign a contract with the Carolina Panthers. So Paul Hodowanek and I had a long discussion about what that means, what it says about the bigger picture, who could be their defensive coordinator candidates after this, and a lot of other things. So I'm going to bring you that conversation now, and then keep your eye out for our quarterback

landing spot conversation as well, which I'll post on the podcast feed a little bit later. So we'll just jump right in with Paul breaking the news to me that a Jiro Evero has gone somewhere else other than Minnesota. Are you ready for a little bit of breaking news here? Oh, we got breaking news. According to Tom Pellicero, Panthers are hiring a Jiro Evero as their defensive coordinator. Okay. Well, let's, let's just, let's just talk about this for just a second, though. This puts Brian Flores in sort of the driver's seat to be the guy. He's had some head coaching interviews. I have trouble thinking Brian Flores, who's suing the league, gets hired by anyone to be their head coach.

Would make a lot of sense if he ends up as the Vikings defensive coordinator but I think this right here sort of shows you where they're at that it's no secret to the rest of the league that you just don't have a lot to work with on defense and if you're going to move on from some of your better players it's just going to be hard to make that case yeah and I think Evero was kind of always kind of that dream, pipe dream that Vikings fans had. He could have stayed with the Broncos. He could have gotten a head coaching job. And so I think you still have a qualified candidate that seems like most people feel good about. And Brian Flores, you interviewed Sean Desai.

Like, there's still options for the Vikings to go to. Clearly, they wanted to get Evero in the building and see. Now you just have to convince Brian Flores to take your job job compared to other jobs which hopefully you're able to do otherwise you kind of go back to kind of these clearly kind of these second tier candidates that you've kind of compiled in mike petten and sean desai and so that's probably not where they want to be so you'd hope the vikings kind of try to move quickly to mobilize and get who they want now that the Evero domino is fall. And decide pulled himself out of the conversation. I assume he's going to, I mean,

maybe they could convince him to talk back into it. But I mean, when you look at that, like what Ryan Nielsen was the other guy from the saints, he took a different job. He went to the Falcons and now Evero goes here. I mean, if Brian Flores doesn't take this job, if he signs somewhere else, I mean, you're

talking about everybody running away from your spot, which maybe says something, I don't know about where you're at as a franchise. And when we talk about living in reality, get the message, get the message that this roster on defense is so poor at this point that you're having your defensive coordinator candidates literally just sign with other teams and back out of your job because they looked at what's on your team. Is that something? And this speaks to actually one of our next conversations, which is what the Vikings will do at quarterback in this quarterback landing spot special but I mean doesn't it tell you something about where you should be going with the entire direction that someone like a Jiro Evero as you stated to start the show like he's got to be saying if I'm going to be a head coach someday, it ain't going to be with that team because they are years away from having a great defense.

I mean, and who could argue with them? When you mentioned some of the younger players on Carolina to build around, they're a handful of players away from probably being a very good defense where the Vikings are a full group away. I mean, even if you keep Zedarius Smith and Daniil Hunter it still looks like two linebackers have to be replaced you don't know what the future is at safety with Lewis Seen or really Harrison Smith how he's going to play in the future if he's on the team the cornerback situation is completely up in the air and oh by the way you have no money it's not like you could

say all right well uh, Ajiro, blank check for you to sign and blank check in free agency to tell us who to sign. It's not even that way either. So this is, I'm sure, a blow to the Vikings organization. But also, I mean, you began the show with it. So it's not exactly like it's a surprise for us to find out that he agreed with you. He looked at this and just said, no, I don't think so. Yeah. And now, I mean, the Broncos are still searching for a defensive coordinator to pair with Sean Payton. Like there's still, I don't know if San Francisco has elevated someone officially yet for their defensive coordinator job. Like there are other jobs that are out there that are still going to have better

personnel than the Vikings have on defense. And so if you're trying to get a candidate like Brian for their defensive coordinator job. Like there are other jobs that are out there that are still going to have better personnel than the Vikings have on defense. And so if you're trying to get a candidate like Brian Flores, who may again have aspirations to be more than just a defensive coordinator on someone's staff, like you have to figure out kind of where you sit among the pecking order. And so that's why I'm thinking like the Vikings got to kind of move quickly here to try to secure their guy before it kind of gets out of, out of hand. And so if that's Flores, great, if that's someone else.

Okay. But it feels like now you might start running out of spots and you might get to the point where you're not hiring a candidate that was high on many people's lists, just because you need to fill a body. And that's just not where the Vikings wanted to be. And not where we thought they were when your top two candidates are Evero and Flores. And it feels like you're going to get one of them.

Well, one of them's gone now. So you got to pivot and you got to figure it out. So if Mike Pettin ends up as the defensive coordinator, now look, Mike Pettin has a pretty good history as a defensive coordinator. It's recently not an amazing history, but it's a serviceable and guy who used to work with Rex Ryan, he knows Kevin O'Connell quite well. That's why he was the assistant coach. And I think a lot of us thought that maybe last year they should have just handed the keys to the car over to Mike Pettin. Now that

Ajiro Evro has chosen another team, if Brian Flores also decides to take the same route, I don't know who else might be in on Flores because he does have, I think Arizona interviewed him for the head coaching job. So I'm not sure like what other teams might be considering him as a defensive coordinator. And if there's only one job on the table, he might just say, all right, well, I'll take the defensive coordinator job and make a lot more money than I did as the linebacker coach in Pittsburgh and try to rebuild the defense as he once did with Miami. But if he says no, then it sort of defaults to either someone who's really inexperienced or to Mike Pettin. I think I would take door number two

just based on where I think they should be as a franchise, which would be a maybe let's all grow together instead of hiring a mike pettin having another bad defense then having to decide whether to fire mike pettin like you can just see this as as where it's going to go that but next year the defense will not be a top 10 unit it's not really possible unless i don't know like lawrence taylor comes back and signs with the vikings like they're just so far away from having that i mean they would literally have to have the entire 2022 draft class just be amazing right away next year in order for them to be very good and also if you've seen their opposing quarterback schedule even if that happened

joe burrow patrick mahomes i mean there's there's some problems there that first place schedule that they they found themselves in so yes uh well that's what happens when you win the division but if it's mike petten you think that that folks are upset because i think i would prefer instead of petten just leaving him in the assistant coach position, work closely with Kevin O'Connell and go with someone who's less experienced, but potentially a rising star somewhere else. Yeah. I think that just tells you that, you know, just signal status quo. And if you kind of keep the same personnel that were on the same staff doing a lot of the same

things, like why should there be major expectations that there's going to be overhauls to the scheme overhauls to the roster? Like you're kind of running back the same group minus at Donatello, like that shouldn't inspire a lot of confidence and maybe it works out. Patton has had good defenses in the past when he was with green Bay and dating back, he got a head coaching job because of his work as a defensive coordinator. So it's not like he's an incompetent person.

I just think for the Viking situation and where they're at, it was kind of seen as a needed breath of fresh air that was going to kind of help hopefully revitalize that group and figure out the next steps for that defense. And now it just kind of, you just are left with kind of same old, same old, which is not where the Vikings fans want to be. I know that for sure. And I don't really think that's where the Vikings want to be. You could see sense some frustration with the defense towards the end of the year. The Vikings

talked about elevating to their championship standard and kind of needing to get there. I don't know if just keeping the exact same staff really screams championship standard, but maybe it does. Maybe elevating it does happen. I'll leave room for that possibility. But yeah, I wouldn't expect the fan base to love that if it's just kind of retread a retread hire. That's right. It won't, if they end up with Petten, it won't feel like, well, I guess you did everything you could do to find another answer. Even if, if he was coaching for somebody else and you hired him, you'd probably be like, oh, well, that guy's got a pretty good history, but this goes for any hire. If it's a team that wasn't that

successful on the side of the ball and you just elevate somebody who was there as part of the failure, then no one's going to ever be excited about it. And I think in the comment section, it's a very correct take, which is even if they were to hire a great defensive coordinator next year, there's just so many personnel issues and so little money to fix it with that. That person wouldn't look all that good to begin with. And that might've been the case for a Giro Evero. Had they been able to hire him as opposed to Carolina would be, would we have known?

And I'm willing to be patient with whoever they hire, but if you hire Patton, it feels like you can't really be patient it feels like he's got to fix all of the ills uh from last year whereas if you hire somebody that is maybe a little younger a little more green that they can have more of a focus on developing those players and evaluating which is just as important who's going to be around for the future that that should be be that person's role. So, you know, Mike in the comments brings up Jim Leonard. I think that's an interesting idea. Somebody who, again, was part of that Rex Ryan tree as a player and is known as a very aggressive defensive mind. And I'd be okay with that. If you're talking about

someone who's coming with some different ideas that was in the college ranks for this situation, I think that's okay. But I just think this whole thing tells us more about where the Vikings have to live in this world. And if they get Flores, then I don't know, maybe that says that their plan is to try to, you know, be a lot better next year and take a totally different defensive approach. But Evero was not like a far cry from the Fangio type of system or whatever. Like he wasn't a major let's go crazy blitz the quarterback on every down or something.

They would have been staying in the same sort of ballpark, just hoping for someone a little more fresh to come in and work with some of this talent that they have that's very young. So I look at it as now that the best candidate has gone somewhere else, like look yourself in the mirror a little bit and say like, and Flores, like he's not a younger guy, but he has recently built up a defense. So I think that that's important to remember too, that just because someone like is a little more experienced doesn't mean I wouldn't want them. It's just a focus maybe on who's going to be able to develop players rather than who's going to make a massive improvement. Because if you rank 28th next year, but you go into the following season, feeling like you've got a lot of things figured out, then at least you've got some answers as opposed to, hey, let's sign another defensive tackle

and another veteran linebacker and finish 26th instead of 28, which was kind of what they did this year. So do you have anything else to say about Ajiro Evero not agreeing to be hired by the Vikings before we get back to where we were at with our quarterback landing spot special. Just that if it didn't work out for Evero and you don't have personnel as your reason why a coach is going to come, it can always be money that you're trying to drive someone here. And so that might be their only play at this point. And so for a Flores type where I think well-known around the league league like people understand he's a really good defensive mind and understand the situation in Miami just kind of devolved and it may have been partially his fault maybe not his fault and like clearly a good coach

like everyone understands that like I don't think he that if the Vikings defense doesn't miraculously come around that precludes him from being in the conversation for a head coaching job so I think he is kind of you know a little bit kind of situation proof in that aspect if he still has those aspirations and so now it's just about going out and paying him and and showing him that you know you want him and so I think at that point that's kind of what they have to do if they because clearly the reporting has confirmed this like Evero and Flores were kind of their top guys and so now if they don't come away with either of them, it'll be very well known that they didn't get either of those guys. And so they got to do at this point what they have to do to be able to get one of them.

I also think just to make a little bit of a metaphor, let's just say we're all at a poker table here and everybody is sitting at the poker table knowing what someone has in their hand, but that person doesn't know what they have in their hand because they're me and they're horrible at poker. That's the mark, right? Like everybody at the poker table knows what the Vikings have in their hand for a roster, for a cap situation, for a timeline. My question is, do they know? Because I don't know how poker works. So if I were at the table, I'd be looking at my cards thinking like,

yeah, maybe I could pull this thing off. And the other more experienced players would know. No, this guy has no idea why he's bluffing or whatever. He keeps winking every time he's bluffing. Like we just know everything he's got in his hand. I wonder if the Vikings and their ownership are maybe that person at the poker table that thinks they've got a lot more in their hand than they actually do because they've been in the past that person.

Are they still going to be that after getting turned down by someone like a Jiro Evero. We might as well talk about Kirk Cousins and how this even impacts the conversation with Kirk Cousins, because I think that they're connected, that a Jiro Evero picking another team and Kirk Cousins situation are connected. I don't think that the Vikings will be able to get one of the four best quarterback prospects in this draft because they don't have enough to move up. But I also think that when you talk about the extension decision, I know he's expensive and I know that's hard, but I think you just have to leave it. You just have to let it be that if he wants to come to the table and talk about a five-year extension, you have to say no. And if he wants to say, well, maybe what about

a three-year extension that pays me a ton of money, but my no trade clause is gone or something, I think you still have to say no. I think you just have to let this play out and you know i mean maybe they want to sign him to a short-term extension so they could trade him the following year which is kind of what's going on with their car and that setup but the longer you go on with this the longer you stay in a place where a good defensive coordinator candidate just says no the rest of your roster is bad i'm sorry I'm going somewhere else. That's my feeling. So I pencil in the Vikings,

and this is not what I necessarily think they'll do, but what they should do is just nothing. Just let that play out. And if you get a Tanner McKee or something, like, okay, I guess that's worth it if he's a first round prospect. But if you can't get one of those top four guys, you just let it ride and you figure it out next year.

That's kind of what I think. That was also what I put down for what they should do. It makes a lot of sense. They don't have a ready-made guy to try to move off cousins right now if they wanted to make a trade or do something like that. They don't have someone in there. I'm sure they could fill her with any one of the quarterbacks that we've mentioned for one of these bad teams they could do that i just don't really see that happening after a 13

win season especially kind of with what he's built up here so i think but i also don't think that means you have to extend him and i don't think that means they should extend him and so i think i agree with you here i don't think a Cousins extension where it brings down his cap number this year to 15 million or 20 million so it saves 15 million against the cap is going to change your overall roster outlook it's going to get you one or two players that you wouldn't have been able to get otherwise or be able to resign a Dalvin Tomlinson and a Garrett Bradbury and an Ezra Cleveland like it might allow you to keep some of your guys but you just can't convince me that that team does much more than this team did.

And by that, I mean a first round playoff exit. I like, I just don't see that. And so if I'm them, it's keep him for a year and spend this next year in this draft in free agency in a trade next year's draft, like just prepare yourself for the post cousins era and play out next season and

see how it goes and give yourself plenty of time to figure it out. If Kirk cousins and his side came to the table and the Vikings said, look, the best we can do is a short, another short-term extension, but get rid of that. No trade clause clause because basically if this doesn't work out, we want to trade you. And Cousins said, you know what? Why don't you just trade me now? Carolina, maybe even Atlanta is an interesting team that's been down, but maybe they could improve with a good quarterback. The Jets, who we talked about quite a bit.

There's teams out there that need quarterbacks, and Cousins, I'm'm sure is aware of that. If he said, okay, it's time to go. Thanks for the memories guys. But if you're not going to lock into me long-term, then I'm going to find somebody who will give me that five year contract extension like Jim or say, or something, I don't know. Right. What do you think that they could get back for him? And what would they do it? Should they do it? I think the answer to should they do it is yes. Don't wait to find out that you're going to win eight games next year. Just do it now. And then sign Jacoby Bursette or something and deal with the Justin Jefferson thing. I don't know if that's what he says. You really have no choice, but to do that. And maybe you end up with a decent record if you sign a veteran quarterback, because Jefferson is

that good and you can spend money to improve your defense and maybe I'll find a good defensive coordinator. I don't know, but I know that you're stuck in the same position you're going to be in for the rest of existence if they do anything else. But I just wonder what you think of that idea of that concept of Kirk saying, hey, I just I don't want to deal with this like a zero ever. I won't come here. I don't want to deal with this. I want to go. Yeah, I mean, if you're putting a spot where Cousins is actively asking to be traded because the Vikings won't do an extension, then I think you do trade him. I think that kind of solves your issue there.

If he's saying, I want a five-year extension and you're firmly on the block of, hey, we're not going to do that. And he says, all right, trade me. I think you trade him and you trade him for whatever you can get at that point. I think if the Vikings were in a situation where they had leverage, I think you can easily see them getting a first round pick. Now, if the whole entire league knows, and there's only a couple of suitors out there, cause it's a few months from now. And a bunch of people have already figured out their quarterback situations. Like that's when

the asking price may go down a bit and you're not going to recover as much. It's just so hard to know at this point because the draft hasn't happened for agent hasn't happened. So we, there's still so many possibilities, uh, of teams he could go to and they're driving up his market potentially. Uh, so it really comes at what time the fuss cousins makes about it, how much they can kind of keep it under the radar. But I think if you are coming from an advantageous spot, I think you can get a first round pick for him. But if not, I think you're kind of living in that world that the Raiders are living in with Derek Carr right now, where they're trying to get a second round pick. They're trying to figure out kind of a package of mid round picks. That makes sense. What did

my, or what did Indiana Indianapolis give up for Matt Ryan last year? Was it a second, something like that? Or a first third? Yeah. Well, I think cousins has a little bit more probably, uh, uh, left than Matt Ryan did even last year, even though they're similar ages. So I think you can probably one up that deal just a little bit. Uh, but if you're kind of coming in a spot like Atlanta did where everyone knew you were trying to trade Matt Ryan and it was kind of well-known, like you just maybe resounded the fact that you're only getting a second round pick. And so that's part of the calculus that Minnesota has to figure in here. That may just be all they can get. If a scenario comes where Kirk's going to kind of make this noisy and wants to get out.

If, uh, if cousins said either do the trade or sign me to a five-year deal, I think we're all in favor of just doing the trade, uh, because you just don't know how he's going to age. And I mean, there were times this year where you thought like, if they need a hail Mary from the middle of the field, will the ball get there? And I'm not saying he didn't play well, but the juice on the fastball is already starting to slip and I don't think it's going to get faster. All of a sudden, I think he's a very, very good quarterback who could probably win a lot of games with the New York Jets or the Vegas Raiders or whoever. But as far as here, it's going to be the same story probably over again, which is you hover around ballpark of top 10 offense. If it's a year where you have a decent schedule, you get into the crack eighth.

And if you have a year where it's a hard schedule, then you end up with 14th or something. And that's where they've gone around and around always and forever but in this case it might be hard to get a first round pick because of how expensive he is but even if you're getting something back to start building toward the future like this should be your wake up call this should be your splash of cold water with a jiro evero choosing another team that that team does not even have a quarterback at this point. And yet he's still saying, no, no, no. I like their long-term prospects for where I want to go

more than I like yours, unless he likes the weather there, but I, he was just in Denver. So I think he'd be fine with the weather in Minnesota. He likes playing on grass. Like, I don't know. I mean, this is, it's not hard to figure out why the guy would go there, not here, because he knows where that team stands and where they're trying to go and what they're trying to do. Where with this team, you just drafted players who have major, major question marks about their future because of their health and also because none of them really showed signs that they were going to be a major piece before they got hurt.

Booth and Evans, I know Evans showed some flashes, but his overall statistics when targeted were very poor. And Louis seen was the fourth string safety. Like these things are not inspiring toward the future. So, you know, I think that they're in a position to say with this happening, it should be the wake up call. If they needed one that it's okay with the fan base, it's okay with where you are as a new coach and a new GM to just take a longer term approach to your quarterback situation,

which is what really determines all of this stuff. It all like Ejiro Evero and Kirk Cousins contract situation. They are tied in together, right? Like that, that, that that's one thing kind of causes the other thing. If they had the cheap quarterback contract and they could say, Hey, you, we can spend 50 mil on the defense, Ejiro, here you go, then I think that we're talking about a very different story. And I know that Kirk Cousins has a no trade clause, but that's kind of the point that if you told them we're not signing you to any type of extension, you just have to play it out. Well, Kirk also knows this, that you just won 13 games. And if next year he wins

seven because of the schedule and the defense, then he's not going to get that five-year final extension. He's looking for his final contract extension to stack up as much money as he can possibly get. So these two things are very much interconnected of what just happened with the Giro Evero and what's going to happen in the future with Kirk Cousins. So I'm not sure that, you know, because of the breaking news, we've had a jolt in audience size. And so I want to keep talking about this. We had some other teams to get to as far as the quarterback landing spots.

And just there's an update on Flores' just kind of schedule moving forward. Ian Rapoport tweeted on Tuesday he'll be interviewing with the Broncos for their defensive coordinator job. And then on Wednesday, he's got his second interview with the Cardinals for the head coaching job. So, again, you'd think he wants to stick it out to see if he can get that Cardinals job. So it may take a little bit of time, you know, because I don't think either the Broncos or Vikings are going to convince him to skip that head coaching interview. Like he's going to want to do that and see how that thing plays out. That's obviously if you can get a head coaching job versus a defensive

coordinator job, like that's where your head's going. So I would assume he at least plays it out through Wednesday. And then if it falls through the Cardinals go a different direction, then it turns to where do I want to take my defensive talents and staying in staying in Pittsburgh isn't a horrible option either with kind of the machine they have there and Tomlin and everything. So it may be that the Vikings want to mobilize now to get Flores. But with his schedule, this might be pushed out here as they now await a second candidate to kind of make his choice. right and he's saying if he's interviewing with denver that's got to be him saying that he is more interested in denver right like am i maybe i'm tying those two things together too much but

if if it was either a head coaching job or he's taking the gig in minnesota knowing that evero is in carolina then he wouldn't bother interviewing with den. He'd be saying, no, if I don't get this head coaching job, I'm going to Minnesota. It sounds more like if I don't get this head coaching job, then I'm going to Denver. But if I don't get the Denver job, then I have to decide whether I even want to be in Minnesota or if I want to go back to Pittsburgh and wait another year. If you come to Minnesota, you're talking about, it has to be a multi-year type of thing, which look, if they were to hire him, this is sort of a different point to be made though. But like, I would like that hire. I would think that this is

a good person to build around that. It's a proven guy who's done it before and a very highly respected coach who worked with Belichick, who worked with Mike Tomlin. Like this is, this is somebody that you want in your organization and in your building. And maybe Miami shouldn't have handled that situation so stupidly the way that they did. But if that becomes the case, well, well, good. I mean, that's who you want. That's who you want trying to build what you need for a couple of years down the road. But if he does not come here, then it's just another slap in the face to what you have on defense and how much people around the league are saying,

we just don't believe in you. And we don't believe in where this defense is going to go. And then you do end up talking about the idea of Petten or, you know, whatever else might happen. So just circling this all back to Cousins and his situation. I think that it's very possible they let it play out. I think it's very possible that they sign him to another short-term contract and we just do that dance again and they you know decide next year and kick that can down the road but i i don't after this happened i i really don't want to leave out the possibility for just about anything because if this team if you do a little thought experiment if they won the same number of games that they were supposed to win based on their point differential which is like nine i think we'd be talking about it's time to

make that trade. It's time to trade up for a quarterback or take whoever falls. It's look at this defense and you just got turned down by this guy. Like that 13 number hovers over everything here, but it should make it much more obvious if you only think about their actual team strength, what they should be doing. But I would more guess that Cousins just remains the quarterback of the Vikings and they try to do a lot of the same things. I guess until I'm shown that there's going to be something different, I'm having trouble thinking that there is going to be this total rebuild, blow up, major changes, make it Kwesi's team. At this moment, I just can't see that happen. Yeah, it's kind of just like a show me it before I'm going to believe it.

Like I just we've talked about it for several off seasons and we just have not gotten any indication that that was where they were going to go. I think we got a sliver of that when the Vikings almost traded up for Justin Fields, but that's basically as much info as we've ever gotten in terms of they're going to move off cousins. It's just always been backing cousins publicly and then extending him. And so I think we are high on Kevin O'Connell and Kweisi Yudafomensa as football minds and people. And these are conversations they're surely having and contemplating. They just have a little bit more pressure maybe from an ownership or from a fan base

in terms of how they respond to those. Those are things we don't have to consider as much when we're just talking about what we would do. But I think, you know, what should win out is kind of what makes football logical sense. And I think what that means is, if anything, it's a short-term extension for cousins because we haven't, we brought it up in previous pods, but we haven't brought it up today. Like even if they wanted to give cousins a longer term extension, they still need to be thinking about what a car or Kirk cousins,

like few Kirk cousins list future looks like. He's one of the oldest quarterbacks in the league now. And you can look at Brady and Rogers and try to make the argument that he can last longer, but I'm just not going to do it. I'm going to imagine he's more on the Matt Ryan timeline and you maybe get another year out of him because you have less injuries than Ryan had to deal with or something like that. But I'm not forecasting that. Usually when a quarterback's play falls off, it just falls off. Tom Brady was near MVP season last year. He almost won it. And then this year happened and same thing went for Rogers.

I won the MVP last year and then considerably fell off last year. Matt Ryan didn't look horrible last year. Just looked like a shell of any type of quarterback this year. And so the edge could come, it might come this year. It might not, but to just not have any game plan for that and to not start planning for the future for that just seems silly. So the fact of making a five year extension, that means at least for the next three seasons, you aren't going to draft someone. You aren't going to make any big moves because the contract of cousins just prohibits it if you do something like that.

And that's where it just for me becomes, wait, you're just going to rely on 38 year old cousins. So you're just not going to make any moves till now. Like a short term extension is the only one that makes sense because I guess it sets you up for the next year or two. You wait to see when that cliff's coming, and then hopefully in that season you're ready to move off of him. But to try to do anything more than that just feels like you're asking to lose your job if you're the GM,

and you're just asking to be caught in a really, really bad spot if you give him a five-year deal. Okay. So before we wrap up here, cause we've been going at this for quite some time and it's been great. I mean, all the, all of you who are watching it's been so much fun to talk about potential landing spots for quarterbacks react to some breaking news here. And you like, i just feel like when the vikings get eliminated from the playoffs there's always this real like oh man what is next and then you get some you know news and you get going again but uh obviously not the news that vikings fans wanted okay real quick before we wrap up paul and i also had a chance to talk about a report that the Vikings might sign Ezra Cleveland to a contract extension. And I'll bring you that now. The report from our buddy, Chris Thomason,

that the Vikings want to extend Ezra Cleveland. And I guess this one, it makes sense on some levels that Ezra Cleveland is a second round draft pick who's a terrific athlete and teams often look at the player's traits. And he was a exceptional run blocker, one of the best run blocking guards in the NFL last year by PFF. However, he also ranked in the bottom five in terms of quarterback pressures allowed. And maybe at some point, you know, if you look back at all the guards that have played with Kirk Cousins, you realize that they all allow a lot of pressures in

part because Cousins doesn't move out of the way. And even when you go back to Washington, outside of Brandon Sheriff, there was a lot of guards that struggled and the majority of the pressure came from there as well. But at the same time, Paul, I've got to wonder about a player like Ezra Cleveland and whether he's worth it. They've already invested. I mean, think about the investments they've made here. I mean, they invested a second round pick in Cleveland, a second round pick in Ed Ingram. The results were very poor.

A first round pick in Garrett Bradbury. The results overall were very poor, even though last year he improved. They would be really banking on big improvement as a pass protector from Ezra Cleveland. And I'm just not sure that spending big money on a guard is really a good choice here when already you have huge money in your right tackle and you're going to very soon in your left tackle. And now you're going to say more money to the left guard that may not be a top player at his position, because right now I really don't think he's

anywhere close as a pass protector. Yeah. I mean, if we're talking about top of the market value for Ezra Cleveland, then I think your argument falls apart in terms of trying to extend him. I guess it just all depends on what that contract looks like and what he's expecting and what he's hoping for. I think, you know, something middle of the road, I wouldn't necessarily be opposed. I think we've seen, I know PFF has done studies on this and we've talked about it before, just how long it sometimes takes interior offensive linemen, center is a big one, but guards up there too. It can take them a little bit while to adjust. and I think Ezra Cleveland has been great, but he's shown signs of improving in the running game.

Obviously, he's kind of projected as a tackle initially, and they shifted him over to guard. I mean, that's not the easiest of transitions, and so I don't necessarily think he's a guy that you just want to move off from, but if he's wanting top-of-the-market value, then yeah, I think guard is not a position one the vikings have historically valued super highly but they they just haven't found the bargains that other teams have been able to to go off of i think in general them not paying a ton for guards is kind of the smart cap move to make and so i would urge them probably to continue to do that especially if they anticipate having an expensive quarterback on the roster like her cousins you have the

jefferson extension looming you you have the Jefferson extension looming, you have the Dara sauce extension looming like those. You just can't spend a ton of money on a guard. So it really just comes down to what he wants. But if it's kind of trying to get that extension in before, you know, he peaks and you can hopefully get some value there. I don't necessarily think that's a bad idea. It just comes down to what that number is.

Yeah. Well, and if I'm Ezra Cleveland and I've played basically every snap of the last, what, like two and a half seasons, I would probably be arguing my case pretty strongly to become one of the higher paid guards in the league. And I just don't think that the player versus what the projected price is going to match up very well here. And, you know, you can always say that they want an extension, but maybe not necessarily do it. In my mind, I think that it is a bad investment because of the weaknesses that the player has shown in particular. And I think too, that a guard is a position you can always go into free agency and get someone there. There's a lot of guards who hit free agency and they don't always necessarily have to be the most expensive guys.

So I look at it as I would not do this, not for this player, but they must have some belief that he can be better than he's been. That's always risky to me, though, when you're saying, well, we think he can get better and fix this one thing. That's a big problem. But a lot of times, you know, I agree with you about the development of interior linemen, but we are two full seasons into playing left guard and it's kind of still the same issues. There would have to be a big change there. And I don't think it's entirely because Cousins is a pocket quarterback. But I think that, you know, their lack of pass blocking interior linemen has been an issue. And I think you've got to try to change that route because that's been one of the major problems. And even if it is a different quarterback down the road,

having guys who score well and run blocking and poorly in pass blocking, well, that's fantastic for your overall PFF grade. It's not fantastic on third down and 10 when you need it the most. Thank you everybody for watching on YouTube or if you're listening on the podcast feed, I think I'm gonna have to break it up into two different episodes here. The way that everything went.

It's gonna be a rollercoaster listening on the podcast. Yeah, no, for sure. I think if you're listening to the podcast version, I've probably edited it to make sure that we're talking about the breaking news first and then get back to it. So anyway, but if you haven't subscribed to the Purple Insider podcast, make sure you do so. Not every episode is up on YouTube, so go there.

Make sure you're downloading every day, subscribing to us here on YouTube. When there is breaking news, someone, probably me, is going to be here, and sometimes Paul, when there's breaking news about the vikings but always going live and reacting to it so when the vikings hire a defensive coordinator i'll be out at the press conference i'll be doing reactions interviews with people from the local news uh paper and media jeremiah searles all those things so a lot going on it's going to be a very very fascinating off season so make sure you're staying, paying attention to the channel and we will catch you next time.

Thanks a lot, Paul. Thanks a lot for your time. Yep.