Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Emergency Podcast: Vikings trade Za'Darius Smith to the Browns

Episode Date: May 13, 2023

Matthew Coller talks with Vikings fans about the Vikings trading Za'Darius Smith to the Cleveland Browns Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to an emergency podcast. Matthew Collar here. The Minnesota Vikings have traded Zedarius Smith and now for a long time I have told you folks, look, the Minnesota Vikings never let you sleep. And that is absolutely true because I was taking a nap. That's what I was doing. I wanted to take a nap to make sure that I had enough energy to stay up and watch Lakers and Golden State tonight. And yeah, I wake

up, pull up the phone, and there's Tom Pelissero saying, hey, everybody, we've got ourselves a trade as the Minnesota Vikings have sent Zedarius Smith to the Cleveland Browns. They send Zedarius a 2025 sixth and seventh to get a 2024 fifth and also a 2025 fifth round pick as well. And in the process, the Vikings free up about $12 million in salary cap space and essentially get nothing back. I mean, okay, a couple of pick swaps, a fifth rounder, that's okay, I guess. But this is 100% the Minnesota Vikings dumping Zedarius Smith for salary cap space. And now they will at least be able to sign their rookie class. And the Cleveland Browns have taken two of the Vikings best defensive linemen from last year in Delvin Tomlinson and now Zedarius Smith as well and Tom Pelissero also notes that he has

reworked his contract to give him more guaranteed money of 11.75 million dollars so Zedarius Smith gets it seems somewhat of what he was looking for, which is more guaranteed money. I don't know if he was looking for a completely new contract, but that wouldn't have made a whole lot of sense for a lot of teams to do with him, any sort of contract extension or huge pay raise. But guaranteed money is all what matters in the NFL. So it seems that that's what Zedaria Smith gets out of the deal.

He's going to go to Cleveland. Now their defensive line is actually pretty incredible. If Zedaria Smith stays healthy, Miles Garrett, Delvin Tomlinson, they've got a pretty good looking D-line, but the Vikings now have some other things to talk about. Like, are they extending Daniil Hunter? Did they make this move because they're about they extending Daniil Hunter did they make this move because they're about to extend Daniil Hunter who could they potentially bring in in free agency if they want anybody else uh Leonard Floyd is still out there there's a handful of other pass rushers that are available in free agency still I just dialed this up as soon as I saw the news so I'll pull up the list and we'll start going through some of the players that they could have replaced Zedarius Smith, or look, they could

just go out and have DJ Wanham and Patrick Jones figure out if they can play for Brian Flores and kind of go from there. But it was made very clear from the outset that Zedaria Smith did not want to return to the Vikings on his contract. And this is a team that just did not have a whole heck of a lot they could do for him. They couldn't guarantee him more money. They couldn't give him a raise because they were already very much up against the salary cap. So what he was looking for for they couldn't give him and maybe there were other reasons he wanted to go as well i don't know but it seemed like it was always up to uh that you know that situation with um his salary cap and or his salary for actual

money that he was going to get and his salary cap hit for the Vikings of why they would have to be at an impasse. And of course, yes, Marcus Davenport as well to go along with DJ Juan and Patrick Jones. And now we'll see what happens with Daniil Hunter. If this was part of extending Daniil Hunter, that would make a lot of sense because where Daniil Hunter stands right now, salary cap wise, it's not one of those situations where you could just lower Daniil Hunter stands right now, salary cap wise, it's not one of those situations where you could just lower Daniil Hunter's salary cap hit by extending him. His salary cap hit is already pretty low. So if they're going to give him a massive extension that's going to make him worth 20

something million per year, it's probably going to bleed over into this year of him becoming more expensive. I don't know if that is around the corner or if this was just an inevitable move for a long time. And the Vikings waited and waited and made all the phone calls they could and finally got a suitor. And there is a relationship there between Kweisi Adafomensa and Andrew Berry. That's clearly where Kweisi Daffa Mensah came from was Cleveland. Andrew Berry was the GM there. So maybe they work this out to, Hey, it works for you. You guys need the salary cap space. Hey, it works for us. The Browns are all in right now because they traded

for Deshaun Watson and gave up their entire franchise for him. So they need to make all in types of moves like this. And, you know, so they've now loaded up their D line kind of works for both sides. I would guess that Brian Flores and the Vikings would have much preferred to keep Sedarius Smith. It is my impression that they did not know based on the way that his contract was set up that he was going to be unhappy with it and want to get out but also at the same time when you look at the cap space that the Vikings had or the lack thereof they needed to create cap space to just sign the rookie class and add anybody else that they want to now they've loaded up already on corners in the draft with two more defensive backs that they picked.

So are they going to go out and get anybody else from free agency? That's hard to say, but there are guys out there. Some of them might have some familiarity with Rams connections, like Marcus Peters, who is still a free agent. So there's some guys out there that, you know, Kevin O'Connell may know, or at least have familiarity with, maybe there's some Brian Flores connections out there as well. So yeah, I mean, it's something that seemed inevitable for quite some time that the Vikings

would trade Zedaria Smith and they made it the Friday evening news dump after the schedule that drops yesterday. And there's rookie mini camp. So everybody's back out at TCO Performance Center and they were able to find a suitor here. So they're not a better football team for trading Zedaria Smith because he's really good at football. When you look at what he did last year for them, he ends up with a top 10 pressure rate. He ends up with double digit sacks. He moved all over the defensive line. He was a monster.

He's a really good player. And what this does by trading him away, aside from just creating some cap space where they could add somebody else, doesn't have to be along the D line, doesn't have to be a corner, but those positions kind of make the most sense to add someone maybe a I don't know I think a situational linebacker to go along with or outside linebacker to go along with those other younger guys and Marcus Davenport but we'll see what it has to mean for Daniil Hunter's situation because if they are extending Daniil Hunter then they don't need someone else. They can rotate between those other guys. If they are trading Daniil Hunter,

then well, you know, they're going to need somebody else. So I guess we'll find out what they do with the cap space. To your guys' questions in the chat, yes, I was golfing this morning, by the way, but I really threw on the hat because I was taking a nap and then I woke up to this news. And so my hair looks like a mess, but this is the golf look. Yeah, I went golfing this morning before rookie camp and I didn't play that well and hit a lot of trees. So let me get to your guys' comments here on this trade.

Z'Darrius Smith again traded to the Cleveland Browns and the Vikings do not get a whole heck of a lot in return as expected. From Nathan here, I don't blame Zedarius for forcing his way out. The Vikings are coming to other players with pay cuts for performance, but he won't budge on a pay increase for performance. Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, yeah, that's right. Like, look, when Z'Darrius Smith signed with the Vikings, the Vikings got a steal. And if you go back and you look at how much they paid for him,

what people thought of the deal right away, I think everybody looked at that deal and said, if Z'Darrius Smith is even halfway decent, the Vikings have got themselves a great deal. And they did. Bang for buck, Z'Darrius Smith was one of the best players in the NFL last year. What they paid for him versus what he produced. It turned out to be a great short-term signing for a team that won 13 games and had themselves

as a division winner. That was one of the sort of short-term all-in moves that we talked about last year that I kind of scratched my head a little bit about. But also, once we figured that this team was really going for it again last year and not transitioning into a real rebuild or even a competitive rebuild last year,

then signings at Aria Smith made a lot of sense. And it turned out from that perspective to be a home run deal. I mean, the guy stayed healthy for most of the year, was slowed in the second half, but the overall production for the entire season turned out to be terrific bang for buck. You can't apologize for that. But if you're Zedarius Smith and you put up those numbers at that position where they are making $25 million for the best player in the league, of course, you're going to come back and say, whoa, whoa, whoa. Remember that player or that team friendly deal? Yeah, that's not a thing anymore.

And it doesn't look like Zedarius Smith got crazy more cash than he was going to get for the Vikings, but maybe more guaranteed money, which would matter the most to him by going to Cleveland because his deal was reworked. If the Vikings just didn't have the space or the opportunity to rework his deal, then they were forced into this move to trade Zedaria Smith away. They didn't really have a choice. So where they get to win is on a few levels. Number one, it's opportunity. It's three guys with potential upside are going to get to play more, more likely than not,

if they don't go out and get somebody else in some sort of big deal. But Marcus Davenport, DJ Wanham, and Patrick Jones, these guys at all different times have flashed things in the NFL. Marcus Davenport has had a very high pressure rate during his time in New Orleans, but he's been banged up. Last year, he didn't get a lot of sacks. There's still upside, though, as a first-round draft pick, freak athlete, a guy who has had

some good sack seasons and lots of good pressure seasons. So, okay, does he fit? And if he does, then they can extend him. And Patrick Jones flashed last year when he got some opportunities. Is there something more there as a guy who was a third round pick that got developed? We have seen DJ Wanham sack the quarterback before. Last year was less effective when it came to that. Has not had a great pressure rate. Now he might get more chance or a good chance to be a situational player. The combination of those guys gives the Vikings an opportunity to find out. And so this is what I've liked about this offseason from the defensive side is that

there's going to be a lot of opportunities to find out about players. You look at the cornerback situation. Yes, you lost Patrick Peterson in free agency. He goes to Pittsburgh. He was one of the better corners in the NFL statistically last year. But now you have a couple of rookies, a couple of second year guys, all battling for position. Byron Murphy is another one where if you really like what you get from him, he could be a long-term player. So now there's this situation at defensive end and corner and a

little bit at linebacker with Brian Asamoah and a little bit of safety with Louis seen like this is what a competitive rebuild looks like creating cap space by moving an older player and opening up opportunities for other guys and that's why I will be very interested to see if they do bring in a Leonard Floyd who was still effective last year as an outside linebacker who's a veteran because that would take opportunity away from somebody for the future. So I don't know if they're going to do that or not the same with a cornerback, or if they're going to kind of squirrel away some of the cap space or add to somewhere else. Let me continue to answer your comments here from Joseph. Do you think that Flores knew this would happen? I don't think

off the bat at the very start of the off season, the Vikings expected to be without Zedarius Smith for 2023. I think that they expected to have him. And my guess is that Brian Flores took the job thinking that he was going to have Zedarius Smith. Now, maybe there was some, you know, something in the works by the time Flores took the job. I forget the exact timing on the Z'Darrius Smith goodbye Minnesota tweet, but that was pretty much the end of that. Once he sent out a tweet that looked like a goodbye, it was pretty much over at that point. And then the reports came out and I forget how close those events were together, but I think that Brian Flores had already

become the defensive coordinator. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong on that, but I would not be surprised if Brian Flores took the job thinking, all right, I'm going to have this versatile veteran player and I'm going to be able to work with him. And then it kind of went this direction with Zedaria Smith, but this is kind of how things go sometimes in the NFL. When you make those short-term deals is that if the, if it turns into a hit, then that guy is going to ask for money in the future. And so there is some of that with Marcus Davenport as well, that I've liked that deal from day one, but if Marcus Davenport plays great this year,

they have the best chance at re-signing him, but it's going to cost them for sure. From John Reckless Speculation, are we bringing back Yannick Ngakwe to pair with Daniil Hunter? I don't know. I mean, Yannick Ngakwe is an outside linebacker type, but he is just very weak in comparison as an all around player.

He's really just a boomer bust. He either gets a sack or is very ineffective. And I'm not sure that a lot of teams love that. I mean, that's kind of one of the reasons he's bounced from team to team, but you know, that's the thing about about they could bring in another situational player on the D-line. I would prefer that they just let it ride and they just find out who's going to fit and who's not. But that could depend on Daniil Hunter as well. If they do move on from Daniil Hunter, then they will need to bring in somebody else. Yannick Ngakwe would have to be in consideration. From Joel, does this feel like the same return we would get for trading Delvin Cook? I think this tells you how little you get for players that are

in situations like this. And when you trade away somebody who was a double-digit sack player that was in the top 10 in pressures, like think about what that's worth, right? If I told you before the season, I'm going to guarantee you double digit sacks, top 10 in pressures. How much money would you pay for that on the salary cap? You would probably say 20 million, right? Somewhere in that range. And so the Vikings, we talk about surplus value with the draft all the time.

They got incredible surplus value from Zedarius Smith with the gap between what he was worth and what they paid for him. And so, you know, Cleveland was willing to at least give some draft compensation to kind of, you know, look for the same thing where his cap, it's not going to be crazy high. They can afford it with their salary cap situation and what he's going to potentially produce for them that is not really the case with delvin cook where delvin cook is being paid way more than he's worth like could you find any running back in free agency to average four and a half yards to carry if it's a right scheme and rank as a below average running team like yeah you could and I think that

it's sort of reputation only with him as opposed to the actual production from Zedarius Smith that made Zedarius Smith attractive for a team to trade for if anything this says to me how hard it's going to be to trade Delvin Cook because Zedaria Smith, who is a really effective player still, as we saw last year, only went for a pick swap that ends up with the Vikings getting two fifths. It also shows you about leverage and desperation. The Vikings were desperate to get the maximum salary cap space out of trading Zedaria Smith. So they didn't want to cut him because the cap space return would be okay, but not great. By doing this, the cap space return is $12 million. That's pretty significant for a team that had literally no cap

space. That's a big deal. And so with delvin cook they are trading once again as they try to trade delvin cook out of a desperate position where they have no leverage and their commodity that they're trading to use kind of a quasi-adafo-menso word what they're trading is not highly sought after zadaria smith is sought, pass rush. So yeah, I think that I agree with what Jordan says here, that once teams knew that he wanted out, the return was never going to be all that great. And that's what you have tonight with Zedaria Smith traded away for two fifth round draft picks and the Vikings also send a sixth and a seventh down the road. And so I think that this was something that was inevitable from kind of the start, but still

it sits in an interesting way, right? Because when you look at the defense now, and this is with Daniil Hunter there, and right now, just going on the assumption he's on the team, but that's a big assumption because we don't know how those negotiations are going. We just know that oftentimes the Wilfs pony up and we know that players like being Vikings and that's it. That's all we have to work with is that usually stars end up staying in Minnesota. But if you look at the defense right now, there are two lenses that you could look through it. You could look through it and say, well, you know, being without Zedaria Smith is going to make this worse. And there's no question that that is a fact. And the cornerbacks being inexperienced and not knowing what you're

going to get from Lewis scene and not knowing what you're going to get from Lewis Seen and not knowing what you're going to get from Brian Asamoah, all of these things, when you look at that schedule and you see Mahomes, Burrow, Hertz, not in that order, you're playing a lot of great quarterbacks. I mean, there's the potential for Brian Flores not being a magic man and just this defense struggling. And if you're only looking for the 2023 results, this is bad. But if you're looking at the bigger picture in this, giving opportunity to other players, creating salary cap space to potentially bring in someone else, maybe someone else who could be a multi-year player is what I think they should do. Not just guys like Marcus Peters who are older,

but somebody who could have some potential upside. I'll take a look at the free agent list here in a little bit if they want to spend any of that money or just keep it. Just hang on to that cap space for the future because you can carry over cap space. So they might decide that they just want to do that. It's not going to be an expensive draft class to sign, so they will have some money remaining from this 12 million. But I think that if you look at it as this year is a transition for the defense from what they used to be with your Eric Kendricks, with your Zedarius Smith last year, with your veteran players to what they want them to be, which is a bunch of these

younger players to eventually be the core of the next good defense, then it's a good thing for them. It's just that it's going to go along with probably some times where, again, even though I think Brian Flores is a very respectable defensive mind, there could be some trouble on that defense. And you're going to get, you know, probably Kirk Cousins is going to put up some big stats because I think that there's going to be some shootouts this year without Zedaria Smith but you know it gives a huge opportunity to Marcus Davenport to step up to show that he is worth that first round pick that the Saints gave him that he could consistently be a pass rushing star he's got that opportunity and that last year they picked up a guy who had an injury history in Zedaria Smith and it turned out to be a big boost for them and there's a possibility that it happens again uh from Efelt Accidental Tank well maybe maybe uh they are any offensive struggles away from that yeah I mean I think after this it's just hard to say, Hey, look, you know, the, the defense will just have

every one of those guys I named step up and they'll be great. It's very hard to say that. I mean, we know that from years past that it is difficult to have a bunch of 50, 50 coin flips all turn out your way. Now, last year, a lot of them did, but in the draft class, we just haven't seen a whole lot. But even if Louis seen and Brian Asamoah turn out to be good, but the corners don't, you're still going to be in a lot of trouble on defense when you're facing a lot of good quarterbacks, a lot of good wide receivers. This does make it harder. This doesn't mean that they will be, have to be horrendous, but it does make it hard to be a very good defense without somebody like Zedaria Smith, unless those other guys kind of band together and collectively create, you know, top 10 type of pressure numbers.

But that, that's going to be really hard to do. From Eric, you can't pay everyone and hope to win. You already have to pay Derrissaw, Justin Jefferson, Hawkinson, and Hunter. You have to trade players. It's that simple. I mean, it's true. And it does go into the category of when you're working around a big quarterback contract, it's difficult. But also when you're looking down the road, if Z'Darrius Smith said to them, I just want a new contract. I want more guarantees.

I want more years on this thing because he was going into the last year of his deal. Then how would you do that if you're the Vikings, right? With all the things that you just named that are very true. Justin Jefferson is going to cost $30 million a year. TJ Hawkinson's probably going to be like 15 if they can get that deal done. We don't know where that's going. Daniil Hunter is a $20 million or more year per player, year player. And so is Christian Derrissaw. I mean, that's how are you going to afford all these players? Now they don't all have to happen right now. And next year, they wouldn't

have to all get hit with those giant cap hits. But if Zedaria Smith was looking for a deal that was going to push money down the road, then that starts to complicate things with those players. And already this season, they have done things that has pushed dead cap down the road, including the Kirk Cousins extension, which next year could be, or I'm sorry, restructure. Sorry, sorry. Kirk Cousins restructure, I meant, that is going to have that big cap hit for next year that already makes it difficult. So you can't sort of start locking in players like Zedaria Smith in the future when already you're in a bit

of a difficult bind there for next season with the salary cap. And there's also part of it that may have just been, look, like we got everything out of you and the second half of the season wasn't very good. That's the reality too, that the second half of the season was not all that good for Zedarius Smith. He went from a defensive MVP candidate. And I remember writing this after, I think, when did I write this? Maybe after like week nine or week 10, that Zedarius Smith was right in that conversation statistically with PFF grade pressures, sacks, all that stuff.

And then you add his versatility to it for defensive MVP. And then the second half of the season, he was more of like a top 25 pressure player. Didn't create the sacks that he did before battle the knee injury while repeatedly telling us that the knee injury wasn't a problem, but may have actually been a problem. So they may have also looked at that and said, all right, well, how much longer is a guy with back surgery two years ago, a knee injury that slowed him down

the second half of the year? How much longer is that guy going to be really good for us? Can we squeak out another year? Yes, but we don't want to give him more money in order to do so because a lot of the other things they've done on defense, aside from bringing back Harrison Smith, have all been kind of to push things onto next season. From Sarah, good question. How does Cleveland afford these players with Watson's contract? Yeah, well, they set it all up. I mean, it's kind of how, like when the Vikings signed Kirk cousins, they had a lot of other expensive players because they set it up to push the chips into the middle of the table for 2018 and 19. And that's how timelines work,

right? That every player with a big cap hit doesn't mean it has to be in that particular year, right? You can kind of, that's the trick of the game is you can set up contracts to hit you the most at this time or that time. And if they have a lot of other players with rookie contracts, I don't know every contract on the Browns, but they might have other players on rookie contracts, other players whose extensions are set up to have lower contracts here or there to really go all in on this year. And that's where Cleveland is at right now is they're pushing all the chips in there. I mean, they made this deal for Watson.

They're trying to win like right now. From Tommy, do you know how Marcus Davenport compares to Zedarius in size, speed and style of play? Sure. Well, yeah, he's bigger and he's faster. That's for sure. Zedarius Smith, the funny thing about Zedarius Smith is that if you go back and look at what he did in the combine,

sometimes the combine does not tell you about play speed because he did not have amazing combine scores. And the guy is a great NFL player. And especially when he was with the Packers, the first half of last year, this dude was just a monster. But he was one that did not have all the great 40 or the freakish numbers or whatever else. He just turned out to be an amazing football player. Davenport is kind of the opposite.

Like Davenport had amazing NFL combine numbers, crazy production when he was in college at a smaller school and did not transfer that over. I mean, he was so exciting as a draft pick that the Saints traded a future first up to get Davenport, if I remember correctly, in 2018, because a lot of people thought they might be doing it for Lamar Jackson as their future quarterback. And instead it turned out to be Marcus Davenport. So he has those freakish traits that could be a superstar, but so far they've only turned out to be just a good situational rusher.

Injuries have gotten in the way of that. Davenport also talked about needing to learn some more things about his game and look himself in the mirror a little bit after what happened in New Orleans. Cause I asked him that in his introductory press conference, kind of like what happened with the production. And he said that he needed to pay more attention to some of the details to understand where his teammates were, where he was supposed to be rushing because he had lots of opportunities and that shows up in the numbers, but he didn't finish the job, which he made this year. And he did in 2021. That's part of the bet. So he is bigger. He is faster, but he's not a guy that's going to move all over the place. He's more of your 270 pound

defensive end type. He is not a, you know, inside outside linebackbacker like you saw Zedarius Smith with lineup here he's on the edge on this play next play he's over middle linebacker next play he's rushing over the guard you won't see that for Mark Stavenport he's going to be an edge rusher and that's that's going to be about it from him so yeah they are they are different players, and I will be very interested to see if Brian Flores tries to do something different with Marcus Davenport, but it really did seem like Zadarius was a great fit for Brian Flores. But as the players will tell you every time, it is a business, and this was a business decision. I think that they would have preferred to have Zadarius on this defense and then hope

to develop the other pieces around him for another year to see what they had. But even when they went out and got Marcus Davenport, it was a pretty clear sign like, OK, well, something's up here. And it probably means Zedarius is gone. There was just no rush to do it. They could wait all the way through and before, you know, June 1st, if they wanted to deal with the difference in salary cap space there, but they could wait whenever they wanted to, when they could get their best deal.

And overall, I think this was probably even to get him traded a plus for them because they could create the most cap space. And Hunter says, I applaud the trade, but recognize the team is worse this year after the trade. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like being able to trade him is a good thing to just get someone to take that salary because we've seen how difficult it can be.

Cleveland has been out there buying up these salaries for a while. And Amari Cooper was another one where it was shocking when Amari Cooper was traded for a fifth last year. But it was the same deal. Everybody knew that Dallas couldn't afford him. So whoever had this amount of cap space, I mean, they were going to be able to work that out.

So Cleveland is kind of in that all-in mode. They feel like they have the team to work that out. So Cleveland is kind of in that all in mode. They feel like they have the, you know, the team to win this year. And so, you know, having to trade him away or trade for him for Cleveland was a good move for them, but having to trade him away does not make you better in any way whatsoever. Definitely not. Does not make you better to be without Zedaria Smith. But getting to trade him in general versus cutting him is a positive and a fairly significant one by the salary cap

that does allow them to go out and get somebody else if they want to, or at least be more flexible. So a few more reactions here from DP John, our defense is going to stank, but it will be better than last year. I would not guarantee it's better than last year to tell you the truth. I would not. I mean, I do think Ed Donatell wasted a better roster, but that's the thing is Brian Flores could do a better job and have a better scheme and do everything better than Ed Donatell. And I bet he will and still finish 27th.

That's just the reality of playing Jalen Hurts, Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, and a bunch of decent quarterbacks. I mean, Derek Carr, Jimmy Garoppolo, these guys are decent quarterbacks. And even Baker Mayfield, if he's given time to throw, he will throw the ball to Chris Godwin and Mike Evans and put up some numbers. So I don't know. Right now, I would probably put them at somewhere in the 20s ranking on defense. I don't have a ton of confidence that without a huge, huge step forward for their corners, they're going to be a great defense. I still think that, and somebody asked me this, hold on, I will scroll up and put this on the screen. Where was it? Hold on. I'll get to it. Okay. Oh, there we go. From Horse Feathers.

I just like your name. So I wanted to put that up there does this change your thoughts on your picks for 10 and 7 it does not change it very much because I didn't think they were going to have a good defense anyway and I also thought they were probably going to trade Z'Darrius Smith so to tell you the truth I kind of baked that into the 10 and 7 pick and when you look at the schedule there are a lot of games where the Vikings offense can outplay the other team's offense. And Tampa Bay is one of them, Carolina, both Chicago's, both green bays. You can split with Detroit. I've already found quite a few wins there. Right. And can you outplay new Orleans at home? Yeah, I think that you can.

So then you have to win a game or two that might be a little bit on the challenging side. It's just that when we look at the end of the year, those rankings, oh, Atlanta's another team. Can you outplay Atlanta if you get in a shootout with them? Of course you can. They have Desmond Ritter as their quarterback. And unless he takes a massive step forward, yeah, you can outplay them. So I think 10 is still a fair number it's just that if we had expectations that uh it was going

to be you know a defense that took a huge step forward and finished 12th or something I don't know I mean I just think that that's going to take a lot and Nick makes this comment that the second year players need to contribute for this defense to even be average. I think that the second year players need to be downright great in order for them to be an average defense because Delvin Tomlinson is also a big player to lose and bringing in Dean Lowry, who did not have much of an impact on the Packers last year and is kind of just the guy.

So you have Harrison Phillips, Dean Lowry, like this is not something you'd expect as a group up front to be able to stuff the run very effectively. And with Jordan Hicks on the older side at linebacker, and then Brian Asamoah being a new linebacker, like even if Asamoah is great, how much will that matter? We saw years where Eric Hendricks was great and the rest of the defense struggled because of the coverage. To me, where it really rests is on the coverage because I don't think they're going to be a 50-sack type of team next year,

even if Daniil Hunter is here. They just don't have the players to sack the opposing quarterback a ton of times. So that means it's going to have to be all about the coverage and whether a Caleb Evans, Byron Murphy, Andrew Booth Jr., these guys come together, Louis seen if he's the one playing safety or if it's Cam Bynum, which he could take a step forward. It's just, there's a lot of players that are completely unproven that all have to play well. And it's not that Zedarius Smith, this ties into the 10 and seven thing. It's not that Zedarius Smith changes that, right? Zedarius Smith does not, him being here or not, did not change

who this defensive success would rest on. It's just that if Zedarius was adding 10 sacks and 50 or 60 pressures, well, that makes the secondary's job at least a little bit easier. And now if they can't fill that void, then it's going to be, those guys are going to have to really, really step up. There's a lot of good receivers on this schedule. It's going to be a tough ride for a lot of those guys, but if they do step up and play well, then you've really got something as far as building blocks for the future. It's just when we set our expectations right now, I think we have to be pretty reasonable about them for the second year players. From Sizzleman, still hoping Daniil Hunter could be moved as well.

Collapse for Caleb. Yeah, I mean, look, if here, here's the thing about the reality of this team's off season is that if they traded or trade Kirk cousins, they could be in the conversation for Caleb Williams. If they were to play Nick Mullins as their starting quarterback, they don't have the defense. On offense, they have a weapon, but Jordan Addison's a rookie, hard to say what he's going to bring. Though I really liked just watching him run routes on air today at rookie minicamp. They didn't do a whole lot else except for individual drills.

That's another story. But he clearly was the most talented player on the field, the way that he moves around. But that's another story. But he, I mean, he clearly was the most talented player on the field, the way that he moves around, but that's, that's another story. A rookie is not going to move the needle enough unless he's the next Justin Jefferson. So if it, if Kirk wasn't here, you would be talking about being in that discussion for the number one overall pick. That's where this roster is at. It's just not going to be good enough on defense and Kirk is going to be good enough offensively to get them to seven to 10 wins. But without someone like Zedaria Smith, it is limited what they can do

as far as the ceiling of this team, more likely than not. I don't know if I answered this question already. I don't think I did, but it's a good one. What happens first, Jefferson extension, Hawkinson extension, or Hunter extension or trade? Well, they could all come at the same time. We have seen that happen before where they just set up the timing. So it's at the beginning of training camp so they can get everybody excited about training camp. It's also, we've seen them go through training camp and then be kind of at the end, like it was with Delvin Cook. The timing is hard to figure out.

It seems to me, though, that of those three, the Daniil Hunter extension would be, or trade, would be the most likely. If he's going to be traded, maybe it's next Friday for the news dump for a Daniel Hunter. No, I'm kidding. It has to be after June 1st for them to trade Daniel Hunter, just the way his contract has worked out. But a Friday in June then for Daniel Hunter.

So it could happen. Then that's when minicamp is as well. Mandatory minicamp. If they go into mandatory minicamp and Daniel Hunter is not there, that's a pretty good sign. If he is there, even if he's not doing anything, that would be a sign toward an extension. So that is the one that feels like it's going to be addressed first. The TJ Hawkinson one is interesting because we have not discussed that really at all. If they traded a second round pick for him and then he does not stay it's a little bit head scratching

there is a lot of money allocated toward the future jefferson i just don't know i don't know what justin jefferson is thinking is justin jefferson thinking i want to be a viking for life he has not said that but uh you know i i don't you know i don't know. Like he might feel that way, that this is the only organization for him. And, you know, that's where he's going to stay. The money really works out. It is the whole thing is set up for rookies who are great to stay with their teams. If you're a guy who on your rookie contract is amazing, like Justin Jefferson, it is not easy for you to leave.

I mean, you've got fifth year option. You've got franchise tech. You got all these measures in place to keep you there for multiple years. So you got to fight till the end if you're going to go. And I think the Vikings might make him fight rather than trading him away for a couple of first round picks or something. But I don't know. I don't know what happens if we get to a situation where Justin Jefferson does not want to stay with the Minnesota Vikings. Then it gets very, very complicated and tricky. I still think that when they back up the Brinks truck, that he will want to stay with an organization

that has been absolutely great at keeping his, its players. So I guess I would rank it, Daniil Hunter, TJ Hawkinson next that I think that they'll pay him. And then Justin Jefferson after that, because I just really don't know what he's thinking. And he has, you know, he's got some leverage in that, not all of it because of the way the system is a broken arrow says the NFC is weak, and that is not an untrue statement. However, in what way, right? Yes, it is weak in that the middle of the conference is very much in question. So the teams that you would put, the New Orleans, the Packers, the Bears, the Rams, the teams, the Seattles even. Are these impressive teams?

Are these teams that the Vikings couldn't beat or aren't as good as? No, they're all in that same category. The Giants, maybe the Cowboys, although I think the Cowboys are a little upper echelon. But when you're talking about, yeah, I guess I would say that when you're talking about the best, the Philly, Dallas, yeah, is a significantly better football team than the Vikings right now. San Francisco is on my mind as well. And after what Seattle's done, they might be there. Detroit.

So when you're still talking about a week conference that your team is the fifth, sixth, somewhere in there, best team, Well, where are you really at? Like, are you really a Super Bowl contender if, you know, you're talking about being the fifth or sixth, or Vegas has them as the seventh best Super Bowl odds in the NFC? You're really not a Super Bowl contender, which means you might as well make moves for the future. From JTT7 and Lots of 7s, terrible trade, got nothing for him. They got cap space and they got opportunities, what they got for him. Now, terrible trade would be the case if they didn't have to trade him, but it's hard to grade. You have to grade on a curve

when the guy was going to demand to be traded, when he was either going to ask for more money or potentially not play. And then you're just sort of sitting on this player who's not happy with you. And what do you do? It becomes a distraction. And I think also that they weren't terribly afraid to do it because of what happened in the second half of his season. So technically speaking, yes, it's a terrible trade to give away a player who's really good and get nothing back except for fifth round picks. But that's if we don't cut down any other levels than just on the Madden, here's what your team gave up,

here's what that team received. Once we cut down a little bit farther and see that, yeah, okay, so they get a lot of cap space to work with here they are giving opportunity to Marcus Davenport they are giving opportunity to Patrick Jones and DJ want them to develop in another year then it looks a little bit better with their timeline and where they are like what is the purpose of having a Zedarius Smith when the whole rest of your roster on the defensive side is a team in transition? So, you know, from that perspective, you always have to make decisions based on where you're at as a franchise, not just this player for

that player, right? So I guess I'm looking at it from a lot of different perspectives and not just the player for picks situation. Did Jordan Addison look special today? Well, he looked better than everybody else. But one of the big differences between Kevin O'Connell and Mike Zimmer is that Mike Zimmer would do full team drills and like live reps with the rookies. So we could get a really good idea of what guys looked like in rookie camp. We could see it. I mean, they were running full speed reps, not padded, but right. You could get a sense for somebody right off the bat.

That's not what Kevin O'Connell does. Kevin O'Connell said today that he does not want to see anybody get banged up and does not want to get put behind in terms of putting in the offense for OTAs and minicamp. He doesn't want anybody sitting out because of that, because they tried too hard and rookie minicamp day. There's another part of it too, that when you bring in a bunch of UDFAs, sometimes they're trying a little too hard to make the team and you do get someone banged up you have seen that before and I think that O'Connell just played it safe so Jordan Addison I mean he ran routes on air did a little seven on seven very hard for me to say oh yeah well

superstar you know it's just it's a it's a really taking the words mini camp seriously but when you watch him run it is so quick. It is so smooth. And you can see why he was able to get open. I mean, there's no question. If they weren't wearing numbers and I didn't know which guy he was, I would have easily been able to pick him out. From Mike, what kind of cap space will the Vikings have after Cook is gone

post June 1st? Well, let me look it up and we'll hope that over the cap doesn't freeze my internet here. Cause it can be a big website. Uh, but I will check on that to get that number. Um, let's see. So they earned 12 million from Zedarius. And if they cut Delvin Cook post June 1st, they earn $9 million more. So what that means is they got some space. They got some space to work with. They can go to the free agent market and they can bring in some other players. But do they want to do that is a question. Would they rather just have these young guys play and figure out what they can do?

And if they are parts of the future, or would they rather bring in several veteran players? And look, I mean, I could see both approaches. I could see them going for both approaches because they might say, why don't we replace Zedarius Smith with another situational rusher who's a free agent right now, and then have a bunch of guys compete in training camp for those positions, give Brian Flores a bunch of different weapons. I could see them signing a veteran corner if they don't love what they see in OTAs or minicamp from Caleb Evans and Andrew Booth Jr., how much they're picking it up. They'll know behind the scenes how much those guys are picking it up. You'd be amazed how early they could start to figure this out as the coaches. They just don't

tell us, but behind the scenes, they get a little bit of a sense right away from the OTAs and minicamp as they're installing the defense. Hey, is this guy getting it? How does he look? If they're not that pleased with it, they could go out and look for another veteran corner to pair with Byron Murphy. I don't see really the use for it. I really don't. I think that it's a much better idea to just let it ride, try to carry over some of that cap space. If there's one other player that they want to get, that's fine, but make sure that you are creating as much space as you can for the future. Use some of that. This could be a thing that they do for a Daniil Hunter extension to load a little bit more of that extension onto this year.

So Daniil Hunter, let me go check this out. I'm sorry. I closed the screen here. Daniil Hunter with his current salary cap hit, we are looking at $13 million for Daniil Hunter right now. So let's say that they use some of this space and cut Delvin Cook and end up making, what, $21 million in space. Let's say they front load a little bit, add $10 million onto this year for Hunter, and that lightens the load for the future, add 10 million onto this year for Hunter, and that lightens the load for the future. That makes it a better deal for the future, for an extension for Daniil Hunter. That's something that you can do.

So they might use it in a bunch of different ways, or they might go out and look at free agents like Yannick Ngakwe or Leonard Floyd. I really don't quite know if they are looking at this, maybe after what happened with Zedaria Smith, if they're looking at this and saying, this is going to have to be a transition year, or if they're looking at free agency and saying, Hey, uh, we can sign a couple of players that can match what Zedaria can do, and we can still have a good defense. I don't know. I don't know which one of those ways that they look at it.

I tend to think that they could probably let this ride as a transition season and feel pretty good about that. And I think that's just the reality they have to live in. I mean, last year, everything went as well as it could possibly go for them. And they were out in the first round. And this year, it's not as good of a roster right now unless other people start to step up. And I mean, big time. Because replacing Zedarius Smith, that's a Pro Bowl caliber production.

Replacing Patrick Peterson, Pro Bowl caliber production, replacing Patrick Peterson, Pro Bowl caliber production. So unless they step up big time, it's not going to be a better defense, but that's okay, right? That's okay in my mind, because you weren't really a Super Bowl contender anyway. If they were a Super Bowl contender and just lost their top pass rusher, then it'd be pretty darn concerning, I think. Or I would say, go out and get two people off free agency that are going to help you. And Michael says, Brian Flores is going to be here two years minimum. That's a good thing as well. I'm not saying it's a good thing if he has bad defense. Of course, hey, look, if he has the number five defense in the league, and I'm completely wrong in what I'm saying right now, then that's

great. That's great for the Vikings. They'll play unbelievably well on defense. They'll have a great team and he'll get a head coaching job somewhere else. But if he is here for two years and you can look or more than that, and you can look down the road and say that he will have established a scheme and a defense that is going to be good for them long term then this ends up being a good situation for him to be in but or for the Vikings to have him so Michael you're talking about top 20 this year I'm just not confident in it. I'm just not. There's so many unproven players that all have to be good at the same time for them to be a top 20 defense.

That's three corners slash safeties, at least that are completely unproven that all have to probably be good. Seeing Evans or, you know, hey, look, Makai Blackman or Jay Ward, one of those guys could win a job as well. And then, you know, hey, look, Makai Blackman or Jay Ward, one of those guys could win a job as well. And then, you know, Andrew Booth Jr. Booth Jr. and Evans have to stay healthy. Lewis Seen, not his fault what happened last year, random injury, but he's

coming off a pretty serious, you know, a pretty serious injury from last year. So how that's going to play out is really hard to say. From Jay Gizza, competitive rebuild means continual 500 ball. Yay. Look, it's hard to argue with that. It's hard to argue with that, that competitive rebuild has meant for this team hanging around 500, 500. But we cannot ignore the fact that it's paired with the Vikings not extending Kirk Cousins. So that as we look down the road here and where they are in their timeline, if you play out the last year of Kirk Cousins and your defense is pretty tough, right? And then Cousins goes, you draft a quarterback in 2024. And now your defense has younger players where you've drafted and invested a lot for several years. And you go into that season, then it's an exciting new season with a rookie quarterback. You've extended

Jefferson, you've extended Derisaw, you've extended Hawkinson. You've got all these weapons. That still might not be a Super Bowl caliber season because playing a rookie quarterback is not likely to win the Super Bowl. But as you go into the second season of a rookie, and I know I'm saying, look, several years down the road, but that's what they have to do as a general manager. You look several years down the road and you can see all these players who were drafted starting to develop, come to fruition the same way it did in 2017 for Mike Zimmer. Look how long that took. He started drafting defensive dudes in 2014 and it wasn't until 2000.

And actually it goes even before that with Harrison Smith and Xavier Rhodes, but it wasn't really until 14 and 15 draft that they were ready to step up. So these things do take time in order to build up a defense over a number of years. It did not just happen with one move or one draft pick. So they're going to have to do that again. And if you can time that after doing all these draft picks on the defensive side, the last couple of years, if you can time that along with a quarterback as a rookie, having that rookie contract, then you can add other players, right? Like then you can add to that defense and you can take everyone you've developed,

free agent players to go along with the guys that you've drafted on the offensive side, who are stars. And that's how it all comes together. That is a long time to wait, but there really isn't another choice. That's part of the issue here with the Vikings, that what they inherited, Kweisi Adafomensa and Kevin O'Connell was a team that was at the end of

its run. And yes, if you went back in time and said what I know now, and maybe what some of us could have seen coming was maybe you shouldn't have torn it apart last year. Maybe you shouldn't have signed a player like Zedarius Smith to trade away for a pair of fifths eventually and win too many games and not draft high enough and all those things. Maybe you shouldn't have, but that's not the reality they're in. Clearly the ownership wanted to go all in for last year. So Zadarius for that situation was a great signing, an A plus signing, but now it does not fit where they are as far as a timeline.

And I think that there is a plan here. And I think what we were confused about last year was what the plan was. What we were confused on early on was what the plan was. And now I think we're starting to see it, right? I think we're starting to see it. From Broken Arrow, if your goal is a ring, you need a top 10 quarterback before anything else. All of this ties into that. Yeah. I mean, all of this, this is a Zedaria Smith emergency podcast,

but it's also a, what does this mean to the bigger timeline for them? And would you rather have Davenport Jones and Wanham play as opposed to a guy, you know, isn't going to be part of the future, but he is better at football. I would rather have the other guys, the younger guys play rather than someone

who is not going to be here for a long period of time. So yeah, I mean, I agree with the sentiment that somebody like DJ Wanham is not shown to be a star yet, but there's development. And that's what they're looking for is who's going to develop. And if they don't, then they know who they need to replace. From Jordan, is outside linebacker the most interesting position battle at camp? It certainly is up there now, for sure.

Now, is Daniil Hunter at camp is the question. Because if he's not, then yes, absolutely. That shoots to the top. But there's going to be, yeah, there's going to be a number of players that are really battling for those positions for sure. And how that plays out, how Marcus Davenport looks, does someone else take a step forward? That's what we're about to find out when it comes to training camp.

But I think it is, in a way, for them, exciting to find out. Like, okay, let's see. This is an opportunity now. So is anybody going to step up to the plate here at outside linebacker and be the guy that Brian Flores really likes? Is it going to be Wanham or is it going to be Jones? That is better than, hey, let's see if Zedaria Smith's body holds up for another year. And, oh, by the way, look how much money they gave him.

And that's the thing. If they did not trade him and instead they had caved and given him a lot of extra money here and sacrificed what they could do as far as flexibility to other extensions and things like that. And he gets hurt because he's on the older side, or he just falls off the map like he did in the second half of the season, then we would be saying, what were you doing? Why didn't you trade him away? You should have known he was going to fall off. You could have seen it before. So Kyle says, Ryan pulls, he's so good at GMing. Well, I mean, that's two teams who chose different routes with new GMs. And Chicago has a lot of flexibility for the future. If their quarterback is bad this year,

they'll draft another one next year. And you know what they'll do? They'll continue to just add and add and add through free agency because they're going to be capable of doing that. They're going to be capable of just loading up as much as possible. So yeah, they could be the Jets if whoever they have at quarterback is not great, whether that's Fields

or somebody else, but they're going to have an opportunity to really build a team toward a Super Bowl where the Vikings are in this mode of just slowly churning and turning things over. That takes longer. It takes longer when you're locked into cousins at least for this year and then his dead cap for next year it takes longer to move on slowly from all these older players as opposed to ripping off the band-aid which is what they could have done last year so yeah i mean ryan poles is gonna look really smart for a little while because he's got all the opportunity in the world to spend, spend, spend. So even if he spends it on linebackers, which I know is what

his head coach wants, so it makes sense on some level, but he can do that. You can overspend on linebackers. You can overspend on any position really when you've got that much cap space. But this is another point too, that trading Zedaria Smith to the AFC, and it's just sort of kicked into my brain, means that he's not signing with Chicago or Detroit or Green Bay, I guess, but probably not because he came from there.

But Chicago or Detroit, if he was gonna make the whole rounds of the NFC, that would not have been good for them. If he signed with Detroit or if he signed with Chicago, that's not what you want to see because he still is a good player. From Nistic, how do you think the 3-4 affected Smith this past year? It's always been his thing. I mean, it's always been his thing. As a 3-4 linebacker who moves all over the place, I think that it was, you know, it's fine for him. That's one of the reasons they wanted him is because he's always been good in that. And he

would have been good in it with Brian Flores. I'm sure. So, you know, I, I don't think it was system. I don't, it was nothing else than just a money situation. And I don't believe that they had initially planned and you look at, they dip their toe in a lot of these guys in Thielen, where they did offer Thielen a different contract. They did negotiate with Patrick Peterson. And I think that they just got to a place where these guys were not coming back at reasonable numbers and you have to just go the other direction then. And Flav's son says rebuild season. Yeah. I mean, this is, this is what a competitive rebuild season is. And I take Casey at his word next time. He says something like that, because that's what it is. It is. They are going to be competitive. This is not a bad football team.

This is a team that can compete for the division with a division that has a lot of major questions about it, but it is not a team that is ready to really win the Superbowl unless a lot of crazy stuff happens. And that's what a competitive rebuild season is. They're not going to fall off the map. You're not going to go into every Sunday feeling like you want to gouge your eyes out. In fact, every game could be super fun again. If anything, last year, one of the reasons it was super fun is because the defense couldn't

stop anybody. So every game came down to the end. I would expect that that's going to happen again. From Jason, the Bears will have a better record than us this year. They did the rebuild thing the right way. We will regret not doing the same thing. And very possible, very possible on all those fronts. I mean, I don't see the bears being quite ready to be great yet, but they might be. I mean, we've, we've seen this before. I mean, Jacksonville was so horrendous two years ago. And then last year, Doug Peterson, they get some players

and all of a sudden they're in the playoffs. They're not a Super Bowl contender until probably even this year in the AFC. It's hard. But last year they were not a Super Bowl contender, but they were in the playoffs and that could happen for Chicago. I don't want to count that out that that could happen for Chicago. I don't want to count that out that that could happen for Chicago as well. So they are in a very interesting situation. The Vikings are, and Sarah points out that the bears have an easier schedule, which does happen when you finish last, you know,

that, that does happen when you finish last is you get that easier schedule. So would it shock me if the Vikings went eight and nine and the Bears went nine and eight? Like, no, no, it wouldn't. Because yeah, you're right. They took that hard path of going all the way to the bottom. They could have kept Khalil Mack. They could have kept whatever number of other players, Roquan Smith, but they decided we're getting rid of it all.

We're going to the bottom. We're going to trade back, still draft high, get the players we want, get an offensive line, start to build around Justin Fields and go forward from there. That would have been my plan when they fired Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman. It was not the Vikings. So they're now in this position where they are forced to do this competitive rebuild, which does involve sometimes moving on from players like Zedaria Smith. And I think within the confines of what they're being asked to do, Kweisi Adafo-Mensah this off season has gotten really far down the road in executing that, right? In setting them up for things for the future. I think they've gone a pretty long way,

drafting a receiver, moving on from the older players. Now they did commit some void years, but it wasn't atrocious void years, setting an end date for Kirk Cousins. All those things are good. I'm not saying that this is all right or that it will all work out perfectly or anything, just that it's conducive with what a competitive rebuild would be. From Terry, there was big news a few weeks ago about talks with the 49ers.

What's your thoughts on that now? Kirk for Lance trade before June 1st. It'd have to be after June 1st. Just the way Kirk's contract is structured, they could not trade him right now. They still, even after today, even after making $12 million in cap space, they do not have enough cap space to trade Kirk Cousins with the dead cap hit they would take before

June 1st, after June 1st, maybe. Now, you could ask, does this, what happened today, trading Zedaria Smith, does this have any impact on how they view potentially moving Kirk Cousins for Trey Lance? Because both teams are going to say the same thing. They're going to say, oh no, no, we love Trey Lance. Oh no, we love Kirk. We want to stay with Kirk. But if they sit down at the table one more time with Kirk Cousins and his agent, and they say, look, two year deal. Okay. That's what it's going to be. Two year deal. That's our final offer. And it keeps your salary cap hit reasonable. It's a reasonable amount of money. Let's say it's similar to Derek Carr money or whatever.

Two year deal. And Kirk's side says, no, we want, we want three, we want four. If that's what happens, they have to consider. I just think they have to consider making one more phone call to San Francisco to see if they might trade for Trey Lance. They have to consider that because even if a trade for Trey Lance did not work out, there's a chance it does. And he's your franchise quarterback. But if it doesn't, you're going to be bad and you're going to draft high and you're going to take your next quarterback. There's a lot of good outcomes there with a potential trade for Trey Lance that have a higher ceiling than what it does for Kirk if you win 10 games.

So there is that possibility. I am not going to close the door to it at all. I am not going to close the door to the potential for that happening. I don't think it's likely. I think that what's most likely is the Vikings go 10 and seven and they play in the first round of the playoffs against someone great and they don't win. And then next year we're talking about how much draft capital can they cobble together to try to trade up to take a quarterback.

That's how I think this thing goes, but I do not want to count out any possibilities. From M Overland, looks like we effectively traded Zedarius for Davenport and pick swaps. I don't think Davenport signs here for starter money unless he gets a guarantee from the front office that either Z or Daniil will be gone. Yeah, I agree. I mean, when he signed here, just like with Alexander Madison, he signed to start. It's just that historically with Marcus Davenport, he has not been able to play a full season. He has not been a thousand snap or 800 snap guy. He's been more like a 400 to 500 snap situational type of player. And if that's what he's going to be here, then he doesn't really replace Zedaria Smith. It's kind of a replace by committee. If he does do that here, then they could sign him to a long-term

deal. And I think that's what they're trying to find out is whether, you know, he can be a replacement for Zedaria Smith, only he's younger. I believe he's turning 27, but that's not bad for a defensive end with freakish athletic ability. So if they find something in Davenport, because he does have good underlying numbers, and he ends up getting 10 sacks for you and you sign him to $20 million a year, and he plays here for five years, that's the ideal outcome is that he becomes a long-term part of the defense, whereas Z'Darrius Smith was not going to be a part of the long term. From Andrew, should we expect to see void years in upcoming contract extensions? Are we done with

those with the Kirk Cousins restructure? I think in the short term, like next year, they would want to avoid doing that. They would want to make sure that they give themselves as much flexibility as possible. Void years are put. One of the guys I really like following on Twitter is Andrew Brandt because he managed the cap for the Green Bay Packers. Nobody knows the insides of how this thing works better than him and has a platform to tell us about it. And one of the things he said that really stuck with me is you can do anything you want if you are only looking in the short term. And so there will be a moment where they can look in the short term and say, it's time to push the button. That might be two years from now. That can happen. But now is not

the time to push the button nor next year on any more things like that, like those void years. And I think that even the guys they put void years on, they're hoping to extend and then spread out the void money, which is kind of the one hack, the one way around it. It doesn't make it go away. It just means that you can spread it out over a number of years, sort of lessens the blow. So if they sign Marcus Davenport after this year to a four-year extension, they can move the dead money out to those years and it softens the blow as opposed to the way it is now. And the same thing goes with Byron Murphy. So I think that they probably had plans for that. Jason says that Lance is trash.

Well, you're going to have to let me know how you know that because he's only played how much football. And I'm not saying he's not, but I don't know how any of us could make any judgment on Trey Lance. I'd like to find out though. I would really like to find out in a year that I don't think they have a chance to win the Super Bowl. I really don't see them, nor does the Vegas Gamblers who put their money on this thing. I don't think that their odds are

very high to win the Super Bowl or to get to the Super Bowl or to get to the NFC Championship. And they're only so-so to make the playoffs. So would you rather see a Kirk Cousins team at 35 years old at the end of his career, spend a year going 10 and 7, 9 and 8, or find out if Trey Lance is good? Because you don't know and I don't know. But I do know the guy throws the ball over them mountains. I do know that he's huge and that he's fast and that there might be potential there. And so from that perspective, I would be willing to take a look for a year when I know that we're basically taking a look at the entire defense. That makes a lot of sense to me. So, you know, this is a common sentiment, probably a good place to wrap up once we've gotten to this. The Wilfs only care about making money.

That's just, I mean, that's just not true. That's just not true. The Wilfs have money. I don't know if you guys know this. They have a lot of money. I think that the Wilfs like having a really good football team. And they like flying to Minnesota and going to their box with their family and everybody that they know and watching good football games for a team that has a chance to be in the playoffs and potentially have anything happen. And they've bought into that

idea for many years. And it's hard to tell them not to outside of one of the years, which is 2020. That was the one year, 2019 to 2020, where you could have seen it coming that they were not going to be able to quickly just snap their fingers and rebuild. They want to have a first-class organization from top to bottom. They have spent a ton of money on that. Tons of money on building TCO Performance Center, getting a stadium built, all the things that go into that, hiring endless numbers of people. They have put all this money into Vikings.com and all these things, right? They have spent a lot of their money. Every player who wants an extension gets money from the Wilfs.

And I know this, that they have said in the past, one of the reasons that they were able to re-sign so many of those good players from the past is that they were able to put the signing bonuses, they were able to put the cash on the table. It's not about them making the money off the team. It's been about them making the money off the team. It's been about them wanting to have a competitive team and then believing that after 2021, when they played a bunch of very close games,

that what they needed was a better culture, a better offensive coach, a more modern approach, and they could win more games. And they turned out to be right on a lot of those levels, except they weren't really a Super Bowl contender still. And so now they may be reaching a realization that they will have to take some steps back, but they're not going to take steps back all the way to the bottom. We just know that that's not what they're going to do. So I think that when you have an organization that the players think is the best in the league, and when you have spent the amount of money they have and put together the facilities and the locker rooms and everything else, I am not going to

listen to hearing them be called cheap or say that they're only here to make money. I think that they want to win football games. And that's probably what a lot of us would want as well. But now we have reached a point where there's time to take a different approach. Okay. So that's what they're trying to do. But since they did the competitive rebuild, they have to do little things like this, where it's trade somebody for nothing to create cap space and opportunity for other players and see what happens from there. And then eventually draft a quarterback, hope to put him on a situation that's been growing for years and is good. That's the hope. That's how they're planning

it out. And I think that was probably what they all agreed to when Kweisi Adafomensa and Kevin O'Connell were hired. Let's go for it in 2022. Let's have a transition year, 2023, get a new quarterback, go forward. And I mean, it's, you know, something like this. So sick of these owners. It's like you guys, I mean, I guess you have to go back and look at the previous owners of the Vikings. You have to go back a long way. That was not a good ownership situation. There are teams around the league that have wacky owners who do crazy things and are cheap as heck and run half rate organizations. Arizona is one of them. Cleveland has a crazy owner. I mean, there's, how about the guy that just, they got, just got rid of?

Daniel Snyder. You got, I think, a very good ownership that does not buy into tanking ever. And so you're going to have to do it another way. And I think that what they've done this offseason has pushed them in the right direction toward where they eventually want to go. That doesn't mean I think that they got there. It just means that is the needle pointing toward rebuilding this roster, making themselves a better defense eventually, finding out who can play, eventually creating cap space at the quarterback position, all of those things.

I think that all of those things have happened. And I just, I'm just not interested in, in the, the ownership stuff. Cause a lot of people try to throw that out all the time that yet they set the expectations, they set the path. And I think that they've made mistakes on that in the past in sticking with Kirk cousins, rather than moving on from him after 2019, they probably could have moved on from Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer at that time as well, but that's not what they did. They decided to go this way. They got a 13-win season out of it, so it's hard to say 100% that they just completely botched that last year or completely misread the situation. So this Zedaria Smith move. It's a part of the bigger picture of the Minnesota Vikings who are taking this roster and going

from an older roster that was kind of all in to try to win that didn't make it to now looking at a bunch of draft picks playing and developing players and looking down into the future. And, uh, that's, that's where we're at. So very interesting stuff. How about an emergency podcast on a Friday night? Here I was thinking that I was safe after 5 p.m., but Kweisi was burning the midnight oil and making a trade for Zedaria Smith. So there it is. Trade it away. Now we'll see what happens next. There's a lot to go. You know, just when you think,

just when you think, well, the draft's over, the schedule's been out. We're good to go. I could sleep on the Vikings. Then you end up like me, woke up out of a nap to do an emergency podcast

because we have a lot of fun doing this. So great conversation. Thanks so much to everybody who watched or listened on this emergency podcast. Really enjoyed it. Now I'm going to go watch some basketball. I don't even know what's going on in the game.

So yes, Jordan, you're completely right. The Vikings are never boring. That's for sure. So thanks again, everybody, for all your time and watching this emergency podcast. And we'll talk to you again very soon. Anything happens, I'll wake up and be right here. See ya.