Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Eric Eager talks draft trades and Will Parkinson analyzes Sam Darnold's time as a Jet

Episode Date: March 16, 2024

SumerSports' Eric Eager talks about the Vikings' moves in free agency and their need to trade up to at least the top 4 for a quarterback and then Turn On The Jets podcaster Will Parkinson breaks down Sam Darnold Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here, and look who's back, Eric Eager of Sumer Sports. You knew that there had to be a podcast coming between myself and Eric after Kirk Cousins chose the Atlanta Falcons, so we've got to get into Justin Jefferson's narratives and negotiations, which are getting a little out of control. It's like people got bored already after two days of Vikings moves and things like that. So now they've turned on to former tight ends who are really good on Madden, starting rumors on Twitter and so forth. So we'll get into that.

Also, the cost of trading up, whether it's actually worth it analytically. Want to discuss that as well. But let's just start off, Eric, with the Vikings plan. We have talked about it so many times. I feel like the entire time you and I have known each other and done podcasts, we have always been talking about this bigger front office perspective and for it to come to fruition with cousins leaving to Atlanta, them getting a quote bridge quarterback in Sam Darnold, getting cap space, spending that cap space immediately to rebuild their defense. I feel like this is a major step in the plan that seemed like it was laid out from the beginning for Kweisi Adaflomensah. Yeah, and I think that that was always why you and I reserved judgment

until he got to get rid of Kirk Cousins. And, you know, he got to take over a team that, because his predecessor, you know, didn't finish strong but wasn't a complete disaster, left him with the Justin Jefferson, the future Hall of Fame wide receiver, Christian Deresop, Ryan O'Neal, a good enough team to compete with that he had to deal with Kirk Cousins in that big contract for all those years. Now they get to the end of the road, right? They are taking on the most dead money currently in the NFL.

So they still have to deal with that but you start to see now this team is starting to have the fingerprints of quesia daflamensa they go out and they get jonathan grenard who uh is kind of that ascending player i think about back when brad childress took over with uh you know fran foley but you know also the zygmunt wolf beginnings when they went out and got you know bobby wley, but, you know, also the Zygmunt-Wolfe beginnings when they went out and got, you know, Bobby Wade, Vysonteschenko, Chester Taylor, guys who were kind of second contract guys just starting their ascent that people kind of had. No one in this who listens to this podcast heard of Jonathan Grenard

before last year. And so, but he has a good year last year. Quasey goes and gets him for less than $20 million a year, which is the going rate for a great edge player, and they're banking on him. Andrew Van Ginkle, same thing. He's going to come in, very similar idea. Now they have two guys that can rush the passer with alacrity,

and they haven't had that since Everson Griffin left. So that's a great start to the whole thing. They go get Brian Cashman, who I know fell in the draft because he has short arms, but he's going to pair with Ivan Pace another small linebacker and they're going to be able to move around uh and that's going to get the the fingerprints all of Cashman's data looks really good again Adolfo Mensah being an evidence-based GM going to making that move and now you start to see again you know Sam Darnold you know, Sam Darnold, where, you know, Sam Darnold, the top three pick. What do, you know, hedge fund managers slash asset traders, they buy low and sell high. Well, Sam Darnold is the quintessential buy low on an asset that once was a pretty coveted asset that the New York Jets once traded, you know, a bunch of draft picks to move up to three to get him. Now they bring him in as the bridge. And so you start to see kind of the fingerprints of what Kwesi wants to do. And it

was never possible with Kirk Cousins here to fully see what Kwesi wanted to do with his team. And now it's kind of fun to see that. And I think that now, you know, if you were somebody who was inclined to root for him, the general manager and head coach, Kevin O'Connell, now I think you can fully embrace it. If you were somebody who was inclined not to root for him, you can fully embrace that, too, because I think this is finally the this new regime. Now, two years in, this is finally the actual manifestation of what these two want to do. Right. This is not them completing the journey from start to finish. That maybe will come in April when they draft a quarterback or also when they actually win something. Because that has to happen as well with this plan. But what you wanted out of them in a regime is for it to be moving in the direction that it seems like they laid out and seems like makes logical sense.

When you see a regime or front office making haphazard type of moves that were just bringing in this guy at random or that guy, and that's supposed to be the final answer, or they're panicking or they're desperate to make something work. And we saw that with Spielman and Zimmer. Then you go, OK, I don't know if this front office is on the same page with their ownership. I don't know if they have a real plan to actually succeed. And for all of this to seemingly lead to this moment of not going all in on Kirk Cousins. That was what they appeared to lay out from day one. When the words competitive rebuild were thrown out there, a lot of us made fun of it. A lot of us said like, what is that even supposed to mean? And you wrote an article breaking it down

how difficult it is to split the difference between being in the middle, staying competitive, getting to the top, never fully tearing it down. And even Kweisi Adafomenta has admitted that's a difficult thing to do. But so far to this point, they have been able to do that. They have been able to move on from expensive players, bring in younger players, bring in players now in their prime and these three defensive guys that they drafted. And as far as the Sam Darnold thing goes, he's going to make $10 million on a one-year contract. That is 25% of what most starting quarterbacks will make in the NFL. That's backup quarterback.

It's like if you're the best backup quarterback in the league, that's around what you make. And not only that, there is some upside potential to Sam Darnold. So I guess you'd have to be paying really close attention though. Cause I noticed that when there are those who cover all 32 teams commenting on what the Vikings are doing, you kind of can see who's really been dialed into this and who's just sort of waking up, looking out the window and being like, they replaced Kirk Cousins with Sam Darnold because there's so much other context to this that you have to go back literally

three years to understand how it all led to this point well but also yeah and and good on and good on Kevin O'Connell right who's been in my opinion one of the best coaches in the NFL last few years I know he's not perfect but to take a team that was incredibly flawed, an 8-9 team, 2021, get them to 13 wins. And I know it was a Mickey Mouse 13 wins, but it was – they won 13 games, playoffs. Then last year they were – they won seven games, but they were competitive the whole year. They kept the fan base in it all year. But there are costs to being a competitive rebuild team and again like we're again i'm happy i'm somebody who roots for quacey i'm somebody who you know roots for kevin o'connell i want them to

do well but there were costs to do the competitive rebuild the first cost is that you've watched detroit pass you up right the detroit's in in the NFC championship game and they have a ton of cap space and they had a ton of draft capital. They have a lot more to work with than you do. They have a franchise quarterback who's better that about as good or better than Kirk Cousins was. And they don't have to make a tough decision on him. They have a ton of draft capital.

They, and they can, they basically, you know, all these things that vikings fans say about oh you know they never hit on a defensive player during the kurt cousins era they they aren't their detroit lions basically whiffed on every single defensive player they signed a free agency last year and still made the conference championship game because they rebuilt and had the slack to do that green bay passes you up because they decided to draft the quarterback with one of their picks as opposed to using it on things like Garrett Bradbury, things like that, and play him behind Aaron Rodgers. And now they've comfortably passed

the Vikings up. And now Chicago, again, Kweisi hired the same year as Ryan Poles. Ryan Poles, they didn't have as much to work with, so it was an easier decision to do this. But they bottom out. They get the first pick. They trade it. They get the first pick again. Now they're sitting. They get either Caleb Williams or a haul for the first pick,

and they're building out a roster with some pretty damn good players. You are going to be the fourth best team in this division, regardless of what you did at quarterback. And so in some ways, we're giving Kweisi some credit for making a decision that was pretty easy to make at this point in time. But the costs of those two years are still going to be felt about what we're going to talk about in a second, which is you didn't have a ton of draft picks this year because of the year you were competitive and you went in and got Jalen Rager and Ross Blacklock, and more importantly, TJ Hawkinson.

That left you with fewer draft picks in 2023. And now this year, because you went in on Josh Dobbs instead of just playing, you know, and again, Jaron Hall got hurt, so it's not as easy to say, oh, you played Josh Dobbs instead of Jaron Hall. But you were competitive when you could have just mailed it in and got a better pick, but you are going to have to trade up now to get your starting quarterback in this draft, and that's going to leave you with fewer resources than you would have otherwise had. So there's costs to being competitive, and those costs are the other teams who are building the war chest while you were winning some meaningless games in octobers and novembers are now ahead of you and you have to play catch up now good on yeah i think that they're going to do the best that they can to play catch up but that's what's in front of

them right now and and it's gonna it's gonna leave i think a lot of people with some question marks about what's to come uh for this team And I think from the front office perspective, the reason I give some leeway to the overall direction is because it was laid out from the ownership. And at that point, there's really nothing you can do. And I even try to get into the heads of the Wilfs in making that decision to have them run it back and be competitive in 2022, because they looked at what happened in 2021 all the close games that they lost as miserable as the organization was they were kind of on the cusp of being a good team and i think they felt like can we at least see it with somebody

else in charge because all the players and think about this if you're the owners because we always make this easier because we don't have consequences we We don't have to deal with actual people. But if you are the owners of the team and Patrick Peterson and Adam Thielen and Eric Hendricks, these great, great players are coming to you and saying, we just need a better culture. We're right there. We can do it. We need a couple more players and we can do it. Just like 2017. I think you could see how, instead of being like, look, sayonara guys, great to know you. They would say, all right, we'll give you guys one more chance. And they mostly made good on it. It still wasn't worth it because they didn't win in the playoffs,

but I think that they went far enough with their 13 wins to prove that that concept was right, that they were a better team than what they got out of that group in 2021. That's not apologizing for the direction. I think philosophically, we all know tearing it down completely at that point probably was the better idea, but it also is relevant that there were other tanking teams in the division. So you looked at it like a free path to a home playoff game, which they got by getting there. Which is worth a lot of money in the NFL, and it's worth something to the Wilfs,

and that is something to consider, what the Wilfs value relative to what maybe other owners or what the fans value. Right, and if they had beaten the Giants, if they get that final drive out of Kirk Cousins, they beat the Giants, I think they would have gone to San Francisco. I believe we all feel like they would have beaten the heck out of the giants. If they get that final drive out of Kirk cousins, they beat the giants. I think they would have gone to San Francisco. I believe we all feel like they would have beaten the heck out of the Vikings, but Brock Purdy did get hurt in a playoff game. Like at that point,

I would have said, you know what? They were right. They got the playoff win. They went out there. They had a chance. They were on the doorstep. So they, they were proven, right. It's really the fact that they didn't beat the giants that I think stings so much. And then there's, you know, look, it has not been anywhere close to perfect along the way. This is what I mean by the direction overall. The macro view has been, I think, really good. The micro, there's a lot that you could take apart, including Daniil Hunter, Houston, Texas. That is a mistake that not trading Daniil Hunter in the middle of the season when your quarterback goes down and Kweisi Adafo-Mensa mentioned getting texts from players saying, oh, don't trade players. Don't tear us down. Sorry, man. That's why you

run the team and not the players. And I get it. And even the coach, the same thing. I'm sure that the coach thought we can make the playoffs. Look at our upcoming schedule. You're the coach, not the front office because the front office is supposed to make more prudent moves. And now if they had an additional second round pick, they would be in much better place as they are in a position to potentially trade up. So there have been mistakes. There have been bad draft picks. There have been some bad decisions. Marcus Davenport signing is really, really a black mark on the record. But when you now have this cheat code of going to get a rookie quarterback, if you make a mistake on a signing, it doesn't ruin everything as missing on Marcus Davenport did for their pass rush last year. And I think that's a key point that they always needed to thread the needle on every signing and every draft pick. So you miss on a cam Dantzler or

something, and then you're just up a Creek and have to sign Bashad Breeland as opposed to now there's more room for error with what this team could do. So I think that just as Rick Spielman was way smarter of a GM when he had Teddy Bridgewater in the rookie contract and he signed Linvald Joseph and Captain Munnerlin and Terrence Newman and hit on those free agents. I think that we'll see like all of a sudden, if you make a bet on a Jonathan Grenard or an Andrew Van Ginkle, those are way better bets than Marcus Davenport. You don't have to make a huge sacrifice in order to get somebody as they did in the past.

Well, look at all these teams that got guards and centers. They had to draft Garrett Bradbury in 2019 because they didn't have the resource. Carolina Panthers, you can give the Carolina Panthers a ton of flack, and I will. I don't think that Brant Tillis and Dan Morgan should get crap for what Scott Fitterer did, but you can give the whole organization some crap. But they went out and got Robert Hunt for $20 million a year at guard. And we're all going to be like, geez, that's a lot of money. But when it comes down to it, you've already paid $ 200 million in assets for Bryce Young in that trade so you're gonna have to do you're gonna have to figure out and then

you fold in a Deontay Johnson trade you fold it and all these things are about supporting your quarterback and when your quarterback's making up against the cap and back then like I think the Kirk Cousins thing could have worked now where you have void years and you have um a better coach offensively i think zimmer really did not give kirk much of a chance whereas i think kevin o'connell to his credit really nurtured kirk as a person which you know helped but you were never going to be able to go out and pay top dollar for a guard you were never going to be able to go out and pay top dollar for a guard. You were never going to be able to go out. They almost had to cut Riley Reif on the eve of the pandemic season because they were up against the cap.

That was your left tackle, guys. And so, again, when they come in and they trade up and they get Drake May or Jaden Daniels or J.J. McCarthy, and it doesn't go perfectly this year, they're going to have a humongous amount of cap space to go out next season and find the exact player to help them out. The same way, and everybody, again, I'm the biggest Patrick Mahomes fan probably in the world, but the Chiefs overpaid for Sammy Watkins they they they over like when Patrick Mahomes got the crap beat out of him in the Super Bowl they went out and traded a first for Orlando Brown they paid top dollar for Joe Tooney and that was because Patrick was still on the cheap end of his

contract and now we watch Mahomes and this season of, of course, the offense was terrible, but he's the everything everywhere all at once. He's past that point. Kirk was never going to be that guy, and so you're always kind of making that excuse. The next guy that comes in, whether it's McCarthy or whatever, there's just going to be a war chest to be able to support this player and he doesn't have to be even anywhere near as good as kirk cousins for this team to have the kind of success that this team always wanted to have when he was the quarterback right and you know we had gone over that so many times of the disadvantage and so forth but sometimes you really have to see it in action to fully understand right and so it's like, well, yeah, but they

made a mistake on this signing or they made a mistake on that signing and like, okay, let's see what happens once the shackles are off with the salary cap. And once there's all this extra cap space that went into it. And the thing is that with the way that cousins always designed his contracts, it never had a whole lot of wiggle room because you'll see, well, hey, Derek Carr, Matthew Stafford, they had this low cap hit for this particular season or that season, but the structures were always all guaranteed money. And that makes it very inflexible for them to be able to move around. And you mentioned the dead cap space, but once they take their medicine, then it goes

away. And so I remember last year when they did switch Cousins contract around to have all that dead cap money hit at once. I think we were a little confused, like, man, that's going to be so hard for them next year. But now when you see it in the light of day and you go, okay, wait, only 2024. And then it's all gone. It's all disappeared. And there's no more void years that you have to deal with. And the same with, you know, Daniil Hunter and the way they set it up.

And then the freedom is truly there for them to work with no bounds that are holding them back. Well, and not only that, but the way in which the cap works and the Wills are phenomenal owners. The Vikings are a great franchise with great facilities and everything.

You can borrow from the future. And in fact, it's at a negative interest rate. So everybody's like, well, what if the Vikings actually hit on this stuff? Like they can go mid-season, let's say, if it comes up that they're actually really good. And let's say J.J. McCarthy is him, and they're 7-1 or something like that, you can go just because you ate all that dead cap this year doesn't mean you can't, oh, there's not money to spend here. The Cleveland Browns, the Philadelphia Eagles, to a lesser extent, now it's Tampa Bay has been doing it. They were a pay-as-you-go team but when brady

came they became more of a uh spend and prorate team as we call them like you can go to like jonathan granada you can go to probably more appropriately you could go to justin jefferson or somebody who has who's you or hawkinson maybe i think hawkinson may be the more appropriate one and go to him and be like look we're going to convert the rest of your week-to-week paychecks to a signing bonus, spread that out over five years, and take that money. And again, you're borrowing from the future, but it's a negative interest rate because the cap goes up

every single year. So a dollar later is worth less than a dollar now. It's just that you don't want to do that for no reason. And the Vikings are doing this for no reason for all these years. That's been the thing that's always been my issue is you're borrowing 28.5 million from the future just for a very moderate you're always and I always joked about this but they were always like

40 to 1 they were 40 to 1 to win the Super Bowl every year under Cousins it's like so you're borrowing from the future just for that. So just because they're taking their medicine this year doesn't mean that midway through the season, if the thing starts to turn over and become good, that they can't go trade for, you know, a corner that's disgruntled or another wide receiver or a guard or something like that. They can do that. It's just that if they don't and and this season turns out like 9-8 or something like that, they're going to go into next year

with the biggest war chest in the league. And they might go from being the fourth best team in this division, which they are now, to a favorite. And that's where, when it comes to those buttons to push, once it's time, then you mash them. And when I, I'm talking about the salary cap, and this even goes for a trade-up type of situation. I think that they're tied together. So I want to talk about that because you could start pushing all the void years. You can do whatever you need to do, all the conversions to make sure you get as much cap space as possible. Once you have hit that moment where you are emerging as a team that

can truly compete for the Super Bowl, and then you'll pay the bill later, whatever, but you create this two, three year window where you can make it all work. We're going to see Detroit do that when they have to pay people and Chicago do that when they have to pay people eventually. And that's what the Vikings plan will ultimately be. Now, I think that the fact that they've put themselves into a spot where they could have the war chest salary cap wise for next year, where you can be the team that trades for Bradley Chubb, you can be the team that trades for Khalil Mack or Tyreek Hill or whatever other player that another team cannot afford, not to mention signing them in free agency. That allows the Vikings, in my opinion, to trade up with whatever it would take. And I think that over these next few weeks, Kweisi Adafo-Mensah, aside from signing a

left guard, maybe bring Dalton Reisner back, I don't know, signing a wide receiver three, filling out these other parts. They've done some of the major stuff, but his phone calls, 80% of them should be to the Arizona Cardinals and the Los Angeles Chargers to try to get up ahead of the New York Giants to make sure that they can pick a quarterback.

And throughout this time watching J.J JJ McCarthy, I have been in two worlds of, I haven't really seen it of why I would think that he was a top prospect. And yet I also think that if Kevin O'Connell fully buys into him as a leader, as an understander of football and concepts and how to lead an offense and dial it up and then as having attributes that he could develop into a great quarterback that jj mccarthy and the vikings do make a lot of sense as a marriage there's also a possibility and it just feels kind of crazy from where we were that mccarthy has become so coveted that he surprises us, and he's one of the top three picks, even though we have all assumed that it's going to be Drake May.

All I know for the Vikings is you better be there in that spot after doing all this to get the guy that you want. And I've been okay. I like Bo Nix. I like Michael Penix. But if it's one of the top four that they absolutely must have, then do whatever it takes to get to number four or to number five, to make sure that the giants don't jump ahead of you. And honestly, if they did it in Trey Lance style, if they did it tomorrow,

I would think that that was really great. Like do it now. Well, everybody else is sleeping. Make those trade calls. Now don't wait until draft night when the prices are going to be extremely high and there's going to be so much competition. Yeah, I mean, we have precedent for that. The Jets moved up with the Colts in 2018 for Darnold, I think a month before or so. And I remember the Niners moved up with the Dolphins.

Basically, it was the Dolphins, and it was a month before or so. So we have precedent for that. I think Kweisi understands that. And then, of course, the Panthers traded up with the Bears a month and a half before the draft last year. So we have precedent for that. I agree. I think back to the Bradshilders era.

I think back to when they traded Dante Culpepper. And, again, Culpepper had a knee injury, ultimately was never the same, so it was smart to trade him. They got very little in return. And instead of – they could have drafted Jay Cutler. They could have moved up for Jay Cutler. They went with Brad Johnson, and then they traded up – people forget they went Cedric Griffin, Ryan Cook in round two.

They traded back into round three with two third-round picks of their own, and they won. They got for Nate Burleson. They trade back, and they take Tavares Jackson. I think the fan base, if they went back and got Spencer Rathler or even Nix and Penix. I like Nix and Penix, but if they come back in and go and get one of those guys, it's going to be the wah-wah,

I think, that a Tavares Jackson would give rise to. I do think you've just got to go up and get the blue chip guy. That would be my one criticism of Quasey so far, which is he's kind of in that scene, I'm forgetting Sarah Marshall or Paul Rudd and Jason

Seagal are doing the surfing. He's telling them do less and he just kind of like he's I think Quasey sometimes does with the quarterbacks, just kind of lets the game happen to him. And even with the Cousins thing, it was kind of like he did let the game happen to him. And good on him for not matching that deal with the Falcons, but could have been more proactive with Will Levis,

could have been more proactive with Kenny Pickett, Malik Willis. And I think in hindsight, he was right on probably all three. I think Levis has some potential. I worry with him, though, if there's four quarterbacks there, does O'Connell have a big opinion on any one of those four? Because then I can get to a, then I could see a situation where they're like, okay,

they have Intel that it's going to go Williams, Daniels, McCarthy, and maybe they don't have a big opinion on may. And they let this thing play out and they're, it's a Sam Darnold season, or they have a big opinion on may, but not McCarthy.

And again, it's a Michael panic strap draft pick and we're all just kind of like and and the Kirk Cousins people who are wrong get a whole season of peacocking at us because we have to watch Sam Darnold the whole season and so that's like where I get worried because he has not I think he has great analytical principles, but the one that has been, you know, Nobel Prize winning economist, Richard Thaler, along with Cade Massey, one of my good friends, they wrote the paper back in 05 saying, basically, if you think there's a huge difference between quarterback one and quarterback two, you're probably wrong.

If you think there's a huge difference between quarterback two and three, you're probably wrong. And three and four, you're probably wrong. And three and four, you're probably wrong. So if I'm Quacey and I move up to four and then somebody in front of you takes the wrong quarterback, I still think you should take the next guy. Because if the data around this position tells us anything, it's that we don't know a whole lot. You look at the 2021 draft, and a lot of that's pandemic. But Lawrence is OK. I think he'll get a second contract. Wilson sucks.

Lance sucks. Field sucks. Sorry, Bears fans. Mac Jones sucks. And we all thought that was a generational class. We weren't all that geeked out about Tua and Herbert, who are much better than any of those four guys. That's where I get worried, is I think you should trade up to four

and take the fourth best guy. And I know people are going to be like, well, you've got to like – Kevin O'Connell has already shown a propensity to be able to take a quarterback who's incredibly flawed and win with him. I think that's his superpower. I think if you're Casey, you lean into that. Folks, if you don't know what a VPN is, you might actually need one and not even realize it. If you already know the positives,

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And in this situation, and this is only presuming that they think that J.J. McCarthy is much better than Bo Nix, much better than Michael Penix. And the reality seems to be that that's the case, or at least depending on who you ask, like some former quarterbacks online like Bo Nix more. I don't know. But if that's how everyone feels, is that it's a 4QB draft and the other guys are more of second-round draft pick types or late first-round types, then you need to keep turning that dial and you need to keep, or if it's a bidding war, keep raising your little Viking ship over and over and over until you get it. You need to go so high that somebody else is going to say, all right, we just can't do this because that's the position that you've put yourself in is that

you need to come away with that. And it could be costly down the road. But also if they were like up against the cap, that would be problematic. I don't tend to think that's problematic. So if they went to three first round picks, I think that's okay even if by all metrics everyone will say oh they got killed on the draft chart like i don't really care about that at this moment there's a couple ways you can view the competition you can view the competition as everybody's for lack of a better term kind of like blown all their bullets on three right with new england maybe that could pick gets traded and then everybody's like exhausted for four or people might like by the time you pick over all those quarterbacks you get to four maybe all the teams don't like that fourth guy either so i i wonder about that because you are trading up for the fourth guy analytical draft

charts like the one quacey probably used are a lot flatter. So what I mean by flatter is it's, you know, he's going to probably offer less initially because later picks are worth more to him. And just like when, you know, when he traded back from 12 to 32, a lot of people in the league, even though most of the analytical draft charts says good job, Kweisi, the Jimmy Johnson charts said he got beaten in that pick.

And that's probably why they were able to get a strike price between the two. So I actually think that he – that might be the Achilles heel here. He might not actually get up to that price, and some team might beat him out for it i would imagine that ownership slash o'connell slash him will consensus on moving up and doing what it takes with the price uh to get up to four and to me that's the trade-off is if kevin o'connell wanted kirk cousins back which it seemed like he did and the front office and ownership said oh no not at that price then all right but you better get me my guy you better get me at least one of those elite prospects, not Spencer Rattler or something in the middle rounds and hope for

development, not Sam Darnold for $10 million, but really get me my quarterback of the future that I can be with for the next 10 years. Because what we know is if you hit on that guy, you have a really good chance of having job security for many years to come unless you blow it like you're the Los Angeles slash San Diego Chargers. So let me ask you before we wrap about Justin Jefferson. There is lots of buzz, lots of noise. And I just started Googling, Eric. And I Googled Nick Bosa contract negotiations. First thing that pops up, an article just before he signed the contract about how the 49ers were botching negotiations with Nick Bosa. I typed in DK Metcalf, and there was an article about how DK Metcalf was bluffing about leaving the Seattle Seahawks. He

never wanted to leave. He just put it out there to try to up the price a little bit. I found a Debo Samuel trade request. I found a Jalen Johnson trade request. And in my opinion, and this could change as soon as we hang up because the national football league's crazy. But in my opinion, all of this is just noise that always happens every single time a major contract is negotiated with a mega star player that is not a quarterback. Normally with the quarterback, the team knows, okay, we just got to give him whatever he wants. But in almost every other position player, you see stories the guy wants out. Now there's the story that, you know, he wants to see how it plays out in the off season first. Well, that, I mean, sure,

because this contract is getting negotiated in August, more likely than not. So it's fine if he wants to do that and wait to see what they do in the draft. But here would be my question, Justin Jefferson, how do you like playing on two franchise tags? Because that's the rules. So, I mean, would you like your 80 million guaranteed now, or do you want to try to play it all the way through and see if you're still as valuable on the other side? It makes so much sense for both parties to eventually agree to a massive contract extension for Justin Jefferson. It doesn't make sense to trade him. It doesn't make sense to let him go on the franchise tag or anything else.

And I also think it's a total myth that because the Vikings didn't extend him last year, it's going to cost them way more money. I've seen that out there. The salary cap went up a little bit. I guess maybe that's where you could find that. But everybody knew that it was going to be the biggest contract in the NFL for a wide receiver. I don't see how anything has changed really from last year. And it's, it just, it's, it's always a thing. It's like, we love drama. We love trade rumors. We love, love pointing at a team and saying, look at them screwing up. But until Justin Jefferson is either not playing football games because of his contract or until he's at, well, I guess if they haven't signed it and he's into the season without that contract, I'm just going to sit here and wait and say, all right,

I'll wait through all the drama, through all the rumors, through all the let's go live now to our insider to hear the latest on Justin Jefferson. I'll wait through it. I don't think you should have to ride that ride if you're Vikings fans, because much more likely than not, Justin Jefferson will sign the contract extension that we've always thought he was going to sign.

Yeah. Also the cap goes up every three years. Every NFL team has to spend 89% on average of the three-year rolling cap. They're going to spend it on something. Justin Jefferson, folks, the top-end deals in the economy that is the NFL are tethered to the franchise tag, which goes up in proportion to the salary cap. Justin Jefferson did not run away because of a year you didn't sign him. It's just going to go up in proportion to how the cap goes. So, yeah, you have to pay, but the cost of being an NFL owner is to spend up to the increases in the salary cap. So quit it with this stuff. And giving Jefferson a 13% increase over what you were going

to give him last year is fine because that's the increase in the cap. It was not going to go. It was going to go to something else anyway from the owner's perspective. And I can't think of a better way to spend 13 more percent of your cap than on the best wide receiver that is in the NFL right now. So I don't get it. It doesn't make a ton of sense. Jefferson's going to play for this team. In fact, once they see their plan for quarterback, which is to get a young guy who you are responsible for, Jefferson, like you are the author of this guy's career.

I can't think of somebody who's more competitive in the NFL than him, who wants that probably responsibility more than him. This is a guy that averages 10 yards a target as a wide receiver in the NFL. It's hysterical how good he is. Of course, he's going to want to go. He's accomplished every statistic he's accomplished in this league. He finally wants to win, and he didn't win here. His quarterback left his team, gave a one-minute, 30-second speech, and did not mention once that they didn't accomplish what they assigned him to do.

This guy wants to win. They're getting closer to that by everything they've done this offseason they're going to get closer to getting jefferson here all that other stuff is hogwash i do agree that it they probably should have signed him last year but they have these instruments the the great players in the nfl the blue chip players you have the first round pick you're the fifth year option you have the two the two folks if you didn't figure this out by now the two salary the two franchise tags tether the two-year cash for every single one of these big deals like these things are already written it's all about whether or not you want to guarantee

the second year and all this kind of other stuff which by the way they should it's going to get done we just don't see how they would have gotten that much better of a deal for last year. Maybe there's a little more cash involved because of the cap going up, but we already knew that it was going to blow everybody else's contract out of the water. And just one more, one more myth to touch on with Justin Jefferson and his potential contract extension. And, you know, like if something changes, then I guess we're going to have a really crazy podcast if it changes. But just for now, is the idea that because they struggled to build around Kirk Cousins salary cap wise, that they will struggle to build around Justin Jefferson's dollar figure. It's very different because number one

is the structure of a deal for Justin Jefferson. If you sign it now and you can push out some of the money, you can also make it so it can be restructured into the future to lower those salary cap hits as we just saw with Patrick Mahomes for I think the second time already that they have restructured Patrick Mahomes. You could do that.

And for a wide receiver, I mean, first of all, I don't even think his salary cap hit will get to 30 million for at least the first three years. So that's one thing, but for a wide receiver, by the time his cap hit his 30 quarterbacks are going to reach 60. I mean, so I just don't think that those two things can be connected. They will pay people, but you're going to have Jefferson set up with still a reasonable cap hit and it won't be massive until years out. And that's the point where you're trying to make it your window to win as well.

He's still inexpensive. We saw that with the Philadelphia Eagles and AJ Brown. So the structure of this versus what happened with cousins, where it was all guaranteed, is just so much different. So I just think that this takes so much nuance. And when they, on TV, send it out to whatever reporter for a 30-second report, it's very difficult to capture, like, hold on, I'm going to need 11 minutes to break this down, Ted, or whatever. And you just can't really do that. But I think that all roads lead to an extension that will look at the first

like it's totally insane, and then they won't be that restricted by it into the future. That's how I feel about this. I just don't see any real issue with Justin Jefferson signing this huge contract. Yeah, me either. And again, your quarterback is on rookie deal money. I don't know what his name is, but he's on rookie deal money. So like Sammy Watkins was making 16 million a year with Patrick Mahomes and they made a Super Bowl. He was not worth 16 million a year. You have a ton of slack there. And I can't think of a,

I can't think of a wide receiver cost-wise that I'd like to round corners with than Justin Jefferson. Yep. And we've seen people – it's funny how people bring up Tyreek Hill as a reason to get rid of him. Tyreek Hill is a reason to pay him because he's made Tua into one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL statistically. So who's your draft pick quarterback more likely to be? The best ever or like a pretty good guy? So anyway, and also Patrick Mahomes had the best offense with Tyreek Hill, much better than they had last year.

Anyway, we can go through that all day. Your great receivers build up your young quarterbacks. And then, yeah, when your young quarterback becomes a great one, the truly unicorn of which there are like five, then yeah, you trade the receiver, but there's only five. Like the bills can trade Stefan Diggs. If they want to, the, the cheese can trade Tyree kill. Everybody else needs their wide receivers and including the Vikings.

Right. Even Aaron Rogers, different guy once Devontae Adams was gone. So anyway, Eric Eager, great discussion of all things Vikings and the plan and an interesting new world that we now live in. For the first time in a very long time, you and I have conversations about what is next, a quarterback, and it actually means there's a new quarterback. So thanks so much. Sumer Sports Show is an absolute must-listen between you and former GM of the year, Thomas Dimitrov. So make sure everybody goes and checks that out. YouTube,

now on XM Radio as well. Awesome, awesome, awesome stuff. So thanks so much, Eric, and we will talk again soon. Thanks, Rob. Folks, have you ever heard of test driving a phone network? I did not make this up. It is an actual thing. And U.S. Cellular is letting you test drive their network for free for 30 days. You can try out U.S. Cellular wherever you have that spotty service, like on your commute to work, that one spot in your house where your service dips. Test drive U.S. Cellular at your kid's school on parent-teacher night.

Okay, maybe still pay attention, but by all means, make sure you test it. It's as easy as doing a little boop, boop, boop on your phone. That was me getting the app to try it out. I know, great sound effects there. Test drive U.S. Cellular's award-winning network for 30 days. U.S. Cell us cellular built for us terms apply awards based on open signal independent data visit us cellular.com for details turning to show will parkinson from turn on the jets turn on the sam darnold talk in minnesota

will what is going on man thanks for coming back to the show. Yeah, basically, I guess I have to start covering the Vikings now. They're acquiring all my former guys. We got Sammy D, Blake Cashman. We are rolling. Well, we could definitely get into Blake Cashman, but of course, the quarterback, the more exciting of the two signings, the more impactful might actually be

Blake Cashman depending on how things play out with Sam Darnold I have seen a lot of folks who don't seem to understand what a bridge quarterback does or what a backup quarterback for a young rookie what their job might be but I do want to talk to you about the Sam Darnold and his situation in the Jets, because this is being brought up quite a bit as a reason for the Vikings to sign Sam Darnold is the idea that what he had around him in the circumstances were so poor in New York that there still should be considered some potential there. So why don't we begin with that idea? Are you on that bus or do you think like, hey, guys, like a quarterback that didn't work out, didn't work out for a reason,

don't get too crazy? Good question. So I look at it a couple of different ways. I think Sam's definitely super talented. I think he's one of those people that's well-liked, handles himself well. He's been great with the media, things like that, when he was with the Jets for sure. I think you saw flashes of full games full three to four week stretches where you're like

wow like obviously infamous last four games of 2018 his rookie year he was the top five rated quarterback and he put up 400 yards and three touchdowns against you know aaron rogers and they dueled it out in a meaningless you know the overtime game and there was just you were like wow this is like there's a christmas game christmas eve game against the texans when they started doing those saturday games it was like sam's really good like he's gonna be awesome and then um 2019 starts and the jets make all these signings that mostly all sucked um levion bell quincy and unwa gets re-signed to an extension never plays again i'm not great and? And Ryan Khalil out of retirement.

What a great, shrewd Joe Douglas first signing. Played about seven games. But regardless, Sam has mono. He comes back into the Cowboys, and you're like, this, yep, here it is. And the ghost game happens, and it feels like it all kind of started to go downhill. And then the COVID year was just a disaster for the entire Jets organization. The roster sucked. The coaches sucked.

Sam was pretty freaking bad. Everyone, you know, Rashad Perryman. So, again, like all fair excuses. You know, the Jets definitely failed Darnold in a lot of senses. They had McCown around year one. He was amazing for Sam, like treated him like a younger brother and, like like follow me around you've heard some of the johnny manziel stories hey when mccallum is around the guy actually

think i got it and then he was gone and manziel went off the wagon not san arnold's very much different going off the wagon confidence maybe not you know touching uh touching more the drugs and alcohol scene but um look i would say for for Sam, a couple of things he struggles with, I'm not sure he'll ever be awesome at. He doesn't process super well. He still gets a little shaky with his feet at times. And if he doesn't feel comfortable early on in the game, there's times when he can panic.

The corner route against cover two in the red zone is a killer. He made that mistake a million times. But I will say, watching him the last couple years, he definitely has gotten better at calming his feet down a little bit. The mechanics look a little better. San Francisco, I thought he – in the times he played, I think they would have been in playoffs. They could have made the Super Bowl with Sam Darnold this year.

I don't think the Niners were – maybe not the title game, but they were – I don't know. I just feel like they would have been fine with sam between o'connell mccown and the town he has around him he should be good enough to at least be a bridge guy and he's gonna have the geno smith reclamation project i don't know uh but sam will be fun he'll make highlight reel plays and if he can kind of limit some of the mistakes and o''Connell can kind of say listen like one two get out of there and run whatever it may be and honestly stay healthy that's something he struggled a little bit with the Vikings can be frisky and then hopefully if you draft a J.J.

McCarthy and trade up you don't have to play him year one and it's the best kind of best of both worlds or you suck and you have a top five pick next year yeah i don't know if they could be he would have to really suck to have a top five pick i mean because and and quarterback wins whatever it doesn't need to be said but he won eight out of 17 games in carolina with also mostly an atrocity uh that carolina team was brutal and if you're looking for evidence of him taking steps forward you can find it in 2022 it's just that no one paid attention to the end of the season Carolina Panthers in 2022 I don't even think Carolina Panthers fans would have paid attention to that but he does have a handful of games that go together pretty well and they have less turnovers and the issue with Darnold coming out

in the draft that concerned me that a lot of the draft analysts said, oh, don't worry about all those interceptions and fumbles. They seem to follow him. And when you look at those turnover worthy plays versus big time throws, kind of a ratio there, you want it to be like two to one, not one to one, and definitely not negative where you have somebody who has all this arm talent, but way more turnover worthy plays than they do big time throws. And if he can reduce that in his middle age of 26 now,

which another sort of mind blowing thing, you draft the guy and he's 20 and he doesn't work out. And yet he's still only two and a half or three years older than like Bo Nix or something, which it just, it seems super weird because he's been around for this long, but at the center of it, his issues in the NFL seem to be that he could not stop turning the ball over. So how do you factor that with all those other things? I mean, you mentioned, well, he didn't have good coaching. He had atrocious coaching. He didn't have good receivers. I have a game here in this notepad of Memphis Grizzlies or Sam Darnold targets that

we're going to play later because I looked up the receivers he was throwing to and started laughing at some of the names. So we're going to go through that later. But how do you, can you put a percentage on it? Can you put it like how much really was it because you mentioned this situation is one of the five best in the entire nfl for quarterbacks yeah look i think i'm looking here sam's last you know 16 appearances a lot of those are kind of out of the game with a lot of those were with uh with san francisco this year they're blowing teams out last seven starts, you know, 1,450 yards, nine touchdowns, four picks. First, you know, 91 QB ratings. So, like, in a, you know, 4-3 record.

Before that, the year before in Carolina, started off hot. And then, you know, there's interceptions coming bunches for him. He has these stretches. Three or four weeks, we saw at the beginning of 2022 or 2021, whatever. No, 2021. It's really good. McCaffrey got hurt, and then it was all over. You know, Aaron Jones signing is obviously a big thing. When Sam's got a good running back 2021 it's really good McCaffrey got hurt and then it was all over you know Aaron Jones signing is obviously a big thing when Sam's got a good running back he's

looked good it's when he doesn't have that security blanket and there's no run game or there's no creativity on offense it starts to crumble but I don't want to say it's more than 75 percent the Jets because I when he was with the Jets because he did it in Carolina and it was kind of the same thing he's been in awful situations and he's been in aets because he did it in Carolina, and it was kind of the same thing. He's been in awful situations, and when he's been in a good situation, he's looked fine. Or it's an ideal thing. Certain opponents, he's looked good, or he gets in these runs. It's just when it goes bad, it's really pretty much whenever he plays the Patriots,

it's a disaster. And even happening in Carolina, Belichick just ruined Darnold's brain for a little while. But I will say, again, does he struggle with turnovers and processing? A hundred percent. That's why he's in the position he's in at 26 years old with all that talent being on, you know, being a free agent. That said, I don't know.

Like I said, I just think he would have been fine this year in San Francisco. Like there's an argument to me, the Jets should have just traded back and, you know, taken Devante Smith or Penny Stuhl or Michael Parsons, whoever, and loaded up on first round picks and run it back to Sam one more year. traded back and uh you know taking davante smith or penny stool or michael parsons whoever and loaded up on first round picks and running back with sam one more year i just think to myself like the situation he's in now in minnesota the expectations will not be that high regardless of who they draft he will be in a situation where really good offensive head coach

a quarterback coach he knows and has been his most confident self. If the Vikings offensive line can play even half decent, it's a really good group of skill guys, really damn good with a really good play caller. He should have success. How much success? Does that mean they're a frisky, borderline playoff team? Very much could be.

I think he'll be good. I just don't know. It's always going to depend on what they do in the draft but if they do trade up for a quarterback like you've had great situation where you can jordan love this thing you can patrick mahomes this thing where you don't have to play a guy year one o'connell's not going anywhere you know quest he's not going anywhere justin jefferson once you lock him up in extension which better get on that before jamar chase gets extended um yeah they're just in a good spot where the defense is going to be better next year. They've added a bunch of talent already, edge rushers, linebackers, et cetera.

Brian Flores probably could have been assistant coach of the year last year if anyone would have paid attention to any of the Vikings games. I just feel like they're in a situation where the Bears are frisky, but rookie quarterback, Green Bay, going to have way too high of expectations, in my opinion, next year for a team that was good and got hot at the right time. How do you handle success will be interesting. And then, you know, the Lions are probably going to be awesome, but I don't know. Like, we don't really know every year.

Like, the defense is kind of not great with Detroit, unless they start adding people, which we haven't seen yet. They stayed really healthy, all these different things. So my larger point being, like, I think the Darnold thing could work in Minnesota, even if it's for eight, ten games. And at least you're like, get Justin Jefferson eight games of a lot of targets so he doesn't complain. Even if that's the best thing he does, you're in a decent spot.

Oh, I agree. And this is a different place than Vikings fans have been in a very long time. I mean, this kind of reminds me a little bit of Matt Castle being here as sort of that guy who is just a veteran quarterback who could give you competent play while you're waiting for someone else. So Castle starts the season in 2014. Then Teddy Bridgewater ultimately takes over in 2014, never gives the job back. And that's what you'd be looking for from Sam Darnold. There's this intriguing kind of upside that we

always love with quarterbacks because once upon a time, Steve Young went from absolutely nothing to an all-time great. And even with Ryan Tannehill or Gino Smith, there's enough where we can draw back on and say, if the guy's brain isn't made of mush and he has a good disposition and he can learn and he's going through those kind of younger years where maybe there is some adversity, difficult seasons, but he makes it through to the other side and he's not playing in the XFL, then he's got a chance. And this even happened with Rich Gannon and the Minnesota Vikings once upon a time. So we have seen it. It's not preposterous to think about. But this role specifically can be difficult for quarterbacks where you come in and it's like, all right, well, you're going to have a competition with this other guy.

And you're not really our guy. guy and uh what what can you tell me about just darnold's personality in general because i'm impressed with what he did in san francisco taking that backup role winning the backup job over trey lance and then you didn't hear a thing about it you didn't hear agents leaking darnold thinks he would actually be better than brock purdy or anything like that but that's all i'm really drawing on you had sort of a front row seat for him yeah look I think you know we have it in Carolina he went down there they traded for him he won the job and then you know him and Baker kind of you know obviously were hand in hand and Baker got himself benched and cut and Sam ended up winning that job obviously he got hurt in the preseason which

didn't help him and I think he would have won that job over Baker transparently in Carolina so he's been in this situation before, whether it be former number one pick in his own draft class, whether it be Trey Lance, who the Niners had every reason to make Trey Lance the backup or the starter and caught Sam at, they didn't need to. It was a $40 million deal versus a guy that was a homegrown guy they traded three first-round picks for.

So he's been in that situation before, whether it be young guy, whether it be more of a veteran I just think his demeanor is one of somebody that Sam's just very mild-mannered like you're not going to see much emotion at all one way or another maybe a little bit of sad a little bit happy but you know he's been in situations in the highest pressure market in the sport you know dude got mono and you know, dude got mono and, you know, he, he recovered his career a little bit from it. And like, I just look at it, you know, in my opinion of like, you know, if let's say they go trade up for a JJ McCarthy,

which feels like what's the most likely outcome, I guess this, at this point, if they don't stay put, you know, is he going to be intimidated by a Bo Nix and Michael Penix if they stay there and they draft them? I don't think so. I think a JJ McCarthy, if they trade up draft capital, you always know you're, the guy they're looking to play that next guy. But we've seen it before where in the Trey Lance situation and other situations, could he be the Jimmy G to what they do with Trey Lance? Where it's like, oh, we're going to trade up for this guy and we end up just keeping Jimmy G because it actually works or whatever it may be. So, yeah, I think he'd be fine in that situation. And I just think having McCown there,

I can't understand how much that, like, changes my perspective on what his ability to be. Again, Sam Darnold's rookie year numbers are not like he didn't throw up C.J. Stroud numbers. But more touchdowns and interceptions, like, on a bad Jets team, and they had to show these moments, you know, of, you know, you could go back to that year and it was like there was a end of that year people hang on to it they do and you know you know you go back to some of it i just i think to myself like listen i don't know long term if he's the guy like i said but i think he's either a real he's one of the four or five

best backups at worst in the nfl he's a top 40 quarterback, top 38 quarterback. I feel the same way with a Minshew. I feel the same way with Jacoby Brissett. If they starve for you and you have the right weapons around them, they can win games. We saw the Browns do it with Brissett. We've seen the Patriots do it with Brissett. We've seen with Minshew and the Colts.

I think the Vikings situation is better than both of those. Like I said, if Sam's bad, like they have no finite, like long term commitment, they'll be fine. Um, I just don't, I don't see that. Some people, some people complaining. I just don't really get what's the, like, what's the problem. Um, you know, who cares? Yeah, no, I, there's really no downside. I mean, the fact that there is no commitment and it's a quarter of the money at absolute most, we don't have the structure as we speak, but $10 million is not always $10 million on the salary cap. So if that's including incentives and whatever else, I mean, you're talking about a very small figure.

It is really similar to what the Tampa Bay Buccaneers did last year where they bring in Baker Mayfield. They have Kyle Trask battle it out. Mayfield wins the job, and now they've got their quarterback, at least for the next year or two, in Tampa Bay. I think for the Vikings, where they're looking for somebody who can handle this maturely without causing any sort of issue, battling with another quarterback that they are very, very likely to pick, as you mentioned, in the first round, make that quarterback better in the quarterback room every day. And if you have to start the first half of the season, then go ahead. And if look, if it's going really well and you're in the playoff race, just leave it. We always just want the rookie to play so fast. And I think that this was hard on Sam Darnold. I think it was probably hard on Zach Wilson, although I think Darnold's personality better fit for maybe sitting and developing. I don't know if anything could be done for Zach Wilson, but with Darnold,

hey, get thrown in the fire, go get demolished by Bill Belichick, made fun of by everybody on TV and social media and everything else. It just is really hard confidence wise for somebody that's young. And I think if it's McCarthy, then developing for a year rather than being thrown to the wolves is probably better. And also this market does not chew people up and spit them out. It's just, I think that, uh, right. The Vikings, I think get the best version of people because you just don't have the same sort of pressure in the way that a New York has. And that still exists even with social media that it's like that. So I like it on pretty much every single level that you laid out. I want to ask you about Blake Cashman, because this is a guy the Jets drafted and Vikings, the fans were high on him because

he's a gopher and he had had a really good career with the gophers. And there was some expectation that he would be taken higher because some of his raw tools ends up going in the fifth round did not play a ton there with the jets but we saw it come to fruition all those tools last year with the texans so so the way that you're indicating is that you kind of weren't surprised by that it seems no look when he got to play especially as a rookie of the jets he was great like he's not great he was good he was a good player he was like wow fifth round pick like the jets might have found like a really good value in the fifth round fell because of injuries unfortunately injuries crushed his entire jets career and it felt like every time he would come back and stay healthy stayed healthy through camp and then it was like we'll get hurt or you know would pull a

hamstring or do these different things and you know you wonder with the jets is this you know they've revamped their training staff since then. So you wonder if maybe that was part of it. And the world tools were there, especially in coverage and things like that. He's a super athletic and, you know, big hitter and stuff like that. Patrick Queen, by the way, to the Steelers for $40-plus million. Interesting. You know, that was another Blake Cashman team.

You know, I had heard they were very much in the mix on Cashman he had a bunch of suitors the vikings obviously you know you know pay off for him but i think i'll fit well i think the vikings linebacker play last year was awful and i think it led to a lot of their problems especially on defense and he's a clear upgrade he was i think the second or third best you know coverage grade for anyone inside linebacker last year you know in the nfl i think pff had that or somebody had it um no he's a good player and if he can stay healthy he's a guy that like it's 27 years old like or 26 27 whatever he is like great good value it's not like an overpay by any means i think you know he did well on that deal i think the vikings did well seven and a half or so eight million bucks a year like it's kind of i mean look the jets did it with quincy williams and

not the same thing obviously but when's he gonna be an all pro this year they re-signed him for a kind of similar deal i think it was like three for 24 or something of that nature and um no i like the i like the cashman you know signing a lot for them i think adding multiple edge guys adding a cashman another year be probably there's an argument to be made like do you try to roll it with with sam and try to draft another db do you try to like what do you try to do here to maybe address this defense and be frisky and then you know north obviously all comes out of the quarterback and i get that but no cashman to me like that's a good signing that's one of those where the vikings have super bowl contenders because they signed blake hashman no but are they 10 better at linebacker

15 better than they were last year, 100%? And again, when that's the weakest part of your defense, in my opinion, it's probably a pretty good thing to get better at, especially with guys in their prime coming off a good year in an area of weakness. Well, I have a ton of respect for Jordan Hicks, who was there last year, but there are limitations to a 30-plus linebacker who had had injuries throughout his career, and especially coverage limitations. And I saw a stat about, I think it was something like how much ground a linebacker covered in coverage. And Jordan Hicks was last.

Because, I mean, he doesn't have the quickness anymore. I think he's a high-class, really super tough, old-school linebacker. But Blake Cashman has physical skill that is going to allow brian flores to use him in different ways that maybe he couldn't use a jordan hicks especially like cashman was not a big blitzer and i think he could be i mean he went after the passer sometimes as a gopher and that's something that he did with the jets he was good it was good he was strong i'm telling you the jets like i just i i felt like he was somebody that could have panned out. He could have been a really good player for them.

The only time Blake Cash got hurt last year was when he played in MetLife. Whatever it is, just keep him out of MetLife. He gets the Jets and the Texans this year on the schedule for the Vikings, and he'll get the Jets in Minnesota. So we won't have to call you out where you back, where you bet that stuff. Speaking of the jets though, this upcoming season, Aaron Rogers, back from the Achilles injury, maybe it'll last more than a quarter this year. So I have one of my wife's relatives is a huge jets fan and he emailed me in the summer and he said you know what i bet

aaron rogers gets hurt right at the beginning of the season because that's being a jets fan and then i emailed them that night like how did you know how did you know but you nod your head all jets fans seem to know that everything goes terribly wrong at the quarterback position the curse of neil o'donnell i don't know the name is sold his soul man he sold his soul for that super bowl title unfortunately but great win awesome but tough probably the most underratedly outside of jets fans cursed franchise because you have the name of super bowl so everyone goes well you won a super bowl and it was like the biggest one ever so and then you know uh you're in New York and whatever else but um the Chargers the Vikings the Jets they're all kind of in the same bucket of cursed teams so uh are you cursed again I mean

because it feels like if Rodgers does come back and can play even at some Aaron Rodgers-y type level if he hasn't done disturbing medical things to his body that has now left him twisted and decrepit, that that team should be competitive. You see the Bills are losing a good amount of talent. Miami should still be a good team, maybe not quite the same as they were last year. And I didn't see enough talent leaving the new york jets on defense for me to think oh well that defense is just going to collapse uh into the atlantic ocean or something so that it's kind of like a dream delayed from last year but if this works out

it still could result in the jets being quite good yeah i mean look they should be good um i think they have they have a lot still left to add uh drew luck to the giants maybe daniel jones survives another year uh but look i i think the jets are just i'm in the i'm in a mindset of they're going to be awesome they're going to be 12 and 5 13 and 4 we're going to go wow this is what we all thought it could have looked like last year or they're going to be horrendous rogers is probably going to walk away solid douglas will get fired like that's just what it feels like at the moment where they you know they sent john simpson last night and you know maybe he takes

like a thomason's role but it's kind of like that's your fifth best offensive lineman you hope avt is back healthy you hope joe titman come takes a step near two you need another pass catcher like a 1b whether that's through the draft, trade, free agency, whatever it may be. They needed at least two offensive linemen still running back, too. Another address right now that they've lost Bryce Huff. They have a lot of work to do, but if Rodgers comes back and looks anything like Aaron Rodgers, you have Brees Hall, fully healthy, coming off an incredible year, off an ACL. Now the next year removed, you're just supposed to be better. Garrett Wilson in year three, Tyler Conklin,

a Vikings favorite. He's been really nice, good with the Jets and should be even better with Aaron Rodgers. This defense should be really good. Sawson in year three. It's Jermaine Johnson in year three. Quincy Williams in another year. They should be good. I think the division's worse. I think New England rookie quarterback,

I don't expect much out of them. Rookie head coach. Miami's lost a ton of talent. They're going to have to go pay their quarterback, who miraculously stayed healthy last year. We'll see if that happens again. And Buffalo, you always have a shot with Josh Allen. That said, that team feels old. I know they let a lot of those guys go, but that was a huge core of their roster, and they couldn't get over the hump.

So the Jets have every shot to go win the division next year but gotta keep rogers healthy and they have got to add to the offensive line and receiver rooms over the next uh you know 48 hours 72 hours as well as you know on draft night yeah with aaron rogers uh i have made fun of him many times on this show because of his uh personality but uh he goes under the category of you do not declare it's over until it is absolutely over we did we've done this with rogers before and he went to mvps like right just yeah and even like thinking brady everyone's like oh he's not brady 42 year old tom brady sucked for brady standards very much like 2022 aaron rogers wasn't Rodgers.

Brady throws that 2019. Kevin Byard, I think, picked it off. Throws the pick six. His last basically pass is a Patriot. It was embarrassing. Goes to the box and then throws for 5,000 yards, 50 touchdowns at age 43, 44, 45. Rodgers is 40. As much as the Achilles sucked, maybe that was the big injury that he had remaining, and his body didn't take hits for last year. The rest of his body is fully healthy. You know, do you learn more?

I don't know. Or he falls off a cliff. I'm just saying, like, I'm not writing that guy off until he's like, I'm walking away and he looks terrible. I don't think it's going to be a Peyton Manning-like thing. I think at worst it's maybe like Breeze that last year where the numbers were good but the arm strength diminished a little bit maybe he didn't have it and they shouldn't be that Tampa team they didn't 2020 but yeah I don't see like 20 whatever that was 15 or 14 Peyton Manning where it's like he's awful and can't throw a football with a spiral

I don't think we're seeing that this year just Just in general, it's a rule. Like with legends, you just don't count them out until it's actually over. And I even felt that way when Brady somehow made the playoffs at eight and nine. I was like, man, I would not want to face. And it didn't work out, but I just very scary. And that's probably the way that the AFC East looks at Aaron Rodgers is by all logic, this shouldn't really be good. But yet, I mean, look at what Favre did when he went with the injury, with the shoulder injury, with the jets. And then he healed up, came to the Vikings, took them within one across the body pass

from going to the Superbowl. So it is never truly like a time to put the nail in the coffin. So I think, you know, one of the things we really missed out on last year is just that storyline was so interesting going into the season. I was like, what is he going to do with a new team? This is so interesting. And then first night, what? Like, it's all over. Yeah, it was.

I mean, that is – Being in the stadium, you had no idea what happened. And there's no phone service. My Wi-Fi is not working. I'm trying to, like, figure out what's going on, call people, text people, be like, you know, what are you seeing on TV? Because live, it looks like nothing happened. And then, you know, it's getting reported an ankle.

And you're like, oh, did he sprain his ankle? Then you're like, oh, my God, it's the Achilles. And then people can call him a liar all they want. He was going to play this year. Like, he was healthy enough to get cleared. They were going to clear him. He was fully practicing. He was healthy enough to get cleared. They were going to clear him. He was fully practicing. He looked fine.

The team choked, and they couldn't take care of business in any of these games. And, you know, it sucked. It would have been really cool just to be like, wow, someone came back from an Achilles in like three months at age 39. Like, this is nuts. Like, for medicine-wise, I know Kirk Cousins is no longer a Viking, but, you know, Kirk looks great in these workout videos and like there would have been a death sentence for a quarterback at 35 that's not that mobile um i don't know i just i look at this stuff and like

say what you want about rogers or kirk or any of these guys it's great for the sport that like these guys can get hurt and be able to still come back and their careers are not instantly over i think we've we were so accustomed to hearing Achilles and thinking like a Kobe where it's like he just was cooked after that, or Chauncey Billups and these other guys in the NBA, or obviously in the NFL you look at Damian, what are you just towards Achilles week 17, 2010 season, never played again for the Jets.

So, yeah, I'm excited to see what happens. I just want to see it. Until he plays a full 60 minutes, I won't believe he's even really on the Jets. But after that, we'll go from there. Medical people didn't see what he had. I'm sure that his agent was able to get them medical information about cousins to convince them that his Achilles was good enough to go. I still think it would have been very risky for the Vikings to resign him with that consideration. But just for athletes in general, I agree. I hope this was a step forward. So before I let you go, Will, a big deal to me is how bad Sam Darnold's weapons were when he was with the New York Jets.

If you come to the Vikings, it's like Warren Moon. You get Jake Reed, you get Chris Carter, you're Jeff George, you get Randy Moss or whatever. You go to the Jets and you get something named Jaleel Scott. So there's one of his weapons now for the rest of them it's either going to be a memphis grizzly from their all-time roster or a new york jet weapon and i figured the memphis grizzlies would be the team that you would be least familiar with in the nba was uh daniel brown a weapon for sam darnold or was he a all-time grizzly oh i'm gonna get daniel brown tight end right daniel brown was a tight end for the new york a weapon for Sam Darnold, or was he an all-time grizzly? I'm going to go with Daniel Brown

tight end, right? Daniel Brown was a tight end for the New York Jets. He scored a random touchdown, I'm pretty sure somewhere. He's very bad. He signed up three times. Very weird. Tight ends are hard to find. Ty Conklin, though, was

number three. There you go. Josh Adams. Josh Adams, Notre Conklin, though, was number three. Yeah, so there you go. Josh Adams. Is that a – Josh Adams, Notre Dame running back, baby. Okay. I knew you'd be good at this. Bryce Cotton. I'm going to go Bryce Cotton.

He's not a Jet. I'm going to go not a Jet. He is not a Jet. Bryce Cotton is a – I was like, dude, I don't know who the hell that is. That's insane. All right. Troy Bell.

Is Troy Bell a Grizzly or a Jet? I'm going to go Grizzly. Troy Bell. Troy Bell's a Grizzly. Yeah. Okay. Thank God. That one sounded like a generic fifth slot receiver.

All right. Lawrence Kager. Is that? Dude, Jets and Giants legend. Georgia tight end. Former receiver gained a lot of weight, and they made him a tight end. Jets started him. Fun fact, the Jets week one of last year, or 2022,

started Lawrence Cager at receiver over Garrett Wilson. What? The Jets lost by two touchdowns. Garrett Wilson had eight catches for 180 yards and two touchdowns the next week. Maybe don't start Lawrence Cager over Garrett Wilson, regardless. Yeah. I'm going to be honest with you. I had never heard of Lawrence Kager.

What's he doing these days? Is he still in the Giants? He might be on the Giants practice squad. He might be in the Giants practice squad. Yep, he is a – oh, he had four catches for 36 yards last year at the giants in 11 games he's played for him yeah he played a total of two three games with the jets and had two catches for 35 yards nice these are the players that sam darnold was actually throwing footballs to oh yeah yeah. Kennedy, Kennedy Chandler. Is that a,

is that a jet? I'm going to go grizzly. Yeah. I cannot get you on this. Kennedy Chandler wasn't. Some of these, I'm just like, I don't know who this is.

It has to be a grizzly. Did I say Robert Archibald already? Robert Archibald. No, that's definitely not a jet. There's absolutely no shot. Neil Sterling. Is that a jet? Ooh, it shot neil sterling is that a jet

it might be a jet is that a jet no i don't know that's the game i'm gonna go not a jet but i this one that's a jet neil sterling's a jet i i want you to go off my gut i questioned myself i questioned myself that was stupid all right uh, oh, Trayvon Wesco. Trayvon Wesco. Oh, dude. West Virginia. They called him Baby Gronk when they drafted him out of West Virginia. Oh, come on.

That dude could not move. His feet were stuck in the sand. Wow. What a brutal, brutal, brutal, brutal guy. Harry DeHair. That's not a Jet. There's just no way no it's not that's that actually is a mildly memorable nba player but i thought i'd throw one on there uh well you did well but you didn't you're not perfect uh so that we're not all perfect we're not all perfect yeah i it just it just proves that sam donald will be great as a viking

because those are the people he's thrown to so um I think it's unequivocal analytics just there. Anyway, Turn on the Jets, awesome podcast. I usually don't listen to a lot of other teams' podcasts that have nothing to do with the Vikings, but I do listen to Turn on the Jets sometimes when things are happening with the Jets. Love what you do. Love what Joe Caporosta does over there.

You guys are doing awesome, awesome stuff. So thanks so much, man. I'm glad we could get together. And when the Jets sign a Viking, I'll come on your show. Yeah, exactly. That's what we'll do. When the Jets get a Tyler Conklin extension in there, we'll reminisce about Conk's years at the Vikings.

I appreciate the kind words, though. I'm always happy to come on. All right, thanks for doing it. And we'll definitely talk soon. Thanks, man.