Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Escaping The Middle: A Vikings roundtable
Episode Date: July 7, 2022Matthew Coller, Paul Hodowanic and Will Ragatz go in depth on the ways in which the Minnesota Vikings can break the chains of getting caught in the middle of the NFL for any longer. How can Kevin O'Co...nnell take a shot this year at changing their fate? What one move should they make for the long term to aim for true Super Bowl contention? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here, and this is something new that we're going to do on a regular basis.
We're going to call it the Raggetts Roundtable. Will Raggetts from Sports Illustrated, Paul Hodowanek from WCCO Radio is here, and we've got a topic that we're going to discuss.
Will is going to lead the discussion, but I also may or may not have demanded that we do this subject that I
thought of. So I was reading an article by my friend Rivers McCown, who covers the Houston
Texans, and he wrote about the athletic podcast that went through the commandments of rebuilding.
Since we don't have rebuilding here, I want to go through the commandments of escaping mediocrity in the short and long term.
So, Will, why don't you just start out the discussion with your first idea of how the
Minnesota Vikings can escape the trench of mediocrity that they have stuck themselves in
over the past several years, and then we'll go in the short term, and then we'll talk about the
long term as well. So, the floor is yours, Mr. Raggetts.
Thank you.
And before I give my first commandment, I will say that it's kind of funny you mention the commandments of rebuilding
because maybe the commandment for the Vikings escaping mediocrity should be that they should just rebuild
and go to the bottom before they can go to the top.
But we'll start with this year and what the Vikings can do to not be an 8-9 team again.
And my commandment is to lean all the way in on Kevin O'Connell.
And there are a few things that that could mean.
A big piece of it is going to be doing everything and giving Kevin O'Connell everything he can to unlock Kirk Cousins in any way that he possibly can.
Because we've talked about Kirk Cousins a lot, and we know what he is at this point in his career,
but he finally has an offensive-minded head coach in Minnesota, somebody that he has a relationship with.
And so what that will look like exactly, I don't know.
But it has to be giving Kevin O'Connell all of the freedom and power to be creative and kind of modernize the
offense with different things like play action, going all in on what Kirk does well,
unpredictability, making things look the same. The illusion of complexity is what
the Rams called it. And just to me, that's their best chance of escaping mediocrity this year is
Kevin O'Connell being this wonder kind, amazing offensive mind
head coach. That's going to come in and take her cousins game to a slightly different level and
just overhaul the offense in ways that are going to make it tougher to defend and are going to
lean into the things that Kirk and the rest of the personnel do well. So let me add onto that
because I think this is a great place to begin the discussion
for escaping mediocrity.
It's being bold in some ways.
And I felt like in order to get the most out of Kevin O'Connell,
they needed to give him a little better in terms of offensive line
and maybe another wide receiver in the offseason.
But since they didn't do that,
and we're talking about the short term,
then we have to talk about what they can do to allow him to be bold with kirk cousins which means
do not be afraid to fail kevin o'connell and minnesota vikings because if you start to go
down the mike zimmer route you won't completely fail i think that's very clear that you won't
completely fail and end up five and 12,
but you'll end up eight, eight and one or whatever, you know, you'll end up 500 because
every time they sort of leaned a little too much, then the reins got pulled back.
And every time an offensive coordinator started to get a little bit too far,
passing the ball a little too much, it was not, not no no no you got to go back to the run first you got to make sure that we're not turning the ball over and then mike zimmer played
uh mind games with kirk cousins with the well actually no i actually want you to throw it more
down the field to just the jefferson hole which is it mike um and i think that probably drove kirk
cousins crazy but the thing about cousins is it's essentially a one-year
contract where he is right now. Yeah, he's got the no trade clause. We don't know the details
exactly of that no trade clause, but the way that I see it is if you fail this year,
it's actually okay because then you have an answer. How far can you take it with Kirk,
even with a new offensive mind that doesn't play mind games with him you get your answer so do not be afraid to fail Kevin O'Connell don't play to be 500
go all in on your offense like you're saying but do it in a bold way that either has a boom or bust
opportunity I think for the short term it can actually help the long term to go boom or bust
what is your commandment,
Paul, of escaping mediocrity? Yes. Hello. I am welcoming myself to the podcast.
Yeah. Paul's here. Hi, Paul. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello.
You know, I think it's fitting that we're all focusing mine. I'm focusing on offense here.
And I think it's fitting because what we just know about the NFL right now is that defense
isn't going to do a lot for you.
As you guys were both talking about offense, I was trying to come up with a really compelling
defensive argument that rivaled how to get them out of mediocrity. But truly, especially with the
personnel they have on defense, maybe slightly improved, but nothing that we're expecting to
be more than average to most optimistically, like slightly above average is I think where
you're penciling in the defense. And that is not a unit that's going to escape you from mediocrity.
And so for me, it's let Kirk Cousins cook. So it's a very similar iteration to what you guys
are doing, but I just looked up like the top offensive run pass rates in the league last year.
The Tampa Bay Bucs threw 66% of the time.
Why can't the Vikings just let Kirk Cousins throw 66% of the time?
Like, let's throw back to some John DiFilippo era football,
spread Kirk Cousins out, just let him throw all over the place.
Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't.
But Tampa Bay is one of the top teams that threw the ball. Las Vegas was one of the top teams that threw the ball. The Chargers,
the Chiefs, truly let Kirk Cousins have the keys to this offense. And again, the answer that you
get is either going to be really good and it escapes you from mediocrity, or it's probably
really bad. And thus you fall below mediocrity and you figure it out. So I think similarly to how you're talking
about be bold, it's let Kirk cook. I don't want to hear, well, we're going to set up the passing
game with letting Dalvin cook run. Like we want to set these things up. I don't really need to
see Dalvin cook. If we're being completely honest with you, that gets to one of my future commandments.
Truly the only thing that I see them escaping a nine and eight,
10 and seven,
even 11 and six,
you want to call that right around average is if they fully embrace Kirk
cousins for better and for worse,
I'm not convinced that goes well,
but I'm convinced that's the only route that
leads them to something other than that middle ground. Because if they run Dalvin Cook a little
bit, do a Kirk, you know, just kind of the one-two combo, I just, I don't see much more in their
future than what the Cleveland Browns were two years ago. And that's the highest point that you have there that was basically the kirk cousins
offense like done to a t and that still wasn't good enough for them to get out of the second
round of the playoffs i don't and like to not be better than 10 and 6 like the truly revolutionary
offenses are usually really good quarterback teams but i think you just got to go all in and say
we committed to kirk cousins we think he's our revolutionary quarterback and we're going to act
like it. And if it goes great, it goes great. And if it doesn't, it doesn't. But I think you
find your answer either way. So I think that's their best case to escape mediocrity. And that
was my only way. I really, I really tried to find a defensive angle after you guys went
offensive, but I'm just not sure there's one that really sticks out that
could make that massive of a difference well this is good because we're all on the same page kind of
we just we said essentially the same thing with different focuses uh kevin o'connell and being
bold and going in all in on kirk like the the fundamental thing that's the same is just changing
the approach a little bit because we've seen that if they try to do this run heavy ball control win with defense make every game close you just can't win that many
close games like you're not gonna maybe one year you would get lucky and win two-thirds or three
quarters of your close games but that's not something you can count on so we know that they
need to do something different and a great way to do that would just be to throw the ball more and to get creative and try bold things like letting Justin Jefferson
throw the ball on a reverse more or just putting the ball in the hands
of your best players and being unpredictable.
Just various things like that that are going to be different
and taking chances and not running the ball on second and long
is a big one there.
This doesn't mean that we're saying the Vikings need to be a one-dimensional team
and nobody's going to throw 80% of the time in the NFL
because that just wouldn't work.
You would get sacked.
I'm ready for it.
I'm ready for it.
Paul wants it.
You could try it.
You could try it.
I think you'd probably get sacked a lot
and maybe your receivers would get hurt from running 47 million routes a game.
But like, I think they still need to use Dalvin Cook to some extent because he is a very good player.
And there is something beautiful about a well-blocked, well-executed run.
But with that said, you just you need to throw the ball more.
You need to put it in Kirk's hands deep down the field.
Take shots like that was something that watching the Vikings last year, you need to throw the ball more. You need to put it in Kirk's hands deep down the field, take shots.
Like that was something that watching the Vikings last year,
I just didn't feel like there was enough of when you have Justin
Jefferson and you have Adam Thielen and you have KJ Osborne and all
the,
like use a mere Smith Mar set.
Who's extremely fast.
Take shots down the field.
When it,
when the opportunities present themselves and maybe even when they don't
and just see what happens and see if you can score 30 35 points a game and do well enough on defense that you're
going to maybe stumble into a 12 13 win season if it all goes brilliantly and everyone stays healthy
you know there's a well sorry go ahead paul, I was also just going to say, I think like a reason we're very homogenous in our,
in what we're saying is kind of needed is because they didn't take those swings to avoid
mediocrity in the off season.
You know, they didn't go and draft a wide receiver in the first round.
That's a big difference maker play.
They didn't go meaningfully address like their biggest hole on the offensive line which is
center like they still have a big weak link in center we know that's a weak link system
like on defense they didn't they addressed corner in the draft but they didn't go out and do
anything crazy in free agency they signed a really like injury like uh injury prone defensive
lineman to pair with their already uh injury prone defensive linemen to pair with their already injury prone defensive
linemen. So I think part of the reason we've gotten to this point is a lot of the options
that we would traditionally point to towards this is how you avoid mediocrity. They've passed on
those so far. They've decided we're not going to do those things. And so if you're not going to do
those things, it now comes to a point where you really only have a few options if you're really trying to optimize the roster. And I think that's when
it comes back to unleashing offenses. They've kind of passed and balked at some of the other
ways that you would envision them really beefing up a run this year. And so this is what you're
left with. And, you know, we're so much on the same page of the aggressive offensive approach that we can talk a little bit more about the general manager type of
angle about how to escape mediocrity in the long run, because still Vegas thinks they're an eight
and a half win team for this year. It's like, it couldn't be more perfect than 8.5 translates to
eight, eight and one. And it's like, there you have it. But I was thinking about
this and tell me if you guys agree with this, that if there is any year to be bold in some way,
to use Kenne Wong Wu on, you know, whatever type of screens or reverses or something,
which is another one of mine. If you want to escape mediocrity, it all ties back into like,
can you get the most out of your playmakers,
which I think should probably include him and creativity with Delvin Cook. I love the wide zone,
but can you do a little bit more with Delvin Cook like Kevin Stefanski did in 2019 and beef that up.
But after this though, after this year, it changes, right? Because if you don't win in your first year as a
head coach, immediately there's pressure that you might get fired. That's the NFL, the average head
coach. Didn't you look this up, Paul lasts like three years in the NFL. I mean, so that tells you
that, you know, we always think like, Oh, you know, this coach has got plenty of time, whatever
else. Are you telling me if say Robert Sala with the New York jets, if they're terrible this year and win three games that he won't be on the hot seat or
fired, like that's how it ends up working is that if you don't succeed right away. Uh, so being,
being bold, if you're, if, if you're not like, you're not going to get another chance to do it
really, because then the expectations change and then you get immediately into self-preservation
mode. And we saw what self-preservation mode can do to a coaching staff and to general managers.
And then when you start playing for your job, everything ends up being different. I think with
the way that any of us would handle it with our jobs on the line. So I think that that's kind of
a key point. And on the defensive side, I guess I would say this, that, you know, escaping mediocrity in the short term, that's hard to pin anything on defense
because it's really hard to predict, but I would say, find out what you have. If you want to act
accordingly for this year to long-term escape mediocrity, which can act as our little transition
point, unless you have something else will.
But I think finding out what you have is important. It's nice that Patrick Peterson is helping the other corners. I want to see Andrew Booth play this year. It doesn't have
to be all the time because, you know, rookies get shredded, but you don't want to see Andrew Booth
spend the entire year on the bench because you had to play Patrick Peterson to win eight games.
Like you, you want to
see these guys that you don't know what they are in the future. Some of the, you know, the Patrick
Jones's of the world. Are you going to resign Armond Watts? Do you have any linebackers who can
play like Louis scene, use him in every way possible, get him as much experience as you can.
I think that those things and combine them. Cause we don't know where he fits in. I think those things are important for escaping long-term mediocrity. And I'll put that down as
one of my commandments is make sure you find out what you have and don't lock yourself into,
no, we're playing Patrick Peterson every snap because he's Patrick Peterson and we're trying to
just get the most out of our defensive secondary and not giving anyone else
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Yeah.
And that was something that we saw over the past few years was just this goal of trying to be competitive and trying to just taking all these steps in this
general approach that led you to seven and nine and to eight and nine.
And I agree with you.
I think they need to find out what they have.
It's interesting that you brought up like the shelf life for coaches and I think this applies for GMs too probably not in Minnesota
because Rick Spielman was here for like a super long time I think Quasey will probably be here for
he'll get a longer leash than Kevin O'Connell I would imagine but it's they're already with
their offseason moves kind of like angling in a similar
way that the previous regime did just in the way that they ran it back.
They extended Kirk.
They did all these things like what we were talking about in our first
segments,
talking about the offense,
like nothing against the value of trading down or against Louis scene or
Andrew booth,
but Hey,
Jamison Williams would have been a good way to go bold and taking another receiver like that or or hell taking a a shot on a quarterback like
and that's what you've been talking about for a few years now uh matt like they they've had
opportunities to go bold they haven't really done it so now with the pieces that you have
you owe it to yourself to at least be bold to some extent and
use the offense in different ways and find out what you have on defense. So I don't have a new
commandment to bring here. I'm just agreeing with what you guys have said. Well, let's transition
then, Paul, over to the part about the general manager and escaping long-term. So what do we
want to qualify as long-term? Like they have to be, okay, so Kweisi got a four-year contract. So they have to escape
mediocrity within the first three years then, right? Because that's when you'd be re-upping
or you'd just be firing him essentially, right? And it is really interesting that they did not
go all in with a normal six-year contract with Kwesi. So I feel like there is more
pressure to at least get to the point where you'd look for an extension on that deal and be able to
say to the Wilfs and to the fans, hey guys, we're going in the right direction. We're absolutely
going to get there and here's how by that point. So when you think about Paul escaping mediocrity from where they are now, like what would be
your first thing that you would say you absolutely have to do X if you're going to do that?
I one of the things I wrote down was you cannot be sentimental in the moves that you make.
I think we saw that in this previous regime with
Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer. They drafted Anthony Barr, and they love Anthony Barr,
so we're going to give Anthony Barr this big contract extension. We love Dalvin Cook.
We drafted Dalvin Cook. Now we're going to give him this big extension. And I think we saw them,
and so this new regime can't be sentimental with this old
guard that the Vikings have on this roster uh it's kind of a cheap win with a new fan base and
especially if you struggle in year one to keep a Harrison Smith to keep an Eric Kendricks because
they're fan favorites they've been here a long time people know what they're going to get and
they're kind of living off their performances of past years. So they maybe don't get critiqued as much as the new guys. But if I'm telling you
one thing that's escaping mediocrity, which is essentially escaping the previous regime,
like that's kind of another way to look at this because the last regime was the epitome of
mediocre towards the end. It's, you can't be sentimental. Eric Hendricks is 30. He had a
horrible season last year. If he does that again, this can't be a, well, Eric has done so much for
this team. We need, we want to keep him in the defense. We're going to keep moving forward.
That can't be the, how they look at Harrison Smith. It can't be look how, how they look at
Adam Thielen. They, they can't hold on to this
old group and expect them to help usher in these young guys. They need to cut bait. And I think
being a new, new regime, they're in a good position to do that already because they don't
have the ties that the previous regime had to guys. They can move off people pretty quickly
and say, you know, we didn't draft them. We didn't extend them. We want to find our own guys. And I think they really need to embrace that.
There's a reason this past regime got fired. They weren't doing good enough. The roster wasn't doing
a go doing good enough. Don't be afraid to move off some of the pieces that are on this roster,
some of the aging pieces. And despite being some fan favorites, don't be like,
don't be afraid to move off those guys. Cause in the longterm, if they're going to be good in three
years, like Eric Hendricks probably isn't on the team and Harrison Smith probably isn't on the
team. Maybe Adam Thielen's on the team. I'm not sure, but if we're forecasting out three or four
years down the line, I'd be surprised to see any of them. And so don't hold on for too long.
It's kind of you, you gotta, you gotta see what the young guys have, but just don't hand out stupid
contracts to some of the older guys too, as well. So that's kind of one of the biggest ones. I'm not
sure if the biggest one, but it was on the tip of my tongue. So I think that's essential for them
heading into this next phase. Yeah. And I, my like thing that I wrote for looking forward the next few
years is, uh, this might come across as harsh, but it's a find a new quarterback. Uh, because
to me, like you can, you can, I understand the approach of seeing what you have in Kirk Cousins
under this new coaching staff this year and kind of running it back. Cause it is a talented roster
and you can talk yourself into all of the different parts of the roster if they
if these people stay healthy and if you get some breakout performances here like this could be a
good team this year with good coaching I don't I don't like completely disagree with that idea
but I just don't think that like deep down Kirk Cousins is going to win a Super Bowl unless things go perfectly.
And I know that there's the Matthew Stafford comparison, but the Vikings aren't finding an Aaron Donald.
The Vikings aren't like finding the roster that the Rams had around him.
And then there's just differences between Stafford and Cousins in terms of certain like aggressiveness in big moments and things like that.
So for me, it was find a new qb
and this ties back to what i said at the very beginning of this show is to get out of the middle
there's there's two directions you can go and ideally you just go up and you go from the middle
to go up but it doesn't always work like that you might have to go down first get out of the middle
that way find your new quarterback that way and then you go up there
look look at what the Bengals did like look at how the the Chiefs elevated they got a little lucky
because Mahomes wasn't like a top three pick but to me there's no better way and and no more
surefire not surefire but the way to get out of the middle is to find a quarterback who can take
you out of it and and you can live at the top tier of the NFL because this quarterback is so talented that nothing else really matters.
Obviously, hitting on other draft picks and filling out the roster matters to some extent.
But when you have that quarterback as that Trump card, that main piece that's going to make you competitive every year, like Mahomes and Josh Allen,
and we're assuming Burrow is going to do in Cincinnati.
That's what it comes down to.
So maybe they got to be bad for the first time in a long time.
I mean, they were pretty bad the past couple years,
but like actually bad, like four or five wins bad,
and then you can rise all the way to the top.
And it's all hypothetical and theoretical, and there's no guarantee it works out that way, but at least it would be trying something other than
the same thing. Right. My point is going to be right in that same realm with don't talk yourself
into, we were this close. Do not talk yourself into, oh, it was just a couple of field goals
or a fumble or whatever. Oh, we just had an injury.
Every single team has those things every single year, but some teams win 13 games or 12 games
and are legitimate Super Bowl contenders. The thing that this off season I ran across with
just fiddling around with numbers that really changed the way I think about the Super Bowl
and how to get there is that the
just get in and see what happens thing is a big time myth. It's not real. Historically,
you have to win at least 11 games to be a Super Bowl contender. Usually the answer is 12 games or
more to have a chance to win the Super Bowl. And so everything you do should be angled at winning
12 games, not at getting into the
playoffs and then seeing what happens and where that ties back into the quarterback
is like you said, well, I mean, if we, if you view it for a commandment as don't look
at eight games, winning, winning eight games any differently than winning four games.
That's how I would say it only aim for winning 12 when you approach the quarterback situation,
because nothing else
really applies to this. Like you're just trying to get good players all the time for the rest of
your roster. But at the quarterback position, if you win eight games this year and none of the
bold things that we suggested, let's say they took all of our advice. They threw 80% of the time and
Kirk threw 47 interceptions. And you're like, like you know maybe that was a horrible idea Paul but you won four games because they took Paul's advice and it was complete lunacy
but that's actually good for you so so I think that like not not viewing eight wins as any
different than four wins sort of changes the way you even just view your mindset about approaching
that position and I would say that there's only two ways to win a Super Bowl at the quarterback position.
And those two ways are, A, you draft a quarterback and he is good and you build a great roster around him.
Or B, you have a good enough roster that is ready and available for somebody else to drop into.
Let's say, because at one time we didn't know that Deshaun Watson was Deshaun Watson.
Like, we would have been talking about Vikings Deshaun Watson
and dropping him into a roster with Justin Jefferson.
It still probably wouldn't have been enough even with Deshaun Watson.
But if you build the roster with this long-term focus all the time,
and that goes to
like getting more draft picks as Casey tried to do, it goes to developing players. It goes to
having, having a very clear vision of what year it is that you're going to be the team that could
bring Tom Brady here to win the Superbowl or you're available. Cause you just never really
know. And I actually think like it didn't work for Indianapolis.
They were maybe one drive away from it working
and winning a playoff game in Buffalo.
But Indianapolis has been this team that's just been available
and they end up with Matt Ryan.
We'll see how that works out.
The Phillip Rivers thing, they won 11 games with Phillip Rivers.
They got themselves on the cusp of that threshold
by being there for
Philip Rivers. We don't know who that quarterback is going to be. And if we think of this roster
as being mature and ready to win by what 2024 is that, or is that when the rebuild begins?
Like that's the thing that you need to know. I don't actually know with this roster, but you
need to know when it's going to peak and when you can be
the team that's either going into the second year with a rookie quarterback contract or because
imagine you're Justin Fields and you're like, you really timed this one out. Great guys. Didn't you
like Justin Fields in Denver would be super happy. Justin Fields in Carolina would probably be pretty
happy. Like their rosters maturing from a lot of high draft picks,
but instead it's Chicago and they're like tanking around a rookie quarterback
contract. You cannot have that happen. I've, I,
I think that what we see is that supporting casts means so much to the success
of young quarterbacks. And like even Mac Jones last year,
like that's a team that was ready to bring in a quarterback
because they had spent a lot of money and had a mature roster.
Like you've got to be sure of that timing.
I think that that is absolutely a commandment of escaping the middle.
Yeah, my second one,
which is kind of something you already briefly mentioned
and kind of ties into this,
but it's,
you have to avoid the job saver moves, the moves that are completely designed to trading for Corey Vedvik,
trading for Chris Herndon.
What are these?
Or if we're speaking in quarterback terms,
what we just watched the Panthers do like two hours ago,
they just traded for Baker Mayfield
but a couple months ago they drafted a third round quarterback and they traded a future third
rounder to go get that quarterback oh and then the season before they signed Sam Darnold all those
moves was for Matt Rule to try to save his butt and to keep coaching into another season. And I think when
coaches get into the mode of, well, this is going to save my job. I'm not sure those moves actually
do. I think they're kind of counterintuitive. It's, oh, it's going to save me. But I think at
this point, there's enough of smart fans. There's enough smart owners to realize the job saving
moves are usually guys other teams don't want, and they usually don't want them for certain reasons.
And so I'm just like thinking through the NFL
and all the very mediocre teams like Washington.
They just went and got Carson Wentz.
Why?
To be mediocre again?
To maybe sneak into the playoffs again?
That's a job-saving type move
because they didn't feel good about Taylor Heineke.
They didn't want to take a swing in the draft.
And so they said, what's our best average quarterback that can maybe keep our job from
becoming way too hot?
And so I think for the Vikings, there's going to be a sense long term, especially if this
season doesn't work, that they're already going to be put in that job preservation mode. And I would tell them, I think the better chance of keeping your job
is if you don't go into job preservation mode.
I think it's you taking massive swings and hoping you hit on them
because I'm not sure if you fail miserably or if you just go 7 and 10.
Like, is it going to change that much, especially for a team that
specifically hired you to get over that hump? Like they hired you to avoid seven and 10 again,
they hired you to go 12 and five, 13 and four, they didn't hire you to go nine and eight.
And so it's kind of the embrace four wins is the same as eight wins.
I think you just have to avoid these job-saving moves that the previous regime has done. Even
something that you've kind of already done in pushing money down the road to try to be better
this year, this whole notion of a competitive rebuild is basically a job-saving move and you're
doing it from day one. It's not a good way to forecast yourself into
the future so my another piece of advice just you gotta you gotta swing big or at least not
try to just save your butt with stopgap band-aid hires and signings you just gotta go all in
but now the now the panthers can tell their fan base that they have the first and third overall picks in the 2018 draft.
Well, what I was going to say, I was just going to say that I think that when we talk
about Carolina and Washington, I think that those examples are different because Carolina
had a chance to draft Justin Fields and then build their roster and their roster was like
on the way
to being pretty good, which I think it actually is now. And I wouldn't be shocked if they were
like a borderline playoff team with Baker Mayfield. I think that with Washington,
they paid a little too much for Carson Wentz. And I agree with you on that,
but they also are not locked into Carson Wentz in any way. So if it was like run back Taylor Heineke or trade for Carson Wentz,
but you get freedom in the future to do what you want with that position,
they're also in a little bit of a tough spot because they tried to trade for Russell Wilson,
but it's Washington and Russell Wilson was like, no dang way am I playing for that organization.
So they're up against it a little, but trying to fill that spot with a Teddy, hoping that your evaluation from years ago with Sam Darnold was right.
Yeah. That's not where you want to be. You don't want to be at these desperate reaches to be
relevant. You want to be at like, let's fill that with someone who can get to the playoffs,
but also maintain flexibility. If they had signed Wentz to an extension, then I would have said,
okay, you're a
disaster although you know I don't even really truly hate the Baker thing I think the Baker
thing's a great decision for them now what were you going to run it back with Sam Darnold like
that's not bad but it's really their decision to trade a lot for Darnold a failed quarterback like
that's not recruiting the best quarterback who could come in and be your Philip Rivers or Matt
Ryan that's like taking this huge swing and over believing in yourself,
which actually might be another commandment.
But anyway,
go ahead.
Well,
I have one more and my last one was about the QB.
So we'll set the QB aside as important as it is for this one.
And it is prioritize the right positions just as a roster building strategy.
Like, for example, don't use the number two overall pick on a running back,
even if Saquon Barkley is absolutely unbelievably good at football
and dominated the Big Ten and is an incredible athlete.
That did nothing to get the Giants out of mediocrity.
Well, actually, I guess that could be an argument for, like,
do that so you're terrible, and then you can draft the quarterback, but don't draft a running
back that high. Don't like Paul said earlier, don't extend Dalvin cook. I, they really didn't
need to do that. Don't draft a tight end in like the top 10, like the lions did with TJ Hawkinson,
just various things like that. You need to prioritize the offensive line the trenches on both sides and
the vikings to their credit are in a good position on the offensive line at least at the tackle
position uh they have two really good young tackles who are under contract for a long time
figure out the interior although that's not a premium position it's still the trenches which
i put a lot of value on and i think any vikings fan knows like you got to have
at least decent play on the interior of the offensive line so your quarterback isn't getting
bull rushed up the middle every play uh but defensive ends outside linebackers uh defensive
like pass rush and then wide receiver wide receiver wide receiver wide receiver i think
the vikings could go even more like in depth and put more resources into that position, especially with Adam Thielen getting up there in age.
K.J. Osborne and some of the other guys they've drafted are are OK.
But I think like you touched on the timeline thing, Matt, like they need to find a running mate, a long term running mate for Justin Jefferson.
They obviously need to find a quarterback who fits the timeline with him, which is a whole nother conversation.
Like if they draft a rookie quarterback,
then you're maybe wasting some of Jefferson's prime.
If that person isn't ready to play right away,
but find another long-term another one or two or three,
like really good young wide receivers that you can pair with Jefferson to
maximize your offense.
Because we know that having really good
wide receivers is about the like second most important thing you can do on offense to have
an efficient and explosive offense so that would be a long-term roster building commandment of mine
that I think Kwesi understands even though he drafted a safety in the first round this year
is to prioritize the right positions yeah I think that's a good one. And we talked a lot
about like that surplus value in the draft of like, if this guy hits, how much better is it then?
Or how much is he worth in comparison to what the top players at his position are? So I want to do
this before we wrap up here. How about we make one specific move? Like what one specific move would you make?
Obviously you can't do it right now because this is the off season,
but after this year,
let's just say in the case that they are still entrenched in mediocrity.
And I know we're all going to say trade Kirk cousins.
So let's say Kirk cousins is traded.
And so what,
what would we do after that?
If Kirk cousins was traded and they're
in mediocrity to get them out of mediocrity, Paul, you, uh, you go first. Hmm. I, I had one more,
so I'll kind of tie it. Go ahead. Yes. But it's do whatever you need to do to sign Justin Jefferson
to a contract extension. Yes.
Literally anything.
Like my command was going to be do whatever Justin Jefferson wants.
Anything that he wants.
Name the stadium after him.
Yeah.
Does he want a new coach?
Bye-bye, Kevin O'Connell.
Does he want a new quarterback?
Bye, Kirk Cousins.
Does he want a whole new stadium?
Bye, U.S. Bank.
We're building a new one.
It wasn't good enough for Justin Jefferson.
Like he doesn't want it. So we're not going to have it. Anything that Justin Jefferson wants, you need to give him because you need to sign him. He is the single most
important person in the Vikings organization right now for their long-term future. He helps claw them
out of mediocrity. So obviously that do whatever he wants is basically do whatever you
need to do to get him signed and to keep him happy and to keep him on this roster, because he's going
to help you. If you think you can escape mediocrity now, Justin Jefferson's a key. If you think you
can do it in two years, Justin Jefferson's a key. If you think you can do it in eight years,
Justin Jefferson is a key part of that. And so more than any other position, more than any other person in the organization,
like I value Justin Jefferson over the GM, over the head coach.
Like he needs to be the focal point of whatever next step this team takes, whatever that looks.
And so the first thing this off season is you say, hey, I, we don't even need you to
have a cheaper last year.
If we're going to, if we're going to do this, let's just sign you now.
Let's bulk up the rest of your deal.
Let's give you an ownership stake.
I don't care.
Whatever Justin Jefferson wants, he gets.
I think that's the biggest offseason thing that they'd have to do.
Okay, here's going to be my specific move.
So let's say the Vikings are mediocre again.
That's the hypothetical here.
They're 7, 9, 10 wins, whatever it is. They missed the playoffs. They have a middle round, first round pick. say the Vikings are mediocre again that's the hypothetical here they're seven to nine ten wins
whatever it is they missed the playoffs they have a middle round first round pick my move is you
trade Kirk Cousins and then after that you assuming they're not like they don't bottom out and they're
in this they're in this middle you go all in and you trade whatever to move up to the top of the
draft and this was inspired kind of by the
timberwolves recently like giving up five first round picks essentially a bunch of players for
rudy gobert to go all in and try to take a swing at winning a title if i'm the vikings i trade
whatever let's say it's the 15th pick i offer the 15th pick my first rounder the next year in 2024, a second, maybe multiple seconds,
and like Andrew Booth Jr. to the team with the number one or two pick,
and I take Bryce Young or C.J. Stroud, assuming that those are the quarterbacks who play well in college football this year.
Those are the consensus top two for the 2023 draft so i
that's my move is no matter like what the even if the value doesn't say like that this is a smart
trade and you're like oh we're giving up so much of the future take a chance and put together a
package that that team might actually accept and move up to the top of the draft,
take that quarterback, and boom, go from there, win a Super Bowl.
See, I was going to go in a totally different direction
with the draft to quarterback thing, which was don't fall in love
with a specific quarterback because we're really bad at evaluating them.
You know who's bad at evaluating them?
Me, you, every person in the NFL, and history just continues to prove this.
The fact that the number one and number three overall picks are on the same team right now.
Four years later.
Four years later and are not with their own teams really shows you.
I mean, you got Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen, two of the best quarterbacks in the entire NFL, were not the first picks.
Mahomes was not the first pick.
Like, pick whatever guy is there and don't get too caught up on, well, we need to have a consensus with our entire organization.
Take that guy.
And if it doesn't work out, that's okay because you can have it not work out, have it fail and get another bite at that
apple. Uh, even as tough as it is now, you could end up being the jets. I know everyone brings that
up, but like, what do you want me to do about that? There are other teams that have done the
same thing and ended up with a much better quarterback situation after they had one guy
fail. Um, I don't think you can keep going down the same road with the same quarterback. The other
part of it too, is that Kirk cousins by after year, is just an old quarterback in the NFL.
He's one of the oldest quarterbacks in the NFL right now.
And the only guys who have thrown more than, I think I looked this up,
thrown more than 30 touchdowns after age 34 are all dudes who are going to end up in Canton
or were like multiple- pro bowlers like Carson
Palmer. It's usually not a league that even with better science is very friendly to quarterbacks
who get older, unless you're one of the goats. So you have to be like Ryan Fitzpatrick, right?
Oh yes. Yeah. Right. If you're Ryan Fitzpatrick and you're a journeyman, it's always friendly
to journeyman. So my thing is don't spend all those things which is really interesting that's
two different ideas but don't spend all of your uh draft capital make sure you still have it
but you come away with a quarterback in the middle of the first round because his odds are probably
similar maybe once upon a time they weren't but i think that college football save for this year
is producing more potential quarterbacks out there.
I would also say this, that have a really good idea by the end of this year, if Kevin O'Connell's
culture stuff is, can work, like if it's working and if it matters, because if it doesn't and
people aren't responding to him, like know that because after 2019, they still should have
fired Mike Zimmer. They just didn't. And they just said like, no, I guess they want to play
off games. So I guess we should just keep doing this. Like, don't do the same. Don't make that
same mistake again. If it doesn't work, then move on from it. If it does work, then tell the guy
he's got two more years on his contract and stay with him. Because I think that, you know, trying to work your way through bumps in the road with good coaches, good coaches are very hard to find.
So anyway, I hope that people got some good stuff out of this as we sit here in the middle of July.
Did everyone have fun?
Oh, I had a good time.
And I want to make one like quick clarification is i compared it to
the timberwolves rudy gobert thing and it's different because that's like an established
three-time defensive player of the year so i guess the better comparison there would be like
if an aaron rogers or i don't know who some like established good quarterback a like normal not
no off the field stuff to Sean Watson if that person's available
then maybe you trade the farm I would still do it I think though to move up to the top
if you think and I know you're and your point about not being able to evaluate quarterbacks
is very true but if you think that there might be like a Joe Burrow at the top of that draft I would
still do it yeah I don't think that your idea is absurd at all. I mean, didn't Philadelphia and Los Angeles both trade up for Jared Goff and Carson Wentz and both of
those teams ended up going to super bowls and one of them won. So, you know, I mean, I think there's,
it's just two different thought processes that probably give you close to equal chance.
I just think that if you're aiming for that, like 2024, then you want to make sure you have those
other picks. But if that's your one guy,
or if you feel like there's a huge gap between this guy and that guy,
then maybe go for it.
So this was,
this was fun guys.
This was a good time.
I look forward to the Vikings throwing 80% of the time.
Someday Paul,
someday you will get your dream.
Okay.
Well,
ragged round table is going to become
a thing because this was fun this was really good so thank you Will thank you Paul and also thank
you Paul battling through adversity uh I know that you lost your dog the other day and I just
wanted to say I know how painful that is and we love and appreciate you it's a very hard thing to
go through um but I'm glad that you could take the time, talk a little football, get your mind off it and just know that every minute
that you have with your dog is precious and, um, they are the greatest friends on earth. And, uh,
I'm, I'm so sorry for your loss, uh, but appreciate all that time that you had. You were lucky to have
it. Yes. Everyone go outside and play with your dog instead of arguing about kirk cousins inside that is the biggest that is my takeaway i have to spend
less time arguing about kirk cousins and more time walking my dog so there we go that's perfect well
thanks everybody for listening we'll be back as always and uh training camp coming soon we'll
catch you