Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN drops a Lamar Jackson and Vikings rumor on us

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

Matthew Coller reacts with Vikings fans to a rumor from ESPN's Jeremy Fowler concerning the Vikings and Lamar Jackson. Fowler called the Vikings a "wild card" for Jackson. Could that really happen? What are some of the factors (and bad arguments) that could prevent it? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here, and welcome to Rumorville, apparently. Well, all of you, of course, were watching NCAA basketball all day long, just like I was, and scrolling Twitter, I came across something that completely surprised me, and I thought, well, I was going to talk about Dean Lowry having void years in his contract and how that wasn't a great idea tonight on the live stream and maybe even do a draft simulation. But instead, Jeremy Fowler of ESPN just handed us something to talk about this evening. So thanks, everybody, for joining on the live stream.

Definitely take your comments and reactions and then questions as well throughout the next hour or so, as we chat here about what is going on with the Minnesota Vikings and their direction. But I will read you what Jeremy Fowler said about the Vikings and Lamar Jackson today on ESPN. He said, quote, I asked some executives around the league what teams would make sense for Lamar Jackson. They mentioned Tennessee, who has just cleared some cap space.

They have a new GM with Rand Carthon, who's working on the roster. They could use a running quarterback. They have experience with that. And a wild card like Minnesota. Kirk Cousins has one year left on his contract if they want to reestablish their identity there. What? So the other day when the Vikings restructured Kirk Cousins' contract, it looked like that was going to mean that the dream for some of you who want Lamar Jackson was dead on arrival. Some of you who want Lamar Jackson was dead on arrival because if the Vikings trade away Kirk Cousins before June 1st, that would result in a $38 million dead cap hit, which they

would just not possibly be able to fit that along with Lamar Jackson wanting the most amount of cap or the most amount of guaranteed money, which usually is very difficult on the cap. As we've seen from Kirk Cousins, when you have guaranteed money, it makes it a little harder to move around, though not impossible as we saw from Deshaun Watson and the Cleveland Browns. The way they set up that contract for Watson was to have very little spent in the first year because of the suspension. And then they've already transferred some money for the next season. So it's not impossible, but it would be very, very difficult. However,

there is a path and I hadn't spent much time thinking about it because I assumed after the restructure that we would be talking about the Vikings drafting a quarterback this year, trading up for one or getting one next year and that they would be pretty much locked in to drafting a quarterback next year. But the path is possible. I would not say it is likely or that it's something I think that they're working on as we speak and is going to be announced tomorrow, but it is possible because if Kirk Cousins is traded after June 1st, then the numbers change with his dead cap hit. They go down for how much it would take out of the cap this year. And then also it spreads the dead cap money out over the next few years. That's after June 1st,

if they were to trade him. Now that makes things a little wonky here, right? Because Lamar Jackson would have to wait till after June 1st to sign with the Vikings. If the Vikings were trading away Kirk Cousins, then they would have to have a partner that was traded after June 1st, which might be hard to do when we're talking about, you know, the NFL draft being mixed in there and teams finding their quarterbacks, who's trading for Kirk Cousins after June 1st. But these things could be agreed upon by the teams before and Lamar Jackson before June 1st. You can have these negotiations. You could set up a trade that brings the Vikings some compensation in 2024 draft, not 2023. So you

send Kirk after June 1st, technically that's when you complete the trade. And then you get 2024 compensation back and you agree to a contract with Lamar Jackson for all the guaranteed money that he wants in the world. And he ends up joining after June with the Vikings and you go from there. Again, it is not likely in my mind that that's going to happen, but this opens the door for the possibility of Lamar Jackson and the Vikings. And one thing that is worth noting, and I don't know how much it means, but Jeremy Fowler used to be a reporter here in town with the Minnesota Vikings. So that's, you know, take that for what it's worth.

But he used to cover this team. He does break stories regarding this team and has insight into this team from time to time. So that's worth at least adding to the conversation that the Vikings name is being brought up here for a reason. And the way that I look at it is this isn't really a discussion of do you want Lamar Jackson? I'm sure that some of you want to have that conversation, but it's really more could it really happen than do you want him? Because do you want him for me is a pretty obvious decision that the answer would be yes, you would want Lamar Jackson on your football team. He does have some recent injuries.

That's true. I also think that there are a lot of players who have an injured season, two injured seasons that that doesn't mean anything to their long-term. He's 26 years old. It's not like he's 33 and getting injured. Matthew Stafford had a lot of injuries early in his career. He was called injury prone. I think he missed an entire season due to injury.

Heck, even here, Kyle Rudolph had a lot of injuries early in his career and then was healthy for 99 straight games or something like that. Injuries are very, very hard to predict. I'm not throwing out that possibility that he could end up being injury prone for the rest of his career. And the way he plays does open himself up to a lot of hits running in the open field. So that, that is a valid reason to wonder if it's a good idea to have your whole franchise around Lamar Jackson and put tons and tons of money into him and really go all in there. So that's valid, I would say. The price tag is also valid. If you're saying, look, I mean, this guy is amazing.

He's a great quarterback. But if you're talking about 50 million guaranteed per year or something like that, how will you sign Justin Jefferson? How will you sign Christian Derrissaw? By the way, I'm sure Derrissaw didn't miss the fact that Laramie Tunsil reset the left tackle market because that's the money that Christian Derrissaw is coming for next year. So you could say, yeah, how exactly are you going to do that to be able to bring him in, keep those other guys on massive contracts, and then build anything else on this roster. One thing that Lamar Jackson has benefited from in Baltimore is the rookie quarterback contract. They've always been able to have good defenses and add players on

their defense and things like that. So that is a factor. And all those go into it. Can you really win if you spend that much money on your quarterback? But I don't think there's any question about the player. I mean, Lamar Jackson has an MVP. He has won 46 games and lost 15 in the regular season in his career. And let's take a look at some of his top wide receivers. Marquise Brown, Rashad Bateman. These guys have not been all that great in the NFL. Mark Andrews has a good tight end, no question, one of the better tight ends, but he hasn't even had anyone remotely in the ballpark of Justin

Jefferson. And if you're telling me that they could figure out a way to pair Lamar Jackson, Justin Jefferson, TJ Hawkinson, all together with an offensive line that is actually good at run blocking. Yeah, I think that's a pretty good start. That would be, in my mind, the closest they have been to the Super Bowl since 2009 when Brett Favre threw the interception, because this is the type of quarterback who can elevate everything around him. And I know there's going to be some people who want to debate whether he can pass. Look, if you're debating whether Lamar Jackson can pass, that's like wondering if Steph Curry is too skinny to play in the NBA. When Steph Curry came out in the draft, go back and look at the draft reports. A lot of people thought, nah, too small, too skinny,

not fast enough. And then he proved it wrong and has been a great player. And that's the same thing with Lamar Jackson. He's proved that wrong. Last year, he had the same quarterback rating as Kirk Cousins. I looked this up since he came in the league. He has the same quarterback rating as Matthew Stafford since he came into the NFL. And oh, by the way, can run for a thousand yards at any time. You're talking about playing with the best receiver in the game, the left tackle and right tackle who are stars. I mean, this would be, if nothing else, even if it didn't work, the most exciting thing to happen to the Vikings and not just the press conference, but watching him play with Justin Jefferson in a Kevin O'Connell offense that can be as creative as O'Connell wants to be. That's going to get

the number one wide receiver, the football, probably more than Lamar Jackson has ever had a chance. And I saw even Mina Kynes tweet out the other day that in the pocket, Lamar Jackson has very good numbers throwing the ball. I don't think that he's like a Mahomes where he's great at throwing. Well, he's scrambling. It's kind of one of the other, but that's just nitpicking to his game. The man wins all sorts of football games and would put you immediately in the driver's seat of the NFC just by being the quarterback of this football team. And think about the NFC quarterbacks.

You know, we talked about it the other day on the show. It's not a particularly great group. So if we're discussing, you know, Lamar Jackson injury, Lamar Jackson price, can you project what he's going to be like five years from now? Yeah. I mean, maybe that's tough, but if you're talking about the next three years, now he tweeted out as one does in the year 2023 he tweeted out what Baltimore's offer was and it was only three years if the Vikings

gave Lamar Jackson a three-year contract if this somehow could all come to fruition which again I'm not saying it's going to but their name name gets dropped by an insider. We have to bring it up. If that were to come to fruition and it's a three-year contract and they could set up Justin Jefferson's deal to not be as expensive until after that, which they could try their best to do it. If you look at even the way that some mega deals like Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes worked out, they can make them easier to deal with in the immediate. And then the cap hits go way up a couple of years down the road. AJ Brown is just like this. If they could set all of that up, that would give the Vikings a chance to legitimately compete

with the Philadelphia Eagles, the San Francisco 49ers for a Superbow Bowl. And if you can do it, then they should do it because this isn't really even a discussion about Kirk Cousins, but the last five years have been essentially this team in the middle. Even when they have a 13 win season, the discussion is, are they for real? Their point differential isn't good enough and they lose in the first round. And as good as Kirk Cousins has been as a passer, this is a league that is asking quarterbacks. And we've seen this from the Super Bowl. We've seen this from a lot of dynamic quarterbacks in the AFC. It's just asking more of quarterbacks. Pressure gets there fast.

Cousins was one of the most sacked quarterbacks in the league. And even the last play of the season, the reason he checked down was in part because pressure is coming up the middle and there isn't a whole lot he can do about it. So this would be to me, the version of 2023 that is like what the Vikings had with Dante Culpepper. And I really don't know what the argument against this would be from Vikings fans. I don't know. I'm seeing some of you in the comments saying, no way, no way. Like what? So what, what, what, what exactly, what, how could you do better? How could you do better than bringing to your team? One of the most successful, exciting, dynamic quarterbacks in the NFL who wins an MVP

because you're worried he might get hurt. Now, I will say that the Vikings do have a history of this happening to quarterbacks who get hurt. But I mean, wow, there's a lot of people who don't want to draft a quarterback because he might become ponder and they don't want Lamar Jackson because he might get hurt running. And you want Kirk cousins because you really like losing in the first round of the playoffs or not making it. I don't really understand exactly what the case is. And you know, it's not, it's not actually true. The comment here, Boyd, that most running quarterbacks get hurt um you know yeah jalen hurts was a little banged up in the super bowl so was patrick mahomes he's not really a running quarterback he's a playmaking quarterback but not like a running runs for a thousand yard

type of quarterback and historically is that true was mike vick hurt a lot? Dante Culpepper before one bad injury. And I understand it was a bad injury for Culpepper, but I don't remember him being constantly hurt and running around. There's a lot of running quarterbacks. Steve Young was a running quarterback, a lot of them over the years. And how is that different from a pocket quarterback that stands there in the pocket and gets hurt? So I don't know. Yes, I understand that recently he's been hurt. I'm not saying there's no validity to putting yourself in danger or that you're concerned about Lamar Jackson. But again, again, we are talking about, we are talking about one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, like hands down. And you're, I mean, what are you

going to do? You can't predict injuries of the future. Uh, Kyler Murray is way smaller than Lamar Jackson. Also an ACL is a freak thing. So I don't know. Kyler Murray has not had a history of being injured, um, at all. A thousand yards is 59 yards per game. How many yards did your quarterback run for last year? Zero yards per game? That's a lot. If I added 59 yards to the Vikings, they'd be the best team in the league last year. 59 yards is a ton. Do you know how many more first downs even Daniel Jones ran for? Daniel Jones had more first down runs than Delvin Cook. Do not try to pretend to me folks that running doesn't matter for quarterbacks as Jalen Hurts is in the Superbowl, please come on. That doesn't, these aren't good

arguments. These are not good arguments, but I think that if you're Lamar Jackson, though, if you were talking about, as Jason says here, and I agree with this, a three to four year contract where it's very much in his prime. That I think that how do you say no to that? Because you are certainly worried about the long term of Lamar Jackson and getting banged up over the years and having that running element not be as successful. That I will agree with with if you're bringing up that part and being fair I agree with that but if it's a three-year deal you are talking about age 26 through 29 that is the prime of a quarterback's career right there and to pair him with the prime of Justin Jefferson's career at very least it would be the most exciting football you've seen since Denny Green was here dialing up bombs for Dante Culpepper or Randall Cunningham.

And, you know, look, they didn't win the Super Bowl with either one of those guys, but they certainly had a lot of fun and they certainly won a lot of football games and put themselves in the NFC championship twice with those guys. So I look, if it's a possibility, you have to, you have to examine every possibility with getting Lamar Jackson, because that is a realistic chance to really compete, especially in the NFC for a Superbowl. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. If you're going to go down swinging, you go down swinging with someone who has won 45 games and lost 16 in the regular season and with now the best receiver in the game and a really great offensive mind that

had the Vikings last year in the top 10 in offense without a very successful running game. And, you know, look, I mean, look around the league and how much running games were starting to matter, actually, in the NFL. And there was actually a look at this from, I think it was Sumer Sports or PFF somebody, sorry, I can't remember who, at quarterbacks who can run impacting the running backs as well. Because think about what they usually do, the RPO game. How many running backs have Baltimore thrown in there at random? You're Gus Edwards, Latavius Murray, and they've had a lot of success with Lamar Jackson. So there's a lot of different ways that Lamar Jackson impacts a defense and impacts players on his own team. That's why I say that there's really no case of,

hey, is this player good enough? Yeah. Yeah. This player is good enough. And the Vikings, look, they were in on Deshaun Watson last year. And that might be part of this whole thing is, you know, with Jeremy Fowler putting together some dots of like, well, you know, they're not locked into Kirk and they did chase after Deshaun Watson a little bit last year. So, you know, maybe that's where these dots are being put together by quote executives around the league that he talked with. And it's altogether possible that there's really no smoke or there's no fire where there's smoke here from this report. But it's worth discussing that I had taken it off the table after the restructure for Kirk, and I thought that the path for the Vikings at quarterback was pretty well set. And, I mean, here again, we're talking about you wouldn't give up two firsts for Lamar Jackson.

I don't know, man. I don't know. Like what? So they're picking it so they can get another corner. Like, look, I get it. I get it that we all play the GM game. We all do it. We're all trying to be Billy Bean. We're all trying to stack draft capital. We're all trying to figure out how they can manage their cap in the future. We're all trying. We all love the draft. Nobody loves the draft more than us where we're mock draft for tomorrow. I'm doing a draft simulation for the newsletter. Okay. So all the time, we're all about the draft, but if you're giving up two firsts to get a quarterback of this kind of value, that is a deal that you're perfectly comfortable with making this, that that's not ruining your future. And look, I mean,

you're also not drafting that high, presumably if you're trading for Lamar Jackson and they've drafted, I know in the first round, Christian Derrissaw and Justin Jefferson. They've also drafted a lot of players that you can pick up in free agency, that you can develop, all those things. It would not concern me that much that it's two firsts. And look, if they're going to trade up this year, if they want to do that, what do you think it costs? It probably costs first round picks in the future in order to do that. So there's really no easy way to get a great quarterback without giving up something if you're drafting 23rd.

Is it a red flag that the Ravens don't want Jackson? Well, it seems like they do. It seems like they do because he tweeted out their offer was three years, 133 million. But I think they're playing hardball with him as far as their cap and their future. That's true. I don't think don't want Lamar Jackson is the case. I think that they are digging their heels in when it comes to this guaranteed money. And there's more things at play when it comes to the Lamar Jackson thing. It's very obvious that the NFL in general does not want these quarterbacks to get all of this guaranteed money. However, you are looking at the franchise who gave out the first fully guaranteed contract to a quarterback, the Minnesota Vikings with Kirk Cousins. So if

anyone's going to buck that trend, it might be the Vikings. And I think also if you're someone like Kevin O'Connell, I think he has a great amount of appreciation for Kirk Cousins. And I mean, look, Kevin O'Connell was drafted before Kirk Cousins in terms of round. So he looks at him and says, this is a fourth round pick who's turned himself into a star quarterback and he's got great accuracy and he's good in the pocket and he's good at leading an offense and all those things and he's a he's a great veteran quarterback but also he's got to know right he's got to know as a quarterback as somebody himself who ran a four six at the combine He's got to know that it matters to have that dynamic element of it.

I mean this, I mean, what, what do you even do with something like this? This comment of Lamar Jackson being one in three in the playoffs. What do you even do there? Okay. Do nothing. Then do nothing. Do nothing. Just do nothing. Just, just keep getting, just keep getting one quarterback after the next that checks down. And I mean, what, what are we doing here? What are we doing here? Did he have Justin Jefferson in any of those playoff games? Let me know. I mean, it's a different, you're talking about a different situation, one in three in playoff games. Well, you know what? I guess he's garbage. I mean, what he won the MVP of the whole league, man. He's capable of leading literally the best offense in the entire NFL.

We have not seen that at all from Kirk Cousins, where you're usually talking about fringe top 10 at best. This is another thing here. This is nonsense. Kevin O'Connell said accuracy matters when it comes to a quarterback. That statement alone rules out Lamar Jackson. Lamar Jackson is inaccurate? How does he have the same quarterback rating as Kirk Cousins?

Come on, folks, come on. We gotta do better than that. We have to be better than this. Of course, accuracy is important to a quarterback. Have we not watched Lamar Jackson play? Has he not dispelled all of this? I mean, he's dispelled all of this long ago. In his second season in the NFL, he showed everyone that he is a good passing NFL quarterback

who, again, since 2018, has the same quarterback rating as Matthew Stafford. He graded three points lower by PFF in passing grade than Kirk Cousins last year. We are not talking about somebody who is wildly inaccurate. He has proven to be competently accurate at throwing the football with a pretty bad system and pretty bad receivers. And then one of the best playmakers with his legs in the history of the entire league. Come on now, of course, Kevin O'Connell wants an accurate quarterback. Of course, he's going to say accuracy is important. It is, it is how that means they wouldn't go after someone who won

the MVP of the league. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. But that's what that's. I keep going back to the argument isn't really about whether you'd want Lamar Jackson to play for your football team because the Baltimore Ravens every year that he's been there have been a serious Super Bowl contender going into the season. You can't say that about the Vikings very often. If really, I mean one year,

I think one year with Kirk cousins, 2018, they actually entered the season as a legitimate Superbowl contender. And the second that Lamar Jackson joins the Vikings and puts on the helmet, you're a Super Bowl contender. Okay. I promise you that in Las Vegas, they will take the Vikings odds from being third in the division where they sit right now, by the way, if you go check, particularly since the Lions just signed another defensive back and CJ Gardner Johnson, they will go from third to the top

of the division without question if they were to sign Lamar Jackson. So there's really no debate to me about the player. It's entirely about could this actually happen, which I am extremely skeptical of. And I just don't really know how this all comes together. There's so many moving parts with Cousins' restructure of his contract, how they have to wait till after June 1st to have these things done. With Lamar Jackson, you'd have to agree with him at some point soon. You'd have to have somebody who is taking

Kirk Cousins off your hands, but who's that going to be? Because how does everybody know what they're doing in the draft? Or is there a team that can even afford to take Kirk Cousins? Now, maybe the restructure helps because it's only $20 million in terms of his actual cap hit for this year. So, you know, how does all this stuff come together is the major question here. And then are you concerned about the price? The price is very high. It's going to be a ton of guaranteed money.

It's going to be high cap hits, maybe not in the first year, but for sure going forward, it's gonna be high cap hits that there's probably not a whole lot that you can do about that. And it's just like hard to make all that work with these other extensions that they have coming and a defense that has a pretty bare cupboard.

That's another part of this too, where you look forward and go, all right, what is this defense going to actually be? Because one thing about Lamar is that he has had good defenses in Baltimore and winning a lot of those games. They've had good defenses, good coaching. So, you know, can you actually get a competent defense or would it look like the Dante Culpepper years where they would end up ranking very poorly in defense and still have these amazing offenses and it would be an exciting time, but it's hard to win in the playoffs. If you don't at least have a good defense, all those things are reasonable questions. Are you worried

about the fact that he's been injured the last two years? I'm a little less than some people because he is only 26 years old. And I think that injuries are very, very hard to predict. I mean, even look Christian McCaffrey, right? Like he was injured several years in a row, written off. And then last year he has a great season. I don't know. You can never really figure those things out, but any opportunity to get a quarterback who immediately would be the best or number two quarterback in the entire conference. Like, do we think Lamar Jackson's better than Dak Prescott? I do. With the running element of it, is he a better passer? Probably not, but he's a better runner and better overall player, more valuable to your team, I think. Is he better than Jalen Hurts? Yeah, that one's probably a

little more debatable, whether he's better than Jalen Hurts or not, but does it put you at a tie for number one in the NFC? I mean, you're right there. Would you take last year's roster largely with a few changed pieces, which it looks like what they're going to run back and we can talk about that, but with Lamar Jackson in place and where do you end up in the NFC this year?

NFC championship, right? So, I mean, I don't know. I think it all comes down to, are you willing to roll the dice? Because look, if it goes wrong, then people are getting fired. And there's really no question about that. And Russell Wilson would be a little bit of a cautionary tale there that when you give up your entire future for a quarterback, if the guy isn't phenomenal, then everyone's going to be in a lot of trouble. The difference is though, that Lamar Jackson is so much younger than Russell Wilson. He is dead in

the middle of his prime. Most quarterbacks statistically are reaching their prime in their third, fourth, fifth, sixth year, which Lamar Jackson normally would only prime in their third fourth fifth sixth year which Lamar Jackson normally would only be in his third year had he not come out in the draft as early as he did so he is hilariously like one year older than Hendon Hooker and Stetson Bennett because life's weird like that but think about it that way some of you want Hendon Hooker as a developmental quarterback and Lamar Jackson is one year earlier. There is the price tag question. Can you build the rest of the team around him?

I will not dispute that. And I would have that same question. How are you going to get a defense? Are you just going to draft all sorts of fifth rounders and hope or third rounders and hope for the next Daniil Hunter? But, man, I mean, it's always risky with the quarterback, right? Which quarterback option for the future? Let's all agree that when it comes to Kirk Cousins,

the way that his contract is set up right now, that this is the last year of Kirk Cousins in Minnesota, right? We agree with just the way things are structured right now. Okay. Let's say that's the case. The next quarterback is always going to be a risk. Who isn't a risk with the next quarterback? If you go and get a draft pick, if you tanked and took Caleb Williams, it's a risk. There have been lots of number one quarterbacks who haven't worked out. If you draft the third best quarterback, it's a risk. If you signed someone else's quarterback, if you traded for someone else's quarterback, they signed Kirk Cousins, which was a huge risk and kind of didn't work. Mostly didn't work. Didn't work more than it worked right so what move wouldn't be a risk is it less risky to draft a quarterback or to get one who's won an mvp already and give him the best receiver in

the game so i know that there's always going to be that fear and vikings fans constantly think of the worst case scenario but i mean if you're going to tell me that next year after Kirk goes, they should find whoever this year's Jimmy Garoppolo is as a better option than Lamar Jackson. I just don't think so. I don't think you can find a better option. It is a good question about whether they can pay Justin Jefferson and Lamar Jackson. And my answer to that would be, as long as you figure it out, like the structure of those deals. So if you're talking about Justin Jefferson signing an extension, if you look at the way AJ Brown's extension worked out, He was relatively inexpensive for several years. And if

you work it out, so Lamar Jackson is more expensive in the years where Jefferson is less expensive, then yes, that's possible that you can do that. Because that's why you sign a player to an extension in part, because you have control over the way that the salary cap hits come in. And the other thing is too, if you look at Deshaun Watson, Deshaun Watson just signed one of the biggest contracts, if not the biggest, I think the biggest of all time for a quarterback. And what did they do this off season? They transferred money. And at that point you are doing stuff like that, right? They transferred money. They kicked some money down the road. They created more space

because you go into instant win now mode again. And if you are in win now mode, then you can push all of those buttons that we don't like when they're not in win now mode. Let's see, TJ Hawkinson would be gone if you bring in Lamar. Okay, so here's the thing. You don't have to actually get rid of every single player

if you have an expensive quarterback. I don't know if we realize that, but that's actually true that you can keep other expensive players. In fact, the Vikings did this when they had Kirk cousins, they had Stefan digs on a bigger contract, Anthony bar Harrison Smith. It's not that you cannot have anybody. It's that it's harder to build a complete roster. That's the thing. And if you don't have a quarterback that is of the upper echelon that can elevate other players,

then it's harder. So Kirk Cousins, you can't have mediocre guards with Kirk Cousins or it's going to hurt you. Is that going to hurt you with Lamar Jackson? Probably a lot less, right? If they have interior pressure, you have someone who can run away. That's a big deal that you can make it better if you have players who are struggling or aren't as good. Whereas with Kirk Cousins, that's not really a thing that you can do. That's kind of the point of why we talk about it this way. If Aaron Rodgers, you could pay Aaron

Rodgers top dollar and still have a great team. You don't just lose every player. You don't just sign him and then every other player just runs away. That's not how it works. You could still have a good team around someone who's paid a lot, including Patrick Mahomes, who was paid a lot this year, had one of the highest cap hits in the league, but you do have to hit on draft picks. You don't just get Lamar and then it's all over and you don't have to do anything else. They would have to have some of these draft picks come to fruition and succeed. And I don't know how to control that. Are you taking that risk that yeah, like you have to have Andrew Booth jr. Turn out to be good or low key signings like Byron Murphy work out for you? Yes, you do. If you're going to sign Lamar Jackson, but that goes for everything

that goes for. If you have Kirk cousins, that goes for, if you draft will Levis, I mean, look, the Patriots have a quarterback rookie rookie quarterback contract, and they have botched their roster 50 way sideways, and it didn't work last year. So you can't just be clueless. You still have to be smart. I thought that's why they hired Kweisi Adafo-Mensa, right, was to find the edges in the roster. And I don't know that they are doing a ton of that at this very moment, but that's why you have him is to find the edges and to do the best you can to build around your quarterback.

So it is possible to win with Lamar Jackson. Is it possible to actually make this happen? And I guess part of the discussion is what about other teams? Is he going to sign in Tennessee Tennessee to me does not look as attractive as Minnesota in part because their best wide receiver is Traylon Burks I guess he's an exciting young player but you know I see in the comments some people say well he'll never come here I don't know I, this is a place that has made plenty of stars. Is it not?

Randy Moss? Did Randy Moss have any trouble getting attention for himself here? No. Randy wasn't as much into marketing himself as players are these days. And I don't know how much Lamar is either. But yeah, he had no problem getting attention. Did Adrian Peterson have any problem becoming a star player here in Minnesota? No, he did not.

So you get to play in front with the best organization in the best stadium, which I don't know if Lamar Jackson has been to this stadium. I actually think the only time they played him was in Baltimore. There's a lot of things that you get your quarterback or your coach is a former quarterback. There are a lot of attractive things for Lamar Jackson. It's just making all those other details work of this thing, finding what you're going to do with Kirk Cousins. I suppose they could, it still is really hard if they were cutting him after June 1st. But if you're in a position where everyone knows you need to trade him, then it ends up like Baker Mayfield where you give him away for nothing.

But I guess you're okay with that if you've got Lamar Jackson in turn. So this is a fascinating rumor coming from Jeremy Fowler that again, I had taken and I had thrown in the trash and thought, well, you know, that was fun to talk about for five minutes. And all of a sudden, just like that undertaker GIF, it's back with the Lamar Jackson discussion. And we will wait and see if anything comes of this, if there's any more buzz to it, because this buzz was coming from executives to Jeremy Fowler. It doesn't mean that someone inside the Vikings building said, yes, we're doing that. And it's very clear from Lamar Jackson that he's not telling anybody what's going on unless he's going to tweet it. Yeah. So, and you know, Steve, you make a good

point about Patrick Mahomes signing the 10 year contract. And I don't know if Lamar Jackson is dead set on he will absolutely only take a deal that is fully guaranteed. Maybe he is, and that does make it more difficult. But there are ways to structure these things that can make it work. And the biggest part is keeping Justin Jefferson long-term, keeping Christian Derusaw long-term. If you can do that, the rest of the parts can come together around someone like Lamar Jackson. So it would be an exciting time for Vikings fans.

And I know that, I mean, this is the thing, right? That we'll have these debates and they're fun. And it is like to go back and forth about something like this that could be the most exciting thing to happen to the franchise since Brett Favre came here, which worked out well, by the way. I guarantee you the day that Lamar Jackson puts on that helmet, all the people saying, oh, I don't know, is this really a good idea? Would be pretty, pretty darn jacked up about that.

So we'll see. And of course, if it happens, if it happens, this live stream won't be an hour. This live stream will be like four straight hours of nothing but talking about Lamar Jackson to the Vikings. I promise you that. I did want to touch on a couple other things. If anybody else has any other questions and I looked up and I was like, wow, we've been going, I mean, this just tells you like what this would mean to the Vikings. Like we've been going for like 40 minutes and I hadn't even noticed that we've been talking that long. But if we just kind of, you know, swing back to some other things that are going on, Adam Thielen signed with the Panthers. The Panthers play the Vikings next year. Revenge game. Wait for the articles because there will be revenge happening, I guess. I don't know.

But when we look at what Adam Thielen was paid to go to the Panthers, I think it's kind of a lot for, you know, what he did last year. And it's not really ring chasing for him it looks like the Panthers want him to be a multi-year option for them I think it's a two-year deal so that's a good move for them they're going to draft a quarterback give him a veteran wide receiver they don't have a lot for weapons outside of Adam Thielen I guess I was a little surprised because I thought he might go to a Kansas City or San Francisco or somebody try to latch on with a team that looks like it's going to compete for a Super Bowl next year. But this is much more of a they're going to get Bryce Young.

It's going to play with a young quarterback and, you know, try to, you know, go on from there. I got to say, I don't know how you become the person who goes into the comments and says it's not happening. Like what, what, what happened? Who hurt you? Who hurt you? How does that happen to you? How do you, how do you go into every comment section where they're talking about NFL speculation, say it's not going to happen. You know what? Probably not. I don't know. I wouldn't expect it to happen. Uh, this is. This is a good question. How do you get Kirk Cousins to waive his no trade clause? Well, you know, with Matt Ryan,

they made it pretty clear to Matt Ryan, they didn't want him. And I think at that point, when you're saying, look, you either play for us and leave, or we can try to trade you to a good place for you to potentially win and get a contract extension. I mean, it's pretty compelling if your team is making it very clear that they no longer want you as a reason to be traded. I thought that once they restructured, that the idea of trading him was kind of gone and that they were going hardcore Alex Smith style here, where it's very clear that they're going to get a different quarterback. They're going to try to either develop that quarterback behind Kirk Cousins, or they're just going to run it to the end and then move on. And that's the way that it looked. And honestly, that's still the most likely

scenario. If we're doing a pie chart of what's going to happen with the Vikings future at quarterback, we know what this is going to be. It's going to be 50% that they draft quarterback this year, trade up or something, or draft one to develop. And 49% goes to draft a quarterback next year. And 1% goes to Lamar Jackson, right? But the fact that it's actually being brought up is pretty darn relevant for the possibility that it could happen.

See, this is the thing that I keep having to go back to with if you get Lamar Jackson, how are you going to pay Justin Jefferson? When you sign someone to an extension, you don't have to give them the average annual value for every single season. And I don't mean this like in a condescending way. Like I've just, most people don't study the cap. So maybe they don't

realize how some of this works out, but, and maybe I should even screen share if I can on the fly here, AJ Brown's contract, this is going to be hard to do. So I'll just, I'll just tell you about it. AJ Brown's contract, I believe had like a $7 million cap hit this year. And next year it's like 13. And somebody, if you want to look up the numbers on the fly, I'm bad at talking and typing at the same time, but you can structure these contracts to work out in connection with each other. Right? So yes, that would be a lot, but the Packers had Devante Adams and Aaron Rogers, both very expensive at the same time. It's not that it's impossible. In fact, if Kansas city had really wanted to keep Tyree kill,

they could have, but I think they understood that they could move on and that Patrick Mahomes would make other people better, but you don't just have to say like, see a Justin Jefferson. Cause you got Lamar Jackson. Um. You can make this work together with the way that it's structured and you can move money around because you're all in trying to win. Not like this year where I've been saying, don't move money down in the future because it looked like they were going to be in rebuild mode. Speaking of which, another side note is I saw that Dean Lowry's contract has void years on it and it's not a whole lot of money, but I just am a little flummoxed by that. I think it should have been one of their major goals. And this is the odd thing. And it does make it doesn't look

if you want to get to like conspiracy theory and the gif with the numbers in front of the person's face they suddenly kind of took a turn with this offseason because their first couple of moves screamed rebuild it was okay thielen's gone kendrick's is gone marcus davenport byron murphy these are future type of moves or or moves where you're hoping to hit a big home run there. Okay. Let's see what happens. Right. Yeah, this is a good point. I'm sorry to interrupt what I was saying. This is a good point. The extension of Justin Jefferson really wouldn't hit until 2025. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm getting at. Okay, great. Thank you very much for doing this. You're better than me at finding these things out. So yes, the first two years of AJ Brown's extension, which is what Justin Jefferson would be looking at,

were only 5.6 and 8.3 million before shooting up through the roof. There's no question that it will. It's just that you can structure these things so they won't necessarily crush you right away. So if the Vikings brought in Lamar Jackson, they could sign Jefferson to an extension and it wouldn't be until 2025 where the thing would explode. That's the whole point, that you can make this work. It's not like you bring him in and go, well, we got to get rid of Justin Jefferson and it's all over and there's no reason to exist anymore. That's kind of the point. I really don't understand this comment either.

Take on the baggage of Lamar Jackson. What's the baggage? I don't know what the baggage is. Is it, I mean, the injuries? Like, I don't know. But I guess the injuries might be what you're talking about. There's no, the guy has been amazing. He's been amazing. He's the

type of player that you put on video game covers. He's the type of player that is a megastar. There is no baggage to Lamar Jackson, aside from that he's had some injuries the last couple of years. And that, if you're bringing up that point, I think it's valid. I also would say that there's lots of players who have had injuries and then, okay, if you mean injuries, that's fine. But Matthew Stafford had injuries early in his career. Lots of players have, he's 26, not 33. If he's 33 with injuries, I'd agree. It's 26. And you know, so I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Baggage is Deshaun Watson. Now that's baggage. If you want to say injuries, that's fine. Anyway, so I guess where I was tying this into Lamar Jackson

is just that suddenly it's been a little weird with the way the Vikings have handled things, where they all of a sudden looked very clear that they were just going to, and this could happen tomorrow. I don't know that they were going to get rid of Zedaria Smith, get rid of Delvin Cook, and just, you know, carry on with our lives. And then it hasn't happened. And I'm wondering why it hasn't happened. And this is just another problem with the injury thing. He's not hurt all the time. He's had two injuries the last two years that have

hindered his season. That's true, but it's not a, he's played in the NFL since 2018. It's not like every year the guy's just beat up and has all these nagging injuries or something. You can have something where somebody goes down and, and Hey, look, it is worth bringing up that it's possible last year he didn't play or didn't force himself back in because he didn't want an RG three situation or something in the playoffs. But, um, no, it's, it's okay, Michael, that you were referring to injuries. I just didn't understand when you use the word baggage, it makes me think and Deshaun Watson. And that's not, I don't think that's any issue with him. Like all the other things, his teammates have always loved him. He's considered a great leader. He has been just, you know, like an, an A plus franchise player for them. And, you know, that's what you're looking

for here. And, you know, somebody who could at their absolute best, make you a competitor for the Superbowl, but sorry, I keep kind of jumping in and out of the point that it looked like they were doing one thing pretty obviously. And then we've kind of hit the brakes on it. And I don't know why that is. And I'm not trying to say like, well, you know, maybe it's Lamar, but it is interesting that they have not made these moves that we thought were so blatant. And I agree also here that I would also still trade Delvin Cook if Lamar Jackson was coming here. I agree with that.

But they might not because he's Delvin Cook and because of what he's been in the past. And I do think Delvin Cook playing with Lamar Jackson would be pretty wild. I mean, considering how much it helps a running back to have a running quarterback and how many things you can design with that. It's not exactly the same as just handing it off and running bootlegs off of that, but it would certainly give, you know, Kevin O'Connell all the opportunity in the world to dial up everything that he ever dreamed of with a quarterback, with RPOs. And look, Lamar Jackson is pretty good at throwing deep balls and Justin Jefferson is really good at catching them. So there's yeah, there's a lot of reasons why it would be a great fit if it actually were to come to fruition. But we're still waiting on these other things,

though. And that's the strange part of this offseason is when they make those other moves and you feel like you sort of got it down. I thought that we had. And the other day someone asked, so are they rebuilding or what's going on? And I was like, yeah, I think so. And that's the right way to go. And good for them. Two thumbs up. And then all of a sudden, and that was with me being under the impression that they were just about to trade Zedarius Smith,

just about to trade Delvin Cook. And it's like, okay, that's fine. That's totally fine. Like move on and start to rebuild and set this thing up for the future. And it doesn't have to be a long rebuild. But now all of a sudden we're kind of like, what's up there. And yeah, I mean, they brought back Alexander Madison, which screams that Delvin cook is going to get moved. And it could just be that they're waiting for a good offer and they're kind of sitting on it and saying, all right,

let's wait. So the first week of free agency is over and then everybody starts to scramble a little, right? But then you look at what Brandon Cook's got traded for. It's not a lot. It's not a lot. So if they're trying to, yeah, if they're, if they're trying to trade these guys, they can't expect a lot. Yeah. So I started out the show and I'm sorry, I shouldn't, I shouldn't expect, I should reset this that I shouldn't expect that everybody joined at the very beginning. Jeremy Fowler, I can read you again exactly what he said on TV about the Vikings and Lamar Jackson. Jeremy Fowler of ESPN said, I asked some executives around the league what teams would make sense. They mentioned

Tennessee, who just cleared some cap space and have a new GM. They could use a running quarterback and even a wild card like Minnesota. Kirk Cousins has one year left on his contract if they want to reestablish their identity there. So that's the exact quote from Jeremy Fowler. That's the reason we're talking about it. Otherwise, I was done with the speculation and I would have said, hey, let's just, you know, move on from that. Talk about the draft and whether they would be able to get Will Levis or something. And instead, you know, sort of all hell breaks loose here today with Jeremy Fowler connecting the Vikings to Lamar Jackson.

So, yeah, it's most likely still that this will not come to fruition. He called them a wild card. He didn't say that they're a favorites or that it's like about to happen. It's just that it's something that is being bandied about in NFL circles that they're a possibility after their restructure for Kirk

Cousins, which again is set up. So after June 1st, they could move on from him and not have it be crushing to their salary cap. But before June 1st, and this is what makes it a little bit more dicey trying to figure it out before June 1st, they would take on a massive dead cap hit and they don't want to do that. I agree with you, David, about Alexander Madison. I think he is a better pass catcher out of the backfield and a pretty good blocker. And I think that they do want to go with some of those heavier schemes. I mean, if again, if you really want to get your tinfoil hat, Josh Oliver is here to run block and it's like, wait a minute, run blocking tight end. What do they need one of those for? They already kind of have one, don't they? So, you know, I don't know.

I don't know. It's exciting to talk about because it kind of gives you a glimpse of, you know, what could be in the future. And maybe it's not Lamar Jackson, but it also could be drafting a quarterback next year and looking toward the future of this team, actually trying to chase a Superbowl. And I think that that is the biggest frustration of Vikings fans is you go into every single season, like, well, you may be possibly what if this and that, and this and that just happen. And then maybe, and you know, usually it ends up in the same kind of way. You usually can't go into a season with Vegas saying that you're a legit contender or really truly believing that it could happen just based on you being a great team and

not just hoping to get lucky. And for so many years, the quarterback position has been one swing after the next that kind of long shots other than drafting Teddy Bridgewater, but mostly just long shots. Just, hey, maybe this guy will work out or that guy will work out. Or even with Kirk Cousins, you took somebody who hadn't had a ton of success with Washington and were hoping that you could give him this, that, or the other thing and that it would work out better than it did in Washington. And honestly, it has. And that's kind of some of the point about Kirk Cousins is it has worked out better for him than it did in Washington. And it still wasn't quite enough. So will this happen? I have no idea. But finally, we've got some rumors that people can get excited about as opposed to the best rumors for the Vikings being

which guys they're going to cut or which guys they're going to trade. So there's a lot of other things still to be decided. And what happens with Zedaria Smith and Delvin Cook could come in the next couple of days, or they could figure out ways to rework those guys' contracts to keep them. Either way, they have to create some extra space. And I'm not sure where that's coming from if they don't do that. So see this right here, like when we talk about arguments and things like that, like you have to make arguments that are intellectually honest. What happened to all the talk about not being able to win with quarterbacks on huge contracts is the comment. Like we have to just be intellectually honest when we say things like this, don't we?

That's just not an intellectually honest comment because everybody understands this argument by now with the expensive quarterback contract. It's not that you can't win with an expensive quarterback contract. It's that that you can't win with an expensive quarterback contract. It's that you can't win with Kirk cousins having an expensive quarterback contract. You can't win with Derek Carr having an expensive quarterback contract,

mediocre quarterbacks, middle of the road QBs with limited ceilings, limited mobility. Yeah, that's going to be really tough. That's going to be really,. That's going to be really, really tough. And we don't see it very often. Do we see elite quarterbacks competing for Super Bowls every year on huge contracts? Yes, we do. And Tom Brady does take a pay cuts. I know

Tom Brady's been expensive before and drew breeze was expensive and Patrick Mahomes was expensive this year. And guess what? When Joe Burrow becomes expensive, he'll win. And when Josh Allen becomes expensive, he'll win. But these are quarterbacks that are top five. This is the upper echelon. And Lamar Jackson, I mean, again, if we're going to be intellectually honest and say Lamar Jackson's not an elite quarterback, you're just not trying to even have a real discussion here because there's all the evidence that he is. I guess quarterbacks who lead teams to 45 and 16 regular season records are just okay. Is that what we're saying? I mean, come on now. We all know what kind of quarterback

Lamar Jackson is. You can try to pretend that you don't think he's that good or something, but you know, it's funny, actually, Miles, I've made this comparison before that Kirk Cousins is similar to Drew Bledsoe, that he's kind of a modern day Drew Bledsoe. And Bledsoe did take a team to a Super Bowl at one point with New England, but when he became very expensive in Buffalo, that was harder. You know, he did, actually, when he was in New England, he signed a big contract. It was a different league at that point, but very similar where he put up huge statistics. There were limitations to his game.

He needed kind of things to go right. And again, and again, we've addressed this. He went one and three in the playoffs and 45 and 16 in the regular season, meaning every single year he went into the playoffs, he had a chance to win the Superbowl with Kirk Cousins as the Vikings quarterback. They have also won one playoff game in the last five years, but Oh, by the way, only been in the playoffs twice. They've only been in the playoffs two times in the last five years. I mean, 2019 and this last year, come on. I mean,

what are we talking about here? This is not similar. These things aren't similar, but again, we have to be honest is, is Lamar Jackson. This is the thing is Lamar Jackson, the best quarterback in the NFL. Like, no, I don't think so. I think Patrick Mahomes is the best, maybe who's ever played. But again, we've got to be honest here. You can't say I'm taking Justin Fields over Lamar Jackson and even pretend you're being honest with yourself. I'm going to stop putting the silly comments on the screen, but I have to just like blows my mind a little bit about some of the nonsense against Lamar Jackson's really funny. But and I think that makes the point the in the NFC, nonsense against Lamar Jackson's really funny. But, uh, and I think that makes the point

the, in the NFC, where does Lamar Jackson rank among quarterbacks, the NFC, if he's playing for the Minnesota Vikings right now, number one or number two, those are the only two options. You could say that maybe Jalen hurts is in a better position with his contract, although he's going to be expensive soon also, or that Lamar Jackson is, is not quite as good at throwing the ball as Jalen hurts, but you are either number one or number two, you become an instant favorite potentially for the super bowl. So if he's in the AFC and this might be part of what the Ravens are thinking, like, how are we going to compete? If our quarterback is as expensive, you know, as, or more expensive than Mahomes, how are we going to compete?

But it's different. So I think that this is something that either way, they absolutely have to investigate. That's what it really comes down to, is they absolutely has to investigate Lamar Jackson and that possibility, because how could you not, how could you not, if you have a chance to get someone that dynamic? So anyway, well, this has been really fun and look, you don't get a rumor like this every day from ESPN. So shout out to Jeremy Fowler, because he certainly injected a lot into a show that was going to be based on you know whether Adam Thielen made the right decision to sign with the Panthers or what's going next for um Zedaria Smith and Delvin Cook which I feel like we've been talking

about for quite a while but now we just have to kind of sit here and wait and we'll absolutely be going live on the channel if that happens with anything with Zedaria Smith, Delvin Cook, or future signings. Oh, we didn't even mention that Ole Udo came back. They have good depth on the offensive line. So there's, you know, a thing that exists. Anyway, thank you all for participating and watching. And if you are watching this for the first time, make sure you subscribe to the channel.

The podcast happens every single day. So go find the Purple Insider podcast, check out purpleinsider.com. It's kind of got all of everything we do, the written work, everything from TCO Performance Center and so forth. And we will be right here to cover it all. So thanks again, everybody for watching. And we will continue to pop in on a fairly nightly basis here around this time, usually around nine o'clock. We do hot routes on Tuesday night where it's five questions that me and Jonathan Harrison answer. We're planning something for later in the week, probably Thursday with Tyler Dunn, who's a national NFL reporter doing like an NFC North report between the two of us and kind of talking

Packers as he has done a lot of reporting on that. So appreciate all of you guys and jumping in here and watching. Thanks again. Keep your eye on the channel and we will do it again very soon. Have a good night.