Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN says Vikings among teams who could trade up to No. 3

Episode Date: February 11, 2024

Matthew Coller goes semi-emergency mode with a podcast after ESPN reported that the Vikings are among teams they expect to be in the mix for a trade up to No. 3 overall. Is it worth it? Does this mean the end of Cousins? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matt DeColor here as always. And I'm going to tell you the the truth I did not have any plans to go live this evening I was going to play video games or something else but instead I was perusing the internet twitter whatever and I saw some very interesting Vikings rumors and reports from ESPN, and I couldn't help myself. I literally had nothing else going on. So I thought, let's talk about these, because after the next couple of days,

it's going to be all Super Bowl, you know, after tomorrow and so forth. And I don't want this to get lost, and I want to comment on it first and talk to you guys about it. And I'm glad to see many of you jumping in right away here. So participate in the chat, ask questions, give your opinions, all those things. Here's the two biggest rumors. And actually, people are already asking about them. One of them comes from Dan Graziano of ESPN and he wrote this under the could the Patriots trade their first round pick

in his article on ESPN wrote the Patriots need a quarterback but there are people around the league who believe they are open to trading the number three selection moving back in the draft and addressing quarterback in free agency if the Pats do trade that pick, which could be Daniels or May, the two teams I would keep an eye on are the Falcons moving from the No. 8 spot and the Vikings moving from the 11 spot, assuming that they don't bring back Cousins. Minnesota knows it eventually has to address the quarterback position long-term, and the notion of bringing Daniels to pair with their LSU star wide receiver Justin Jefferson has some appeal in the organization so here is the

question how much would it cost and would they actually do it it's going to cost a lot and I was trying to fiddle around with different draft charts. And now there used to be where you could go to the old Jimmy Johnson draft value chart, and you could just figure this out and go, okay, this is the number and this is it. But now over the last few years, especially the Vikings, teams have started to formulate their own draft charts to figure out how much they are willing to trade. And so if New England wants to trade, that means you probably have to at least beat out the Atlanta Falcons.

I would also have some concern over the New York Giants because they do have their quarterback in Daniel Jones, but he's not exactly their franchise quarterback or he shouldn't be. He shouldn't be considered their guy. So they might also be in that mix. And then from behind the Vikings, you have multiple other teams that would also be in this conversation as well. The Denver Broncos, the Las Vegas Raiders. So, well, Dan Graziano does name the Minnesota Vikings and the Atlanta Falcons. There's a lot of competition if New England puts that pick up on the board to go up and get Daniels or I guess Drake May.

I mean, it really could depend on the preference of the Washington commanders. Do they want Drake May or would they prefer Jaden Daniels? And for me, it's either one is totally fine. Either one of those guys would be fine. The question is how much and could you actually make it happen? So addressing the how much, there's a line there that you can't really cross, but it's a pretty far line down the road. I mean, first of all, I think all of us would be willing to give

up multiple first round draft picks to get Jaden Daniels because while they need a lot of stuff on the roster, if you look at the offensive foundation that this team could give Jaden Daniels or Drake May, and you're talking about elite wide receivers, top-notch tackles. They can fill in wide receiver three or four, sign Marquise Brown or something, right? They've signed somebody, you know, who's a decent wide receiver to be wide receiver three. Draft a running back later in the draft or pick up some veteran to be in a rotation with Ty Chandler, get a decent left guard and ask Brian Flores for at least a year or so to figure it out. And you're going to have to go into free agency and you can spend in free agency. It's a little bit of a misnomer that they

couldn't spend until 2025. You would just have to structure out those contracts. So they're cheap in the first year and get expensive later, but you can play around in free agency even despite the dead cap hit that kirk cousins would have and you're drafting jayden daniels so he's going to cost some but they still have a decent amount of cap space to work with and they could structure out after that but is that going to be enough is three draft picks number 11 and then and then 2025 and 2026, would that be enough to beat out the other teams, especially if Atlanta's in the mix? And I don't know that it would be.

So then are you trying to add in second round picks as well? That's where it gets a little bit dicey. How many second round picks would you be willing to throw down to go along with three first then you're blowing out all of your drafts for the next few years and you have to decide is the gap so big between Daniels and say Bo Nix or JJ McCarthy that it's worth trading all of that draft capital but one thing that we know is that you can work your way through a defense and build up a defense over a couple of years. It's really hard to find a franchise quarterback. And it's really hard to find a setup better than this one for a young quarterback.

And you have to look at it like when you draft a quarterback, it's not just about this year or next year. It's about an entire five-year window while that quarterback is on their rookie contract that you have to build. So you can build through free agency over multiple years. And with Brian Flores, your goal is going to be to develop players. And now that all the spots are filled for coordinators, we now know Brian Flores is going to be back. So that's something that you can count on. And I even saw Jordan Love saying that the Vikings,

despite how he throttled them late in the season, were one of the most difficult defenses he faced all year. So there still should be confidence in the idea that Brian Flores can draft players, develop them, find diamonds in the rough like Josh Metellus, improve and develop players like Cam Bynum. We've seen that happen. It's just he needs a couple of defensive linemen, but you can find defensive linemen in free agency. You can develop other players on defense. Gosh, they even got, you know, Ivan Pace Jr. was an undrafted free agent. So I

think there should be a lot of confidence that if you did trade multiple first round draft picks to end up getting the number three overall pick and taking Jaden Daniels or Drake May, that Brian Flores is going to do his best and give you a chance. And look, if they had great quarterback play this year, dynamic quarterback play from start to finish. What did they finish in defense? Like 12th? That would have been good enough.

And their talent was not even that great on the defensive side. And yet they were still able to do enough to be in every game. Even when they had tough games on defense, they were still there. So I think that trading up multiple draft picks, if the Patriots were willing, would absolutely be worth the price, despite the other work that you're going to have to do over the roster. But you don't have to do it right away, all of it. I mean, because year one is going to be a development year. And I still think you can be a competitive team in a development year. If you trade for Jaden Daniels, you don't have to win five games. I mean, we saw that from CJ

Stroud and look, CJ Stroud came into a position where he had a very good team. Brock Purdy came into a position where he had a very good team. And if the quarterback has something there, then you're usually going to see it pretty quickly when they have a great wide receiver, two great wide receivers, a good tight end, good offensive tackles, and a former quarterback as the head coach. And look, I know that we have talked about this at length about the play calling and Kevin O'Connell and the criticisms that popped up after Josh Dobbs and Nick Mullins were playing. But I think that if you're going to put your eggs in somebody's basket, a former quarterback who was even good enough to get in Josh Dobbs ear

and explain the offense as they went along, I'm going to say that that weighs the odds in a good way. Somebody who would know how to speak to a quarterback and put all their emphasis into that quarterback's success, I would believe in that more than I would say, honestly, if Mike Zimmer was drafting the quarterback and you were talking about changing offensive coordinators from year to year, continuity is something that this team can give their next quarterback as well. And when we look around at what they have on offense, it's all pretty young.

I mean, Brian O'Neill is a veteran player at this point, but he's not super old. And Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison are extremely young. TJ Hawkinson, I think will be 27 and it's going to take them a while to get through the ACL injury but those usually aren't injuries that have super long-term implications for players you are talking everybody under 30 and then you add a rookie quarterback to this that's they've done a lot of the hard part when it comes to getting weapons that are that good and a situation this good for the quarterback, now it would be, I think, a decent enough time to push the chips to the middle of the table and try to make it happen. However, where would the line be drawn if it's not just draft picks?

So I think if it's draft picks, all right, if you want three firsts, maybe one second thrown in there some other change all right let's do it give it to the Patriots let them rebuild everything like that that team is just really washed out of talent and I could understand actually why they would do this because that was another question like is it really plausible but look what happened to Mac Jones they make the playoffs with Mac Jones with a pretty decent team. And then all the weapons fall apart. They have no receivers, no offensive line. One of the worst rosters in the NFL on the offensive side.

And suddenly Mac Jones can't play at all. Now that doesn't mean I think he's great, but I think that circumstances are such a big deal. And I could see where the Patriots would say, let's get a veteran in here and take a little bit of a longer term approach with Gerard Mayo. We need a real rebuild. And part of it could be similar logic to the Vikings, where look at their division. Can they really compete by putting Jaden Daniels and no receivers and no linemen and a new coach all together?

Probably not. Not with those teams, not with Rodgers coming back, not with Josh Allen, not with Miami. And I think, you know, the Vikings should have a little bit of a similar mindset about putting the division as part of the equation. So the Patriots, they need everything on offense. The Vikings need a quarterback and they need a quarterback who's going to be cheaper so they can rebuild parts of their team. They need a quarterback who's going to be dynamic, but that can make the head coach right when he's wrong with his play call. I mean, the coaches, coaches make bad play calls all the time and every team, all the time. Andy Reid does it. I guarantee you, Andy Reid has bad play calls all the time. And every team, Andy Reid does it. I guarantee you, Andy Reid has bad play calls.

And who makes them right? How about Baltimore? They have bad play calls. Buffalo, bad play calls. But the quarterback makes them right. And Drake May and Jaden Daniels are the type of quarterbacks who can make the play caller right, even when they're wrong. When somebody wasn't open with Kirk Cousins as the quarterback,

what do you get? A check down, a throwaway, a strip sack. And when you look at how often the Vikings punt, they actually, even when they've had good offenses, are still getting a lot of three and outs and still punting a lot because they don't have a dynamic quarterback who can get first downs when there are problems. So, you know, I think that they are ready at this moment to be able to make a trade with a bunch of

draft picks. But the question would be, are you willing to give up anything else that would be the thing so if new england says all right we've got equal offers from atlanta and from minnesota except for atlanta's draft pick is a little bit higher so we'll probably have to go with them would you say ah but we will give you instead what brian o'neill would someone want that Christian Derrissaw seems like a lot seems like a lot a lot to give up your franchise left tackle at the same time if you're getting a running quarterback maybe the left tackle matters a little bit less than it does if it's Kirk Cousins what if it's Jordan Addison what if they said we really want Jordan Addison? I think I would do that. Two firsts, Jordan Addison in a second.

I probably would as much as I really like Addison. And I think that he's becoming a star. That would be worth it. I think the number two receiver is something you can replace. If it was the 11th pick and justin jefferson that's where i don't think i could do that because justin jefferson is such a big part of the equation for what is going to make your quarterback successful uh nick says good to see you nick uh dane brugler tweeted that jj mccarthy is going in the top 12. Seems like our QB options can be narrowed down to May, Daniels, and McCarthy.

And yeah, it's funny how it changes, right? Before the Senior Bowl, Brugler kind of thought that Nix could be in the top area, and now he thinks McCarthy is. Maybe Nix hurt his stock a little bit from the Senior Bowl. Hard to say exactly, but it is felt like, and I remember talking to someone in the middle of the season saying, is this draft class really going to have

six first rounders? And their thought was probably a couple of them will drop off. Like there's always that hype and there's always that like, oh, this is going to be the draft class, the greatest draft class. And then it doesn't ever really come to fruition with all those guys.

I mean, a couple of times there have been five, but normally it doesn't. And are you willing to? Well, here's the equation. If McCarthy, if that's right, which we don't know what's right. I mean, go back and look at any draft analyst mock draft right before the draft. You're going to find a lot of things that went wrong. right. I mean, go back and look at any draft analyst mock draft right before the draft. You're going to find a lot of things that went wrong. I noticed the other day, and it's not to pick on him, but Todd McShay right before the draft had Patrick Mahomes going 25th. So, you know, it's nobody knows. They don't actually tell anybody. But if it is that way, though,

if McCarthy is the other quarterback outside of those top three, then the discussion becomes, do you trade all of that stuff to get Daniels or May? Or would you rather take McCarthy at number 11 and just take him? Now, philosophically, I have often said, do not trade all that draft capital. Just draft the guy at number 11. This case might be a little bit different because of the way that Drake May and Jaden Daniels play the game. So McCarthy, I think, is a good athlete, and I've seen him run away. And I think he throws the ball really well on the move.

So I've been watching more uh jj mccarthy and one of the things that he does is if he's rolling out to either side he must have played baseball growing up or something he's very good at like you know whatever it's called tweaking the hips and flipping the hips and throwing or throwing on the run actually kirk is kind of good at this too where if they're rolling out they're very good at throwing on the move. So, you know, he's a good athlete. He could do all that stuff. But Jaden Daniels is a guy who can run for a thousand yards. Right. And I think Drake May is probably an underappreciated playmaker that he's got a big arm and he's already developed his accuracy and his ability to throw the

football more than McCarthy, who's talked about as somebody that needs to be molded over a couple of years. So you could go the route of trying to sign, say, Baker Mayfield and then drafting McCarthy. That's not a bad route. I mean, I would be very into that way to go about it. I don't think I would be into bringing back cousins and drafting McCarthy, which I've heard some people pitch. I don't know that that's a good idea.

And look, if they draft, there are guys who are thought of as being very raw who actually play right away, like Anthony Richardson, and he looks pretty comfortable. So that might end up being the case for McCarthy, depending, I mean, his mind is supposed to be one of his biggest assets. But that is a really tough question. Would you rather take just the 11 pick and then you got your other draft picks? You can build through the future over a couple of years or go all in on Drake May and Jaden Daniels. I would probably do that. I probably would.

I would say I would rather trade up than stick at 11. But that's not an easy conversation to have because philosophically, I have thought and I have talked about how random the draft can be and how the number one guy isn't always the guy. And even if somebody is considered to be X, Y, or Z. But I think that May and Daniels are prospects that on any other year, if they weren't all together, they would be number one. Daniels would be number one. May would be number one.

But instead, Williams, who has been that, quote, generational type of prospect, is probably going number one. But I think that trading up would make a little bit more sense than sticking around and kind of hoping that you can develop J.J. McCarthy. If that's what they do, then that's fine. Like, that's still a good plan. I just think that if we're talking about how dynamic, how dangerous, how scary could this be? And Dan Graziano mentions that you put in the best playmaking quarterback in Jaden Daniels, along with Justin Jefferson. That's the type of offense that if it hits and it works out, then you might be talking about being one of the best offenses

in the league, which is really the only way to get to where they want to go. If they want to go and chase a Super Bowl, the only way to do it is to do it through a dynamic, explosive offense. I know I've gone over this a million times that the teams who make the Super Bowl are always the teams that are the best in offense. In defense, sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. I mean, a lot of times it is because being good at everything is great, but it's always the offenses these days. There's Trent Dilfer, the 2015 Broncos. Even that was quite a long time ago. It's all about being the best on offense.

That's what is going to sustain you all the way through a playoff run. And who's going to get you there? We have what, 10 years of starting for Kirk Cousins or so, nine years of starting, and he's never had a top five offense. He's had a lot of ones that are 8 10 12 somewhere in that ballpark because he's really good but not five not one not the elite of the elite for offenses and that's what they got to chase uh and then of course we all know about all the benefits financially that happen uh down the road uh let's see hamza says uh i I think letting Kirk walk is the right decision. However, if they let Daniil walk, I will be very frustrated. It's very hard to replace a pass rusher like Daniil.

I think we should pay him. Well, that leads into the other rumor. And I'll talk about this for just a second and then get to more of your comments on what we have going on here which is some big interesting ESPN rumors on a Saturday leading into the Super Bowl so the other rumor came from Jeremy Fowler who reported that the Chicago Bears are very high on Daniil Hunter he will have a strong market that could include the Bears and the Jaguars. That makes a ton of sense. Those teams are ready to take the next step and the Bears have

lots of money. I feel like Daniil Hunter is not coming back. It just doesn't seem like with just considering how much other teams are going to be willing to give him that the Vikings are going to go as far as someone like Chicago. And the other part of this is similarly to Kirk, they would have to work out Daniil before they get to free agency because he also has a pretty big dead cap hit. I think it's $14 million if he actually gets to free agency. So they kind of have to get him to sign before free agency opens. And you do have that tampering window where you could talk to other teams and the Vikings and compare his offers. Same with Kirk, but it does make it a little trickier. It's not like he could get to free agency and then kind of compare offers and

then come back to the Vikings potentially. It all has to happen pretty quickly if they're going to get him signed. And with teams getting really excited about a guy that had 16 and a half sacks, it just seems somebody's going to go all in on Daniil Hunter. But if he goes to Chicago, this just reinforces the point about the quarterback to me. If he's going to go to Chicago, you have to draft a quarterback because look at what type of roster they're going to have. If they bring back Jalen Johnson, one of the best corners in the league, Montez Sweat is a beast. They've been drafting people, Brisker, the safety,

and then you add Daniil to that. is a nasty team that is a nasty defense that Kirk Cousins had trouble with even when they didn't have great pass rushers so you're going to have to have something more dynamic at the quarterback position and I think you're going to have to have more money to fight fire with fire in free agency going into the future with a rookie quarterback contract. Yotter's painting says it would be the most Vikings thing ever to trade up to three for mayor Daniels only to have the Patriots draft McCarthy and McCarthy to be the better quarterback. Is that what happened? Somebody brought this up and I didn't cross check it.

Maybe I can right now, if this is what happened with the Akeely Smith year where, what, did he go number three or something? And I'm just checking the facts on this one. What year was it that Dante was picked? Was he picked, what year was that, 99? Yeah, that's right. Okay, 99.

Somebody brought this up. Tim Couch, Donovan McNabb, Akeely Smith, and arguably the best quarterback of them, had his knee remain healthy, was taken at none other than No. 11 overall, Dante Culpepper. And there is a point there, though. Like, there is a point there that it is extremely hard to know which quarterback is going to be the best. If they had known, if the Browns had known what Dante Culpepper was going to be, they would have taken him number one over Tim couch. Or if the bears had known what Patrick Mahomes was going to be, they would have taken him number two over Mitch Trubisky, but the NFL's pretty good at identifying who should

be in that discussion, but not very good at identifying who should be in that discussion but not very good at identifying which guy is going to succeed so that is probably the best argument for the vikings just sticking at 11 the problem is though what if atlanta just takes mccarthy at eight i mean we've seen big jumps like this daniel jones at six, was totally not expected to. Then you're just going like Bo Nix or nothing, Bo Nix or Penix. And then you're talking about being left out of that party. Of course, by then we'll know if they have moved on from Kirk Cousins or not. So that would depend.

Silver Fox says, why would May or Daniels want to play for New England anyway? Pretty sure they'd rather play in the closed roof environment. pretty sure they'd rather play in the closed roof environment. Well, they'd rather play in the Justin Jefferson environment. They've got nothing. New England has nothing. They, I really don't think it's crazy for them at all to trade down and draft a quarterback. That's more on the development range and bring in like Gardner Minshew and take this two, three year approach to rebuilding their

team. Because if you put May or Daniels in that situation, it is not an easy fix to just get tackles and receivers like the most sought after positions. It's going to take a while for them. So I understand why this would happen. Like this sounds plausible that they would rather trade down, stack up a bunch of draft capital, take a Bo Nix or take a JJ McCarthy and let somebody else give them all this draft capital. But I think the Vikings would be the right team to do it based on what they have. The other thing about Daniels and May is, is just straight up arm talent. When you watch Jaden Daniels throw the football it is a flick of the wrist that ball just explodes his technique I think needs some

help but that's why you have a former quarterback and there's lots of quarterbacks in the league who have needed some help technique wise that over a couple years have improved when they're great athletes Jalen Hurts is that way. Lamar Jackson, obviously, even Patrick Mahomes, technically speaking, but you cannot recreate what he has. And Drake may, I mean, he could come in right away and throw the football incredibly accurately to the Vikings wide receivers. Nathan says, I'd rather trade Addison before Darisaw. Yeah, I agree with that. I definitely agree with that. I definitely agree with that. I think that a number two wide receiver is easier to find than a franchise left tackle. And if you're trying to just kind of replace, you know, trying to just replace a left tackle,

we saw them fiddle around with that for a few years and how that wasn't so easy. It's like, if that one guy is what's going to put you over the top. Oh, I don't know. I don't know. Because you also have to consider Darasau will be extremely expensive soon as well. But I probably feel almost the same way about him as I do Jefferson. It's so important to have that guy help the future quarterback. That's a big part of this argument is that you can give him that guy. Jared says all these years of needing a good wide receiver too. Then we get one and then poof. What do you mean? I mean, they've had good wide receiver twos forever.

Adam Thielen, you know, or, or sarcasm. I don't know that this, this franchise is amazing at finding wide receivers. That doesn't mean they could do it again, but I think if we're talking about like the high end of Jordan Addison is a number two receiver and he's fantastic, but can you go into free agency and add a number two wide receiver overpay for them because you're on the rookie quarterback contract. Think about like a Kelvin Ridley or Christian Kirk. Like if Christian Kirk was your number two wide receiver,

you're doing pretty well. And they overpaid for him, but who cares? Trevor Lawrence is on a rookie quarterback contract. So yeah, I think you're being sarcastic about the wide receiver too. The wide receiver twos have been great. So what about Bob says, it feels like we're in Madden doing the GM thing.

So many possibilities this off season is about to get crazy. It does. Yeah. I mean, this is, this is what's interesting about this off season. This moment of the off season is, is as exciting as things have been around the Vikings since what? Like the day they fired Zimmer, the day they beat Buffalo. I would say that the peak, the recent peaks since the Minneapolis miracle were what they beat New Orleans in 2019, then not too many peaks in 2020 and 2021,

probably them beating Buffalo to go to eight and one. But then after that, they were a 500 team and nearly lost to Indianapolis after getting down by 30 and lose that. They lose in the playoffs. Not too many peaks last year, probably in the third quarter being ahead on green Bay fourth quarter before Kirk cousins stores, Achilles, there just haven't been too many major ups like this moment right here where

somebody from ESPNn one of their top reporters says the vikings could trade up to get jayden daniels this is a peak moment and this is truly a peak moment for the minnesota vikings top five peak moment i mean maybe maybe there was like a brief moment where somebody mentioned lamar jackson the Vikings. And that was, you know, quite, quite a day where we talked about it, but this right here, this is, has been as good as it gets because that's where they've lived for so long is in a pretty unexciting world. And it was to see them go eight and one and win all those crazy games. That was pretty exciting. But then the way that it went after that, losing in Green Bay at the end of the season, losing in the playoffs, it took the wind completely out of the sails

of the eight and one start. And then this year they start one and four, you know, beating San Francisco in Green Bay was, you know, pretty good, but mid season wins, not like super high Josh Dobbs mania for two weeks. Like these are, this is not weeks like these are this is not a great list it is not a great list of things that have happened to this franchise since then so trading up if they did that would be by far the most exciting moment i think since the minneapolis miracle and uh because there would be actual belief that this team could go beyond the nine and eight monster, the first round out monster that they have fallen victim to so many times over their history. Yadier's painting wants McCarthy at 11 rather than trading up. I think that's fair. Based on history, that's fair. I

think if you're making the argument, if you're saying, look, the busts are all over the place, sometimes teams take Sam Darnold at the top and Josh Allen is the best quarterback and the NFL doesn't really know what it's doing. So take McCarthy. I can buy your argument. I can buy your argument. It's a tough one to defeat. The only difference for me is the type of player that may and Daniels are versus McCarthy. These are guys who have developed fully developed arm accuracy, playmaking for Drake may. Some people have him number one. And then Daniels, we're talking about a Lamar Jackson type of player that we haven't seen here

really since Dante call pepper, Matt and Katie says, do you think Chicago could trade back to two since Washington hired Kingsbury, then take May or Daniels? I think that's realistic. Yeah, I do think that's realistic. I mean, the most obvious thing

would be just staying at one and picking Caleb Williams. And there might just be this belief that, hey, some people in the building like may better, but if you pass up on Williams and then he becomes somebody's all-time great quarterback. And you know, the more I've been watching JTO Sullivan QB school, shout out to him. He was doing a live stream the other day that I was watching and he was talking about how Caleb Williams would be tough to top in his mind because of the high end stuff that he does.

And we have to remember that we're always going to have questions about every quarterback that comes out. But a lot of times it's how do the tools translate? And Caleb Williams still has the best tools. So I think that Caleb Williams will be the guy that goes number one. But I wouldn't be terribly shocked if they traded down and just said look it's a value play we have both of these guys equal so trade down one spot if they're in love with caleb williams and then go from there but i think they probably will uh just just do what they're supposed to do they'll just do what they're supposed to do which is take caleb Let's see, Kofi says

Geez, y'all want to get rid of Kirk so bad You're willing to trade Derrissaw and Addison Or Addison into firsts Y'all are reaching, stay put If the top three makes it to 11 Then you take him, if not, trade down I don't think it's about necessarily Getting rid of Kirk

In the way that you're putting it This isn't really about Kirk So much as it is about the future of the franchise and is the future of the franchise is the next five years. Are you going to legitimately compete for a Superbowl with Kirk cousins? Now you have a six year sample of that not happening. So, or what 18, you know what I mean? So since 2018 of that not happening, and now you're going to make an argument that it will happen. And I haven't heard a compelling argument of how this would be different or better.

And think about Kirk's best statistical season was in 2019, which is now five years ago. So he's also got a torn Achilles, and he's also still going to demand a decent buck because there's going to be competition out there. When you compare that to Jaden Daniels or Drake May, guys who are in their early 20s, guys who have extremely high ceilings, playmakers, they can do more physically

than what Kirk Cousins can do. And they give you a huge amount of cap space after year one, after the dead cap has been dealt with, they give you a huge amount of cap space and you can add them to a group of really good young playmakers and build all together with continuity for years to come. Those things just don't compare. And would I be willing to give up one other position player? Absolutely. I mean, absolutely I'm willing to give up a guy who plays another position as long as it's not Justin Jefferson,

because Jefferson is going to be the guy who drives the success of your quarterback. I mean, Derrissaw is harder. When I say absolutely, I kind of mean Addison. But absolutely, as far as am I willing to give up other stuff, I mean, Derrissaw is harder when I say absolutely. I kind of mean Addison, but absolutely. As far as am I willing to give up other stuff? I am because there's nothing more important. There's nothing more important than the quarterback. Everything else you can acquire in some other way,

but a quarterback of this talent, you can usually only get at the very top of the draft. Todd says, do you think the KOC wants a mobile quarterback or pocket passer? KOC himself was a mobile quarterback. Just wasn't that accurate. As he will tell you. Yes, as he will tell you.

And has mentioned to us many times that he was not very accurate when he was a quarterback. But I think that everybody wants a playmaker in the league. Everybody wants a playmaker. I mentioned it the other day that I was having a conversation in radio row with a former head coach and I won't say which one, but just fairly recent former head coach who said, look, you know, game managing quarterbacks are really hard to win with. And I don't know if he was referring at all to this whole debate with Brock Purdy or whatever, but that's kind of an outlier. Most of the quarterbacks in the playoffs, most of the quarterbacks in the league are able to have this mobility aspect. And also Brock Purdy is by the way, and he did that in the NFC championship in some of the biggest moments. So, you know, I think that what Kevin O'Connell would like is this other dynamic to his quarterback where he can make a play and he doesn't always have to check it down and he doesn't always

have to throw it away. Every coach wants that. But does it have to be a running quarterback? I don't think so. I look at Drake May, and I think that Drake May is kind of like a Joe Burrow with his playmaking, where it's inside the pocket, it can escape, throw the ball, can run for 10 yards if he needs to. It's not going to run for 1,000 like Jaden Daniels could. But either way, I think that both of them could be tremendous, tremendous fits as far as the playmakers for Kevin O'Connell. I don't think he's going to shy away from the running part

of it. And you saw him struggle when Dobbs had those couple of good games. You saw O'Connell struggling because he was trying to say, yes, guys, I love this part of his game. And without saying anything negative about Kirk, it was like a difficult needle to thread. Jason says that Baker is projected to get 35, 40 to 40 mil from Tampa. Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if that's it. Now you can always shape those contracts. So if you were going to bring in somebody as a development quarterback and end up getting Baker Mayfield, which is an idea that I'm not totally against, by the way, you're going to shape that contract like Gino Smith. So it has a pretty low cap hit early on, and then you can move on from it with

very little dead money later. That's how whoever signs him is going to do it this way Because one good year is not enough To sign somebody to Like a three year 120 million dollar All guaranteed contract He's going to have a flexible deal I think And I also think that Baker should chop around

Rather than trying to stay with Tampa Bay Because he lost his office of coordinator He's probably losing his wide receiver one. I don't know. Nathan says McCarthy would have to make it past multiple quarterback needy teams to make it to 11. Yeah, I mean, if the league is falling in love with J.J. McCarthy, as people are saying, then you got Atlanta sitting there.

That's kind of the point, right? You do have Atlanta sitting there, And then if they take him, if you try to wait around and they take him or the giants take him to sit behind Jones for a year and then move on from Jones, depending on his contract, you might end up being up a river. If you don't like Bo Nix, um, everybody's all over the board with these guys though, by the way, like there are draft people who think that uh none of them are first round picks outside of the top three there are others who think that nix is higher than mccarthy mccarthy is higher than nix it's a very typical sort of we don't really know year and that's not to shortchange dane brugler it's just it's all this way it's all draft analysis is trying to take kind of a shot

based on what you're hearing at where guys are going to go. But historically it hasn't been that accurate, uh, except for at the very top, at the very top, it's usually accurate. So I would guess that we're talking about the top three going in the top three, um, and somebody trading up, uh, Matthew says any chance that we get a good feeling how KOC and Kweisi actually feel about the quarterback prospects at the combine? I don't know about that, but I do know because are they going to sit down with us as they always do and say, guys, you know what? It's McCarthy. That Nick Miller who brought it up earlier, who's also brought it up to me numerous times. And I appreciate you, Nick.

That like, he's right. We were totally on board with McCarthy. Nick is right. We want him bad. He's not, they're not going to do that, but we definitely get senses of things from those guys. And there's other important questions to ask at the combine, by the way, I think we all want to know what happened with the trainer. I've been kind of waiting for that to ask about that, that they moved on from their trainer. So there's a lot of big questions to ask Justin Jefferson update with his

contract aside from just breaking the bank. But the big thing about the combine would be when they talk with other teams, there was even a report last year that they were having conversations with San Francisco to see if San Francisco was interested in trading Trey Lance and sending Kirk out there. That was somebody's rumor from last year at the combine. And I don't doubt at all that they'll be having those discussions with somebody like new England, if they're interested in number three, and that's

where a trade like that could get hatched to try to move up. So will we get a sense? We're going to try to pick apart every word that they say last year, we did a pretty good job of it actually, because last year, Kwesi Adafo Mensah said that they couldn't project more than two years out with a player like Kirk Cousins. It was like, so you offered him two years then. And that was ultimately the difference maker for why they didn't sign Kirk to an extension, which turned out to be a very good move, by the way. Derek says with four to five teams looking to move up,

the price will be expensive yeah i agree and that's where it gets real tricky uh as far as trying to talk about hey would you throw in a player if you had to that's the hard question is would you rather sit and wait or would you rather throw in a player but we'll know by then if atlanta has signed anybody that's a thing too if atlanta has signed baker mayfield or if atlanta has signed anybody that's a thing too if atlanta has signed baker mayfield or if atlanta has signed russell wilson well then they won't be worried about so there may be a team or two around the vikings the raiders may find a different option denver may find a different option but i don't know if any of you saw it. Sean Payton was on with Kay Adams. And when he was talking with her, he was saying, well, we're not into the draft process yet. We're getting there and then we're going to decide and so forth.

But he kind of talked about like players. Are you willing to make a trade up that you can buy into? And I was like, I think I think Denver wants to trade up as well. So there's Denver. There's the Raiders. There's the Giants who I think are being left trade up as well. So there's Denver, there's the Raiders, there's the Giants, who I think are being left off of that discussion, and Atlanta. Some of them will have answers in free agency.

Maybe the Vikings will with Kirk, but they'll have answers in free agency, at least some of those teams, because Justin Fields is going somewhere, and Wilson is going somewhere, and May Fields is going somewhere and Wilson is going somewhere and Mayfield is going somewhere. So some of these teams won't be in the competition that we think they are right now. Nick says, if May and Daniels are the talents that we think they are, why would Elliot Wolfe and the Patriots make that trade? Seems like that would be a huge black mark on the franchise. I think that the logic for the Patriots would be, think about, think about Chicago and Justin Fields.

So they draft Justin Fields and then they tank. And what did that do to Justin Fields? They drafted Mac Jones and then accidentally tanked. Was that good for those guys? Like if, if Mac Jones goes to San Francisco and Justin Fields goes to Minnesota, are those outcomes the same? I don't think that they are.

Now, are those franchise quarterbacks? I don't know. Are they superstars? I don't know. But the outcomes are better than going to Chicago and New England, two of the worst teams in the league, and no weapons, no offensive line, terrible,

terrible offensive systems in Chicago and new England. They had Matt Patricia there. Are you serious? I mean, two of the worst situations you could have fallen into. And so they might in new England think, look, we're not shutting down our franchise next year. So instead of putting a rookie in this horrific situation and ruining the next guy why don't we build up our team first then find our quarterback i could see that logic actually being smart uh for them to do uh javier says do you think that trading this in next year's first and second round picks um and also get maybe a mid-third round or a mid-round back, I feel like that's something that I'd rather choose than giving up a second in 2026.

Yeah, I think that the answer is probably going to be very similar to Trey Lance. And that's just because that's the way it is. Unfortunately, as was mentioned, there's other teams that are going to be into this. It's a long way to jump up. Hope you enjoyed Dobbs Mania because instead of going up from six to three, now you have to go up from 11 to three, which probably takes multiple first round draft picks and maybe something else as well. So it's going to be a lot. If they're going to do it, it's going to be a lot, but I going to do it it's going to be a lot but i'm willing to do it because i think you get the benefits on the other side with the salary cap and like think

about it as how much a player would be worth if everyone was a free agent versus how much the contract is so if jayden daniels came in and was good even even good doesn't even have to be a megastar then he's worth like 40 million but he's being paid five and there's that huge gap in between and they wasted just the jefferson's gap unfortunately and a little bit of derisaw's now but if you can take advantage when that quarterback has that difference that surplus value you can spend that on anything else, and you can make up for the draft picks that you lost. It's not perfectly ideal, but it still, I think, is manageable to get your defensive coordinator talent.

Marty says, at 29, I'd let Daniil walk as well. Yeah, I have the utmost respect for Daniil Hunter. I have covered this guy's basically whole career here, and he is an incredible human being. I mean, everybody sees the pipes and everything else. I don't think you understand what a person he is. I mean, the hard work that goes into maintaining that body, the perseverance through the injuries,

and also how much everybody cares about him in the organization, in the locker room. I mean, just utmost respect. One of the players that you're just in awe of to be around. But price, player, it's like all this comes down to economics. The risk that goes along with Daniil Hunter off a peak season, is that the time that you want to sign somebody a peak season at 29? Like that's the economics of it.

You'd be buying at the very, very highest part of his career. As far as money wise goes to his career high in sacks. And that's when you're buying. That's not when you want to be buying uh cats for days says had a rough couple of months and honestly your videos have helped me a lot so thank you man well thank you thank you for watching and i'm really glad to hear that and i really appreciate that and uh i also uh like cats so that's good dogs and cats some people take a hard line there not me i just like a lot of animals uh but i'm really glad glad to hear that so i appreciate you watching thank you

very much uh let's see javier says am i crazy to think that there's no way kirk would want to sign for something in the ballpark of what daniel j Jones got because anything more would be irresponsible for Kweisi Adafomensa. Am I crazy? What I've always thought is there's, we talk about the line for how much you would give up. That's too much for me. It's the, just the Jefferson line, giving up just the Jefferson is too much. Uh, if they did it, I'd be like, oh, wow. I don't know, man. I don't know, man. It would be a crazy day on this YouTube channel if they traded Justin Jefferson to get Jada Daniels. That would be wild.

But that's where my line is. I'm sure they have a line with Kirk Cousins. I don't know what the dollar figure is. I don't know what the structure is, but there has to be one. And for Cousins, there's a line that he won't cross either to go back to Minnesota, where he's going to have to have some self-respect because if he takes a terrible contract to return to the Vikings, it's going to be like, that doesn't show the respect he's looking for. And plus,

if he takes Daniel Jones money or more, he's been going to Radio Row and telling everybody he's all about winning. So does that look like you're all about winning if you take this massive contract and you end up not being able to build around that again for the whatever number of straight year? It's never really added up to me. It only screams if the ownership steps in or if Kevin O'Connell really, really wants Kirk Cousins back and he wins out on a power struggle. But everything Kweisi Adafo-Mensa has said since he got here has pointed toward it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for them to bring back Kirk Cousins at this moment for either side. And now the question might be if Cousins agent goes to the combine and talks to teams and finds that there isn't as much interest as we think. Now that's where it gets a little bit like dicey. I think a little bit

interesting, I guess, is if he had to come back tail between the legs and say, well, you know, obviously I can say out loud, but they'll probably know Atlanta wasn't as interested as we thought. And they've traded up for Jaden Daniels or something. And we don't want to go to New England and Pittsburgh is going to stick with Kenny Pickett. And now we're coming back to you. That's where with the Vikings just take him back as opposed to waiting around to draft someone. Like there's so many moving parts to this. Matthew says, of course, the Bears are interested in Daniil. He's demolished their O-line year after year. Every team, every team should be interested in Daniil Hunter. Charles says,

if we lose Daniiel in free agency and quacey did not get anything for him before the trade deadline he should be fired awful asset management uh we should we can you know we can criticize things without just saying fire everyone like we don't have to do that um because you're preaching to the choir on this opinion. You are like, I agree with you. They would have another second round draft pick. I totally agree with you. I agreed with you at the time,

at the time, at the trade deadline, I was pounding the table for a trade away. Daniil Hunter. You're not making the playoffs. You're not winning anything with Josh Dobbs and Jaron Hall and Nick Mullins. Start the tank. Now get rid of Hunter. don't be convinced by he

said that players texted him and said like don't trade away guys who cares they don't run the team and yeah they should have like and and I am being flippant about that I respect that you're listening to your locker room but like they don't run the team like they're not the business side they're the player side so they should have we don't have to call for They're not the business side. They're the player side. So they should have. We don't have to call for people's jobs all the time. Like that's just not something that we need to do. But I agree with you. And like the both by both sides, if you trade away Daniil, maybe you're drafting instead

of drafting 11th, maybe you're drafting six. If only anyone had seen that coming, like everyone, everyone, everyone who's been following this show understands like how that works, what you just said. And of course, that's what they should have done. And that's the whole point. That's the whole point. Because for so long, they've been doing this thing where they talk themselves into, well, maybe we could get into the playoffs.

Maybe we could, maybe we could X, Y, Z, whatever. And it's like, no, you can't, you have to take the long way there. There is no shortcut. You have to take the long way there. And, uh, maybe they finally figured that out by trading up for a quarterback, but we don't have to fire people over everything. I mean, maybe someday he'll get fired. Everyone does eventually, but like not trading Daniil was a mistake. I also think you have to consider there's politics involved in a position like general manager

because it wasn't just the players. I'm sure it was the coaching staff who was like, you can't trade away Daniil Hunter unless we're getting like a first round draft pick. And if they didn't get that offer, again, they probably had a price on the asset, decided not to do it.

In my opinion, from that moment till today, they should have a price on the asset, decided not to do it. In my opinion, from that moment till today, they should have done. They should have traded him away. Michael says, JJ is not ready. McCarthy, you would have to sign Cousins. Well, you don't have to sign Cousins and have to sit him behind Cousins. You could sign someone else if he's not ready. We don't really know. We really don't. I mean, I agree with you. You also added that he needs another year at Michigan. Yeah. I mean, that's how it looks. We don't really know how ready someone's going to be until they get there. He has not played quite as much football as someone like Brock Purdy or someone like Jalen

Hurts, who stepped in pretty quickly as a starter, although he had that year on the bench. So, you know, there's been other guys though, that have stepped in CJ Stroud play. A lot of football was a pretty close to finish product when he got on the field, but sometimes we think somebody's raw and you just have to let them work through it. I'm mostly for quarterbacks sitting for a year if that's the right thing. But, you know, if you play a raw quarterback and he has ups and downs and works his way through it, that's all right. That happens. Chris says, do you think the Vikings lose or gain trade leverage if a deal is made before Kirk's March deadline? I would say that

if you pick up the phone, if're quacey and you call the patriots hi patriots i'm just checking in about number three um for no reason other than to see how you're doing they know if you're calling they know they know what you're calling about so i don't actually think it changes a whole lot. Ron says, how does Brian Burns compared to the Neil Hunter, different type of player, Brian Burns actually might be a better like quote fit. I think Hunter fits with everything, but Burns is more of an outside linebacker type. I think he's going to be just as expensive though. A little bit younger, doesn't have as much of the injury history and so forth so um i mean

if they were able to get brian burns to replace hunter there are other edge rushers that pop up that are available that you can acquire if you have money um taylor says caleb going to chicago loves showing out for green bay the lions being stacked all reasons it's time to trade up and take a shot at a franchise quarterback could not have said it better taylor that is exactly right totally agree uh yachters painting says was the rumor the vikings wanted to trade up for richardson last year true makes me think that uh is the type of quarterback they want so this was something that ben gesling of the star tribune had mentioned I think mentioned on my show not too long ago and mentioned when it happened. And then somebody else picked it up who has a big following and then aggregation and whatever

happened. And so then it became like a thing again, even though it was already kind of out there that they had made phone calls. Now, how much they tried, I don't know. Like the guy who mentioned it, Brett Coleman, another YouTuber who's very good, he made it seem like it was a lot from his intel. So I don't know. But at least we do know that they were making that phone call and that that's what they wanted to do.

So yeah, I think that Kevin O'Connell, I don't believe has any fear of a running quarterback. I think what he would love is a dude with a freak arm who can make plays with his legs when he gets the opportunity. And that's everyone wants that everyone in the league wants that. John says a franchise quarterback is way more important than a number two wide receiver. I agree. You can find these other things. I mean, look at Philadelphia. Who can name Philadelphia's receivers when Nick Foles won the Super Bowl?

But of course, they got there because of Carson Wentz winning all those games and getting them home field advantage. We got Elshon, Jeffrey, Torrey, Smith. There was a bunch of guys that they picked up who were quality number two type wide receivers that were really effective. You can find number two receivers. You can find defensive players. You can draft and develop defensive players. They just don't hand you franchise quarterbacks. That's a pretty important thing. And I left tackle superstar left tackle

superstar receiver is maybe under that category of you can't just find those things either. Uh, Christopher says, dare saw and JJ are the only way we are getting up there. Most likely. I don't, I'm not sure. I'm not really sure about that. Our future picks aren't worth as much as other teams because the Wilfs love to be 500. If it's in comparison to Atlanta and they have eight and you have 11, that's what makes it harder. I don't know that it's a guarantee though because if Atlanta decides

they're going to pick up Baker Mayfield because they want to win right away and not develop someone, their owner is 85 years old. He may not want to win right away and not develop someone. Their owner is 85 years old. He may not want to wait around and try to develop somebody. If they do that or they pick up Kirk, they're the most tied together with Kirk team. If Atlanta has already picked up Kirk, then you're really only battling with teams behind you unless the New York Giants were to do something like that.

Michael says Bo Nix is being compared to breeze and would benefit from playing indoors, but not sure his arm strength is there at the NFL level. I don't know. It was comparing him to breeze. That wouldn't be quite my comparison. Breeze is like one of those guys like my homes. You just can't really include him.

He's short, undersized, like a good athlete in a different way, but not a runner, total pocket quarterback, who is the most accurate and intelligent quarterback like ever, him and Peyton Manning. So I don't think that's Nix. I think Bo Nix is like Jalen Hurts, only his cut is running in half, and he's like Jalen Hurts. Now, is that enough to win with? I think it probably is, but it certainly isn't a Lamar Jackson comparison. It might be a guy who you play through his rookie contract and then, you know,

you move on after that. I don't know. Uh, but I don't think Bo Nix quite reaches to that level of comparison. I think he actually does have a good arm. I do like Bo Nix's arm. I don't know if it's like a rocket like the other guys, but I think it's good enough. I would just, I mean, some of the concerns about Bo Nix are a little weird to me. Yeah, he definitely is older, but well, he, he put up those stats with great players. Like, well, what did you want him to do? He put up the best stats you could ever put up. What was he supposed to do different than, uh, 80% of his passes or whatever, you know? So, um, you know, it's, I don't know how the league feels about Nixon McCarthy. We can think we know, but we don't.

We don't. Based on history, we really don't, except for the guys at the very top. Nathan says they could honestly just have a normal draft to push their quarterback problem into the future. Wouldn't surprise me a bit. I've got a tweet for that, Nathan. I forgot to bring it up. We're deep into the show, and I forgot to bring it up. Daniel Jeremiah tweeted this.

I believe we will see four to five teams looking to move up for a quarterback over the next few months. Teams are not excited about next year's quarterback class. That was Daniel Jeremiah. I got to think that he's talking about the Vikings as well. Now, it's going to have Shadur Sanders. There are some other guys who get mentioned. There are always guys who show up. I mean, Jaden Daniels was not mocked super high at the beginning of the season. So, you know, uh, there's always going to be guys who show up and surprise you. Oh, uh, this guy was ranked number 700 is the quarterback. And

then he gets taken top five five Anthony Richardson was a guy who kind of came I don't want to say completely out of nowhere because he was always a freak but he had never started before then he did and then people believed in him so I can't say for sure that I buy that but trying to address it in the future to me is just wasting everybody's time like do it now and if you draft Bo Nix or JJ McCarthy 11, and the guy stinks draft somebody else next year. I don't know. I want to see. Cause the Wilfs always get brought into this.

I want to see patience from them. I want to see patience for them to let this thing play out and not just freak out and sign Kirk again or whatever future version of that. There is a monkeys. Z monkey. sign Kirk again or whatever future version of that there is. Monkeys, the monkey easy says, I believe KOC has been good for Kirk because Kirk seemed better since KOC took over. But I have always questioned Kirk's ability to lead.

I won't be mad if they resign, but I say move on. Well, I, what you've seen should be notable in the discussion about trading up for a quarterback from Kevin O'Connell and Kirk Cousins. So I'm sure all of us who play armchair play caller would not have called any of those trick plays. We would also have better screens, better behind the line of scrimmage passes, and maybe understand how a run game works.

Okay. So that's what all of us would do instead, other than Kevin O'Connell, but that's forest through the trees, right? Like, let's see the bigger picture here. And the way that the locker room began to galvanize around Kirk cousins with Kevin O'Connell in charge, that matters like dealing with his personality that Mike Zimmer did not gel with and it's not like Zimmer had never gelled with quarterbacks before Sam Bradford told me directly that he got along great with Zimmer and obviously Teddy Bridgewater did too it was just oil and water with him and Kirk Cousins and he never wanted Kirk to begin with and it wasn't a good

situation and I think Cousins was uncomfortable leading that group from day one. And then when O'Connell came in, the team got younger. Jefferson really bonded with Cousins. I think that mattered quite a bit. The offensive line was pretty young as well. So it wasn't like all the old guard with Cousins, but Kevin O'Connell leaning into his personality, like being there for him, I think, and supportive of him being a leader of this team, putting him in front of the team and kind of making him be that guy. Those are all things that bode very well for the future. So I don't think he's a natural, natural leader in the same way that other guys are. But when he was encouraged to do so, he did pretty well. Tony says, this has always been a thought I had,

but why is the draft after free agency? I would think intuitively it would make more sense for free agency to be after and fill it. Yeah, so this actually came up in Kweisi Daffelmense's first press conference at the Combine. I think Kevin Seifert asked him that question. And I agree with you, Tony. I don't really get it, like why you don't draft first

and then go to free agency. It seems to make sense to do that. I think I might be mistaken, but I feel like other leagues are done that way. I don't know. I don't think they'll ever change it because it gives this big boost to what would be normally a dark period. It's kind of like it gives the,

the early summer, this big level of excitement to talk about the draft all the way in through the spring. And maybe that's why, but I, I don't, I don't know. I wish I knew,

I wish I knew, but I, I don't know. I wish I knew. I wish I knew. But I don't know why it is that way. So anyway, let's see. We've rolled on for a while. I actually have to pick my wife up at the airport very soon. She was broadcasting a game in Michigan today, which was a terrible game. And now she's coming home. So I have to do that very soon.

So let me get in a couple other answers here. Ben, nice to see you, Ben. Do you think the Vikings have the best situation for Jaden Daniels to have success early? Them or Atlanta? I mean, I think Atlanta is also a really good situation. We've talked about that for Kirk, that if he goes there, he gets playmakers,

an offensive coordinator who's been a rising star in the industry. Both places are pretty good. Probably equivalent, I would say. Justin Jefferson's better than Drake London, but they've got a lot of talent there. Bijan Robinson's better than anything the Vikings have. Equal for them. But either way, it's an A, right? You get to be indoors, elite receiver, great playmakers, offensive lines, their playmate.

You know, the the former quarterback is the guy who's going to be managing you. The only benefit for the Vikings over Atlanta is that Kevin O'Connell presumably would be here over a number of years where if Zach Robinson is great, he might get a head coaching job because that's just like how it works. Deontay says if they didn't extend Kirk last year, why would they after a torn Achilles and a year older? This is why I'm positive we're moving on from Kirk. I see no way to refute that point, Deontay. The only thing would be if they were scared by what it looked like without Kirk. That would be the only thing is if they were thrown off about what it looked like. But you're talking about two well

below 500, not even quality backups and a rookie who wasn't ready to play. So that shouldn't factor in at all. But I agree with you. I mean, last year, the only thing that might change is that number. So the number was too high coming off the 13-win season. If Cousins brought his number down, maybe they would view it differently. I'm not sure. Marty says, I'm stunned every day when I see Vikings fans clinging to a $225 million one playoff win

quarterback. Why it hasn't worked. What are you grasping onto? Welcome to the show, Marty. You, uh, you belong here. You belong at this party. Yep. I mean, that's my thing in general with cousins is I try to separate and I always have, and it doesn't work because people like to argue about quarterbacks. Brock Purdy is in the Super Bowl and people want to yell about whether he's any good or not. I don't know. It's just what we do as a society. I will need a psychologist on here to understand why we do this, but I've always thought of it as this. I cover the Minnesota Vikings. I don't cover Kirk Cousins, just Kirk Cousins. I cover him as well as the rest of the team and the franchise. So if he plays well,

but the team loses, then they didn't do it right. And I'm not going to support the direction that lost, even if he played well, most of the time he did, he did play well and it didn't work. So I'm not supporting that. And people always try to make it about so many other things about Kirk cousins, but it's really been that simple. It's really been that simple as since they've signed him, they haven't had success. And why keep trying the same direction? I have thought that I thought that in 2020? I thought that in 2020. I thought that in 2022 when they extended him in the short-term deal. Why keep going the direction that doesn't have success?

And then you see somebody like Baker Mayfield make $1.7 million last year with a mediocre team, win a division, win nine games, and you go, why do we act like no one else in this league could play quarterback except for Kirk Cousins with this offensive setup? Why don't, why don't we act like only a super expensive pocket quarterback who has limitations is the only guy who can do this. So yeah, it's, it's not really about him necessarily. And his performance has been pretty good. It's really about what's the best thing for the team overall uh alex says i saw that the vikings talks with hunter regarding

an extension are pending talks with kirk clearing up how would you handle the hunter negotiation i'm sure that feels great to be daniel well maybe we'll get to you eventually um and that might yeah that might be the case. With Hunter, it's pretty simple. It's like, look, we can only go so long and so much money. And if you find something better than that, then so be it. I think a three-year contract that puts him at about $25 million per year is fair. Somebody else is probably going to top that, I would guess.

Deontay says uh whoever they select in the draft will look great due to the talent on offense and once you move a rookie quarterback uh opens up the cap i hope you guys see the vision oh they do if they're here they do i think if you're here you do um because that's something that we've been talking about for such a long time is the advantages cap wise that you get from having a rookie contract for at the quarterback position. Derek says, how much stock do you put in next year's draft? Not being great for quarterbacks. Seems like there's one to three each year, a little, only a little. So I had never done it before. Before, I had always made fun of that. If they said, hey, next year's draft, it's not going to be any good.

Better draft one now. I was like, I don't know. There's always quarterbacks, aren't there? Until 2022. And then it turned out to be exactly right. So I'm not sure. I mean, things come out of nowhere. We know Shadur Sanders is going to be a top prospect.

But aside from that, I looked at the names who people are talking about right now. A lot of them are underwhelming, or at least were this year. But you never know who's going to develop. I mean, a couple of years ago, I would have told you, why is Bo Nix being talked about this way? You know, I don't really know. so it's that that's hard to say but as of right now if that's what people think then um it could shape the decision making i guess i would say that i don't know whether it'd be good or not but if that's what the league thinks then they'll think we can't push this farther down the road todd says how about our new d-line coach and mike pettin becoming outside linebackers coach uh Pettin has a long career of that.

And so that's probably fine. I imagine he was doing it last year. And I don't know a lot about the other guy. Position coaches, I would be pretending if I was trying to tell you, oh, this guy, whatever. I've got to be around him. I've got to hear more about him when they're actually with the team to get any opinion as far as coming from another team is tough. Huge

boy says, is Jared Goff the reason for Detroit? I assume Detroit's top five running game. Goff is so valuable to the Rams that they dumped him for two first. Why are we talking about Jared Goff? Are you guys arguing with each other? Jared Goff's a great quarterback. I don't know what we're talking about here.

He's in the NFC Championship. He's had, what, three top five offenses in his career? Four top five offenses in his career? He's a great quarterback. If you drafted Jared Goff, you could go to the Super Bowl. If you drafted somebody similar. So, you know, that's all. It seems like you guys are fighting with

each other, which means there's a lot of people here, which is okay, but it makes it harder for me to read sometimes. Jared says, realistically acquiring one of the top three quarterbacks, a necessary step for JJ to be interested in signing. If we go and get for set and Knicks wouldn't inspire so much confidence. I think that the quarterback decision, this might be the last thing I have time for because I do have, I do have to run, but the quarterback decision, I think is separate from Jefferson signing unless they completely hysterically botched it.

If they got to training camp and it was Nick Mullins and Jaron Hall, and that's it, then Justin Jefferson is going to be like, I don't think so. This is not good. But when you look at the advantages of signing a long-term extension from the player's perspective versus trying to fight it out, it's so clear that the player should sign the extension. You are talking about $75 million on the table right away. I'm sorry that I'm going to end up kind of looking through, overlooking quite a few comments here. I really love all the participation, though. I get behind because I answer all these questions.

But think about this. You're signing, say, like a four-year extension to go on top of your fifth-year option. So you would sign from 2024, 5, 6, 7, 8, right? 2028. It's a big chunk of your life. If you are signing that just on what the situation is right now, that's being pretty short sighted. Right. As like, oh, well, I'm only going to sign if they have the quarterback that I like. And if they draft somebody, then it will be Justin Jefferson's job to make him good. Otherwise, you're talking about fighting through the fifth year option, taking the risk of getting injured, then the franchise tag, because you know they're tagging him.

Then you're sitting out another training camp, getting franchise tagged. It starts to get ugly. And then they still have another franchise tag to use. It makes so much sense to sign the contract extension and then see how it plays out. So I don't think that the decision would matter. Ultimately, that's sort of more of something that we talk about. Like, how is it going to play into it? But if they drafted, if they drafted Bo Nix and they went

to OTAs and Bo Nix is throwing the football and he's catching it, like, I don't know. I mean, is he going to be like, oh my gosh, it's not Kirk. I don't think so. And by the way, I ran the numbers on this. I may have read them the other day when Kirk was throwing the football to Justin Jefferson, he was an MVP and his numbers were not that when thrown to anybody else, Justin Jefferson makes the quarterback as much as the quarterback makes him. I think he just wants somebody to get the ball there. So yeah, I think that it shouldn't matter a lot unless they completely botch it and they have no quarterback at all. Then his trust might be very low in them. Anyway, this was awesome. So many of you watching, I was kind of questioning, should I, should I go live? Should I not go live? I don't know.

I wasn't really doing anything else. Waiting for the wife to get home from her game. And it turned out to be a great idea. Because you guys had so much fun in the chat. Made for a really good conversation. So thanks, everybody. After the Super Bowl, I'll be right back here. Talking about the Super Bowl. And we'll see what other things pop up on super bowl sunday

monday night recap with manny chris trapasso draft show coming up this week also by the way if you haven't checked out the newsletter purpleinsider.com you can also email me questions there as well so thanks everybody maybe we'll make saturday more of a thing in the future we'll see really appreciate y'all catch you later