Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN says Vikings will be aggressive in trading up (part 2)

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Matthew Coller chats with fans on YouTube getting their reactions to the latest rumors surrounding the Vikings' QB situation https://surfshark.deals/PURPLEINSIDER Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

jared says i think jayden daniels is a horrendous fit for their scheme. It would be fun because it would be volatile. Well, he is a horrendous fit to play the role of Kirk Cousins. That I agree with. If they ask Jaden Daniels to be Kirk Cousins, then, oh my gosh, that would be a total disaster. And that he couldn't do that. but that's not what you would do and kevin o'connell in that scenario would change what they were doing to play to jayden daniel strengths now you guys think you can't do that because of josh dobbs because a quarterback who

showed here showed up here in the middle of the season. That's just not now. I think they could have done better. I don't think you should. I don't think your adjustment should be having the tight end pitch the ball to Josh Dobbs. That's one of the worst plays I've ever seen in my entire life. Maybe only second place to their trick play of throwing Kirk the ball in the playoff game. Those are the two worst plays I've ever seen in my entire existence for like decisions that you made before a game that you were going to do it. Terrible trick plays, throw out all the trick plays, never use them again. But if you start on draft day with designing your offense with Josh McCown and Kevin O'Connell to the things that Jaden Daniels does well,

then yeah, I mean, it's going to look totally different than what you saw before. Aga says one more month of vague news reports. Yeah. Welcome to the NFL, my friend. That is what we're working with here. But you know, here's what I'd say about that. I've seen that take out there a few times. And here's what I think. Is this great, though? Isn't this fun, though? We get to be the people.

We're not over here looking like, what is that, the Dwight Schrute meme where he's looking out the window. We're not looking out the window at people having fun in the parking lot. We're in the parking lot. We're the ones who get to talk about quarterbacks for a whole month, knowing that they're going to take one. We get to run through all these scenarios. We get to watch all these quarterbacks and think about what they could be and talk about the possibilities of how to build around them

and design systems for them and everything else. Is that better than talking about which guard you want, which guard is going to suddenly make Kirk cousins a different person. Oh man. You know, I was thinking about this today, like how Atlanta media is over there debating whether Kirk is worth it and not me. Like that's, that's fun. So lean into it. Don't worry. Like this, look, a lot of draft analysts, I'm going to tell you the truth. I don't think that they have very good sources. You know why? Because proof, proof, because of what happened. They don't mock draft. Well, they don't report. Well, none of that stuff. And I tend to think that most of the time they're just guessing like everybody else. But, but for the purposes of

scenarios and for the purposes of, uh, having fun with this conversation leading up to the most exciting Vikings draft that I've ever covered, uh, I am absolutely willing to talk about everything that comes out of these people's mouths because why not? Why shouldn't we, why shouldn't you enjoy the next month leading up to this decision for the Vikings? Uh, because most of football, I don't know if you guys have noticed this. Most of football is talking about it and having fun talking about it. They only play 17 times a year. And if you have the best team in the world. They only play what 21 times a year. So the rest of the time we talk about it, that's what makes it so fun. So I'm going to have a good time. And a lot of you are as well, having a good time talking about all these rumors and everything else. I like it.

I like talking about the Intel and the, could they do this? Are they still in it? Are they not still in it? Makes it very exciting. It's like the bill. This is, this is the best buildup to anything the Vikings had in a long time. Let's, let's think about that just for a second. The buildup to the Vikings playing the saints in the Minneapolis miracle game and the buildup to Philly after would have to rank number one and two. Although the opener, when I first got here in Minnesota to cover the Vikings for 1500 ESPN, when I first got here, the buildup to week one with Teddy out, Sam Bradford is here.

They're open in the stadium. Aaron Rodgers, oh, I'm sorry, week two. Aaron Rodgers is showing up because Sean Hill won in week one. Football, man. But so that buildup to that week was wild. I mean, that was like really, really tense. And how's Sam Bradford going to look?

Is he going to start? Mike Zimmer was mad that it was reported he was going to start. And all this stuff happened. So that was something. And then the playoffs were something. And Kirk's first game, I think there was a lot of buildup to that. The playoff game buildup to New Orleans in 2019 was not significant because we thought they were going to get killed.

They won, but I don't think anyone thought they were going to win. And San Francisco buildup was pretty big. And what since then? Maybe Vikings and Cowboys. And the Vikings were 8-1, and then they got crushed this ranks right there with those things. So I'm leaning into it and judging by the size of the audiences, I think a lot of, uh, you folks were too. Uh, Ian says if Anthony Richardson was Casey's guy last year last year makes some sense that Daniels would be Quasey's guy this year. Similarities between their games. Some, uh, yeah. Like I think that Anthony Richardson was more sturdy, but I guess he got hurt in his first year. So things happen. Uh,

you worry a little bit about how wild Daniels is. Daniels also is much older. So Anthony Richardson would have been a good, like draft stash for a year behind Kirk and then bring him in. So that is a difference between them. But playing styles, Daniels is a much more experienced and quality passer than Richardson, who is just a total cannon with a lot to work with, but a lot you need to work on. And Daniels is much more of a passer who could step in right away. That's a little difference. I mean, the frame is quite different between those two, but aside from that, your general point is totally correct. And I think what that tells you, if they were in on Richardson last year, it wouldn't just be

Casey. It would be Kevin O'Connell as well, which would mean that he was comfortable with a running quarterback. I don't think he's ever not been comfortable. John says we really need to account for the coaching staff. Our team is in the best shape to train, develop quarterback, coaching staff, receivers, tackles. They got everything. Somebody asked me this, like how many scenarios would be better for any quarterback and i i couldn't think of any who would be better than what they have right here honestly can't think of any uh jp says anyone seen kurt benkirk kurt benkert the um packers guy analysis on Bo Nix dude is underrated.

Everybody's doing quarterback analysis now. Um, no, no disrespect to journeyman quarterbacks, much love to journeyman quarterbacks, but, um, yeah, I mean, look, every former quarterback who watches Bo Nix likes him. I don't know what that means because those guys are wrong all the time. I just know that every, when Kurt Warner, Chris Sims, Kurt, Ben Kurt, anybody who watches him seems to love him. And, and here's the thing. So Mike says, Nix is a product of the system, but NFL quarterbacks are products of systems. A lot of times, how many quarterbacks are truly systemless, truly unaffected by anything around them?

Don't say even Patrick Mahomes, because they've had to make adjustments to their offense that flip to a short passing offense that helped Patrick Mahomes become what he is. Now, he's not a system quarterback. I mean, he certainly benefits from having one of the best offensive coaches who has ever been in the NFL in Andy Reed. I don't know of any quarterback who is just systemless, who you could just say, maybe Josh Allen's the closest thing. Plop them down. Any team, any coaches,

Hey, you get urban Meyer and you get the chiefs receivers from this year and go win the Superbowl. Like, I don't know of too many guys who could do that. It Kirk cousins success offensively over the last two years, Kirk cousins is a system quarterback and always has been. And we're probably like everyone's most most everyone is a system quarterback anyway, but he has always very much been a product of what's around him as most quarterbacks are. So that's not really a criticism to me. The thing with Bo Nix is when you compare him to Drake May, Bo Nix, I think has a limitation of how much he could do by himself to take you to that next level. So I'm talking a playoff game where things are going wrong. So I watched him against Washington.

He played very well against Washington, but there were just times where it's like, well, Washington's a good team and things are going a little wrong and he can't get you by himself to that next level. Everybody's a product of circumstance. Everybody's a product of system. And the best quarterbacks can take that and go something further. This is where I have a concern about McCarthy. Can McCarthy take you further, or I should say farther than what the product of the system is

giving you? So if the system and the team is a 10 win type of team, can you make it a 12 win type of team? Think about, and this is why you should look at quarterback wins. Okay. I think that people misunderstand the quarterback wins, how you should use them. So the way I look at it is for quarterback wins, what is the circumstance? What would that give you if you had the 16th best quarterback in the league versus your guy? So I've always thought that with Kirk Cousins, they were as many wins as those things gave him. Those are receivers, coaches, line, luck, those factors. If you get all those things receivers line luck whatever in 2022 and the luck factor is turned up to 10 and the receivers are turned up to 10 and your

coaching is better then you can get 13 wins but that's what you need to get there and uh if those things are down then you will miss the playoffs with k Cousins. What you're looking for is if you are a 10 win team with all those factors I named, you win 12. And my example for that is Peyton Manning. That Peyton Manning won. He's the greatest, obviously. He won 11 to 15 games every single year. So when they didn't have good luck, when they had injuries, when they had bad, whatever coaching, he still would win 11 games. And then if they were good defense, obviously I should mention that defense, but then when they were good, he won 15 and he could win the Superbowl.

That's what the great quarterbacks do. That's what you're looking for. Is JJ McCarthy capable of taking a 10 win team to 12 or 13? Is Drake May? I could see it much more. Let's see. I'm scrolling. I'm scrolling.

You guys have a lot of takes. Well, I'm way behind. I have fallen way behind. What's up with the weird border on the video? I'm trying new things, man. If you don't like it, let me know. I've been screwing around with this program and trying to figure out new things. I thought it was kind of fun.

But if you don't like it, then you guys can tell me you don't like it. This is false. Billy the Kid says, Nick's through. Go routes or screens, nothing else. I mean, that's just not true, Mr. through it's just not true uh mr kid just not true when you look up the numbers as an intermediate passer from 10 to 20 yards he had a 94 pff grade and put up huge numbers on intermediate passing there is no like you couldn't throw for 80 completion percentage 4400 yards 45 touchdowns, just on screens.

Like it's just that that's not, he threw a lot of short passes. It was a 28% behind the line of scrimmage. That's a big number for sure. And that does concern me that they thought that was the best option. They also had great playmakers, but when he was asked to throw down the field, he was really excellent at doing so. And, you know, you can look up the numbers. They're right there on pff.com.

But, you know, to say he wasn't going through progressions, I think, well, first of all, let's be honest about college football. How many? Well, let me even reverse. PFF had this stat a few years ago that about 60 to 70% of NFL quarterbacks throw to their first read, like on 60 to 70% of plays, depending on the quarterback, the quarterback throws to his first read. And so that tells me that the goes through the progressions thing is important, but maybe a little bit on the overrated side and college football is just t-ball it's putting it on a t and hitting it and everybody has that everybody has putting the ball on the t and hitting it in

college football the defensive players are terrible in comparison to the nfl the defensive minds are not in the same caliber as someone like b Flores. You got more time to throw the football. You got schemes that work on short pass. Like there's all sorts of stuff that is so much easier in college football. We can always do that. We can always say, Oh, the guy, and this is not me coming to say that he's a great quarterback. It's just that like, that's always a criticism for absolutely everybody. You know, I really think that that's just like this Bo Nix criticism. I think the better way to look at Nix is what's the upside? That's the thing.

What is the upside? Is the upside someone who needs everything right? Or is the upside a franchise quarterback who can overcome who can make an 18 an eight win team a 10 win team that's i don't know that bo nicks is that guy i don't think that he is so that's that's why i look at um that way i don't think he can't i think the best thing he does is see the field and get rid of the football um marty says is it a coincidence that the v the Vikings have had trouble for many years finding a franchise quarterback and never taken one of the top 10?

No, it is not. It's not a coincidence. It's not, Marty. It's not just that they haven't taken them in the top 10. They haven't taken them, period. I mean, what is it? Is it only Tommy Kramer, Dante, Teddy, and Ponder? Is that it for the whole history of the Vikings for first round quarterbacks?

I mean, you're not, I'll say it a million times. You don't win the lottery unless you play. Well, you certainly have not played very often. So yeah, I mean, no, it's not a coincidence that the Vikings haven't drafted quarterbacks and that's why they haven't gotten that franchise quarterback. That's exactly why, because, you know, Drew McGarry brought this up on the show the other day, really fun conversation. If you want to go back and take a look at that. But he brought this up that it's always somebody else's quarterback. It's always someone for the Vikings that another team decided they were fine with getting rid

of that. Sam Darnold, right? That's Sam Bradford. That's case Keenum. That's going back. It's Matt Castle. Uh, it's no matter who it is through, through the years, it's always somebody that when Brad Johnson came back, right, Brad Johnson was a draft and develop quarterback for the Vikings, but it's Randall

Cunningham. It's Jeff George. It's all guys that some other team said, you know what? I don't really want this. You take it. And then the Vikings use their receivers to try to make the most of it. Um, so like that's, that to me is, um, something that is one of the reasons they've not had this guy. And even with Kirk cousins, another franchise said that they didn't want to pay Kirk cousins. All right. Let me scroll. Let me scroll. You guys have been talking in the, uh, comments quite a bit here. And love that let's see um okay some people like the border like that good i'm glad you do i'm just trying different things different you know camera angles different whatever i just said you know it's the off season for me trying to figure this out because now I've had this big audience come to the YouTube. Thank you.

Great to see you and great to meet people who are new to the show. I feel like I should read my bio of where Purple Insider came from for the new audience every show. But PurpleInsider.com is a good place to go to check out everything, including my writing. So Boyd says, what is wrong with Penix for the quarterback? I mean, if they take him, then I'll be totally fine with it. I have liked Michael Penix the entire time. I think that his arm strength is special. And I think that his character is special. And every time I bring him up, people will tell me he was injured. I am familiar with that. I am also aware that a lot of people get injured in football and that doesn't mean that

they will have a terribly short career. How about the number of times Aaron Rogers got hurt throughout his career and Kirk cousins was healthy the entire time, but then suddenly got hurt. Like that happens. People have surgeries, people have season ending injuries. It like, this is how it goes. And if the medical people are comfortable with where he's at, excuse me, sorry, I had to fight off a sneeze there. Uh, if the medical people are comfortable with where he's at, then you take your shot at him. And I think he'd be a really great fit. I mean, if Kevin O'Connell wants the ball out on time with VLO into tight windows, sometimes with a guy who's willing to throw it, that's Michael Penix. If he doesn't need the guy to scramble all over the place, that's okay. I mean, you can, you can win from the pocket. You can definitely win from the pocket.

We got a, we got a Greasy mention as a system quarterback. I mean, look, everyone, you're telling me Kurt Benkert's good. Okay, well, that's good. I'll check him out. I'll check out his YouTube page. Not every journeyman quarterback's opinions on quarterbacks are always good, but I'll check him out. So it's just, yeah, the system, like

whoever's going to play here is going to be a system quarterback and 80 to 90% of plays will be system plays, but it's the other 10% that really makes the difference. That's, that's the, that's the thing about it. Folks. Have you ever heard of test driving a phone network? I did not make this up. It is an actual thing. And U.S. Cellular is letting you test drive their network for free for 30 days. You can try out U.S. Cellular wherever you have that spotty service, like on your commute to work, that one spot in your house where your service dips. Test drive U.S. Cellular at your kid's school on parent-teacher night. Okay, maybe still pay attention, but by all means, make sure you test it.

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Awards based on open signal independent data. Visit uscellular.com for details. Let's see. We've got classic comps here from Tony Tiger. Jaden Daniels, Moore, Anthony Richardson, Cam Newton, Lamar Jackson, Michael Vick, Cordell Stewart. Maybe sensing a trend there, but you are right about those are the running quarterbacks. But I don't see much similar to Richardson and Newton or Jackson or Vic or Stewart when

it comes to the throwing in college. Daniel's success throwing the football in college is really prolific for this year. And none of those guys actually had that. All of those guys needed major development in the NFL as passers in order to be as great as they became or Richardson, you know, we'll see how it works out. But I, that's why I look at Jaden Daniels as, and so you mentioned McCarthy as being golf. Yes.

Cousins, maybe Steve young. No, no, no, no, no no no no he's not like steve young i don't think he's i think actually jayden daniels is more like steve young steve young was a running quarterback until he got really old and then he did it less but like from his foundation of first emerging with the 49ers that dude was a playmaker. And if you go watch the 80-yard touchdown or whatever it was against the Vikings, you know, like he was a scrambler. He even talked about this last year that he identifies himself with the Lamar Jacksons of the world because he was talking about this

when Lamar won the MVP. He was saying, like, I see myself as being like a Lamar Jackson back in the day. And that's true. If you watched him back then, um, I, I just, uh, Jaden Daniels obviously falls in a bucket. Right. But is he like to not use all of the same exact type of quarterback? Like, is he more of a, like Josh Allen who doesn't throw the ball on time all the time? He doesn't have the arms talent that Allen has. So he's a little more precision passer than he is like on time or howitzer or whatever,

like that kind of thing, but he's accurate and he doesn't turn the ball over. So that's something that he really has going for him. But as far as his actual impact with his legs, it's really significant. It is on the level of the guys you mentioned. That's the important part of your comp. And I know we can't find perfect comparisons for everybody, but the important part is those quarterbacks you named, they had flaws and they all want a bleep ton of games. All of like Vic was not perfect. He wasn't the best, like sit in the pocket quarterback. You know cam newton at times was not the most accurate these guys won a ton of games and that's why with daniels you could

see that floor being very high because he can make such an impact with his running game uh dave says uh brock purdy's a system quarterback that's working out pretty well so far there's like jared goff is playing with an assistant. There's nobody who's not. I mean, man, if you were just like rolled the ball out there and told the quarterback to go figure it out, they would be in all sorts of trouble because no one could do that. Eddie says these draft experts also had Mahomes going in round two

and late round one. Sound familiar? JJ is this year's Mahomes. So I didn't see the last part of that coming. I truly didn't. But you are right that when it comes to the expertise, we're all guessing. Is McCarthy this year Mahomes? No, that does not prove anything.

But he could be better than I think. His ceiling could be better than I think his ceiling could be higher than I think. And that's why I would so much support, um, the Vikings drafting him. Even if I have these questions, percent odds, you could do a collab with QB school. Oh yeah. With JTO Sullivan. Yeah. I'll reach out to him at some point. I'm waiting until we get a little bit closer, but for sure.

I'll reach out to JT and see if he could come on the show. Definitely. What about Bob says, uh, do you see the Vikings maybe trading with Arizona this week for number four? Once they liked McCarthy in the private workout, this could be the week. Yes, this could be the week. Yep. Um, uh, sorry. I'm, I'm laughing at one of the comments, but because the owners meetings, I mean, everybody's going to be in the same spot. So if they're trying to like, you know, solidify like one of these trades, then this could be the week. Sorry, this was what I was laughing at. Tony Tiger saying, I love how every episode is collar saying that nobody knows anything and nothing matters. So the first part is true. And that's just history, man. That's I've been doing this now for a long time. And what one thing I'm certain of is that nobody knows anything. I think that's what makes it so much fun is because we talk about these things. And

just like with football games, everything works this way in sports, right? We talk about them and we give our opinions and we give our perspectives and you see Bo Nix different than I see Bo Nix and you see Michael Pennix different than I see him or JJ McCarthy. And then we all talk about it. And then we get to draft night and this is why everybody loves it so much. And then we find out, we find out what all these teams thought of these guys. And then we have the biggest opinions ever, even though we don't know. And then we go to training camp and then we start to know about third, fourth week of training camp. We start to know, or in Kellen Mond's case, like right away, uh, in rookie mini camp. But most of the time, you know, you start,

you start to know in training camp. And then as we go through, we find out. So if you like Netflix shows, it's kind of like you start a Netflix show, and nobody knows the characters, and you don't know where it's going to go. And then as it plays out, we get to watch it unfold, and we talk about it. So that's what we do here. That's why I like it. But just factually, factually speaking, if you give me a draft analyst, an insider, I will easily within about 30 seconds go tell you all the times they mocked or reported something that did not happen on draft night. It's a very difficult job.

I'm not trying to be disrespectful. I'm trying to go on that when there's reports and things like that, we can only talk about what that might mean, but not take anything as like the fact of the fact. I'm not trying to like rail on people. I'm just saying that the guys who do that are not very accurate. And so we take what they throw out there and we talk about, Hey, if this is right, then how's it going to work? That's my approach to it, as opposed to saying, oh, well, that's a fact because it just hasn't always been factual.

Teams put a lot of stuff out there that is on purpose to try to mislead and they do a good job of it. Let's see. Taylor says, I think the hope with McCarthy is you're getting him a year early. Had he gone back to college, maybe he would have taken a huge leap. Now that's, I mean, that's a totally fair point, Taylor, because that's Bo Nix. That's Jaden Daniels. That's Michael Penix, although Penix was good for two years, but I mean, that's what they're banking on is that his character and his arm strength and his quickness and all those things, they all matter to his development over the next year. And if he had gone back to college, then maybe he develops and maybe he dominates and puts up 40 touchdowns. We, with all statistics, we just can't superimpose what we have into what we don't have.

Right. And this goes for, Hey, what if Kirk was playing for this team? This always used to happen. And I'm like, I don't know. What if Kirk was playing for San Francisco? I don't know. We can only work with the stats that we have. We can only work with what we have with McCarthy.

But if the Vikings go for it, one of the justifications and one of the best reasons is that they're assuming that you're right, that they would be looking toward the future and what he's going to become. And they can probably project that better than I can. I can only work with what I know right now, which is that there are some limitations there. And there's certainly a guy who has never dealt with a lot of adversity in the NF or, well, no one's dealt with adversity like the NFL. That's a hard part of college, but like not at all. I mean, he's just done nothing but win and win and win. So there's going to be a learning curve there that's pretty significant for him, but you make a fair point.

If he had played to the same age, this goes for Drake May. You could say this for Drake May. If Drake May played for Alabama instead of Jalen Milrow, is that his name? Uh, what's what he's national champion, right? Or at least right on the doorstep. I mean, so we always have to do that. That's one of the reasons that we fail so often with the draft is that there's all this information we don't have. Uh, Reg says who signs first JJ or CD lamb. Don't know. I do not know. I think JJ is going to push it all the way to the end of training camp,

but I'm not sure. I'm really not sure. I don't know when Justin Jefferson's going to sign. Both of them deserve to make super big time money, and they probably will, and that's the best I can do. But I don't know. I don't know what C.D. Lambbs situation is or where he stands or whatever, but, um, maybe they're playing a little game of chicken there, or maybe they both know around the

same amount and, uh, it won't have any impact. I don't know. It's a good question. I mean, if, if lamb signs first, then we're going to have a pretty good number to work with as far as projecting Jefferson. So do the Vikings want, and I, you know, for a team that has so much money, Dallas, I think they're not always like the biggest spenders sometimes. I mean, they really set out this free agency. So are they going to try

to fight it out with CeeDee Lamb? Remember, they fought it out with Dak Prescott and ended up kind of looking silly. So will they do the same thing with CeeDee Lamb? I don't know. Let's see. Dana says Colin Cowherd compared McCarthy to the guy who just left. Thoughts? Well, look, OK, so one thing is if you had Kirk Cousins on a rookie quarterback contract, probably would have been pretty good result, right? They probably could have won more. I think there's always going to be the limitations to Cousins' game that stopped them deep in the playoffs,

but they would have had stronger teams. They would have had a better chance. But the difference is that McCarthy is a much better athlete than Kirk Cousins. One of the problems with Kirk Cousins for his entire career is that he's just not very athletic. Now, compared to me or you, he looks like Hakeem Olajuwon, but compared to Josh Allen, compared to Mahomes, compared to the best quarterbacks in the league. He is. And if you, and there's objective measures for this that are becoming harder to use for quarterbacks because they don't participate in the combine, but Kirk cousins, I remember looking this up.

There's a thing. If you guys have never heard of it called relative athletic score, which takes all of your combine performances and weighs the different factors that are most important to that position and then creates a percentile of athleticism. It's not a perfect measure, but it kind of gives you this general like idea of what type of athlete your quarterback is. So Anthony Richardson broke the system and Cam Newton was 99th percentile i think he had the highest score ever so you can kind of get the idea right and kirk cousins was i believe the lowest in the nfl except for nick foals he scored in like the 40 somethingth percentile as far as starters go and well nick foals wasn't really a starter uh and that always was something that was hard to overcome. And I, and JJ McCarthy, just based on his three cone, just based on his velocity for

throwing and watching him play and watching him do athletic things. Like that's a much better athlete than Kirk cousins. That's a top notch. Now it's not the same level of athleticism as Anthony Richardson or some of the other great quarterbacks, but it's, it's a top notch athletic quarterback that is going to be able to make plays. That's going to be able to, you know, roll out and things like that. So, um, yeah, Preston says all the experts know nothing. It's it's tough. Look the best. There's a lot of great draft analysts. We

have one on the show, Chris Trapasso. And what I love about Chris Trapasso is that in a lot of draft analysts are this way. They watch the guys and they tell you what they think and they chart them and they grade them and they try to find out as much as they can. And they give you their, their takes and the information that they've gathered about them. And they can paint a picture of what someone can and can't be. And they do it in an honest way. I think anybody who claims that they know more and that they are the best guy at predicting outcomes or something, that's where you got to be wary.

Or if they have too much intel, you got to be wary because no one has Intel, not real Intel for what's going to happen. If they did, they would get more than seven out of 32 picks in the first round or something. So if there's someone who's claiming to have a lot of sources, I'm skeptical. And if there's someone who is, um, you know, if there's someone who's not able to give you like detailed information about guys and admit that, you know, it might work out or might not. Uh, and then there's also a lot of copy and pasters. There was, there was a thing that, um, was out there from grinding the mocks that showed that when Daniel Jeremiah or Dane Brugler put something out there that all the mocks follow them. So there's a lot of follow

the leader. There's a lot of group think when it comes to it. Sorry, did I read this all about Brock Purdy? Yeah. Sorry. I only read the first part of it. Yeah. Brock Purdy is a good example of a guy that slips through the cracks because he's six feet tall and he is quick, but not fast, but could like JJ McCarthy comp and it's maybe too right in front of me, but he kind of, you want him to play like Brock Purdy, only a little more athletic, but Purdy's a good runner. He's got quick feet. He can make a play. He's got a lot of intelligence. He throws the ball the right place, but he's gutsy and he's willing to take a shot. Like all those things, you know know like if that's your system

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The system quarterback thing is, it's something that kind of drives me crazy because everybody has to have some form of system that they're playing within. And then it's how much you can do outside of it uh but yeah you know the the oh i i never really addressed the kirk comparison i just don't i just don't think that he's like kirk really uh i think that what the kirkian part is is that like he can throw on the run which kirk was actually quite good at if he was if he was rolling out on a bootleg, he was really good at like kind of flipping the hips, making that throw. And you know, I guess pocket quarterback, like I just don't really see it because the thing about cousins is we have seen him in his prime. We did not see him when he was 21 years old. He's nowhere close to

McCarthy at 21 years old. Otherwise he would have been a first round draft pick. What Kirk became over the years is probably the best evidence for quarterback development that if you have the right mindset and you're an obsessive freak about being a great quarterback, that you can get there if you've got that natural ability to throw the football. And so, you know, I think that with, um, Kirk compared to McCarthy, it's like, well, I don't know, man, give me nine years. I mean, what, how, when did Kirk show up here at age like 29 or 30? So I only know that version of watching him super closely, but I think that the athleticism is different. And I think that the upside is a little bit higher, but of course, I mean, you know, when it comes to Kirk cousins, like he was a very, very, very accurate quarterback and he really, really knew football. And that's going to take time for JJ McCarthy to

get there. You know, he was a backup to start. He did have to develop for, for years. So, uh, Preston says, I just want Dante back. Knee injury ruined our role. I mean, yeah. Yeah. I think about what that team became over the few years after Dante got hurt by 2009, Dante still would have been in his prime if he hadn't got hurt. And that really starting to come together plus the ownership change was huge I think the Wilfs really got the organization together people forget when Dante was playing what a bleep show it was uh don't know how to pronounce your name sorry uh how do you think that the Cowboys defense will do under Zimmer I think they'll be really good uh really under Zimmer? I think they'll be really good. Really good.

I mean, I think they'll be one of the five best defenses in the NFL. There's a lot you could say about Mike Zimmer, but the man is really brilliant when it comes to coaching defense, and they have a ton of talent. And they're going to be better against the run. They brought in Eric Hendricks, who I think can still play a little bit, certainly for Zimmer. So, yeah. I just – I think they're – look little bit, certainly for Zimmer. So yeah, I just,

I think they're look, Dallas is going to go into another year where they have Superbowl contender written all over them and probably will disappoint at the end of the day, but their defense, I promise will not get run on at least with their talent. Look, if it was 2020 Vikings, then they would have gotten run on like this, but with their talent, they will not get steamrolled in the playoffs in the same way. And I think him working with Trayvon Diggs is potentially something really special. Let's see here. Joshua says, that's why we picked JJ. He can run and throw. And he has a running back in Jones, the best wide receiver duo plus a tight end.

That's exactly why you pick JJ McCarthy is because if he has all these things around him and he can execute the offense at a high level and understand a lot of things, the mental part of this is so underrated. It's so underrated. Like Patrick Mahomes, it's so underrated how brilliant he is at football in his mind, at reading and understanding where the football goes, because most of his throws are that, and then he does something freakish. But most of the time, he is executing that offense. And chemistry with his tight end is certainly helpful, and you want that from your

quarterback, but so much is above the years. Think about like you have two and a half seconds. So I'll give you an example. I was watching Sam Darnold the other day and I was watching back his tape from 2022. And there's a play where Darnold's on a straight drop back and he has a post from the receiver on his left side coming in the middle of the field. And it looks like the middle of the field is going to be vacated because a safety drop down. And it looks like it's going to be one-on-one coverage, but what he doesn't see and doesn't process is that when there's no safety at all in the middle of the field, he's probably out there somewhere unless it was a blitz. And so he doesn't realize that I think it was Tyron Matthew maybe was actually on

the other side and had come back to the middle of the field and he lets it go. And it's the easiest interception you'll ever see because he did not process that if the guy was a robber safety, and I'm trying to remember this play, but a robber safety coming down, somebody else is going to fill that spot. They're not, they're not just leaving the hole unless it's a cover zero. They're not just leaving the whole secondary wide open. He did not process that quick enough and through interception. It's probably the reason why Sam Darnold, because it's not physical. He's got incredible skill. So McCarthy, this is his strength. This is supposed to be the biggest,

number one thing that J.J. McCarthy has going for him is that he has a great mental processing ability. And whether that translates to the NFL the way it's supposed to, that I'm not sure. But can you get a sense for that if you're O'Connell? Yeah, I think you can if you're sitting down with him in a room. And usually when they do private workouts, they give guys, like, I'm going to read you a play, then you've got to call the play,

then 45 minutes later you've got to remember the play. But it's not easy to figure these things out, whether that will actually translate. But I think that's one of his biggest strengths. Uh, JC says, I still like Drake May better. Me too. Me too. I mean, the, the upside of that man's arm is just really impressive, really impressive. And that's where, you know, we see with someone like Josh Allen that, you know, when he has the arm strength, even if he mistakes something and it's, that's like room for error, right? Room for error is Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes. Let's say that Josh Allen misread something. Whoops. I misread it and I threw it

anyway. And it was a completion because it doesn't matter because I throw the ball that freaking hard or whoops. I misread something at the line of scrimmage. Let me run for 20 yards or in Josh Allen's case, maybe 50 yards. I mean, how many times we saw Mahomes do it in two Superbowls. Mahomes has taken off with his legs and made plays two super bowls to win them on final drives. You need that. You can't, you can't just sit there in the pocket and win. A lot of times, most quarterbacks can't. I mean, golf is probably the closest that it gets to recently, right? Other than Brady, Brady doesn't count. That's the goat. That's totally different story. Uh,

Sue says, um, trade up for may or stick with, uh, stick and pick with JJ at 11. That is the thing that we're not a hundred percent sure that the NFL wants to take him in the top five. We just, we don't know that.

Uh, but if you don't, if you try to stick and pick and JJ is your guy McCarthy and no one else is, then you get yourself into see what you really don't want. And this would only be behind the scenes, but what you really don't want is any situation where Kweisi Adafo-Mensah tries to get cute and doesn't get Kevin O'Connell as guy. That's the biggest fear. If you end up landing somebody with like the 23rd pick that O'Connell is kind of feeling that he is stuck with, then that's not, that's not what you're, what you want. So you're looking to have them both very much on the same page, a hundred percent all in on one quarterback. That's what you're looking for. So that would be my concern with Pennix or Nix. Mahomes ran a 4.81.40, so you don't have to be super fast.

Yeah, you know what I've learned about that? Is it's really about a playmaking mentality as much as it is pure speed and also quickness. And this is where I like McCarthy, is that that three cone sounds silly to focus on it, but he does have very quick feet. I remember a play where he scored against the Gophers, where it looked like someone had cut him off to run into the end zone. And he just like turned it up real quick and got by that guy to the edge and scored a touchdown. I was like, yeah, that's, that's quickness.

Quickness is much better than just like, well, not much better. It's probably more important than 40 time. Like the whole 40 is being quick and having escapability and then being able to get out. Cause once you have that mentality and that's where I'm really talking about, because if you don't have that mentality, you end up like Alex Smith, Alex Smith was fast, but he didn't have that mentality. And that's what I do worry about a little bit with McCarthy, where someone like Daniels, someone like May, they are natural runners. They will drop back. Oh, I don't see it. I'm going to make a play. I'm going to go run sometimes to their detriment, but that is who they are. And that's, that's,

that's my homes. My homes is playmaker by any means. I'm going to make a play. And I don't know if that's quite as natural to McCarthy, but he can definitely get a, and Hey, look, you bring it up, you know, Christian Ponder and his 40 time. And that's what I mean exactly is that Christian Ponder was a great athlete, but he didn't use it at Josh McCown is a great athlete and he didn't use it. You need someone is a great athlete and he didn't use it. You need someone who's going to use it. That's what you really need is somebody who has that natural playmaking ability to want to use it.

So anyway, well, this has been a great chat. And yeah, Joe says, shouldn't you be streaming from the airport catching the early flight out? I'm a little nervous, Joe. I'm a little nervous. I'm flying out tomorrow afternoon and I am concerned about the situation with the flight. I was looking up the weather for tomorrow and at least in the twin cities, it doesn't look like it's supposed to be completely crushing the twin cities by the time I'm headed out. That's my hope, but I moved up my flight so I could try to make sure that like, even if it

gets delayed, they have to, I don't know, de-ice the plane or something that, you know, it should be okay. But we, we didn't have a winter, so who can complain, but I, I'm, you know, trying to get to the owner's meetings here. And, uh, we're going to talk with, you know, uh, Kevin O'Connell on the record on Tuesdays, some other stuff going on a Monday. So, you know, I want to get, I want to get down there on time. And plus I've already got scheduled a few people that I'm going to meet up with for podcasts and things like that. I'm excited about it. Like this is my first time going to the owner's meetings is the first time that I'm actually needed to. Um, so JP says, is there any info who the Vikings will send to LSU and NC's pro day?

Why did Kevin and Kwesi back down for Michigan's pro day? Well, it might've been because they already had a private workout scheduled with him reportedly, but I also have never made a whole lot of that. Like I just, who goes where, you know, that sort of thing. Am I going to the draft? I am not. I will be streaming from right here during the draft. It's there really isn't for a reporter.

There isn't much to do at the draft. It's actually better if you are at TCO performance center or talking to you guys. And previous years, what I've done is on night one, I've done a live stream. And then on night two, I usually go out to, you know, do the press conferences with the coach and GM and so forth. And, you know, we'll kind of go from there, but I've, I'm working out the plan. So I'll be here, but, uh, people will be dropping in. So like, you know, we'llgett, Stane Mizutani,

maybe we'll get Kevin Seifert on here, Andrew Kramer. Like we'll have different reporters from TCO dropping in and so forth, you know, in the lead up to the draft. It's going to be really fun. I mean, I'm really excited about it. I wish that we didn't have to wait this long. I wish that we could do this, you know, quicker, like get right to it after free agency.

But, you know, that's how it goes. So anyway, Sue says, if KOC identifies May as the guy and the Patriots are asking for our first rounders this year and two more future firsts, I'm taking the trade and won't think of it. Sometimes you have to be like bleep them picks. Sometimes you do. Sometimes you do. You have to be like bleep them picks. Sometimes you do. Sometimes you do. You just have to say bleep them picks. Just how it goes sometimes. And so anyway, well,

that is all in the rumor breakdown for this evening. I do have to, I actually have to, I'm hosting on WCCO radio tomorrow morning with Pete Najarian. So I'm going to do that. Got to prepare for that. And then got a pack to head out tomorrow. So lots of stuff to get going on for me. Uh, and I think there's still basketball on, so I'm gonna go watch that as well. So you guys have a great time, have a great time. Um, you know, with this whole

thing, that's my advice, I guess, is like, there's going to be a lot of stuff coming out and reports and rumors and whatever else about the Vikings. And we're going to have fun with all of it. I'm going to try to bring you as many perspectives as I can when it's down at the owner's meeting. So great stuff from everybody in the comments, except for one person, you know who you are and you need to stop doing that because I'm going to figure out the block button and I'll get you then. But everybody else, great stuff. Really, really appreciate the chats. I mean, you guys make this super, super, super fun for me to come on here and do that. So appreciate all you guys. And the next time you see me, I hopefully will be in Orlando. And if I'm not, then I, you know, well, that means the snow got me and life happens,

but hopefully I'll be down there. So thanks everybody. Take care.