Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Bill Barnwell joins to talk Cousins vs. Jimmy G and the perils of GM'ing

Episode Date: November 11, 2020

Matthew Coller connects with one of ESPN's top NFL analysts to break down the Vikings' quarterback situation, where it stands now and in the future. They discuss whether a Cousins/Garoppolo trade would make sense and what the smartest way to handle a quarterback situation in 2020 is. Plus why aren't GM's more creative and aggressive when it comes to their QB situations? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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People that show love to me, I forever got their back. Vivica A. Fox. If the foundation isn't right, then the rest of it's going to go wrong from there. And more. Subscribe to Front and Center today. Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. We welcome you to the show from ESPN. Making his second appearance here on the podcast, Bill Barnwell.

What's up, Bill? Hey, Matthew. Got a question for you right off the top. Right off the top here. Should, at three and five, people still be sending me Friday mailbag questions about trading Kirk Cousins for Jimmy Garoppolo? Should that still be happening, or are we now saying, oh, the Vikings are turning it around, so we don't need to talk about the quarterback's future anymore? Oh, this is an interesting question. Okay, I'm into it.

Okay, so let me separate that into two parts. Should the Vikings trade Kirk Cousins for Jimmy Garoppolo? I would say no, and I would say my concern is that I don't see the value with Jimmy Garoppolo. I wrote about this for a column I think last week or the week before. It all kind of blends together at this point, the last two weeks of Finns. But I wrote about the Niners.'t know about their situation heading into 2021 jimmy garoppolo i believe has a base salary of 24 million dollars which is unguaranteed but he's going to make 24 million dollars next year he is a guy who is okay he is very kirk cousins cousins-esque the difference

is that jimmy garoppolo uh cannot stay healthy jimmy garoppolo cannot stay healthy. Jimmy Garoppolo has, I think, made it past five starts as a pro once without getting injured, which is not a good stretch for a guy who I think is turning 30 either this year or early next year. And that isn't something I want to spend $24 million for. You know, if he was Patrick Mahomes when he was healthy and had injury issues, well, you'd say, okay, the upside is there. If he was a guy who was not making a lot of money and he was, you know, on a rookie deal, you'd say, okay, well, he's, you know, not a star, but he's really returning outsized value because of how cheap he is. And if he was a guy who could stay healthy, well, then you'd say, okay, at least we have some level of reliability. And I think the sort of hidden thing when it comes to the Kirk Cousins discussions is his reliability, his ability to stay on the football field in one piece. And I know that that's something that doesn't seem all that exciting. I asked someone who watched Eli Manning very closely for the last 15 years.

It was one of the things that came up a lot with Eli when Eli was being critiqued. And I think fairly, Eli's not a great quarterback by any means, but Eli did not miss games. He was healthy. And the Giants, you know, unless they decided to bench him randomly one week for Geno Smith, which would never happen, they never had the opportunity or reason to take him off the football field for health reasons. And that is a really, really valuable thing. And when it comes to Kirk Cousins, I don't know if it makes him worth $33 million a year,

but I would not want to trade Kirk Cousins for Jimmy Garoppolo. To me, that that's saving a little bit of money, which is great, but it's downgrading from a, you know from an average to above average quarterback who can stay healthy in Cousins to a guy who can't stay healthy in Garoppolo. So I don't know. I mean, obviously, I know this is a very important issue for Vikings fans. I know that I have, I heard more about that article from Vikings fans than Niners fans when it came to the possibility of Cousins moving on. And I think you can talk about the idea of trading Cousins, but I don't think it makes sense to trade him for Garoppolo.

I think the argument from a lot of Vikings fans would be that you can get out from under Garoppolo if you don't love it. Whereas Cousins' contract makes it really difficult to get out from under Garoppolo if you don't love it. Whereas Cousins' contract makes it really difficult to get out from under him. The cap hit, if you cut him, is extremely high for 2021, and that handcuffs you when the salary cap is going to go down. And if you keep him, his salary cap hit for 2022 is so enormous that you almost have to work out a contract extension with him, which his very brilliant agent designed it that way. I think a lot of Vikings fans would look at it and say,

maybe Garoppolo is better in some areas that if we look underneath a microscope, we can find them because I, I think that they're very, very similar, but there's just, tell me if this is a crazy thought, there's a little bit more of baller to Jimmy Garoppolo when he plays the release is a little bit quicker back there and I think even though

he has some of those really dumb throws and he also has Kyle Shanahan calling his play so we automatically need to do an adjustment there the Kyle Shanahan adaptation but when you looked at like the pro football focus when they dive deep into every single throw, that he had like a higher rate of positively graded throws than Cousins, who kind of makes only the throws that are there for him. And maybe there's a small difference for a reason. One guy has won more than the other, or maybe it's just circumstantial. But I think that there's the attractiveness to, hey, this guy is like 24 and 8 and i know the win-loss record drives everyone crazy but like and then cousins is more than 500

guy who has this roller coaster of great games and bad games and great games and bad games for the price of an aaron rogers or a russell wilson and i think that that's where it frustrates people if you were to trade for Garoppolo, you could feel very comfortable drafting another quarterback and say, all right, well, if he does get hurt again, then we're just going to be developing someone. As long as you have cousins, it's hard to draft another quarterback because you're constantly saying, we need so much around this guy to actually win anything. Absolutely. And I think that that's a very reasonable argument for trading away Cousins.

And I think there are other arguments about trading Cousins that I think I have thoughts on as well. In terms of Garoppolo, I think he is absolutely somebody who has that sort of rollercoaster experience. I look at his performances this year, his performances this year, you know, and the high ankle sprain, of course, coming to play. But hey, if you get injured, you're going to have roller coaster performances. He's had a passer rating of 140.4, followed by a passer rating of 15.7, a passer rating of 124.3, followed by 79.5, and then 55.2. I mean, he is someone who is going to make mistakes and someone who we know from that Niners playoff run, they did not want to put in a situation where he had to win them the football

game. Look at that playoff run, the Vikings game, of course, 19 pass attempts in that game. The defense took over in the second half of that game for the Niners, eight pass attempts in the NFC championship game when they score 37 points and blow out the Packers. Eight pass attempts in the NFC Championship game when they scored 37 points and blow out the Packers. They did not want to throw the football whatsoever in that game, in the Chiefs game. 31 pass attempts, 219 yards, two

picks, a passer rating of 69.2. And I think back to that drive just before the end of the first half where Kyle Shanahan played it slow because he did not trust Jimmy Garoppolo to move down the field and score points. And that tells you everything you need to know. I mean, you know, he – the Niners see Garoppolo publicly as the face of their franchise, and he's a very handsome face. Let's not – let's not, you you know mince words there he's very good looking but you know he is a guy who at the end of the day when cal shanahan is calling plays

for you know for the season in the biggest situations he does not trust i mean they you know i think about that saints game where they uh you know grapple and made a big play to george kittle that's 98 george kittle dragging defenders down the field and Grappler throwing a short completion. I think he has, you know, he does have some upside, but I think maybe Vikings fans, you know, because they see Cousins week to week and see all the frustration, maybe underestimate Cousins' upside as well. You sort of forget about the big games from Cousins. And I think Grappler maybe has a little bit more of that. But I think to me, thinking about Garoppolo, I just don't think he really offers all that much of a difference. And I think,

to your point, the idea that he'd be moving from Kyle Shanahan to possibly Gary Kubiak, you'd figure. Not that Kubiak is a bad offensive coordinator, but just he's not a guy who is as creative in his passing game as Shanahan is. So to me, I think there's a broader question to be had here, right? You know, I think that, especially we've seen this over the last two weeks because number one, yes, the Vikings have won the last two games. But number two, we've seen Mike Zimmer come out and say, no, sort of reaffirm his desire to be a super run-heavy football team.

And whoever the quarterback is is not going to have to average 17 passes times per game the way that the Vikings have the past two weeks because they're going to throw the ball more than that. It's just the reality of football. When you're not winning and when you're running back, it's not looking like he is a superior being, you know, sent want your quarterback ideally to throw the ball 20 times per game in the nfl in 2020 you should not have a quarterback making more than 20 million dollars per season there's no reason for it there's no logical argument for it and if anything it should

play to your desire to have an advantage you know because most teams are trying to throw the ball a lot. Most teams are investing a lot in quarterback. And so by not spending either $24 million a year on Garoppolo or $33 million a year on Cousins by making – by trading him before that – you know, before the guarantees kick in on his deal, you know, you have the opportunity to punt a quarterback and to have a guy who's a rookie or a guy who is, you know, a lower cost option making under $10 million a year. And I think that's the way the Vikings should go. If this is what you want to do, I think that's fine. I don't know if it's my preferred method. I don't know if it's the idea that I would say I want to – I would say it's the best use of your players necessarily. But you have receivers who can make big plays off of play action.

You have a running back who's playing very well. You have two running backs who are playing very well, one of whom you just invested a lot of money in in a long-term contract. You've invested in your offensive line. Hey, now great. After a decade of Vikings fans complaining about not investing in your offensive line, here's an extra $30 million that you didn't have from the Kirk Cousins deal to invest in that offensive line and to be a more run-heavy football team. So to me, I just, you know, I felt for years now that even in the best moments for the Vikings, their roster construction has been such at odds with what, you know,

their espoused philosophy is on the offensive side of the football. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I have to circle back and ask you, who is the ugliest quarterback in the league? If Garoppolo is the best looking, what is it? Sam Darnold's pretty strange looking. It's kind of an odd-shaped head. I don't want to disparage. Here's the thing.

I feel like the ugliest quarterback in the NFL is still way better than me myself, so I don't know. I feel like I always am surprised by Derek Carr because Derek Carr, his headshots are always very gothic.

Is it the face mask that makes it look like he's wearing some eyeshadow or something? Is it the lights or is that, like, just how his face works? I think it's just his eyes, you know. And, again, I'm not saying he's an ugly person. I think it works for him. But it always surprises me.

And then, like, when you hear him talk, he has, like, a very, like, thick accent, which you're not expecting because he's from Fresno. Or he's from California. I don't know if he's from Fresno. Where was Derek Carr from? Yeah, I thought so. Right? He went to Califor. He was from Bakersfield. So's from California. I don't know if he's from Fresno. Where was Derek Carr from? Yeah, I thought so, right? He went to college for Bakersfield. So Bakersfield, but he lived in – Oh, Bakersfield, yeah.

He went to college in Clements, Texas for at least part of his time after Bakersfield. So he has like a very thick accent, which I'm not expecting. But, yeah, I just think it's his face. I don't think it makes him ugly. I just think it makes him unique because, you know, I would not think of NFL quarterbacks as very goth, but I would say Derek Carr is the goth quarterback.

He is. It's like, if you're into that aesthetic, he's your guy. Okay. Ben Roethlisberger has to be at this point with the disastrous facial hair and just looks like he hasn't been skipping too many meals the last couple of years. Ben's got the case. Although some people like a woodsy-looking type person. So anyway, I guess, I don't know, submit on Twitter your submissions for ugliest quarterback. I don't know. But so let me circle back to what you're talking about. Something that we've discussed here is I said that they went to the fork in the road and went straight in some different

ways this offseason with not deciding whether they were going to rebuild or not and it's the same way with the quarterback situation because in 2017 they've got a stacked roster and Case Keenum is able to take them to the NFC championship a little bit of a weird year, of course, in 2017, Aaron Rodgers got hurt and so forth. But Case Keenum was a good enough quarterback to run play actions, to throw to open wide receivers, and hand off to Latavius Murray, Jarek McKinnon, and early in the season, Delvin Cook. And when you have a quarterback in Kirk Cousins over these last two weeks throwing a total of 34 passes, because that's how your head coach and your offensive coordinator want to play. And he's been great on those 34 passes,

but also I think there's a lot of human beings who are much cheaper who could be great on those 34 passes. I would also endorse if they had leaned into the Kirk and they had said, we're going to throw all the time. He's going to have 5,000 yards. He's going to make his mistakes, but we're going to be this dynamic explosive passing offense hey here's a guard for you kirk here is a third or

fourth wide receiver for you kirk as opposed to you know what we need is more tight ends so um i guess if you're going to play that way then you can get your to make a kubiak reference you're brian greasy and he can take you somewhere. And that's where I wonder about just the future of this thing. If you're going to stick with Mike Zimmer, then I think it's worth endorsing a different quarterback who's cheaper. If you're going to move on from Mike Zimmer, which I'm not sure is a good idea, then get somebody like Eric Biennemi who's going to lean into what you have at quarterback because cousins

is a good enough quarterback to put up huge numbers and to have the offense on his shoulders and to get you somewhere but there's somewhere in between thing i'm not sure that it really works 100 and i i don't know about you i mean i think my question is then how cheap are you willing to go because i look at the 2021 free agent class before anyone gets cut. So there might be guys who get released, but just looking at the guys who are here, you have Jacoby reset, Mitch Trubisky,

Phillip Rivers, Zach Prescott, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Tyron Taylor, Andy Dalton, Colt McCoy, um, Cam Newton,

Joe Flacco, who strangely looked very good last night. It's great. Yeah. Um, Brian Hoyer, Jameis Winston, C.J. Beathard. Nick Mullins is a restricted free agent. I almost wonder if you're the Vikings, not that Nick Mullins is a star,

because I don't think he is, and he's been inconsistent in his own right, but he is very cheap. Would you almost rather trade cousins for Nick Mull Cousins for Jimmy Garoppolo? I want to remind you to go to SodaStick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. For all of you hunters out there, SodaStick has some very cool hunting gear available that you need to check out, including their Mick Golden Light hunting club hats that our pal Jeremiah Searles has been wearing lately on his excursions. All their apparel is screen printed here in Minnesota on super soft, super comfy shirts and hoodies.

You will love it. We're going to also hook you up with free shipping on your next order. Use the promo code Purple Insider for free shipping. That is SodaStick, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K dot com. Original Minnesota sports inspired goods. Code Purple Insider for free shipping. That is Sotastick, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. Original Minnesota sports inspired goods. Code Purple Insider for free shipping. Yeah. And you mentioned someone like Jacoby Bursette. I mean, how much does it cost for that guy? And, you know, he's not a mobile or running quarterback, just like Kirk Cousins isn't. He's probably accurate enough to throw to open receivers. You know, I do think that Cousins has a greater level probably accurate enough to throw to open receivers um you know I do think

that Cousins has a greater level of skill than pretty much every guy you mentioned there um Winston has upside but obviously has his big problems too but in terms of can you have someone run play action and throw to open crossing routes uh who else can do that there are a lot of people who can do that and I think when they signed Cousins, they felt like, all right, he can just be that last piece that pushes us over the top. But he has the same problems that a lot of journeymen or 500 quarterbacks have. He's sort of like an enhanced version of that. But he has the same problem of if they get in dropback situations

where they're down in games, they struggle. Case Keenum had the same issue. I was in Buffalo for Kyle Orton. Same problem. If the opposing team's defensive line is great, you're in trouble. But you can be in trouble for a lot cheaper. And I think that that's what it keeps coming back to. But I wonder what your thought is on the Vikings organization just deciding to give everyone money though. Like that's, that's one thing with

cousins where they just don't seem to want to change until they're absolutely forced to change. They give cousins all the money. They give cook all the money. They give Anthony Barr all the money. It's like, Oh, are you a Viking here? Have a lot of money and you can stay here. And eventually the bill comes on that and it kind of came this year. But I think that a more shrewd approach is necessary for them to bounce back because their first build included a 2015 draft that was insane, and they drafted three pro bowlers and a good starter. That's probably not going to happen again. I feel like you need that cap space to spend on veterans to

fill spaces on your roster because you're not going to just get lucky in the draft all the time. So it's almost like a necessity if they want to build a great roster to find a way to open that cap space. Yeah. I mean, I think the way fans talk about the cap, you know, not that you are obviously, but I'm saying in terms of fans, when I hear about fans say, oh, man, you know, well, the cap is fake. Or the alternative is, oh, well, you know, the Saints or the Vikings or the Eagles just have a great cap guy. And so, you know, they know how to unlock space. Unlocking space is not hard. But, like, the logic of, you know of creating cap space in the short term is easy.

Just take a guy with a big base salary. You convert it to a signing bonus or an option bonus, and that creates some short-term space. But the problem is we saw with guys like – this could be a good example. Xavier Rhodes or Josh Klein or Stefan Diggs is that when you want to move on from those guys, if they have money that's guaranteed in the future for cap purposes, you're paying them dead money. The Patriots brought up why their cap situation was a mess. Bill Belichick made the argument. He said, well, we sold out. We kind of sold out for multiple Super Bowls, and that's obviously ideal and that's fine. I don't think anyone's complaining too much there.

But, you know, they were a team that had to make restructures because they wanted to give Tom Brady a raise and they wanted to fit Antonio Brown on their cap and stuff like that. It didn't work out the year after both those guys left. When it comes to the Vikings, I mean, I think there's been a lot of times over the last few years. I remember looking at that 2015 class and they were going to become free agents. And I said, okay, well, they're going to have to choose and get rid of at least one of these guys.

And they did trade Diggs, but they gave every one of those guys an extension. Sorry, they didn't extend Trey Waynes, I guess. Not Trey Waynes, but right, everybody else. Right, everyone else got an extension and um sorry they didn't extend trey waynes i guess not trey waynes but right everybody else yep right everyone else got an extension and so it was sort of like well you can't really get away with that then they franchise and anthony harris they extend cousins again um they give adam thielen a raise you know i i sort of understand why you would want to do that but we end up with seasons like this year where the Vikings are good enough to be competitive, good enough to go on a winning streak,

and also thin enough in places and mediocre enough in places to look totally, you know, overmatched at stretches. And I think that's a tough place to be. I don't know if you can, like you you said count on drafting the way they did in 2015 we just don't know enough about drafting to know how consistent people are i mean we've seen now with bill delachak with ozzie neeson when he was in baltimore we've seen it with john schneider in seattle um you know drafting can be very inconsistent you don't just have it for a

couple years and then lose it um you know and the draft's been inconsistent well you know but i mean like like there was this perception that like john schneider was a genius at the beginning of his tenure and then forgot how to draft players and then suddenly he lands on dk metcalf with the last pick of the second round yep um you know i feel like the reality is that the vikings sort of wanted it both ways this year. They wanted to eat their vegetables, but then they also, you know, like slipped in a few pieces of candy as they were eating the vegetables. And I think it would have been better just to do one or the other,

because let's say they don't extend Kirk. They don't franchise Anthony Harris, who, I mean, I don't know. You would know better than I would. Has he been an $11.4 million safety this year? No. I mean, replacing safeties is not super hard next to Harrison Smith. With all respect to Anthony Harris, who's a very, very good player and a great story, but if you're playing next to Harrison Smith, you probably are.

The last two guys have been undrafted free agents that they just developed to play next to him. So, right. And then with Dalvin Cook, I mean, I feel dumb saying this because he's been phenomenal the past two weeks and he's a great player. But, you know, if you were going to draw an example of a running back contract, that's probably a bad idea in the long term. You would want, you would pick a Shanahaniak uh outside zone running back who has an injury

history and that's dalvin cook unfortunately and again i think you can sit here and say well that that contract looks great so far and it does he's phenomenal he's my pick for offensive player of the year but you know i think at some point you have to make a tough choice and the vikings sort of put off making those tough choices and in in the end, they did make a choice. They just didn't realize they were making a choice, which is now you have this roster that is good enough to be competitive, but not good enough to be a Super Bowl winner. And I think, you know, at this point,

they're going to have to make a tough choice. Now, they might just run it back with this same roster and just hope that they land on a great draft. That might be a way to do it. But I think, you know, this is a roster that might have to consider trading Cousins and starting over a quarterback or, you know, moving on from Anthony Harris or, you know, cutting Riley Reif after getting him to take a pay cut. You know, they have been so aggressive with locking up their own guys

and then making moves for guys like Cousins that I think they're just sort of – they're in between two worlds. And I think either of those worlds, if you're looking at the future, is better than where the Vikings are now. So a few things. I think of drafting like my golf game as it's never as great as it is at its best, and it's never as bad as it is at its best and it's never as bad as it is at its worst and on a day-to-day basis or draft-to-draft basis results vary widely when I'm as mediocre at golf as I am but some days you're like I'm best golfer ever tiger bring it on and other days I lose 11 golf balls and 18 holes so you know I mean that's that's drafting. Like some days you're great. Some days you're not. And sometimes you end up with a 2016 draft where there's no one left in 2020

on the entire team. And so you can't just count on, and they've been kind of doing this where they've been saying, well, you know, this guy, he's a lot like the Neil Hunter. We'll draft him. He'll be the next Daniel Hunter. Like probably not, probably drafting guys in college who don't sack anyone usually doesn't work out. But I guess keep trying it. And so they kind of let that, I guess, color their vision. And even with Trey Waynes, they didn't re-sign him, but they did pick up his fifth-year option.

So he was incredibly expensive last year for pretty average play. And it sort of speaks to, they never seem to believe in themselves when it comes to replacing a guy. It's like Eric Wilson comes in for Anthony Barr. He's good at football too. Like there are other people who can do these things. And there aren't people who are as good as running as Delvin Cook, but think about the value of even Delvin Cook running. They're three and five. They have your offensive player of the year and they Delvin Cook running. They're 3-5. They have your Offensive Player of the Year, and they're 3-5. If they had the Offensive Player of the Year quarterback, they're what, 7-1 probably? You'd figure.

Maybe undefeated, right? So it just tells you the difference between what a running back means to winning versus what a quarterback will mean to winning and your quarterback performance. And that's where I wanted to get your opinion on philosophically with the quarterback position because it's so interesting to me talking about the jared goff's jimmy garoppolo's kurt cousins is uh carson wentz's when it comes to their systems protecting them and trying to kind of you know i don't want to say baby, but like make everything really nice and neat for them versus some of the dynamic quarterbacks, the Watsons, Wilsons, and Patrick Mahomes. It's there's like this dichotomy of there's these guys who are truly great. And then

there are these guys who are real good if it's all handed to them on a silver platter. But if it isn't, then it's going to be really difficult. But yet that second group still gets paid a lot like the first group and it's just really interesting to me and I wonder what you think in terms of winning with those cousins like quarterbacks and what it takes because I think you kind of get one shot at that and you better beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl you better beat Mahomes in the Super Bowl and because you're not going to get another look at it probably for a long time and I think if the Vikings are looking at next year well maybe your playoff team maybe 2022 you get you get lucky in these drafts and build it up again if you stick with Cousins but I think that's especially hard to do once you pay the guy. Absolutely. I wrote a column two years ago now, I think after,

before the Ram signed Jared Goff to an extension about how I actually had a reader recommend it to me on Twitter. I can't think of his name. I apologize. It's in the column, though, about the idea of basically churning quarterbacks, where you draft a guy with a high pick, get four years of him on a great rookie deal and then before year five uh if you have a very smart offensively minded coach like Sean McVay for example and you have a lot of talent around that quarterback like the Rams did when I wrote this column and you have a quarterback who is good

makes some throws but is a guy where you feel like you sort of have to hold him by the hand through games like perhaps Jared Goff is. It might make sense to trade that guy, especially if you can get, you know, if you can go to the Jets or, you know, some other desperate team and trade him for another top five pick. You can draft a quarterback who can replace that guy and start that cycle all over again. And there's a reason why I'm not a general manager, which is that I am willing to make deal or at least consider deals that would almost certainly get me fired if they went wrong. So I think it's tough for teams to consider. But to your point, I mean, that's just the reality of constructing a team in the NFL in 2020, especially also even further in 2021 when the cap is going to decline to $175 million. I mean, I think for those guys to win a Super Bowl, everything has to go right. For Garoppolo, you have to have a dominant defense, a fantastic running game. You have to get home field advantage into the postseason. You have to, you know,

you have to make that tackle at the half yard line against the Seahawks. And we saw in the Superbowl, you know, once the Chiefs started moving the ball, you know, Garoppolo panicked. He was two of 10, I think, on his final 10 passes for like 30 yards with an interception. You know, once the game got tough, Garoppolo lost it. I mean, he was, he was a mess at the end of that game. And, you know, I, I think that NFL teams more so than the Vikings, I think your point is

very fair, but I think with other teams as well, there's an absolute fear of the unknown. There is a fear of, oh, you know, we, we got this guy. We actually didn't spend all that much on him or acquire him for all that much, but there can't be another guy like that lurking. You know, the Saints, for example, with Alvin Kamara. Alvin Kamara was a third-round pick. They traded up to get him, but he was still a third-round pick. Alvin Kamara is a fantastic football player. I'm not going to say anything negative about Alvin Kamara, but if you're the Saints and you can pay Alvin Kamara and your cap situation is even worse than the Vikings.

I honestly have no idea what the Saints are going to do next year, which is fascinating to me, but don't you think there's at least a pretty solid chance you can move on from Alvin Kamara and find someone who can catch the football with, you know, one of the best offensive minds in football with all that talent around him and the third round and maybe invest that money in a cornerback or an offensive lineman or something else who might make your team more likely to win a Super Bowl?

And I think that the answer almost invariably is no. Teams are always afraid of going back to that well and trying to find that guy. And I think when it comes to quarterback and to the Vikings, I think the Keenum example is great because, you know, they did let Keenum go. Keenum has struggled elsewhere. Maybe they just catch lightning in a bottle. Maybe that only would have worked that one year and it would have been a disappointment. And maybe the, you know, the Christian Ponder season is an example where maybe if you don't

have Adrian Petersen playing at an MVP level, you can't get by with Christian Ponderer quarterback. But I think if you're worth your salt as an executive, I think you have to find spots where that's the case. And I think with the Vikings, maybe it's not quarterback. Maybe you're not willing to take that risk of quarterback a couple of years ago. That's one thing. That's fine. But I think you have to trust that you can find, you know, help a cornerbackback you can find a linebacker who can play next to eric kendricks you can find um defensive tackle help you can find offensive linemen and i know that's been a problem for the vikings but by not investing so much everywhere else on your roster you do have more money to say okay this is the one position we really do struggle with let's go out and spend more money on our offensive line because we know we can go out and develop

cornerbacks. We have a great defensive backs coach in Mike Simmer who has experience developing cornerbacks. We don't have to spend first-round pick after first-round pick in our secondary. And the formula is different for every team. The formula is different for every coaching staff. But I do think that you have to sort of have that thing as an organization where you sit here and say okay we're going to invest a lot in these these few areas and we're going to try and save money in these few areas um the colts under bill pollian are a great example they want to spend a lot of money on their stars

at quarterback at wide receiver along the offense at at tackle, on the edge. And that was pretty much it. They bopped Sanders as well, I guess, here and there. But they didn't spend money at linebacker. They didn't spend money on the interior of their offense flying outside of Jeff Saturday. They did not spend money at running back typically. And once they started to say, okay, we're going to use first-round picks on running backs. We're going to pay our linebackers.

We're going to pay our corners. It fell apart. They just didn't have that infrastructure to succeed once Peyton Manning got hurt. And I think that with the Vikings, I don't know what sacrifices they're making. They're not making sacrifices. They're stretching themselves thin. And in the long run, I feel like they have to make those choices. They have to be comfortable sort of allowing themselves to be in a vulnerable position at some spots and trust their coaching staff and trust their GM.

But that has not really been the case. I wonder about the relationship between how GMs are evaluated and owners and how they evaluate their GMs. Because people like you and I are about the process and about when you and I are tweeting, why are you punting at the 43? You're crazy. The coach is thinking if we don't get this, the GM is going to be mad. Everybody is going to be internal emailing, questioning my decision, so I better just punt. Now this has changed in the last few years because now everyone understands that that's the right process and that's how we should grade it

not by the result it's like do the numbers point in your direction yes they do okay but convince eccentric rich people of this who own the team like that's harder right they want the results that's all they care about so general managers i think and this might be the case for the Vikings, they love to have pelts on the wall and be like, I drafted Delvin Cook in the second. Everyone said we shouldn't because of his character. Look at him. He's a wonderful person. We should give him a lot of money and but like, yeah, you did draft him. And that's great. And the same, even with Kirk Cousins, where you could see signing Kirk Cousins and wanting, and okay, it doesn't work out the first time through the first two years, but wanting to have it work out. Let's re-sign him to that extension the next time through. Then he'll prove that I made the right decision. And a lot of times it's, I mean, Anthony Barr is even another example of a guy. We drafted him in the first round. Mike Zimmer brings that up all the time. He was my

first traffic. Who cares? He's just an asset. He's just something that has value and is worth X dollars versus X performance. And when Eric Wilson's X performance for almost no dollars is close, then you overpaid and you made a big mistake there. And then when we talk about, you know, taking those assets and allocating them, the Vikings have a media golf tournament when there's no COVID. And I was on the team with the Vikings cap guy. And I said, I made some joke about how the cap was a myth. And he was like, it most certainly is not.

And we could tell by the guard position. And I wonder about where they've allocated to even protect the quarterback that they spent so much money on because they were too busy saying, we've got to pay these guys that we succeed. I just punched my microphone. We've succeeded in drafting. I mean, that's the, that's the most important part because then you go to the owners and you say, well, you know, we've got to pay all these guys that I did such a great job drafting. I mean, that's the most important part because then you go to the owners and you

say, well, you know, we've got to pay all these guys that I did such a great job drafting. And I think if you rethought that, even if you got yourself fired because you screwed up and your quarterback that you drafted was a bust, if you had a mindset from your ownership of let's make the right decision, even if it it blows up it was the right call and then a great thing is to have flexibility at quarterback because think about like Christian Ponder goes bust okay you drafted Teddy Bridgewater like there you go I mean that's sort of proof that if you have long-term job security also at GM all right well the last guy didn't work out draft another guy and he and and if he doesn't work out, draft another guy. And if he doesn't

work out, you draft another guy and see how that goes. I mean, how many quarterbacks did it take the Browns? And eventually they got to one who could play enough to win them games. So I guess I look at it as if you took off sort of the shackles of the way that we evaluate general managers based on, did you pick pro bowlers in the draft or did you sign pro bowlers and we looked at it only and from the broad perspective of did you make the most um wise moves to build a you know a well-constructed roster that is solid in a lot of positions because i think i don't know if you agree with this but i i think i would rather have a lot of seven out of tens uh across the roster than three or four ten out of tens and i think that this year's vikings team

is proof of that yeah i think that's fair and i think that we've seen other teams like the patriots for example um are a team that kind of you know ascribes to that philosophy of let's let's have a middle class in our roster let's not have you know a stars and scrubs approach when the cowboys are the classic stars and scrubs team. Well, we saw what happens when their stars get hurt. You just have scrubs, and you look like the Cowboys have for most of this year. Let me bring up a different example from a different organization. I mean, think about how you interact with the owner and what sort of is the smart way

to go about things. And I'm going to defend someone who I don't think I really defend all that often, but there's an opportunity to. It's Bill O'Brien. Oh, wow. Okay. I was thinking, who's he going to go with here? That was not a name that popped into my head.

Right. And Bill O'Brien made some decisions I was very skeptical of. And it's too early to say. Bill O'Brien no longer has his job. But I think that skepticism, number one, I wasn't alone in my skepticism. And number two, I think it's pretty, that he had paid guys premiums, that he wasn't understanding, you know, how much the, you know, how to structure deals. I mean, a lot of stuff that you sort of take for granted in NFL organizations that Bill O'Brien kind of was able to say, okay, well, I have the power. This is the guy I want. I'm going to trade two first-round picks for Larry Tunsil. I'm going to, you going to pay Randall Cobb a ton of money, Eric Murray a ton of money.

I'm going to even pay Deshaun Watson a ton of money. There's nothing wrong with that, but Deshaun Watson, when you adjust for the cap, has the second-largest quarterback deal in the league behind Patrick Mahomes. And that's nothing wrong with paying Deshaun Watson, but I just think deal after deal, you kind of look at the comparable players and say, okay, well, this is what the contract should look like, and then it would come in $4 million above that per year, which is, again, to an owner, they don't know any better. They're not grinding salary cap information. They're not looking at over the cap. They don't care.

But what they do care about is not looking stupid. And Bill O'Brien didn't get fired after they – Bill O'Brien didn't get fired after the Tunsell trade. He didn't get fired after messing up the Genevieve Clowney situation. He didn't get fired after trading mid-round picks for Gary and Conley and Duke Johnson. He didn't get fired after the DeAndre Hopkins trade, even though all those situations were – you know, he was seen as a buffoon. I think it's fair to say. But the moment the Texans stopped winning and went 0-4, that was enough for ownership to say, hey, this guy who's cranky around the building, this guy who's making decisions that we don't like, we're moving on from him. And I think that's the biggest concern when you're a GM, when you have personnel power, is that it's easier for you to just go along year after year and say, hey, we're building through the draft, we're building with our guys, and we're not there yet, but maybe in

the future we'll be there. Because at least then you can point to those guys you signed and you drafted and extended. It's okay. Look, here's proof that we're doing it right. I mean, I think of the Jaguars as the sort of opposite of Dave Caldwell where – sorry, the opposite of Bill O'Brien where Dave Caldwell did almost make it to the Super Bowl. That's true. In the other years, they've had Caldwell as their GM. He's 4-12, 3-13, 5-11, 3-13, 5-11, 6-10, and 1-7 this year.

And they did find some guys, but he also drafted Blake Bortles, Luke Jokel. And kept Blake Bortles, which was probably the bigger mistake. Yes, and, you know, but that was the perfect example, right? If, oh, hey, look, we made it to the Super Bowl or almost made it to the Super Bowl. Blake Bortles didn't look awful for the first time. We got to extend him because, hey, we got to lock up our guys. But because they haven't done anything that would seem outlandish, like, you know, making a DeAndre Hopkins trade or, you know, that they didn't make a Jalen Ramsey trade until they were forced to when Jalen Ramsey attacked ownership and lied to ownership about, about wanting to get out of town with his back injury. You know, I feel like that has helped Caldwell stick around.

And is Bill O'Brien better as a personnel evaluator than Dave Caldwell? You know, I can't say, but I don't think there's like a significant difference. I don't think Dave Caldwell is all that much better than Dave Caldwell, you know, I can't say, but I don't think there's like a significant difference. I don't think Dave Caldwell is all that much better than Bill O'Brien. But I think that more so than anything, people in those personnel roles are rewarded for, you know, kind of just making it seem like there's this sort of arduous process and that there is, you know, infinite genius behind building an NFL team.

I would love to tell you that's the case. It's a hard job in a lot of ways, but, you know, these guys aren't that great. They're just not that smart. You know, not to say anything about Rick Spielman, because I think I have nothing to say about him as a person or so that he's not doing his job well or or better or worse than anybody else but just you know like every team in the NFL had a chance to draft Russell Wilson twice and and did not do it and every team in the NFL had a chance to draft DK Metcalf twice and chose not to do it. You know, I think there are people who I would trust more than others,

but I think the difference between GM and GM around the league is pretty small. And I think that when you think about how you want to approach an opportunity, like running a football team, and you want to approach an opportunity like sort of building an organization, you can go through that process like sort of building an organization. You can go through that process, and maybe you'll get lucky, maybe you won't. Doing things the traditional way, you're going to be – you're probably going to get fired in three to five years.

That's what's most likely going to happen unless you land a superstar quarterback. I think sort of getting away from that style is a really smart strategy. It might not work. You might end up being like Bill O'Brien who took a lot of risks and got fired pretty quickly for it. But I think that that's probably your best chance of winning in the big picture is sort of building your roster in a different way based on something you believe. And I think Bill Belichick's style of roster construction is very different from the vast majority of teams in football. And, you know, Bill Belichick is almost the opposite of the Vikings in a lot of ways, where they are very aggressive about saying, hey, we drafted you. You're good. Hey, happy to let you move on. We'll pick up our comp pick for, you know, we'll keep some guys for sure. We'll keep our Dante Hightowers.

We'll keep our, you know, Devin McCourty's. We'll keep a core of guys. But that sort of mid-tier of Jamie Collins and Patrick Chung even left for the Eagles and then came back. You know, they're happy to let guys leave and pick up picks and return and then go out and get the next portions of those guys. And when they've erred from that strategy, they've done wrong. I mean, the Patriots at running back have, you know, for pretty much their entire time have been through guys like Antoine Smith and Ben Jarvis, Green Ellis.

They've had their receiving backs like Kevin Falk and James White. When they've used first-round picks, it's been on Lawrence Maroney and Sonny Michel, who did not pan out. They traded for Corey Dillon. He was great for a year. They signed him to an extension. He was pretty much useless after that. So, you know, I feel like

there is, this is a meandering answer, but I feel like there is a way to sort of be aggressive as a GM. And I think it's just different from how maybe GMs think they're being aggressive when it comes to building a roster and roster construction.

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A few things come to mind as you're saying that. One is that Belichick knows that he's going to be the coach there 100 do whatever he wants and so he can be avant-garde with the way that he does things where if you are a lot of regular general managers your owners are going to look at the rest of the gms and say well they're paying their guys so why aren't we doing this or or you know they're extending their carson wentz or jared goff so we got to extend our quarterback you know the same sort of thing and also as a GM where I think part of your job ends up being creating a narrative for the fans and the ownership who is basically on fan level of understanding how this is all done and creating narratives that next year is the the

time where it's really going to be great. And that's kind of where the Vikings are right now. It's like, well, really, it was quite the switch from training camp where it was, well, we're going to be good and compete for the playoffs, and we've got a chance to win the NFC North, and you guys are criticizing us for not having corners. But really, we've got a lot of talent at corner. And then by week four, it was, well, we're just trying to make progress.

We're just trying to train these young players. okay that's what it is now um and uh you know sometimes it is this creating a narrative to be able to sell well here was really our plan when it went wrong and we we uh have this great other plan for next year instead of you know being able to have i guess the freedom and some I'm sure front offices just don't get it like Bill O'Brien might not have gotten it he might have not understood that Laramie Tunsil is only worth so much to you and it's definitely not two first round picks even if he's a great player it's just not worth two first round picks the difference between an elite left tackle and an average left tackle just isn't that much.

But if you have someone who can't play guard at all or corner at all, then you're not going to win very much. And we've seen that in Minnesota. So there's all these interesting dynamics at play that you and I don't have to deal with when we're breaking down every one of these moves. And I think that that's really interesting. So let me ask you two final things. And this can be a kind of yes or no answer if you like it. Do you think that the Minnesota Vikings get back in the playoff race and at any point are the seventh seed or greater,

at any point along the way? Now, they don't have to finish that way, but at any point. Yeah, sure. Let's have some fun, right? I mean, I think that's not out of the question. I mean, this team, I think, is better than people are maybe giving them credit for. They're 15th in DVOA, heading into Week 9, so we don't have updated DVOA numbers, if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah, no, they're still at Week 8. So, I mean, they're going to rise. You know, the Lions game was impressive. I know the Lions aren't a great football team by a lot of measures, but they were 17th in DVOA, and the Vikings pretty much stomped them. So, I mean, they're going to be in the top – they're going to be in the top 14. They're going to be one of the seven best teams in the NFC by DVOA. I know that the NFL does not pick playoff teams by DVOA,

and it's not going to be – but the Bears are, I think, not a good football team. I know their record is better. But, I mean, let's be honest here. Like, I love talking about this stuff, and maybe I talk about it too much, but, like, the Vikings are – Steven Gostkowski missing one of two 50-plus-yard field goals or a fourth-and-one conversion of winning games against Tennessee and Seattle, two of the teams with the best records in football.

If they win both those games, they're five and three and they are on the playoff hunt. And I know that they haven't, you can't go back and change those games. But to me, I think they are a better team than people give them credit for. And I look at their schedule over the next month. It's Bears, Cowboys, Panthers, Jags. One of those games is on the road. I know home field doesn't mean as much as it would in a typical season but three of those four games are at home the bears i think are not a good football team you know like they're they're not i think the vikings are better than them on offense and i

think the bears are better on defense but i think the viking the gap between the vikings offense and the bears offense is bigger than the gap between the Vikings' defense and the Bears' defense. The Cowboys are a disaster. The Panthers are – I like the Panthers. They're really fun to watch. They're very interesting. Very scrappy. Scrappy, but also, like, you know, disappointing in some ways.

And then the Jags – the Jags are one of the worst teams in the league. It wouldn't shock me if the, you know, I think the most likely outcome of these next four games is that the Bears, sorry, the Bears, the Vikings are sitting here at 6-6, heading into the final four games of the year. And it gets tougher. But, you know, to me, that might be the seventh seed at that point in the NFC, depending on how things break. So I think they are in playoff contention. I think FPI at ESPN, we have a 25.2% chance.

You know, would they be better off if the NFL has to go to a 16-team playoff? Yes, I think they would be in much better shape. But I do think that they are a viable playoff team. Yeah, I guess I've got them at about a 1- four chance too, because you can't slip up at all. And they already did slip up against Atlanta and, you know, even the early games in the season getting destroyed by Indianapolis. Like they're not so far removed from what happened against Atlanta that it can't happen again. And also, I don't know if you ever heard this bill,

but any given Sunday a team can beat another team. And you need it to not be anybody's any given Sunday for the whole rest of the season, more or less. So I think that's where it gets really dicey. But, you know, you look at the teams you're chasing, as you mentioned, the Bears aren't impressive, even if the Vikings always lose at Soldier Field. So I think it's a great test, though, because the Vikings have this kryptonite where if the other team has a great defensive line and stars on the defensive line, they can blow up the Vikings' entire game plan. We saw that against Indianapolis, and Chicago has that. So will they be able to do it?

The last three times Delvin Cook has played Chicago, he averages like three yards a carry against them. So they've kind of been this nemesis for the Vikings. I think it's a great test. And if you go to three and six, your playoff odds go from 25% probably right down back into the basement. So this is one where it could be really interesting for them. And in a big swing game too, can you really do it or not?

Okay, last thing. I want to know where you were the wrongest this season. Is wrong is the word? The most wrong about just when you looked at the season before the year and you wrote down all your predictions and you thought, this is going to happen, this is going to happen. Which is the one that was just whoops way off um i would invite you to go back and listen to a podcast i did with uh shilka patia the excellent nfl writer for the athletic

where we picked our playoff teams for the nfc at the first seed in the nC as the Dallas Cowboys, who, I mean, anything is possible, I suppose. They are, I believe, two and seven. They're not mathematically eliminated for being the first seed in the NFC. NFCs, baby. But if they get there, it is going to be a wild end to the season. So I would say the Dallas Cowboys, a team I thought were going to take a big step forward, and that has not happened.

So along the same lines, I did a podcast with our friend Robert Mays, and we picked the top ten teams for this year, how it would play out. My number two pick, he had number one overall pick. Of course, he went with the Chiefs. My number two pick was the Dallas Cowboys. Oh, no. So you and I were in the same thing. Now, use the dak prescott got hurt but they weren't good before dak prescott either and uh i don't care how many visits the pff offices mike mccarthy made he's

still not any good at this um so there was that uh my other one would have been that um and i don't know that this won't be true but justin herbert would just not be good like that he would be a disaster he didn't look good in college like you know there's a lot of things where you went the guy really can't even execute the regular intermediate passes and he sort of melts down in every big situation which is a little bit of that um so far but he's been really fun to watch and i didn't expect that he's played much more loose and in control um you know and making big plays that he didn't necessarily make in college i'm not ready to like kill myself on that one but he's been fun he's been good so i i can't say

that uh that i nailed that one either i'm not emotionally prepared to talk about the Chargers right now. I'm sorry. Oh, well, Vikings fans have no sympathy whatsoever for a team that loses lots of wild games at the end. Bill Barnwell, your work is absolutely phenomenal. I probably said this once before, but you write the articles that I want to read. Oh, cool. So it is very cool. I mean, it's like even the Jimmy Garoppolo one. I got about 30 questions in the mailbag the other day, and then, boop, it's like I pushed the Barnwell button. Someone write about Jimmy Garoppolo.

So I implore people. You mentioned Kirk Cousins in the article to go find that. And, of course, ESPN.com is where they can find your work. This was super fun, man. I'm really glad we got together. Thanks for coming on. Anytime. My pleasure.