Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Bill Barnwell plays general manager with the Vikings' future

Episode Date: December 17, 2021

ESPN's Bill Barnwell joins Matthew Coller to talk about the Minnesota Vikings future. Matthew asks Bill to play Vikings general manager and make key decisions on Mike Zimmer, Kirk Cousins and how quickly to rebuild the roster. What should the Vikings be looking for in terms of trade value for Cousins if they decide to move on? Who does Bill suggest as top coaching candidates? How far away are the Vikings from being a contending team with the state of their defense? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Whether you own a bustling hair salon or a hot new bakery, you need business insurance that can keep up with your evolving needs. With flexible coverage options from TD Insurance, you only pay for what you need. TD. Ready for you. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, along with ESPN's Bill Barn Barnwell returning to the show. Bill, how are you? Matthew, it's a pleasure to come back to the show and talk about, I would say, the most agonizing team in football in so many ways, like difficult to watch, difficult to analyze, difficult to understand. They're like a language that's been dead for thousands of years, the Minnesota Vikings. Yeah, I think that you just described it well for what Vikings fans have dealt with this year,

where they had high expectations coming out and immediately got smacked in the mouth. And last year, though, they never really recovered. got smacked in the mouth. And last year though, they never really recovered. And you know, they had in the hunt graphic every once in a while, but everyone knew like, this isn't good, but this team, just when it felt like it was dead, got some big wins. Then it felt like it was dead again. And then they beat the Packers. And then they felt like, Oh wow. Okay. Now they're definitely making the playoffs and they lose to the Detroit lions. So it is, it really has been like every season for every team is a roller coaster. That's why this league is so popular, but this has been the roller coastery. Like I would love to see,

um, the numbers on like what the chances are of playing this many football games that are decided by one score or less. Has there been a single game this year where the Vikings have been in control from start to finish? Only really the Seattle game, but I would not say start to finish. It was really the second half of that game. The first half, Seattle was running all over them. And I guess we kind of figured it's going to be another one of those games. That was the only one, though, that they had a decided victory where they won by 13 and the rest. No, it's all. Yeah. How can

you be up 29 points and still come down to the final throw of the game against Ben Roethlisberger who is so washed? He, you and I move around better than Ben Roethlisberger. And yet somehow he found a way to almost come back for 29 points that's like uh i guess for anybody who left the stadium that night what were you thinking you should have known that this team can come back from any amount or can allow someone to come back from any amount i think that's the crazy part is like yes the vikings were dominating that game they were running for like 11 yards a carry. They were dominating on defense. They were, you know, just getting to Ben Roethlisberger whenever they wanted.

They were up 29 to nothing in the third quarter. And yet, I think if you'd asked Vikings fans, hey, is this going to be a close game? I think to a man or a woman, they would have said, yeah, the Steelers are coming back in this game. We don't know if they're going to win, but they're at least going to make it a game. And they did. I mean, it is just so weird. Like it's come to be accepted. This is just the lot of the Vikings this season, which makes it such a weird team to analyze and think about their future because it's so hard to tell where they sort of are and what they're capable of, you know, doing on a week to week basis.

Well, and that's exactly what we're going to do. So we will have a couple of episodes going hardcore breakdown on Vikings bears. So nobody worry about that. But from a big picture perspective, I get far more questions bill on what's going to happen in the future for the Minnesota Vikings than I do about, Hey, how are they going to match up with a Keem Hicks or something like that? Cause everyone knows that they can't. But this has become, I think after the Lions loss topic, a one front page is what are they going to do? Coach, what are they going to do? GM, what are they going to do? Quarterback. So the, what I wanted to do with you is sort of a mind experiment here that I called build a franchise. Because if you think about anything that's nailed down with the Vikings right now that will absolutely be here next year,

how many things can you come up with at this moment that will absolutely definitely be on the roster or making decisions for this team? I think they're in a rare position where that answer is probably five or less of people that you would guarantee will definitely be here. So in a way they have a clean slate. And I guess I wanted to start by talking about from the general manager position, if they make a change with their decision maker, which I think is very possible the way that things have kind of come apart with this roster. So Bill Barnwell gets named general manager and gets this clean slate to work with. What is the first order of business for you in your build a franchise? Oh boy, this is a... I didn't know you were going to frame it that way. I went from being a very

fun exercise to a very scary exercise because now I have actual expectations on me. I mean, I think it's part of this depends right on how they end the season. You know, if they collapse and they finish seven and 10 or something, you sort of figure, okay, that makes your decision easier when it comes to Mike Zimmer, when it comes to Kirk Cousins, when it comes to those guys. If they finish 10 and seven and they make it to the postseason and they'll say they win a playoff game and lose in the second round, well, that's a lot tougher. I would assume

that if Rick Spielman does get fired, it's because they had a rough stretch to finish the year here and they don't make the playoffs. So starting from that perspective, I mean, I think you start with the two most important people in the organization, which is Mike Zimmer and Kirk Cousins. And I think they're in different situations because of the money related to their deals. Now, Mike Zimmer, of course, you know, coaches salaries are not subject to the salary cap. There is really no issue if the Vikings do want to move on from Mike Zimmer. And I think it's tough. You know, I look at at sort of the how would I put this? Like, I think I just I have to watch every single team in the NFL.

I have to watch every coach in the NFL. I have to hear from fans about every coach in the NFL. Every team's fans complain about their coach. That's just the reality of being a fan. I think the concerns and the complaints about Mikeimmer are legitimate i think his you know the fact that he is a defensive minded head coach who's presiding over a a struggling defense is a very legitimate thing to worry about i think his game management leaves something to be desired most weeks um i also know that there are a lot of teams who have coaches where i'm like might I'd rather have Mike Zimmer than that coach.

So I guess I sort of have to come to that conclusion of just, you know, if this team is rebuilding and starting anew and starting fresh, which seems like that's going to be where we go with this exercise. Mike Zimmer is 65 years old. He's been with this organization for eight years at this point now as the head coach. I think you would probably say, you know what, we're going to head in a different direction. We're going to start over with a younger coach who has time to kind of see through that rebuild and part ways with Mike Zimmer as amicably as possible. Right. And so, yes, this is exactly where I wanted to take the exercise, which is let's start with that coaching position, because if they move on from Zimmer, and I think that you nailed exactly why they would move on.

It's not because he's a horrendous coach or anything. Mike Zimmer didn't even physically harm a kicker. And if Mike Zimmer didn't do it, then no one has any excuse, Urban Meyer. But you could look around and say oh my gosh there are 10 coaches in this league who have no clue what they're doing and you would a thousand times out of a thousand take mike zimmer his teams are prepared to play they're usually well schemed what he can control as a defensive mind like third down scheme and blitzes and rushes like they still perform really well in and honestly even though there's a lot of criticism of the offense the quarterbacks that he's had have on the whole performed well considering how many

teams have had five different quarterbacks over seven years or whatever the vikings have had and all of them on the whole have performed well i don't i think that's tough to find. So I don't think that the offensive issues are as much as maybe it gets stated, but him being where he is as a coach and the organization being where it is, it doesn't really match up. So that leads me to this question for you, which is a lot of people want the next McVay guys with great hair and young and offense and all those things. I wonder how you view it, though. If you're rebuilding a franchise, what do you want out of a head coach? What are you targeting if you're Bill Barnwell, GM, and you're doing the coaching interviews?

What are you thinking about as the most valuable part to have a head coach that's going to have to take a team from being in the middle and pretty mediocre and trying to get them to be really good. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, from my perspective, I always think, okay, like, yes, having an offensive coach is great, especially if you're going to have a young quarterback. But I do at the same time think that chances are, you know, you're going to be able to find a better defensive coach an offensive coach because most people are looking for offensive coaches so always try and you know zag when people are are going in one direction try and go the other direction

and i think that we've seen plenty of defensive coaches rebuild organizations and still have talented young quarterback sean mcdermott comes to mind for me in Buffalo. At the same time, I also feel like organizations tend to go for the opposite of what they just had when they hire their next head coach. When you think about Mike Zimmer, you think about someone who cares about his players, but a hard-nosed, old-school, disciplinarian kind of guy and a defensive-minded head coach. That would lead me to think the Vikings would probably be interested in more of a players coach and more of an offensive-minded coach, someone with an offensive background. And so there's a few candidates that come to mind for me. Kellen Moore, the offensive coordinator

for the Cowboys, who I don't think he is maybe as great as people might suggest, given how they perform without Mike McCarthy last time out. But I still think a very sound offensive mind, a smart guy, a guy who makes easy situations for his quarterback, and someone who Dak Prescott has improved under over the past few seasons. I look at Byron Leftwich with Tampa Bay, where yes, he's had Tom Brady to work with, but this is a guy who Bruce Arians handpicked to be kind of his protege and who has done excellent work with that Bucs offense. Again, everyone on that offense is getting better with Byron Leftwich coaching them over the past couple of years. The guy who comes to mind for me and the guy who I would actually be not shocked if the Vikings hired and someone who I might go for is Doug Peterson, where you have a guy who, you know, worked under Andy Reid, very sound offensive mind, an open minded guy, a guy who is analytics friendly and a little inconsistent, but relative to other NFL coaches, pretty smart when it comes to game management.

And a guy who has a good resume, won a Super Bowl a few years ago with Nick Foles as his quarterback. I mean, you know, I think since then, obviously the results have not been all that great. But last year with the Eagles, so many injuries. I mean, the Carson Wentz situation did sort of turn into a disaster. But I think, you know, when you think about offensive coaches, I would almost rather have the guy who did kind of have a fall from grace recently, and who has had an impressive resume in the past, as opposed to maybe someone like a Kellen Moore, where he is, you know, certainly impressive as a coordinator, but we've

never seen him as a head coach and don't know how he would adapt that. Don't know how he'll deal with the expanded role. So I would actually probably go for Peterson in this scenario, and it wouldn't shock me if the Vikings under the same situation would consider Peterson as well. Well, and Doug Peterson had to go through this with Philadelphia with the young Carson Wentz

in his first year. It was kind of rough. They had the weird Sam Bradford situation before they traded him away, where Bradford tried to do some sort of holdout and then that didn't work. And then, you know, it got, it got to be really messy. So he had to deal with some stuff early on with that organization and then was there guiding them to going from a team that had a young quarterback and was sort of trying to find themselves to being a legitimate Superbowl contender. And that happened fairly quickly. Now they had a lot of other great players on the roster. Yeah. Even when Bradford was their quarterback, there were like Fletcher

Cox and so forth. Like there were other good players. But that's kind of what you're looking for with the Vikings is to take something and build it around somebody who's done it before. And, you know, I don't know how you feel about this, but, and I like the idea of left, which or Kellen Moore, because of their NFL experience played in the NFL quarterbacks, coaches in the NFL, offensive coordinators, like working your way up sort of Frank Reich style. I Sean McDermott on the defensive side, like working your way up, I think usually has much more success than, uh, let's go hire the hot guy who's on TV. Like, I don't know that this doesn't usually correlate or, you know, whatever,

whatever guys, uh, this was a special teams coordinator. I'm sure he's qualified Joe judge because he works for Belichick at the, I don't know. I don't think that necessarily works. So I like those ideas. Um, the Peterson thing though, the experience of it, I think that a lot of fans would say, oh man, who wants a retread that guy fired by whatever team, even Mike McCarthy. I think Dallas fans were probably like, really? Didn't he just alienate Aaron Rogers and so forth? And yet with Dak Prescott there this year, they've had a ton of success. So I think that maybe that idea, people like the new coach because they don't know about his resume yet.

And they're going to find out sort of like everyone wants the new quarterback. But a lot of times someone with experience knows how to operate an NFL franchise, which is way more weight on your shoulders than you could ever dream when you're an offensive or defensive coordinator. I think absolutely. I mean, you know, it's very easy to criticize coaches. could ever dream when you're an offensive or defensive coordinator i think absolutely i mean you know it's very easy to criticize coaches it's very easy to um see coaches perform and poke holes in what they do wrong and i mean i do that for a living so i'm i i can't pretend that i'm above it but you know i i think not having seen how our coach performs as a head coach is

a benefit when it comes to how we evaluate them. You know, Kellen Moore, when he becomes a head coach, is going to have messy performances. He's going to struggle. And I can tell you, having covered this league now for about 15 years, when I first started covering the NFL, the hot, young offensive coordinator who everyone wanted was Jason Garrett. And we got to see what happened over a decade. Jason Garrett had some success. He had some failures. But, you know, it was pretty easy to poke holes in Jason Garrett. And we got to see what happened over a decade. Jason Garrett had some success. He had some failures, but you know,

it was pretty easy to poke holes in Jason Garrett as a head coach. Pat Shermer is a guy who comes to mind in Cleveland where he was, you know, a mess and got much better actually with the game management with the Giants, but guy probably better as an OC than as a head coach. You know, someone like a Kevin Stefanski where I think Kevin Stefanski has done great work

in Cleveland, but we're seeing Browns fans now come out and say, Hey, yeah, this guy was great last year, but he sucks now. You know, I mean, we always judge coaches. We're always too high on coaches when they're doing really well. And we're always too pessimistic on coaches when they're struggling. So I feel like, you know, having that experience, even though you can poke holes in those guys, it's not necessarily a negative. Yeah. I've felt like a fan base has a relationship with its quarterback and its coach, where if they are starting to feel like they're kind of done with a coach, then, you know,

leaving the toothpaste cap off or whatever, it's not that huge of a deal. If they love where their coach is and then put the cap back on who cares. But if they're unhappy with their coach, every little thing like that bothers you. Every, every fourth down that you don't go for or whatever, even if your coach is middle of the league or good at it, every Gilliland game management mistake when you're kind of done is just like, all right, throw up my hands. I'm really mad at what the coach is doing. So I, okay. Let's agree on that then that it's either Doug Peterson or one of those guys. And those guys are taking over the franchise. And the first question is, cause we'll say that I'm the ownership here. And so I've hired you as the GM. All right.

What are we doing with that quarterback, and and this is i think this is one of the hardest decisions of any team that has had to make a decision on a quarterback in a very long time because when you look at the numbers cousins is good when you look at the failings of some of their you know on the defensive side or the offensive line side you can talk yourself into it but then the bigger sample is always the same sort of thing and the price tag is very high so you can swing back and forth every week about how you feel about him and then you watch zach wilson and go like oh yeah those rookies can uh they can really struggle out there so how do you feel about this situation i i tend to be pretty um high ceiling low floor

with quarterbacks i want to have a guy who can win me a Super Bowl I know I feel like you know either is getting paid a fraction of what the the market value is or or who has you know top three NFL quarterback ceiling and Kirk Cousins is a good quarterback but he's not either of those guys he's getting paid a ton of money and he is very competent and there's something wrong with being very competent. But if we're going to be rebuilding, I don't think he is the right quarterback for this organization. Now there's things they can do.

I mean, they can extend Kirk cousins. You know, I can give you the, the, the little year by year layout of a four year, $140 million extension, you know,

have him around for two or three more years, reduce his cap here. They show you can do that if you want, but we're not going to do that. You can convert $30 million into a signing bonus, add four avoidable years to his deal, drop his cap hit to 16 million, and then owe 24 million in 2023. Wouldn't be shocked if they did that in reality, but I don't think we want to do that.

And cutting him doesn't make sense. He's owed $45 million. Either way, pre-post June 1st, doesn't matter because this is the final year of his contract. You're paying $45 million for Kirk Cousins, whether he's on your roster or whether you cut him and have him go somewhere else. So the only other option, Matthew, is to trade Kirk Cousins. And I do think there will be a trade market for Kirk Cousins. Now, Vikings would eat $10 million in dead money to start. That is non-negotiable.

That is just the reality of the situation. That's fine. Kirk Cousins has a $45 million cap hit for next season. I know Vikings fans know that already. I know you know that already. I just need to say that out loud just so I can remind myself how absurd that is, that Kirk Cousins is going to make up $45 million of an NFL salary cap. So thinking about the NFL,

thinking about the teams who are going to be in the market for a quarterback, of course, so much depends on what happens elsewhere. What happens with Aaron Rodgers? What happens with Russell Wilson? What happens possibly with Deshaun Watson if his off-field sexual misconduct allegations are addressed this offseason and he is a team a guy that teams are willing to trade for to me I see seven teams as at the very least plausible Kirk Cousins uh

people will be interested in acquiring Kirk Cousins I couldn't think of the appropriate word there please don't fire me as a GM. Just because this press conference is already embarrassing. I look at the Steelers, the Texans, the Broncos, the Raiders, the Giants, the Lions, and the Panthers as plausible destinations for Kirk Cousins. Now, of course, some of those depend on who gets hired where, if

Derek Carr moves on from the Raiders, if Sean Watson moves on from Houston. I'm assuming Ben Roethlisberger retires. I'm assuming the Lions move on from Jared Goff. I'm assuming Lions move on from Jared Goff. I'm assuming the Giants don't pick up Daniel Jones's option. Like all that stuff was in the play, but those are plausible teams. I think you could probably get a two,

probably a late two or an early three for Kirk Cousins. I think if the Broncos strike out on Aaron Rodgers and Kirk Cousins is available, I the Broncos strike out on Aaron Rodgers and Kirk Cousins is available, I think they'd be winning up a two. But let me ask you, Matthew, actually, I don't know what you think. If it comes to this and you want to move on from Kirk Cousins and you don't have a good offer, would you just trade him for like a late round pick just to get that salary off your books? Folks, it's that time again where you're doing your online shopping for the holidays. And look, if you want free shipping, I can help you out with that. For all of your

Minnesota sports inspired goods, use the promo code purple insider. When you go to soda stick.com, that is S O T A S T I C K.com. You can get their North state beanie, their Adam Thielen autograph shirts, Marcus Foligno fan club design for all of you hockey fans out there, and the one I always mention because it's the best one, the Randy Moss disgusting act. You can put that on a hoodie, shirt, or almost anything else. And plus, anything you want with Skol on it, SodaStick has it. Again, that's S-O-T-A-S-T-t-i-c-k.com perfect for gifts and you can get that shipping free by using the code purple insider that that's a really hard one um i think the answer is yes but i also think that that's not what's going to happen um because like you mentioned there's a lot of teams and you could probably even talk yourself into two or three more that even from what you named there, that would at least be interested. And I just think about teams like the Steelers or

the Saints who just, those teams just don't want to be bad. Like they want to be in the mix. They want to be in the playoffs. They're not tanking. And they're going to be looking at all the different options. And I feel like the Steelers and cousins are kind of a perfect fit because they want to play defense. They want to run the ball. They've got weapons, you know, that kind of thing. And they're saying like, well, get us into the playoffs again, because that's our goal. The giants, the same thing.

The giants have been so horrific for so long that cousins will get you to nine wins. That's probably worth it for you. I think that the right team might give a first round pick for Cousins because of the deal that was made for Carson Wentz. I mean, if you're the Vikings, you're calling people up being like, he was way worse than our guy who's a top five quarterback in a lot of different metrics. And especially you think about Matt Stafford, who is a really good comp in a lot of ways for Cousins for a lot of ways for cousins, for

a quarterback who's very good, but didn't win a whole lot, you know, as much as the Rams, you know, gave away as there, it was more complicated than that. But I think that that should be in play to either get like a high second round pick or a first round pick. But I think if you couldn't get any other offers higher than a fourth, to be able to move on, to be able to get that cap space, it's so valuable to you. How much does $45 million buy? I mean, that's like five really good players or something like that. I think that I would say yes to that. Yeah. And it's funny you can roll over if you don't use it next year as well. I think people forget that with the salary cap that if you don't spend it this year, you can roll it over into the years to come. And that is really valuable when you are ready to compete to have that extra $35 or $40 million rolled over on the cap. So we're assuming we're trading Cousins. Do we want to say a one? Do we want to say maybe a one for one for like a three cousins and a three or something like, you know, let's let's.

Yeah, let's just say that because I think that there's enough of a market that it ends up being. So let's say they get an additional first round pick. OK, so they have an extra first round pick now in the upcoming draft. So you have now hired a coach. You have traded Kirk Cousins, your starting quarterback for 2022 right now is Kellen Mond, which is, I mean, no, it's not great. If it's not Kellen Mond, I think the Vikings would have options. Now, on the veteran side of things, there'll be guys like Ryan Fitzpatrick available. Teddy Bridgewater will probably be available. I don't think the Broncos are going to necessarily resign him. I think what I would also say here is that

when we think about drafting a quarterback, typically, it's always like, oh, you got to trade three first round picks to move up and get a guy. This is probably going to be a year where because the quarterback class is not perceived to be as good as it's been in years past, and the Vikings do finish in that 15 to 20 range or 12 to 18 range when it comes to the draft, I wouldn't be shocked if they were able to stay put and draft a quarterback or move up and not have to give up all that much

to get from 15 to 10 or something to get that quarterback. So I wouldn't be surprised if this were a situation when the Vikings did draft a quarterback in the first round. Yeah, I think so too. And I was going to ask your opinion on how you feel about the idea that this isn't a good quarterback draft class, because when I look at the NFL draft and how it's played out with the quarterbacks, I mean, really forever, but especially recently, it seems the NFL is extremely good at figuring out who is the first round talents, but is not good at figuring out which one of those players will be an NFL success. And Mac Jones is great evidence of that. They picked him as the fifth quarterback. If you were to go back and do it again, you know, probably there's

a lot of other teams, Carolina, especially who would say, no, I actually really want that as my quarterback. And the same thing goes for Lamar Jackson, which wasn't that long ago that every team in the NFL said, nah, including the Ravens once in that draft, said, nah, don't want him. And he turns out to be an MVP. So when I look at it and I hear, oh, well, you know, Pickett's not that good. And Sam Howell's not that good and so forth. I think like if they're first round talents, one of these guys or more is probably good. Even Justin Herbert, a lot of people not sold on Justin Herbert when he came out. Now he's a star. So I don't think we're very good at figuring that out.

And that's where I would say, wait till your draft pick. Let's say your draft. Let's say they missed the playoffs and draft 14th or something. Wait till your draft pick, take whatever quarterback is there and don't go crazy and trade a bunch of draft assets. Or at least now, now I'm ownership telling the GM what to do, but this is, but this is my thought process on it is one of these guys will be there. Take whichever one is, because I don't believe that we have the capability to know which one will be good. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, you're, you're making a, you're taking a shot, but you're not taking

your only shot. You know, if you take a quarterback in the middle of the first round and he struggles, you don't want to take a guy again, but you can't, you have that option still available to you. So I, I would absolutely, you know, if you have a guy you think can be a franchise guy, like don't just take one for the sake of taking one. You have to scout. And I don't know what the I'm not a college expert, so I have no idea if, you know, the

Vikings would have a top 10 grade on a quarterback. But if there's a guy they like, they think it's going to be all at 15. I would say for sure that's something we'll do. So why don't we assume we're going to draft a quarterback at 15 to quote unquote, compete with Kellen Mond for the starting job? Yeah. Now, I mean, look, Kellen Mond could have a miraculous whatever development, but he's behind Sean Mannion at week 15 or whatever.

I just like, that's not really a sign he's in the mix, but okay. Now pitch me on slow development over three years to be a contender again, versus trying to take our young, let's just say, pick it. Our young picket and make him good right away. Like the Patriots did. The Patriots took the approach of, we're going to sign a bunch of people. And I think a lot of us went like, is that a good idea? I mean, like, is Kendrick Bourne worth that much money? And yet here they are at the very top of the AFC with a rookie quarterback, which almost

never happens. So would you rather take that approach or would you rather say, let's move on from things that are older and expensive? Let's trade Harrison Smith if we can, or whatever, you know, Dalvin cook maybe as he's reaching that running back, um, peak and then about to fall off the other side. Uh, or would you rather say, let's keep all of those things because we have the money to spend and we can go boop, boop, boop, and pick up some, some good players draft another guy in the first round because we've got two first round picks and then off we go like which one of those approaches do you think is

better i lean more toward sticking with what they have because they have a lot of infrastructure already in place with the patriots i mean they just did not have anything you know at receiver or running back for uh cam to work with last year and now for mac jones to work with before they made those moves this year and and i think that's different for minnesota where you look at you know what they would have next year um on paper you think about their roster okay so we have um a quarterback we have pickett and mond at quarterback we have one year more with alexander madison which we might resign we might not i think they have to get to about seven million per year to get that deal done which they might not be willing to do we have delvin cook who i mean is going to have no trade value

in terms of being a running back expensive next year his cap hit goes up um of course the off field allegations are going to preclude teams from making a trade like i'm assuming delvin cook is on this roster next year so it's going to be mond cook um pickett i would assume um justin jefferson and kj osborne already there at receiver and i mean that's a you know a top five wide receiver in the nfl um irv smith is back for one more year tyler conklin's a free agent i you know i think it probably depends on the price tag this is a very deep market actually for tight end one of those rare times where there are a lot of tight ends available so you know i i think if tyler conklin comes back it's probably in the seven million per

year range which i'm not opposed to i'm not i certainly want to add a second tight end given earth's coming off of a season long injury um but you know i think adding a tight end would make sense but then you have christian derrissaw and brian o'neill at tackle you have ezra cleveland as one of your guards um i assume you are uh you're going to be declining garrett bradbury's fifth year option but he's going to be in the rotation for work maybe um olyuto is a free agent i don't know what you're doing there um mason cole's a free agent i want to bring him back as your you know swing interior lineman or something um but basically you know you can't tell what i'm getting at so they have pieces here you know really it's about tell what I'm getting at. So they have pieces here, you know, really it's about, okay,

we want to add a second wide receiver, a, another offensive lineman. And really I think the guy who comes to mind for me on offense is the one you might be willing to trade where it's the guy who is a little bit older, the guy whose contract is reasonable enough to deal where you'd get some savings and you might get a, if not the return Vikings fans want, at least a meaningful return is Adam Th some savings and you might get a if not the return vikings fans want at least a meaningful return is adam phelan where you know a guy who has a cap of nearly 17 million last year

you could convert base salary to a signing bonus free up seven million or so this year if you want to keep him i mean certainly he's a player who you know has produced when healthy but he's 31 coming off of a high ankle sprain i mean we just we just saw Julio Jones in the situation get traded for a second round pick, you know, would Adam Thielen get a two? I think he would. Yeah.

But you know, so, I mean, is that worth it? If you want to make, if you want us to keep rebuilding, I think that's probably a fair price. Yeah.

I think that there's good arguments for either, either one. There's a good argument to say, look, this team has enough talent where you do not have to be bad that whatever rookie quarterback comes in here, or you could sign someone else. If Bridgewater came back, half the fan base would lose their mind for one reason. And half would lose for another reason. Um, cause he was always debated of like, is he good and

everything else? But, um, you know, you could say, well, there's a transition year. So you need a transition quarterback because you don't want to get into this rut of winning one game like the Jets or something like that. That's if you tear it all apart. But you don't have to because you can give this young quarterback everything. You could give him elite wide receivers, a running game, an offensive line that is probably a piece or two away from being quite good. And then you can spend all of your money on the defensive side they need edge rushers they oh my gosh need corners they you know like there's there's lots anthony bar is probably gone so you probably need another linebacker there but 40 45 million worth you can really spend a lot to

rebuild the defense right and so i so I, I, I tend to lean toward trying to do what the Patriots have done with their rookie quarterback and compete with them. And if it doesn't work, then it probably says something about that quarterback, but if it doesn't work, it's, it's not a total disaster because you're probably still in a good position with younger players like there saw Justin Jefferson. So if you have an average season, you would still be considered on the rise. I don't think you're like sacrificing your entire future by signing some guys to be competitive again next year. And we don't know where Aaron Rodgers is playing. That's another key part too. So like, are you scared of the lions? Are you scared of the bears for 2022? Probably not. I think it

would be much smarter to try and compete yeah i i think so and i think that you know a lot of the expensive pieces are here already you know you don't need to get that number one right receiver you don't at least in theory you need to get that left tackle or that right tackle um you don't need the star running back like like the pieces that would necessarily be expensive most of them are already on this roster now granted justin jefferson after next year is going to get a massive deal but you know like like you don't have to go out and sign five players the way the patriots said i think you can kind of pick and choose a little bit with adding pieces to your roster so i i do think so the problem matthew though is if you go to the other side of the ball

like that that is where i'm concerned because i actually wrote down i have a little thing in my notes here saying your core is blank and on defense i have five players listed i have armin watts who needs in a deal i have eric kendricks i have harrison smith i have cam bynum who's i think started two games so far as a pro and i have a cameron densler who is not exactly like a prototypical number one cornerback or anything. He's a guy. So that's the scary part, is that I think if we go through the defensive side of things, we're going to have a lot of guys who are either not coming back or getting cut or getting traded for not that much in return

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That is yourminnesotaworkcomplawyer.com. This has been an attorney advertisement for Kemet, Sanford, and Kramer. Yeah, and with Hunter, hard to say how they're going to approach it. I mean, at the beginning of the year, I would have told you this guy is cashing in big time after this year, but then he gets the other injury, and does he want to sign a short-term sort of prove-it deal, or does he want to take less for longer because he's been injured? I really don't know. And if the whole thing is being torn apart, like like do you want to put it on his shoulders again

because that's basically what they did this year they said daniel you do it you you get all the pressure from the edge and you know once he went out they haven't been able to get any from that position you're right there are very few pieces i mean when you're naming armond watts as like a big piece for the for the future you're like okay that's you're naming Armond Watts as like a big piece for the, for the future, you're like, okay, that's you're, you're having to stretch quite a bit or Cam Dantzler, who's not even starting and has been in Zimri's doghouse all year. So you're, you're right about a very few pieces there. My question, I guess, would be like, how much does that matter? Like how important is it? Because we know it's hard to build defenses. We know defenses are inconsistent.

It's like, if you can get one out there that can do its job halfway decently, you've got a pretty darn good chance if you've got a great offense. And, and so I, I guess I'm wondering like, are, are we super scared if that is the case? You know, where, where like you could draft an edge rusher, there's going to be edge rushers in this draft. The corner situation is always going to be tough. You're going to have to develop some and sign some. But I look at defenses as being so inconsistent from year to year that I wouldn't look at it and say, well, it's guaranteed to be so horrible that we shouldn't try to still be competitive as long as we have Justin Jefferson on the offensive side.

Yeah, I don't think you're giving up on defense by any means, but I think you are rebuilding. And I think that's fine. I think you have to figure out, okay, what is the strength of our defense going to be? And I think to me, the two veterans I'm keeping around on the defensive side of the ball are Eric Kendricks and Harrison Smith. Now, part of that is because I don't think they have much trade value. Eric Kendricks has two years left in his deal. He plays a position that teams don't always value. I mean, Eric Kendricks is awesome. He's a fantastic football player. So, you know, I think you're keeping him around and Harrison Smith, you know, plays a position at safety that is valuable, but not as valuable as other spots. A guy who's in his mid thirties just signed a new deal.

You're not getting much in return. Probably. I think you're keeping those guys around and saying, Hey, you're our leaders. You're the guys who are going to bring us through the next time we have a very good defense. So to me, I think, okay, we're going to try and be good up the middle. Like I want to go and get help at defensive tackle, assuming that I guess you have Devin Thomas might be coming back as well. But Michael Pierce probably moving on, probably getting cut um sheldon richardson probably looking for a multi-year deal after taking a one-year deal with the vikings i i think okay let's add a defensive tackle let let's try and get good up the middle and then we're going to start working on the other pieces through the draft we're going to draft cornerbacks we're going to draft edge rushers we're going to

hope that you know if we buy in bulk in the draft at those positions you know we're going to land on a couple guys we're going to land on a daniel hunter we're going to land on um you know a player who's going to be a difference maker on the on the outside and um i think about a team like the eagles where you know when they they did draft carson once they traded up gave a bunch of picks of jeff carson once they had talent on that roster but it wasn't like a rebuild it wasn't like they said okay we are just dumping everything getting as many picks as possible and starting over they made some trades they got rid of byron maxwell they traded away uh oh god i can't think of the players on that roster they still it's not they traded away fletcher cox it's not like they

traded away um you know kind of the core pieces on that roster didn't try to write brandon graham they said okay we're going to build through our front four we're going to have the offense improving with carson wentz then hey we're going to take some shots in the secondary and they got lucky they signed um patrick robinson to play the minute for the minimum had him play slot corner he was great that one year the one year in his career he was a phenomenal cornerback they traded for uh ronald darby who was you know has been inconsistent as a pro but who had a good season when healthy at cornerback they sort of said okay we have to get lucky or improve dramatically in one spot and we're going to choose the secondary uh we're going to choose cornerback let's try and hopefully find some guys in the

cheap and it worked out for them um and i think with with the defense i think that's what you have to do is just, okay, plan on something you're going to be good at, you're going to invest a lot in and then work outside accordingly. Try to add players, add other spots in the draft, try to add spots where you can maybe sign some guys in the cheap and hope that one or two of those players do improve and do take a step forward. And again, you're not giving up, you're not just abandoning things altogether, but you are retooling and taking a step backwards. I think you can take two steps forward a year or two from now. This, you just touched on what's always been my argument for drafting defensive linemen is if you get one, that's good. He's good at like every year.

If you get a corner, sometimes they're good. Sometimes they're not. There's only like five guys in the league who are great every single year and everybody else is kind of up and down, uh, just the nature of the beast. So last question for you, uh, GM Barnwell, here's what I want to know. I, I we're having a heart to heart here, owner and GM. And I'm saying, like, I want you to be honest with me. How many teams in the NFL would you rather be than the Vikings right now in the position that they're in knowing that they have these different routes that they can take drafting a quarterback or keeping cousins or whatever like how many teams are in a better position to win within the next couple of years like really win not just sort of make the playoffs and be in the hunt, but really win, then our old squad.

Hmm. That's a good question. I think it's probably about half. And that's like the, the boring answer, you know, because at the end of the day, like they're right around 500,

but it does make sense. Like, you know, I, I feel like what I say more than half, I probably lean towards more than half than less than half, just because I feel like I would rather be really good or really bad i don't want to tank but i think if you're really bad and you have your draft picks at least you have the idea of okay we can retool

this roster with the vikings it feels like they are decent enough to win any game against any team on any given Sunday, but there's just, it feels like their ceiling is capped and maybe it's not, you know, I think people sort of said, Hey, the Raven ceiling is capped the year they won a super bowl. I don't think people expected the Eagles to be that good.

The Niners to be that good the years they made it to the super bowl. But I just, just you know can you can you in your heart of hearts imagine this roster as presently constructed winning four playoff games in a row no no no no no no i mean they lost to the lions like just no the answer is no uh and the answer was no when they were much better in certain areas. It was no when they had a better defense in 2018 and 2019. I still couldn't picture them winning four games and winning the Super Bowl because they were reliant on a quarterback who is not going to take you to that next level too much to be able to do that because that's what

happens when you get into the playoffs that's why tom brady has all the rings because he's the best of this like and if you're and if you're the 12th best of it or of these guys like look who's in the playoffs again brady rogers kyler murray is an exciting playmaker stafford's got all the weapons around him all of a sudden it's like well you're probably looking at being the fifth or sixth on that list and that rarely gets you anywhere but that's where you're always going to be with him and uh needing a running game needing your offensive line needing health perfect health look at rogers the other night the whole offensive line i don't even recognize any of these people and he's putting up 40 points it's like yeah well that's the league so yeah i i feel the same way uh well i think uh you're hired as the general manager i think you think you've got the path

and i i really enjoy this man like i i thought of it the other day of like we need to do like a full as we kind of approach this final four games that might be it for the Zimmer and Cousins era. Kind of a full look at like where this whole thing should go if we were doing it by design. And then where they take it, who knows? And I feel like you are the perfect person to do this. So great job. And I really appreciate it, Bill. Well, we'll see if Vikings fans feel the same way as you do. I'm a little skeptical.

You know what? I think after they lost the lions every if there was any holdouts like no this could be good just they had bad luck at the beginning of the season like you lost the lions jared jared goff was given player of the freaking week come on something's good he was good like you he was that's that's the sad part. Yeah. So, uh, Bill, you do phenomenal work.

I think I've said before, but you write the articles that, uh, that I want to read. It's like you wrote them for me. Um, so you do a wonderful job covering the NFL for ESPN and you have for a long time.

So I really appreciate it. And thank you so much for coming on and for supporting purple insiders. You have, uh, I really appreciate that, man. Well, that's very nice for you to say at any time.

Happy to hop on.