Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Courtney Cronin breaks down Kyle Rudolph's comments and wonders if the Vikings jump into the QB trade market

Episode Date: January 28, 2021

Matthew Coller and ESPN's Courtney Cronin talk about what it means for Kyle Rudolph to say he was misused by the Vikings and talk about his very likely exit. Should the Vikings have thrown his way more often? Is there any coming back from this? What does it say that he's the second player to be unhappy with his targets? Plus Matthew makes up 3 juicy trades for Courtney's analysis and they draft sim. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Folks, do you feel like everything these days is go, go, go? It's non-stop, from work, to friends, to family, and a million pressing issues. Sometimes you just need to take a playoff and hit the reset button. That's when you reach for a Coors Light. It's made to chill. Hey, it's that time of year in Minnesota, again, to get out on the lake, go to the cabin, sit back, watch some baseball. Coors Light is the perfect refreshment to chill during these summer months. There's only one beer out there that's made to chill.

The mountains on the bottles and cans turn blue when your beer is cold, and that way you know it's time to chill. Hit that reset button with some mountain cold refreshment. Coors Light is cold lager, cold filtered, and cold packaged. It's literally made to chill. It's crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies. Coors Light is the one you should choose when you need to unwind. When you want to hit the reset button, reach for the beer that is made to chill. Get Coors Light in the new

look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. about the Jared Allen signed jersey. Follow me if you don't already and follow at Fan HQ. That's it. And you're registered to win. Fan HQ, by the way, is your headquarters for officially licensed sports apparel, authentic memorabilia, and autograph appearances. If it came from HQ, then it's authentic. All right, let's get to the show. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and joining

me ESPN's Courtney Cronin and officially Courtney, our draft scout as yes, indeed, we do have another draft simulation on tap court and it's the senior bowl. Tell me you've been like watching all this tape of senior bowl prospects and grinding it and that you're all ready to go. Yeah. I mean, I have been following along with the people, the limited number of people that I know they're in mobile this year. Way in day was, uh, was yesterday. That was, that was great. I love seeing, you know, all the measurements of

everybody. It's not the underwear Olympics that, um, you know, I got to experience firsthand last year going to a weigh in, but you know, you get to see their measurements on the board. And then today I saw an offensive lineman who I don't even remember what his name was, but his stomach was hanging out during an interview. And I was like, man, I want to see this guy in some one-on-one drills. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, that's, that's, that's my level of senior bowling this year. I love watching the clips from the people who are down there. I have not ever been to the senior bowl. And if I was going to go,

maybe this year would have been the year because the Vikings were eliminated so early. But, you know, of course, not traveling with COVID. A lot of people, that's the case. But I love watching the game, the Senior Bowl game, and the highlights and practices and stuff, especially when it's one-on-ones with a receiver in a corner. And there's like no chance for the corner because he's playing press and the guy has a two-way go. And there's like no one else around on the entire field. And then the guy makes a good catch and it's like, look at this great route. He did all these things. Oh, okay. Let me, you know,

let me remember that guy's name. And you know, some, sometimes it turns out, but not often, but it's still fun to watch and especially for the quarterbacks, which it will be interesting to watch Jamie Newman, who you and I talked about the last time we draft simmed. So we've got a whole new draft sim, and we're going to start inventing scenarios, different scenarios in free agency in the off season for each one of these.

But first, Courtney, we have to get into Kyle Rudolph, who talked with K-fans Ben Lieber, former Viking about his situation. And to say he was honest about it is an understatement. He was extremely blunt and straightforward about the fact that he was very dissatisfied with his role, felt like he was eliminated from the offense. And I mean, more or less came out and said, get me out of here. Yeah, I was not surprised at his true sentiment about it. I think that the fact that he politely declined to talk to us at the end of the year was, I was waiting for something like this to come out. And it is nice to hear his unfiltered thoughts.

I wish that we would have had a chance to, you know, interact with him a little bit more this year. I mean, it was difficult to begin with during a COVID year, but also when you have zoom interviews to kind of paint this picture, I mean, people are writing stories off that, like, you're not, you're not able to do the small talk anymore. You're not able to do the shooting the breeze of somebody at their locker or, or, you know,

stopping somebody in passing and being able to talk to them. Like every Zoom interview serves a purpose. And just frankly, because of how limited he was used in the offense this past year, as a pass catcher, that is, he wasn't, you know, he wasn't requested that often. So we didn't get to talk to him that much. And I don't know if he felt that that was a slight and didn't want to talk to us at the end of the year but um I know that this has kind of been something that's been been talked about for a while and whether he thinks that the media has written him off already as you know um deserving to maybe get cut just because of like

the lack of production and the salary I don't know but I think that this is you know the reason so many people are treating it as, as a foregone conclusion is because this team is nearly 13 million over the cap. When you try to do your job as a journalist and try to figure out logical ways for them to get under the cap, you're going to look at somebody whose production does not match up to their salary.

Even though Rudolph said he feels like he's worth every dime that he is still owed on this three-year contract. But, you know, this didn't come out of thin air. I mean, clearly, if he's talking about it, it's not just talking hearsay. Like, he's feeling some pressure. He's hearing things internally. And I do believe that the Vikings are well within their right to go to him and say, we can't pay you top five tight end money.

I'm sorry. Like restructure or we're going to release you. And if he wants to go somewhere else, I know he's been here for 10 years. He said he doesn't want to go anywhere else. I understand that. But this is, he said, I understand both sides. I see both sides. So if you do, then you'll understand when they release

you to say 5.1 against the cap, right? The day that they drafted Irv Smith jr. In the second round in 2019, the writing was on the wall that Kyle Rudolph's time was dwindling in Minnesota. That's why there was a chance that they were trying to trade him on draft day that year. Like that's not a surprise. It's not new news. news it's two years old so the fact that he got surpassed essentially in a depth chart yes he had a Liz Franck sprain um in his foot in you know that's part of the reason why he didn't play the last five games of the year but what Irv Smith Jr. and Tyler Conklin showed puts the Vikings in a position where they should feel completely comfortable moving on from Kyle Rudolph

right now and yes he's done so much in this community like let's get that out there like this isn't a PR nightmare if they release him like he can still do the work in the community I remember what back in 2019 when there was the talk of is he gonna you know go somewhere else or restructure the contract at the 11th hour and And he, you know, told us that he had met with the people from the children's hospital he does work with and let them know, like, just very frankly, hey, if I'm out of here, I'm still going to be a presence here. None of that changes whether he's on this roster in 2021 or not. But, you know, looking past that to the actual business side of this and the finances and

like the, you you know the consequences of being loyal to players at the wrong part of their career in my opinion um it's biting the vikings in the ass right now it really is because the same thing happened with anthony bar they blind loyalty uh and look where they are like now they're not going to be able to be active players in free agency to begin with and even if they wanted be, they'd have to make a ton of moves in free agency to clear up some cap space to do so. So, you know, I'm not surprised to put a bow on this. I'm not surprised that Rudolph was not willing to say he would take a restructure in that in that podcast. I think it's probably smart for him

not to it's probably smart for him to be like no i'm worth every dime whether you believe it or not i was always told die with a lie like if if he really believes that that's great but it's also like you don't want to shortchange yourself i totally understand that let your agent get in a heated thing with the vikings front office don't it to yourself. But if he really wants to stay here, I'm sorry. I'm willing to bet the farm that he will have to take a restructure. There's really no other place for them to find the money to be able to free it up, to be able to pay him his very high salary next year. Do you ever know anybody? I can't think of an instance where this ever happened to me, but who kind of holds something in for a really long time and then just loses it?

Oh, I mean, this is like me, like this is me. This is me when I'm like really ticked off about something and I do a poor job compartmentalizing it. That's how I feel like it's been with Kyle, that he's been upset for quite some time. And he was even upset before they gave him a contract extension prior to the 2019 season. If you remember, he did one interview where he said something about how it would be great to get traded to new England. He had another one that said, Oh yeah, teams are interested in trading for me. And so he was kind of irritated.

I remember. Yeah. I remember that one part where it was like, wait, are you admitting it into tampering? Right. Right. That your agent talking to other teams. Right. Yeah. That was, that was during OTAs right before they signed the deal in 2019. Yep. So he was saying things like that. Cause he was clearly agitated about, um, you know, the way they were handling his contract situation. And the same with us. He's been annoyed with us for a while for pointing out his actual birthday. You know, every time we mention in articles or whatever about how he's kind of getting to be an older veteran player. And when you search the roster, you have to scroll all the way down the age to find him for the last couple

of years. He's been in his late twenties and now, you know, early thirties. And he's made comments numerous times about how you guys say I'm old and, and that sort of thing. So he's always been pretty sort of sensitive about some of this stuff about the way that he's treated from the team. What's, you know, said in the media, even though I think the media is largely very complimentary of Rudolph because of his off-the-field work, but also here on this little show, throw it to Kyle has been a thing for a long time.

I mean, the efficiency numbers are so high that I've always said, look, I mean, if you're throwing it to Kyle Rudolph, you're probably succeeding. Career quarterback rating of all the quarterbacks who have thrown Kyle Rudolph footballs is 113. Like you're doing a good job if you're throwing it to Rudolph, but it's, I think a perfect storm of a quarterback who never trusted him and a head coach who never wants to throw the ball. Because I mean, this is a team I looked at his percentage, by the way, of like target share. It only went down by a couple percent from even 2018. But what went down was the number of passes they've thrown.

And so, I mean, if you're as an offense, there's only so many like throws to go around. If there's only 500 passes to go around and the league average is 565, 75, 80, then, you know, you're not going to get as many targets as as other tight ends and so you mix that with the emergence of Irv Smith an offense that focuses on the run game and it isn't a good fit here I just want to know though are we going to treat him the same way as we did Diggs as a local fan base and media because you know digs was called all sorts of things that weren't really fair and they're i'm not seeing them anywhere about kyle rudolph but he did a very long interview like airing out the dirty laundry when all digs did was miss a practice and say there's truth to

the rumors so i don't know i just i think that there's there's definitely a double standard there when it comes to digs and rudolph but i also think, and this is my main takeaway that now you got two when it's just one, you could say, ah, that guy digs that Diva, right? Diva. He's just trying to take our team apart. We're going to play the way we play, but now it's two and it's two guys who are good. It's two pro bowlers. It's two players who were on the 2017 team that took you to the NFC championship who have both said this same thing. So you don't think there's other people who are pretty important on this roster who might think that same thing about not getting their target share and about not passing to win and all this.

I think that's the biggest concern here is now it's two. And to me, there's a very large difference between one guy who was upset and two proven pro bowl veteran players who were unhappy with the way that you're approaching the offensive system. Yeah. To answer your first question, will he get the digs treatment? Well, yes and no. I think that when I posted, I listened to the podcast yesterday, I, you know,

wrote about it. And when I posted an article today, not a single person in my mentions was saying, no, you're right, Kyle. Like, you know, forget the Vikings. Like they should pay you what you're worth. There are a lot of people with the, you know, with the mindset, I don't want the door hit you on the way out. Like you're delusional for thinking that, you know, a mindset i don't want the door hit you on the way out like you're delusional for thinking that you know a you're worth just what you're being real quick i'm sorry to break in but i have to say this a lot of people said the same stuff about trey waynes xavier rhodes everson griffin all the like i know grass isn't always greener right exactly when you say don't let the door hit you just remember good players are hard to find okay it might be a revolving door might come back and smack you in the teeth um when you when you say it like that but don't want to run good players out of

town i agree i agree and i mean kyle rudolph at 31 years old is still a very good player he's underutilized for sure i mean there was definitely some um i don't know if you caught this but i did um when he's talking about like his target share and that he can't sign up for what he did this year. You know, he was a huge red zone target from 2014 to 17, or really to 18. And then it completely fell off from there. And this year he's like, yeah,

I only caught one touchdown is, you know, a ball was thrown out of the end zone. Yeah. I wonder what, what wonder what that's saying um but i understand what his frustration is he feels he has more left in the tank and he certainly he probably does i mean not saying that this means anything this year but this was pointed out on the podcast um he his yards after the catch uh this year his yards per reception was a career high 11.9 but he's only getting 28 passes so you know and one of them was against the jaguars where no one guarded

him and he gained like 30 yards sure and you know his yards after the catch that's never going to be his thing like he's not very fast and but like if you can appreciate kyle rudolph for what he is you can find a place for him in your roster on your in your offense somewhere it's just not going to be at a 7.65 million dollar base salary it's just not that's just not applicable so you have to look at it and with the trade-off being have this player here but his role morphs like I mean people adapt over time like roles adapt over time when somebody younger than you more athletic than you can do different things than you emerges like you're gonna see that player probably takes in your targets but I think they could find a way um you know if Kyle was willing to restructure I think they could find a way to

like continue to have a role for him in this offense. But if he goes somewhere else, I don't think he's going to automatically be getting the same targets he got in 2017 and 16. I really don't. But you know, will he get treated like digs? Well,

digs kind of, I mean, never said it publicly said it in a lot of tweets and Instagram posts and everything that we were hearing behind the scenes he wanted out kyle wants in so i don't know if he'll get that same sort of treatment because the fan base isn't going to look at it being like well screw this guy doesn't want to be here don't let the door hit you on the way out it's screw this guy he wants to be here but he won't take a pay cut don't let the door hit you on the way out right but only on his exact terms and he catches

60 balls and whatever and there are certain people that get called divas in this world and certain people that don't and you know what i'm talking about so exactly of course i think he can't come back after this interview like it's got to be done like i because then if he comes back it's going to feel like okay now we have to force him the ball because he's made it public so every game he doesn't get the ball then it's a story that he didn't him the ball because he's made it public. So every game he doesn't get the ball, then it's a story that he didn't get the ball because he made this huge deal out of it. And I think him doing that, which is fine. And certainly his right. And his honesty, like you said, is appreciated because we've known this for a while, but you know, now it's really

out there. But, you know, I, I just think after somebody comes out and flat out says bleep your system Zimmer more or less, I mean, for not throwing me the ball, that's really hard to say, yes, come on back, my friend. It's sort of like when Everson Griffin, you know, sent out certain things on Twitter, you can't really unring that bell. I mean, you can say that it was, oh, well I was hacked or, you know, some, something else. I was upset.

Right. But you can't unring the bell. That will come up every time if you're brought back. So I think that that's definitely the end. And it will always kind of it always kind of hit me as weird is Mike Zimmer clearly wanted to shift the philosophy going into 2019. But they signed Rudolph to all that money. And you extend Kirk when you want this philosophy that signed Rudolph to all that money. And you extend Kirk

when you want this philosophy, that's going to be run first. I actually think hot take it can work, but it can't, it can work. If it's inexpensive, it can work. If you're taking all the money that you're not using on a $84 million quarterback and a $9 million tight end. And how many of her million dollar running back and all those things. Like if you're not spending all that money, then you can put it into the defensive side and build a great defense or put it in the offensive line and have a dominant offensive line and just kind of patchwork around it. Like you can never have in today's NFL great players at all the positions. So you have to decide, are we going to do it this way? Or are we going to do it that way?

And they tried to do it is, oh, we're going to try to have great players at every position and pay everybody. And this is where it's kind of bit them. But I just don't get it. If you wanted to go to run, that's okay. You can win that way. There are teams that get deep into the playoffs with running the ball a lot, Baltimore and Tennessee, they do it.

But, you know, next year, AJ Brown, I think is the most expensive Tennessee receiver. And he's the 17th highest player paid player on that team. That's how you're going to have to do it. Not by paying your receivers and your tight ends and your quarterbacks, all the money. And then, you know, kind of saying how we're going to rebuild the defense through the draft that that's the part i don't get why'd you extend them if you were going to use them as a run blocker i agree um and there's always going to be that push and pull between the front office and kind of the pressure that they're going to apply to use this player a specific way right and the coaching staff may be like no ble, bleep you. We're not going to do that.

I mean, Anthony Barr, prime example. Mike, we told you about this. If we're going to bring him back, I mean, you have this wonderful opportunity that your prized jewel gem from the 24, your guy from the 2014 draft class, your first draft pick ever. He wants to come back. Now you got to use him the way that he was used in college and the way that we drafted remember okay all right everybody good clear set okay good that never

happened so like there's always going to be a differing of opinion from the people who control the purse strings to the people who are out there controlling what the scheme is and what the scheme dictates certain roles to be. So that's why when you have a player like Dalvin cook, they're going to run him into the ground. Why? Cause they want to get their money's worth on top of the fact that he is an excellent player and helps makes this offense go and really is the engine behind what they do. They also just paid him a ton of money. So you're going to look real stupid if you don't try to get your money's worth. Which is how they look with Kirk and Rudolph. Yeah, I know.

But they're going to say, here's the argument with Kirk, because I knew that that would come up. It's what the market dictated. I understand that. But for a guy like that, you're paying. You know that he can't be more than what he is. So you just overpaid. Like, it's not like, Oh, you paid him. Like you're not using him to his potential. Like you paid him what he's,

what you think he's worth. Um, he's has a really good agent who was able to make sure that he got that extension when he did. You're not going to use him more than that. Hell they had to learn to dial it back week eight for the, for like, through like week 15, um, to figure out how to use them better, which means taking the ball out of his hands in certain circumstances. And you're still paying him a ton. It's not a fair argument. I get it, but as a quarterback, it's different.

It's a, he's in a class of his own when it comes to that sort of argument. Want to remind you about our friends at soda stickStick. If you use the promo code Purple Insider, you can get free shipping at SodaStick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. There's so many great designs, including Chuck Foreman's Spin Doctor shirts, Skull Hats, Straight Cash Homie shirts, and much, much more. And if you are a hockey fan without getting going soon or a basketball fan, make sure you check out all sorts of great designs. Their apparel is screen printed here in Minnesota on super soft, super comfy shirts and hoodies.

You will love it. That's SodaStick.com, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com, original Minnesota sports inspired goods. Code Purple Insider for free shipping. I just think about how many moves the front office has made that the, the coach and coaching staff have been like, and, and cousins is one of them. And I know that I've brought his name up a number of times, but Marcus Mariota is the guy I think of like Marcus Mariota could probably do what you want your quarterback to do and you wouldn't have to pay him anything. So the front office goes out and gets this expensive quarterback and make sure that he keeps his mattress, as he called them once, like throwing into a mattress.

I still don't quite get that, but like he gives them a security blanket guy, right? Guy who's been a in case of emergency security blanket for many quarterbacks and a very good one. And they make sure he stays around and they draft a second round tight end and they draft a first round wide receiver and they make sure Adam Thielen gets his money. And so, okay. Yeah, they did use Justin Jefferson. I think they could have more, but you know, he gains 1400 yards. That's that's great. But aside from that though, aside from the number one and number two wide receiver, it's like, you don't use your quarterback as much as other teams do. And, and, and you don't use this tight end that we paid for you

to make sure that you had it's, I mean, I'm trying to think of like a, like a parents and child type of situation where you're like, I bought you the nice notebooks for school and you're using just like scrap paper. And that's kind of how it feels sometimes, even, even on the defensive side, like, Oh, we're going to move this guy, this position or that position, or, I mean, going back to Ezra Cleveland, like did the front office draft Ezra Cleveland to be a right guard? No, I don't think they did. And so it feels like there's been a number of these things where you're like, are you guys on the same page with what you want to do here with the way the money's being spent

versus the way the players are being used? Yeah, and some of it boils down to their SOL in certain situations. It's like, well, Elfline's terrible. We gave that one last shot as their year up next because samia's also got awful like you know they had no other choice because they didn't have the ability to go out and get a guard in the middle of like you know the first quarter of the season to come in and play because a there's nobody good available and you're not going to make a trade for somebody like that it's not it's just not worth it practice to

tackle that was the weird thing i i know i know guard and i just wonder like is that what you guys thought he was gonna be or did you draft him to be the future tackle and then the coaching staff went no no he's a guard i'm sure it's a lot of both but like you can't you can't try to like pull the wool over on everybody and be like oh no we knew he was going to be a right guard like right you don't you don't do that like you don't draft I know that this sometimes happens in the NFL where you have somebody who played one position in college like based on scheme like somebody might have been like a defensive end in college and like oh you see him as like an out a rushing outside linebacker okay like same prototype essentially right like you know you could just get put him in different defenses

and fits he may have a different like title next to his name essentially of position but for an offensive lineman like and you're making the guy play completely out of position something comes something is always brought up of, okay, what went wrong? Was there an injury? Was this an out of necessity move or was there just not an agreement whatsoever? And you guys are trying to, you know, save face here and be like, well, got to play him somewhere. He's a second round pick, got to play him somewhere. Otherwise we look like idiots. So I get it. I totally understand that, but you know, it makes me wonder wonder like when you think back to like 2019 that was OTA all right so Zim's golf tournament which was like the beginning of May that's when Kyle holds his

press conference outside um and he talks about like you know I want to be here it was very it was just a weird thing for like you know for that the whole thing to happen and you know then zim talks about it and then about three weeks pass and we're at the end of may early june and it's otas and he's talking about like you know there are teams that want me like i know there's teams so i'm okay tampering um but then they sign the deal they work out the four-year extension because i remember it it was night it was game five of the nba finals that year and I was like really enjoying that game and then I see an alert I'm like wow why do I have to deal with this at 9 30 at night on like a Tuesday um but nonetheless I remember thinking I was like why did they feel the need to do this were they so worried that okay you can't rely on a rookie tight end but you still

had stefan diggs you still had adam thielen in your offense um you probably could have brought herb smith i mean and you you they said it themselves gary is like oh he's swimming and then now he's like learning um you know they felt very highly of herb smith what would have been the gamble to just be like all right rudolph peace back in 2019 instead of paying him all this money under utilizing him in 2019 yes he caught six touchdowns um and was it was you know a decent piece of the offense I think he was still a third leading receiver um you know that year third or fourth and you know beyond that though then it's like this year he was a non-factor and you'll have to remember too like kyle his whole thing of like all i do is block now like that was

something i remember the first eight weeks of the season last year yep yep year 2019 that was what he was doing until stefanski kevin stefanski figured it out because don't you remember there was a little bit of passive aggressiveness talking to Kyle in the root in the locker room of like, you know, as a leader of this locker room, I will accept my role and do my role and all this other conjecture that I'm like, huh. It sounds like you're really unhappy about it, but tell me more. Yes, it definitely did. Yep. You know, but here's the thing though, like when it, you know,

circling back to your point on digs and now Rudolph, two guys that are good players that are unhappy that they're not getting the ball um some of that is just kind of like tough deal with it but like then don't have these expensive players have guys wear out rookie contracts and um and just build it that way because you have a lot of chess pieces on here that are expensive. Like if I'm thinking like back to like, you know, when digs was still here, digs is really expensive. Rudolph's really expensive. Thielen's really expensive. Um, you know, and then now what's it going to be? Or Smith jr. Is going to be expensive in about a year or two, Brian O'Neill, what I'm thinking like recent piece is going to be expensive in about a year or two brian o'neill when i'm thinking like recent piece is going to be expensive justin jefferson is going to be hella expensive when he you know you're going to obviously assuming everything goes great you're going to try to extend him before you

know the year of his fifth year option so he's not playing on that whatever but like it gets expensive and i know this added old adage is so cliche. There's one ball. And if other players can do things that are more versatile and hat, bring more to the table than you, then those players are going to be the one getting the target share. And that's what I think of with Irv Smith. And you know, the way that Tyler Conklin came along, it's a cheaper option. Dude is a fifth round pick like, and they like him and he's okay. Blocking. He's knows that, you know, he came Dude is a fifth round pick like, and they like him and he's okay. Blocking.

He's knows that, you know, he came up as a fifth round pick. He doesn't really have much ground to, to, you know, stand on. He works his ass off. And then he gets to a point where he actually is getting targets because Kyle's out. So sometimes that happens. Sometimes you get passed up and then you're in a situation where you're unhappy about it.

Cause the writing is on the wall. I mean, he said the writing was on the wall last year with the offense well the writing's on the wall now that you're this is going to be what your role is going to be they're not going to all of a sudden just change it for you this is a run heavy offense they need you to run block for Dalvin Cook I'm sorry like just is what it is so my thing is just you could put horse blinders on and say, well, you know, Kyle's just salty because he, you know, fell off or because he didn't want to play his role. And Irv Smith is good or something like that, which, you know, you could say, hey, it's fine to move on, which I agree. Just like the dig straight is fine because you've got justin jefferson um but like if you just even take the blinders off a little and expand your vision even a little on the situation

it's like how are you not going to do this again to some other important merchandise here and i'm talking about justin jefferson like you have two thousand percent right two of your best players are leaving really annoyed with how this is going. And so like, do you want this? Is this a good model for you? Like, I mean, is it, do you think it's a good model to have pro bowl players mad at you all the time? Like probably not. So figure out how that can not happen in the future, whether that's the new offense coordinator or, you know, whatever way they go about it, figure out how to not have that happen. Not being trashed in public by multiple pro bowlers. Well, that's the thing then,

then change who you're bringing into this team. Get guys who don't really give a, give a crap about catching the ball. Right. Don't spend the money on those guys. Right. Don't assign them to big extensions. If you don't want to throw them. Expensive running backs. If you want, to big extensions if you don't want to throw them off. Sign expensive running backs if you want, you know, if you want this holding. Because that's where this whole thing is trending. Like, you know, I just wrote about this last week of the lessons that they could have learned from Jefferson and, you know, Stefan Diggs. And that's not to say that, you know, oh, well, if Justin Jefferson wants 166 targets, which Diggs had this past year, give it to him.

Otherwise, he's going to throw a fit. No, there's something called balance that you can actually, like a real balance that you could try to achieve more of. But when you say that you want to run it back and you want to run the exact same scheme and Kirk's basically throwing out warnings to Justin Jefferson of be patient, we're going to run the ball. Like that's not somebody who's going to thrive in, in,

in this sort of mindset. Like I know that people can say, well, digs the diva. He, you know, it's not being a team player. Dude took a team friendly contract. Don't give me that. Like the dude shortchanged himself, you know, really almost nearly sold his future to the Vikings, the prime of his career for about 15 million. Cause that was the guaranteed amount or whatever. Because he believed in what they were doing.

And at least what he saw at the time with the offense with John D. Filippo is the, is the offensive coordinator. Like he's, he, he had a belief that they could win a super bowl that year. Why else do you think Daniel Hunter took the deal that he took? And now, you know, we'll wonder, we'll see when, if, if and when it's not even if it's like when they'll extend him like those people eric kendrick's included that year all those extensions that they made in 2018 like they believe that they could do something and they didn't because you know yeah they're never going

to come out and say that we felt we were a missing piece away. That's why we signed Kirk Cousins. But why do you think so many dudes took team-friendly deals and restructures and all that stuff to keep this core together? They're smart people. They realize that you've got to give a little and take a little. But now I feel like there are guys who have seen that and been like, heck no, I'm out. I was a team player, but I've got to worry about number one. And I can't fault people for that. You're you only have so long to play this game.

And just side note, this is why I think Riley reef is not around here next year. I think that he's looking at, you think they're going to ask him to restructure? I would think so. Yeah. Or, or they're going to cut them, just straight up cut them. Cause my guess is if they ask for an extension or restructure, he just says, no, cut me.. Cause my guess is if they ask for an extension or restructure, he just says, no,

cut me. That's my guess. If they extend him, I could see him saying, yes, restructure. No, he's already done it once,

but I don't see why he would take an extension. If he goes on the free agent market, he's getting paid, right? There's a guarantee. He allowed one sack last year. I mean, so I,

I just think like the way that they've handled some of these players and reef is included with the Ngakwe mess. Like you just, this is what happens. This is what happens when it kind of comes apart from having a winning team to not anymore. And so they've got to, I guess,

figure out a way to turn that arrow, go in the other direction from players leaving and, you know, being frustrated with you about how they were treated with money and all that. So let's let's do some fake trades. You want to do some fake trades? Love some fake trades.

Okay, maybe I'll have some game show music here. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Would you do this fake trade? Do, do, do. Okay, I made up three fake trades, and you have to tell me what you think of the three fake trades. This does not mean I love all the trades. I just invented them for your analysis. Okay. Uh, first trade you mentioned

Daniel Hunter, Daniel Hunter to the New York jets, assuming they don't get to Sean Watson for number 34 and number 87 overall draft selections. I'm writing these down, by the way, for 34 and 87. 34 and 87. Okay. So a second and a third round pick. Correct. A very high second round pick. Yeah.

That's like early day two. Okay. That's trade number one. That's trade number two. Trade number two is Kirk Cousins and a 2022 second round pick to the San Francisco 49ers for 12th overall. So Cousins and a second rounder next year to San Francisco for number 12. Okay. So you'd have 14 and 12 at that point. The third trade is 14th overall and anthony bar to denver for ninth overall and let's even throw in there to take either trey lance or penny sewell or even micah parsons or someone like that if you

want to replace anthony bar i'm not sure who but like to move up to potentially put yourself in position to take someone like trey lance so you you're giving them Anthony bar and your 14th, 14th overall pick and you get nine back in return. Yes. You get nine back in return. You can draft whatever you like. Well, I must say these are, I really do like these. I put a lot of work into them. Thank you for doing that. When it comes to fake trades, you got to give 110. A thousand percent.

All the percentages that don't exist so i will let me pull up my my calculator because i'm gonna start to look at um a couple scenarios now of cap movement and what some of these trades might do for you so over there well i picked the jets for hunter because they've got a bajillion dollars and um you know that one makes a ton of sense now here's the thing like i can't rush the password daniel hunter no no i meant uh the jets like the jets have put zero pressure on anyone for years oh no i absolutely hear you um so the whole thing that makes sense about hunter and the trade market i remember last year you brought this up um with like would they the winner doing reckless speculation, like, would they, you know,

what would happen if they decided that they wanted to trade him? What could you get all of that? You know, it would, it could be quite a bit like at that point, no neck injury, no nothing. You might've been able to move. Yeah. Like, but this year it's coming off a neck injury and it's just like, okay. Like I know that everyone says everyone, meaning Mike Zimmer, cause we haven't heard from Daniel post recovery. Like, Oh, he said he'll be back. Fine. You know, he'll be, he wants to play.

This is also the same person who said he had a tweak. So let's take that with a grain of salt. Right, right. So I don't know if the Daniil Hunter trade market, as good as he is, would be as high this year as it was in previous years. Now, would you explore it? I think you would because you're – like I've written about 11 teen times. Like they are – this rebuild that they're in on defense it's gonna take a couple years i'm not saying it's gonna take 10 years like the jets but like right you know they're they're in the process of it right now it's already begun so if you move down from him and then you got 34 and 87 first off

if you if you move on from daniel i just did some simple math here so they were like a 12.8 over the cap for 2021 um yeah there's gonna to be some rollover but we don't know how you know also how much it comes down to if you trade him then you know you come down about 5 million um next year in the cap so you then would have you know you'd be over by like 7.71 so you'd still have some work to do but the type of player that you could get back at 30, what'd you say? 34, 34.

Yeah. I mean, that's a borderline. That's a first round talent more likely than not. If you wanted. And I'm looking at a draft that I just did, you know, earlier this afternoon,

there's several tackles that would be available to you in that, in that range, 34 to like 40 Te tevin jenkins from uh oklahoma state uh alex leatherwood from alabama walker little uh from stanford i mean there's several offensive linemen if you wanted to go that route and get somebody else in you know if you really wanted to move as or cleveland and then cut some more cap and you know, cut Riley reef to create more cap space that, that might itself might be fine. I like that one. I really do. And I probably,

so you gave me three and I am looking them over. I personally, I think that the Vikings should get in on the quarterback market action. So I feel like as well, everybody's doing it. I feel like the Kirk one, just because it's like, it's so out there. And two months ago, before we knew Deshaun Watson hated Jack Easterby, and before we knew that like Doug Peterson

had burned his relationship with Carson Wentz past the point of any return, like I would, I would think that it'd be impossible to trade Kirk cousins. I really did because like we've said a hundred times the third day of the league year, his 2022 base salary becomes fully guaranteed. So you're not just picking up his 2021 base salary and you know, all that comes with that, you know, the probation, the whole thing you're,

you're picking up 2022. Now it might not be so bad if all these other teams are making moves. And San Francisco, of course, makes the most sense because Kyle Shanahan, before Kirk landed here, or I guess after Kirk landed here in March of 2018, Shanahan had been with the 49ers for the 2017 season. Like he admitted, he always thought that he would get reunited with him.

Well now might be his best chance. And you know, a 2022 second rounder that's great. That's either great leverage for, for next year, meaning the 2022 season, or you could trade that pick around. They love trading second round picks, apparently.

It's what they did with Ian Coquay. You don't just give those things away. But to move up to 12, so you'd have 12 and 14? Yes. In my fake trade scenario, yes, you get 12 and 14. That's a quarterback, in my opinion, and that's probably quitty pay. Right? That could be Trey Lance and that could be quitty pay. The interesting thing about these scenarios is I tried to make it so much of

like, Oh, I don't want to do, Oh, do I, you know, just like, um, because if you're getting that much back for cousins, because San Francisco wants them to make their head coach, who's very good, happy, then all of a sudden, yeah. I mean, it puts you in position to trade up for Trey Lance, possibly from 12 to seven or something in that ballpark or wherever you need to go to get him. If you want to make that pick or there's always a possibility that we are a little hoodwinked on somebody else. I mean,

Daniel Jeremiah had Justin Fields is 10th. I think in his back, Zach Wilson could drop too. That's right. We could be surprised depending on how these other teams fill out their quarterback situations. We could be surprised. And so let's say though, like you said, get a quarterback and an edge rusher for Cousins. Like is the, you know, wins above replacement. Is that adding up there to what you need?

And I feel the same way about the Daniel Hunter. It's like, man, who wants to give away a great player, but you know what? You are getting back cap space to players who could make an impact potentially in the draft as you rebuild a bunch of spots. Now, how about the third one? This is probably the most unrealistic one to trade up and bar, but I figured I'd throw him into a trade scenario to see what you thought. I mean, if you can find a partner, I don't know if it'd be Denver.

Cause I feel like George Payton would probably be like, yeah, no. Maybe they'd make them the outside three, four edge rusher. That's what I was thinking. I mean, the guy's also coming off a torn pectoral muscle. Like who knows that's, that's, that's like the mystery with their two best defensive players right now. We didn't play last year, pretty much like another bar played like a game and a half, but that's a, that's interesting at 14th overall.

So you're giving them 14th overall and bar for ninth. Like that is a quarterback right there, right? Like you can't do anything else with that pick other than God, if Penay sewell somehow fell there the offensive lineman that's what i think is that one of these players will fall right like because of the quarterbacks being so like you're getting the fifth best non-quarterback in the whole draft which is that's good for you it could bear chase, but don't do that because there's not going to be enough ball to spread around.

Yeah. I, I, I, this is probably my third. I'd probably rank it. The Kirk one as my first, or,

and then, you know, Daniel number two, and then this trade number three, just because. You know, at nine, you should be taking a quarterback.

I really think that you should. Will they, I don you know, at nine, you should be taking a quarterback. I really think that you should. Will they? I don't know, because this team would still have Kirk Cousins on the roster. At some point, they need to address the elephant in the room of it's going to get more expensive to keep extending him. Even though you're going to try to do it to lower his cap number, you know, for 2022, potentially. But it's going to get like at some point you're gonna have to

move on like and you don't want to if you don't really want to start over at that position if you don't want to look towards free agency if you had the ninth overall pick do it um you know but i would like to see a quarterback taken there i would i don't want to see you know i don't think you need to draft an edge rusher at nine unless you are absolutely in love with the guy because most of the trade most of the uh draft sims that i've done there's not an edge rusher taken before quitty pay most times around like 10 11 or 12 right um but the thing that i do like about you know these trades they're aggressive What do I want to see from Rick Spielman this April? I want to see them trade up.

Like I know there's been a lot of people who've sent us both draft Sims and some scenarios they want us to look over. And a lot of the popular ones are trading back from 14. And I look at that. I like trading down. I do like trading down. Big fan. But like my thing, and I had this discussion with my editor about this recently they've got what 12 picks right now in 2020 2021 draft they had 15 last year by the time it was all said and done like

you're not supposed to really i know that they kind of do the whole opposite thing well count how many of those guys actually made an impact outside of like your your best players that came in the the most you know the best rounds right around one two and three like finish with i'd rather have you finish with like seven draft picks over 12 if that means that you're packaging and moving up because to me you're getting contributors who have a better chance of contributing immediately versus some sixth or seventh round project that is probably going to get cut before the time that cut down day happens word to brian cole like you know that doesn't that doesn't i just have never understood that i'm like i understand like it's just like it's quite they're they're in a lot of

ways to me that's quality quantity over quality when you have all that draft capital you're so good at acquiring it use it use it to move up like i i just i i know that that's how a lot of teams that are cash strapped have to build and i totally under get i get that but i don't think it helps the vikings in any way shape or form to have another double digit 12 13 14 15 member draft class this year i don't think it helps the Vikings in any way, shape or form to have another double digit 12, 13, 14, 15 member draft class this year. I don't. Not if most of them are in the sixth and the seventh. Exactly. When you know that you're not going to get that many in the earlier rounds. Right. Right. There's there's usually like think about it this way, like 100 guys who might be able to play in the NFL.

So you need as many of those guys and then take some shots later. I agree that like trading down is good, but trading down over and over and over and over to, to get nothing back in seventh rounders to me are nothing. I mean, how many of these guys have turned out to be anything that they've picked in the seventh round? It's like, even in the NFL, go through seventh rounds. You're not going to find much. You go through fourth rounds. Okay. Third rounds, definitely, you know, fifth round sometimes, but seventh, sixth, it's, it's pretty tough sell. Why don't we, before we wrap up, just do like a quick draft sim because there's plenty of time to draft sims. I'll just tell you about mine. And if you did one, then you can tell me about yours. So I did a scenario where I thought that they got a number three receiver and guard in free agency.

And so, and they were focused more on the defensive side. And I thought, let me, let me try something out. Let me, let me put something on and look at it in the mirror. I drafted Patrick Sertain the second with my first pick with the 14th. And here's why he's a cornerback from Alabama, which I know just made people go, what are you crazy? I get it. But corners are very important here. And I've never criticized Mike Zimmer for drafting corners specifically. Like it's a, it's a good thing to draft multiples of. I'm just not really sold on the two guys that they have.

And I think that the pedigree is just okay. Sertain is the best one in this draft. So if you can, I think on a team like this, you just go best player available. So when I got there, it was like, just take the best player. Patrick Sertain's the best player and fill in the rest. It's a lot easier to find rotational pass rushers

also than it is corners who are beasts. So I went certain, and then I took an edge rusher in the third Tyreek Smith from Ohio state and a guard with the 90th pick in Trey Smith. Crazy for taking the corner. I mean, probably people would go nuts if the Vikings drafted another corner, but I don't think it's crazy. I went defense too. My thought was because I did kind of the opposite last week. I wanted to test this theory out and see once they do clear some space, what do they do with it? Well, you know, the offensive line market as you and I have gone over very heavy with tackles this year.

So I don't know what that means. Like as far as, you know, a Riley reef, there's no point to move on from it. If you're happy with him, it's just like, you know, if you give him an extension, you know, give him some more upfront, I don't know, do what you need to do. Keep him happy. But like, you need to, you need to solidify that left guard spot immediately. And I think that your best path to doing that, if you are going to keep Ezra Cleveland at right guard is,

is by trying to find somebody on the open market. And yeah, they did this a few years ago with Josh Klein. It didn't pan out. Go, go a level or two higher than the Josh Klein bargain bin, please. Do yourself a favor, do that. Now I, I went, you know, I'm big quitty pay fan. I i mean he's been on like every mock draft of mine for for obvious reasons like the dk metcalf of defensive lineman have you seen this guy yeah he's huge like and i mean yeah no i'm a freak athlete i was you know just as uh just as surprised of you know see that someone like that exists physically um especially that because i mean

at rushers you expect to kind of look like daniel hunter but like when you actually see it in person it's kind of wild um so yeah that's what i did for my first round pick at 14 and then i don't have a second round pick so i went down to my which one did i pick at 78 so i you know knowing that the interior is still the interior defensive line is still an issue um that was what i thought my priority was going to be going into it but eric stokes the cornerback um from georgia was the highest rated corner at that point and i'm kind of still in the same boat that yes like you know i i you know i i think that cam dancer could amount to something i think that jeff gladney with more time will look okay um but i'm also of the belief that mike hughes is probably done um you need to move on from him anyways.

You're not going to pick up his fifth-year option. It's very obvious. You got to figure out a contingency plan. I know people would be probably pretty livid with them drafting cornerbacks that high. It's a necessity. Did you see the state of the defense this year? Right.

It's a necessity. So then with my 90th pick um that's when i dedicated uh you know a little bit more time to looking at the interior of the defensive line yeah and let me find it i just i had the other two written down um where did i put it i did not get an edge rusher in this one i got the dude from um dude from USC, and it might not be one of my better picks, but Jay Tufeli, I think, isn't it? Tufeli? He's an interior guy. It might not be one of my better ones,

but I was at least trying to prove a point that I'm going to draft defense. I'm going to build my defense to the draft this year. Because I'm just not overly convinced that they're ever going to do anything at that three techniques spot other than a rotation for, for a while until, unless you got somebody that you really liked, which doesn't kind of feel like they're in that spot. They got to hit on somebody at some point, like they've, they've taken some swings there and we've gotten Jaleel Johnson,

Jalen Holmes and James Lynch. And like some, somebody's got to click for them at that spot. That's a lot of football. Wow. I know wipe the sweat off the brow, take off the neck roll. That was good. So thank you. Thank you for, uh, thank you for your time. Cause, uh, man, I feel like we get done with the season and we're thinking, well, it's going to be a while to free agency while to the draft. And then the NFL just goes, Oh no, wait, here's the pedal. We're putting it down to the metal. The off season is about to get crazy.

So we'll see where it all goes. So, I mean, the quarter, the quarterback movement that we should expect before free agency, like in that like week leading up to where trades can start happening and then they get finalized and all of that like i just have a feeling it's going to be very like crazy this year like remember last year we're like oh my gosh look at all this movement tom brady where's he going teddy bridgewater i know philip rivers now it's like uh let's multiply that times three because you've got deshaun Watson clearly doesn't want to be there. Matthew Stafford. They're like, okay, bye. Um, we were in the NFC North. And if that's the case, I'm like, uh, get involved. Let's be reckless. Like if Aaron Rogers is like questioning his like stability in green Bay,

whether he's going to be there. I'm like, there's, if there's any chance that you have to like be a part of this, this is the only year. So why not? Right. What's the, the one commercial, the guys is like, come on, the water's great. Come on in. Or like, that's the, the Vikings of the trademark is really funny that for so long, this organization has had no stability at quarterback, but a really good roster. And now they have no stability on the roster, but stability at quarterback.

So and no one else does around them so irony anyway uh we'll talk again soon then Courtney thank you for your time Thank you.