Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Five burning questions about the future of the Vikings QB position

Episode Date: March 21, 2023

Matthew Coller and Jonathan Harrison answer five burning QB questions for the future, from the percentage chance that Lamar Jackson becomes a Vikings versus drafting a QB in the future. Which option is the most risky? Why doesn't Jonathan believe in Will Levis? What's the weirdest answer for Vikings QB of the future? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar, along with Jonathan Harrison here. And after last night, since we had such an entertaining discussion about Lamar Jackson, which got people pretty fired up in the comments section, we decided to run it back here and bring in an objective observer in Jonathan here. And if you guys watch the channel regularly or listen to the show regularly on hot routes. We're always doing that on Tuesday nights. And, uh, so Jonathan, I'm sure you went back and observed the discussion from last night about Lamar Jackson. I have a bunch of quarterback questions for you though, but, uh, maybe just your reaction to that discussion, which was, I would say, lively is a good way to.

I mean, I can't think I can't think of more energy that's been in one of these streams from that since maybe the loss to the Giants at the end of the season. Chat was wild last night. That's all I got to say. It was a it was a place to be last night in that chat. That was fun. Yeah, I thought it was a great conversation. I'm all aboard doing whatever you have to do to get Lamar Jackson. That might give away some answers here in the future. But yeah, I agreed pretty much with everything you said. I mean, he's absolutely worth two first round picks because he'll be the best quarterback this team has had in a very, very, very long time.

And there's no competition there because he will do things at the quarterback position that have not been done in Minnesota, especially over the last six years. And he'll re-energize the fan base because he's younger. He's a different presence at that quarterback position. And yeah, I think if you get Lamar Jackson in, the Justin Jefferson conversation or contract extension comes almost immediately after it I can't imagine that Justin Jefferson wouldn't sign whatever dotted line they put in front of him after bringing in a game changer of a quarterback like Lamar Jackson yeah I mean I think that that's uh one of the natural concerns for people that is probably overblown is that they wouldn't be able to keep Justin

Jefferson. It's not that Lamar Jackson would take up the entire cap and you couldn't have any other players on your team. There's a lot of combinations of expensive quarterbacks and wide receivers, even at Kevin O'Connell's former place of business, which was the Los Angeles Rams. They have one of the highest paid quarterbacks and one of the highest paid wide receivers. And I don't really understand a lot of the arguments against it, but I do certainly get where people talk about the price tag. If you're talking about, and we'll get into this with the five questions of the Vikings quarterback future, because I don't want to make it all about Lamar Jackson. There are many other options here, but none of them seem very clear. It's just that when it comes to the Lamar Jackson conversation, it's a lot of arguments that don't really hold up to a whole lot of scrutiny, especially about

his play. Now, the injuries are an issue, but the age is also a pretty important factor there when you're talking about being 26 years old that you don't expect that those injuries will slow him down also injuries can be really random in football I can't predict you can't predict nobody else can what is coming next when it comes to those those injuries and that's what's going to come up all the time with Lamar Jackson and I guess I would say I could name you probably 50 NFL players who had two seasons where there were injuries. But there are lots of players who have had long stretches after that, including Matthew Stafford is a great example, who early in his career had some injury problems and then got over those and has had a really good NFL career.

Even I brought up last night, Kyle Rudolph early in his career was this guy's injury prone. Injury prone is kind of a myth. And the fantasy people will tell you that. Now, if someone is twenty nine, 30 years old and has had year after year of consistent injuries, you know, that is a problem. I also think that, you know, this is brought up constantly about the running quarterback and injuries. But you're going to have to show your work. You're going to have to prove to me that running quarterbacks have more injury concerns than pocket quarterbacks, because in both cases, you could argue, well, pocket quarterbacks can't get away. So people injure them all the time because they take more hits. Or you could say that, you know, he comes from, you know, running around and, you know, getting taken down and tackled hard and

things like that, but it's football. And last year, almost 70 quarterbacks played in the NFL because lots of quarterbacks got banged up. Like that's going to happen. It's, it's something that you can't really predict. You kind of have to hope and pray, but we do know that the upside of Lamar Jackson is him playing like the best quarterbacks in the entire NFL of which there are not many quarterbacks that you could say that you would easily acquire that way and I'm working on an article right now and this is going to lead into our first question Jonathan about the risk because every single option for the Vikings in the future has risk and this is part of my frustration in

talking about the Lamar thing. Like, what am I supposed to tell you? He won't get hurt, but how can you tell me he will? Like there's risk to that. Can you tell me that there'll be able to build a complete roster? Of course I can't because that depends on the draft. I mean, if you draft a couple of good defensive players to go on that defense and Brian Flores builds it up with some good finds and good coaching yeah you can have a good enough defense but even Lamar Jackson if he leads a top five offense is not overcoming the 28th best defense in the NFL so like this it always comes along with risk it's risky to sign a 35 year old quarterback to the future it's risky to draft

a quarterback it's risky to trade up to get a quarterback It's risky to draft a quarterback. It's risky to trade up to get a quarterback. It's risky. You know, the heck the jets are taking a huge risk with Aaron Rogers that maybe he's had one cleanse too many and the guy can't play anymore. Like name me, name me a team that has no risk when they're, when they pick their quarterback, was it like Joe Burrow with the number one overall pick oh no that doesn't mean that all number one overall picks have been good have they baker mayfield has not been successful jimarcus russell gets brought up even when you draft number one there's risk when the denver broncos signed peyton manning and his neck was fused on with tape and glue there was a ton of

risk when tom brady signed with the tampa bay bucks there was a ton of risk when Tom Brady signed with the Tampa Bay Bucks. There was a ton of risk. How about trading for Matthew Stafford with the Rams where he had had all sorts of injuries and had never really won anything before. And the risk was everything because we saw what happened after they went all in on Stafford the very next year it fell apart. So tell me what quarterback option doesn't have risk but we can risk assess jonathan we are just humble broadcasters but we can pretend we are risk assessment analysts all right like my financial advisor which i have one now it's weird uh but i want you to tell me which sign you're getting old matt it really is when you're talking about irs, I'm like, what? Is that a new analytic? IRAs? Interior rushing against average or something? Anyway, still don't know what it means after the meeting. Lamar Jackson rant is which of the options is the most risky play risk assessment manager for me?

Is it signing Lamar Jackson to three years, 150 million and giving up two firsts trading up for Will Levis waiting until 2024 or extending Kirk cousins, which one of those options are the most risky? Uh, for me, the one that jumps off the page is trading up for Will Levis because of the four quarterbacks in this draft that are deemed first round picks, I think I'm the most shaky about him. I'm most concerned about what he provides because his college numbers don't look that great. He's known just for basically having a crazy strong arm, which has been a signifier of you don't really have much else. And his accuracy numbers are concerning a little bit as well. And the amount of time that he's played as a starting quarterback

in D1 college football has shown you, or says that he should be a little bit further along than he is, but he's not. And he's getting passed up by a guy who's played 13 college football games in Anthony Richardson. So that concerns me a lot that he, that people want to trade up for him and that he's considered a first round pick to begin with. I would probably lean a little bit lower than that, but I think that one for me is the riskiest. Maybe the second would be waiting until 2024. Cause you don't, obviously you don't

know what's going to happen there. Uh, Kirk cousins are might completely just fall off. Like we saw with Matt Ryan this year, it just, it seemed like everything had just gone from Matt Ryan and he didn't, he had nothing left and Kirk cousins getting that, getting around that age, that it just happens that the, the, the days of where Tom Brady is playing until he's 45, there's one guy who can do that, and it was Tom Brady. I don't think anybody else is going to be able to do that. Aaron Rodgers probably won't as good as he has been throughout his career, and maybe having a new home will rejuvenate him a little bit.

I don't see him playing much beyond the age of 38, 39, 40, because it's so hard to play that position, especially with the way Aaron Rodgers has played in the past and the injuries that he's incurred over his career. Those will catch up with you, and that's around the age where they start catching up with you. So I think Will Levis and waiting until 2024 concern me the most because you're leaving yourself with not a lot of options. And if you

have $98 million in cap space, but you have to use 20 million, 20 plus million of it to sign a quarterback, and you still have to sign over half your roster because you only have 26 players on the roster next year. You're not leaving yourself a whole lot of room to get a good roster around that quarterback, a good enough roster around that quarterback, whoever it may be. Yes, you do have Justin Jefferson. Yes, you do have Christian Derrisson and Brian O'Neal, but you still have only 26 players on the roster and only $98 million to spend.

And if you take any more than $20 million away for one quarterback, that's not a whole lot to spend on a lot of players you need to bring in next season. I think you're muted i am uh you know what i was trying to reduce the amount of times i burp into the microphone while i'm like pounding a diet dr pepper and so then i end up muting myself like a fool so either way it's like a lose-lose but uh so rank them for me where are you putting kirk cousins extension as far as in the risky like give me the one two three four yeah uh will levis one waiting until 2024 to extending kirk cousins three and then signing

lamar four okay so that's the least risky lam Lamar is the least risky. Okay. I agree with you that Lamar Jackson is actually the least risky because we can completely assess his game at the NFL level and tell you with a good amount of confidence that he will be a really excellent quarterback with the Minnesota Vikings. Nothing is a guarantee, but if we were doing like a meter of one to 10 of how risky each one of these things is, I mean, Lamar Jackson is only like a four because yeah, the biggest risk is that he does get hurt or he costs too much and it's hard to fit other things around him. Though, you know, I also think that when you can guarantee the performance and you're talking about knowing that Lamar Jackson could be paired

with a former quarterback, great offensive mind and Kevin O'Connell and Justin Jefferson, the best wide receiver in the game, along with an offensive line that is very good at run blocking. It was last year and ranked in the top five by PFF in run blocking. They had a running back who couldn't take advantage of it, but that's not the point. So you could build this around him together. And at very worst, you're a playoff team and you know, you're a playoff team with Lamar Jackson. So long as he doesn't get hurt, which we've established could happen to anyone. Kirk cousins has been extremely lucky. Someone could fall on his ankle week one next year and it could all be over right teddy bridgewater had no injury history basically outside of maybe i think he missed one game against the rams in 2014 and had otherwise

no injury history and then his leg fell off like this could happen to just about anybody so we just kind of assume that we can't really predict that it does become the least risky even as expensive as it is because you know exactly what you're getting. Just going backwards in order, I think that drafting in 2024, I agree with you, is less risky than going after Will Levis. The one thing, though, about Will Levis is if the Vikings scouts look at Will Levis and Kevin O'Connell assesses him and Kweisi Adafomensa assesses him with the data or whatever else. And they say, this is a first round quarterback. We know that some of the tape is concerning, but we've identified some of the issues that he has. He's tough as nails.

He can run a little bit. He's got some mobility and we really like the arm strength and how it fits in what we want to do, then I say that's just as risky as drafting any other quarterback. I don't have any confidence in myself to pick out which quarterback is going to succeed, which makes it hard sometimes doing the show because what you're supposed to do is say, I know CJ Stroud is number one, baby. I know that Bryce Young is too skinny, or I know that this, but tell me one person

who's been able to pick these things out in the past. And we made fun of when Kellen Mond was drafted, Chris Sims for having him in the top five. I know for a fact that Chris Sims wasn't the only one. There were people in the NFL who thought that Kellen Mond was more deserving than some of the other prospects at quarterback. And Kellen Mond was an instant failure in the NFL who thought that Kellen Mond was more deserving than some of the other prospects at quarterback and Kellen Mond was an instant failure in the NFL I mean not being able to even make it

through his rookie contract with the Vikings as a third round pick says how hard this is to figure out that each year go through each year and and look at where the quarterbacks were drafted Lamar Jackson is the best other than Josh Allen out of that group. And yet look where he was 32nd. Josh Allen was not the first quarterback pick. Patrick Mahomes was not the first quarterback pick. So I think it's so hard to figure out who's going to be successful that it doesn't carry any more risk than 2024. The one difference though might be what you have to give up to get them. Because if Will Levis is projected as a top 15 prospect and somehow gets out of the top 10, you're still talking about having to trade the next year's first round pick at very least and probably more to move up. Whereas when it comes to 2024, well, then you're talking about maybe being able

to use your own draft pick, especially if this year doesn't go particularly well for the Vikings. Although they haven't set it up that way. At this moment, as we speak, they've set it up to be very competitive next year, try to win the division, compete with the Lions, try to stay ahead of the Bears, try to stay ahead of the Packers. And right now we would probably have them basically close to even with the Lions, probably the Lions ahead of them. And then they're just behind if we were trying to pick it right now, because the schedule is so hard and the Lions have improved quite a bit, but you're still not talking about a team that's going to win six games and then draft super high. So you still have to give up, you know, lots of draft capital more likely than not to move up. That's, that's more likely than not. And if there are, see this year, there are four quarterbacks who are talked

about as being tops next year. At this moment, we've only really talked about two, maybe three. So if there's only two first round pick quarterbacks, then it becomes more risky. So that one I feel like is very equal. And in my mind, the most risky thing you can do by 50 miles is stay with Kirk Cousins. Because if the assessment is risk, what are you risking? You're risking passing up on opportunities to pick quarterbacks who might be able to take you farther. You're passing up on everything else. It's like what we talked about in 2018. I saw Mike Hughes signed today with the Falcons. Good for him. He's really gotten his career back on track. Hey, by the way, injury prone, right? And he's had now several seasons

in a row where he wasn't after leaving the Vikings. So that's another guy where you can say, was he really injury prone or did he have some bad luck and then got it together and was okay? But they drafted him instead of Lamar Jackson to develop behind Kirk Cousins in 2018. I totally understand why they did that. And at the time, it really wasn't something you could say, how dare you? But also there was an opportunity missed and Jalen Hurts and there's an opportunity missed. And then they stuck with Kirk throughout 2020 instead of moving on and taking a quarterback. There's been quite a few opportunities missed and they were never the team who could make a phone call to Tom Brady when he becomes a free agent or any other quarterback that

could come available because they were always so locked in. And I checked the numbers on this, Jonathan. The Vikings since 2018 have ranked 13th in point scored and 15th in point differential over the last five years with Kirk Cousins. Being dead, floating in the water in the middle is the most risky thing you can do because you can just get stuck there and they have been stuck there and stuck there and stuck there for how long and if you want to risk continuing to be stuck there see that the part the only part of the thing that would be good uh as far as you know continuing to play him is if it did come apart like it did with Derek Carr and then you try to trade him for something but even then if you extend him what's he going to

ask for like a no trade clause and I will say this that uh there is some talk in the league and I'm not saying that I'm reporting this will happen but upon looking at the contract restructure, that it is still possible to have an extension for Kirk Cousins. So I thought that that was mostly off the table, just like I thought Lamar Jackson was off the table. And now I think that we don't know one way or the other what's going to happen. But it's pretty clear to me that the worst place in the NFL, because we've lived this for so long, is being stuck in the middle. And there's nothing more risky than that, that when everything goes your way with a complete team of veterans and a new coach with a better culture and the best medical

people in the league and the best food people in the league and everything else and everything goes your way, you win every single score game everything everything was perfect almost and you still end up out in the first round because it just wasn't quite good enough well how would you argue that it's going to get better from here there's really no case for that so if they do extend Kirk Cousins to me that would be locking yourself into mediocrity to worse if he fades. And you mentioned that last year. I noticed that on NFL Next Gen stats, they have a stat for the longest completion through the air. And the farthest throw that Kirk Cousins completed last year was 10 yards fewer

than it was in 2019. So his longest completion through the air was 60 yards in 2019, or maybe it was 2000, 2020, I think was, was 60 yards, which is pretty good. That's like good at arm strength. It was only 50 last year. Now I know you have to complete one, but I think that the arm strength would be something that you are concerned about as far as going into the late thirties, which again is extremely, extremely risky so i think uh that makes a lot of sense that if you're always going to have risk but the least risky is probably going all in on someone who you know and has proven to be great and then after that everyone who ever drafts a

quarterback is just rolling the dice and the kansas city chiefs had they picked josh rosen instead that i mean where would they be? Oh, I'm sorry, it wasn't the same year. But whatever, either way, had they picked Mitch Trubisky instead? If the Chicago Bears had taken Patrick Mahomes and it's Mitch Trubisky instead, then is Andy Reid a genius, right? I mean, yes, he's still a very good coach for his career, but is he a genius? Is he a Super Bowl champion twice?

Like, no no absolutely not they had to roll the dice and all the teams who did it they had a lot of them had to move up in order to make this work even the los angeles rams made a super bowl the philadelphia eagles reached the super bowl the rams had to trade up for golf the eagles took jalen hurts when everyone told them that they were idiots for doing it go Go through every team that has a good quarterback. And even how about this? Like I was there for this. Buffalo, Tyrod Taylor.

A lot of people said he's good enough to win. You just need this. You just needed this. This was a real thing. So and then they went and got Josh Allen. They moved on from Tyrod Taylor. And here we are. So yeah, every single draft pick that has ever been

made by a team has been a risk but if you don't try then you end up 15th and point differential after five years with kirk cousins as your quarterback let's do a pie chart jonathan pie chart of percentage chances of all the things we just mentioned percentage chance that they sign lamar jackson percentage that they extend kirk percentage that they trade up this year percentage that they trade up next year and feel free to play along in the comments if you like all right so this one i've been playing around with the numbers quite a bit because I'm still waffling a little bit on some of these numbers. I think I'm going to go with the biggest number right off the bat.

I think 50% they get a QB next year. I don't know who it will be, but it just seems like with everything that's laid out and how this offseason is going right now, that seems like the most logical way that they will go next year is you're going to move on from Kirk next year. You're going to take the $28 million dead cap hit next year, and you're going to move on. Now, what you said about there's talk within the league that a contract extension is still possible has me concerned a little bit that that still might happen because of everything that happened last offseason with the Wilfs and how they

wanted to continue going forward with Kirk Cousins still concerns me a little bit that that might happen but I'm going to put that to the side for now I'm going to say next year that well that this year is Kirk's last year that 50% chance that they go for a new court that they get a new quarterback next year whether it's in the draft whether it's in free agency, whatever, someone is playing court, someone different other than Kirk Cousins is playing quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings next year. So that leaves me with still 50% of the pie left to go. I'm going to say 20% chance that they move up in the draft this year.

It's a little difficult because they don't have a whole lot of draft capital to trade and to do it. They would have to give up a lot, considering where they're at in the draft this year and the fact that they don't really have a whole lot of draft, as I said, draft capital to give up. It's going to be tricky to do it, but I feel like if there's going to be any move that Kweisi does,

and we've seen him trade plenty in the draft last year, he's kind of set the precedent that he's willing to trade and it doesn't matter with who, that it might happen that he's willing to trade up in the draft if a quarterback falls past 10 and he sees the guy and Kevin O'Connell sees the guy that they want. Yes, they haven't spent or they haven't given Brian Flores a whole lot to play with on defense. They brought back Harrison Smith, but it's really the main notable thing that they've given him. If a quarterback falls past 10, it feels like that might be something they would do. Just with where Kirk Cousins at his career.

And you give that rookie quarterback a year to sit on the bench, a year to get adjusted to the NFL. And then you move on from Kirk then. 15% extend Kirk. That number might go up depending on how much more you talk about in a possible extension happening, but it just doesn't feel like that's going to happen with how this offseason is played. So 15% Extendkirk, and then 15% they signed Lamar Jackson. It still feels like that is such a pie-in-the-sky idea, but hey, we're here talking about it because an ESPN reporter who previously covered this beat talked to some executives around the league and those executives said watch out for

Minnesota and that that it didn't seem possible after they resigned after they uh restructured Kirk's contract and put more dead cap hit and the accelerator and everything for next year but here we are talking about Lamar Jackson with plenty of chat last night, plenty of chat today about it. 15% they signed Lamar Jackson. 15 is pretty high. Paul Hodowanek sent me a message. Paul's still out there living his best life. And he sent me a message. Yep. And he said, you know, what's funny, Paul got after he left Purple Insider as former intern and professional Paul to go to PGA Tour. He went on a vacation with his friends first and then they gave him an extra week off before he had to start working. And then he doesn't even have to move to Florida for another month or something. So they made it very cushy for him, by the way. So he was listening last night and he sent me a message and he said, where does a Lamar Jackson

rumor rank in the most exciting moments for Vikings fans since Kirk signed in 2018? I came up with sixth. I came up with yesterday was the sixth most exciting moment. I mean, obviously you have the Saints win, the comeback, the Bills game. After that, it gets a little shaky. Oh, Zimmer being fired, I think, was also another one that went in there. And maybe there was one more. But like Justin Jefferson's first big game. But aside from that, like a Lamar Jackson rumor is one of the most exciting things that happened to this fan base in quite some time so i don't blame people uh nathan comes in with 10

percent lamar 10 cousins i assume you mean extension 50 draft to qb this year 25 next year um and five percent everything else falls through and we end up with a bridge quarterback yeah the the bridge quarterback is an interesting one because I didn't really include that. Um, and I guess you could have made it, but five is hard to do in a pie chart. So I tried to keep it to four. Nathan's better than us in math apparently. Um, but, uh, yeah, I'll go through mine. I have Lamar Jackson signing only at about 5%. I just think that even though it's been super fun to argue about and discuss and imagine the possibilities, and 5%, things still happen, right?

5% of the time. But it just seems like there are so many hurdles, so many levers that need to get pulled, so many things that need to come together for it to happen that I don't think it's very high. And when Jeremy Fowler calls them a wild card, that still makes it sound like it's not a very high percentage proposition. I could be pushed up to 10% just to make the math easier on these other ones.

So I'll go with 10%. But realistically, I think it's like a little less than 10% chance that that actually happens. I will say this year, the chances of them drafting a quarterback are 30% to get us up to 40 total. I think it's possible that they fall in love with Levis. And we don't, we also cannot guarantee that he's the guy who's going to fall. I mean, last year, and I only bring up Malik Willis to point out that we don't know, not to actually compare him to Anthony Richardson. Richardson is a much better prospect. He is much bigger. He's not a really good athlete. He's the best athlete. So there's a big difference. And his, his tape is actually better in like NFL quarterbacking things like getting rid of the ball, pocket presence,

stuff like that than Malik Willis. So they're different. But the point just being that we think we have a general idea of the order, and we often don't because mock drafters are not told. So we think it's going to be Bryce Young, CJ Stroud, Anthony Richardson, Will Levis as the order, but we have been fooled many times when it comes to this. So I guess I would throw out whoever. I've been using Will Levis because I think he's less of a prospect than the other guys,

but whoever I would go 30%, it's just going to be hard to trade up. There's so many teams that want these guys or should want these guys. Like even the Raiders. I mean, the Raiders pick up, you know, Jimmy Garoppolo that does not guarantee they don't draft Anthony Richardson I mean how about Atlanta we talked about Atlanta about you know if Atlanta has an opportunity to draft Anthony Richardson with all the weapons that they have there with the offensive line that they have there like how would they not be doing that so I think that it's going to be really really hard for the Vikings to get into that conversation if they want to. And they don't have ammunition to just keep going back and going back and going back to, oh, well, we can up the price. We can up the price.

We can give you more draft capital. They can't do that where some teams can and the Vikings just can't. So I will say that there is a world where somebody drops and they make that move. But I'm putting that at a pretty low, pretty low clip. The rest of the 60% is pretty hard because, you know, I would like to think that they have plans to draft one in 2024, that they have done their research. And I'm sure that they have, that they've had all their scouts and coaches look forward at the quarterbacks

coming out next year. Maybe it's not Caleb Williams, but Drake May, Spencer Rattler. There's other guys who could potentially come out and be good. So if they're looking forward and saying, all right, there's five guys that we think that we could take for next year, just based on our projections right now, then 2024 makes sense. Kirk doesn't sign an extension. He becomes a free agent. You draft a quarterback, the dead cap hit and the quarterback rookie contract balance each other out. We all go forward merrily, right? That is to me the most likely. And before tonight, I would have used probably 50% on out of the 60 on that, but I'm dropping it back just a little, just a little

from some people that have a little more knowledge of contracts who said it's just not off the table that they could sign him to an extension. Now, Andrew Kramer of the Star Tribune was on with me the other night on WCCO, and he said that Cousins wants a three-year extension and the Vikings don't want to lock themselves into three years. So, okay, that's an impasse, but could they bridge that impasse? I don't think it's completely impossible. So I am going to go 40% that they draft one in 2024 and 20% that cousins ends up still getting an extension. So altogether, if I have added this up correctly, I think I have. Maybe not, though.

Like, I'm trying to do it. I'm like, wait, wait, did I do this right? It was 10% to Lamar Jackson, 30% to a draft pick this year, 40% to next year, and 20% to Kirk Cousins. I did it. Yeah, it's only Courtney Cronin when she comes on that she cannot ever seem to make that math work. But you know what?

I'm not even against a take like this. Greg says 25, 25, 25, 25. And Greg, I'm not even, if you said that, I would not even argue with you. Because the funny thing is too, that there has been reporting in every which way. So a listener to the show, Nick, who listens to every show and reads the newsletter and stuff, he sent in a Friday mailbag type of question to Albert Breer about Kirk Cousins.

And Albert Breer came back and said that he could see an extension happening. He doesn't think that's off the table. But then we have Jeremy Fowler saying, no, actually keep an eye out for Lamar Jackson. You're like, wait a minute. Those two things couldn't be farther ends of the spectrum for what to do. So I don't know. And I also don't know like what it means that Zedaria Smith and Delvin Cook are still here. Like, does that mean they want to make sure they have a better roster all set for Lamar or the next quarterback? Or because it looked like we were kind of going toward the reset and then we

went like whoa is there a real reset here and then they signed dean lowry i don't even know where the heck that fits into things so it's very it's very puzzling and i i you and i are both trying to push that needle one way or the other a little bit but i don't even i don't even disagree with what greg said and uh he also adds that it's a complete mystery to me. It's a complete mystery to us as well. And one thing that I've noticed, Jonathan, is that this team doesn't seem to really show its cards of what it's going to do with Spielman in the past. Maybe we just got so good at knowing Spielman and thinking like Spielman that we could figure out what they were going to do. At every turn, we've been surprised, even last year.

You know, even last year with Daniil Hunter, where we're like, well, there's this dead set date where they have to make a decision. And then they just didn't and let it go. So, you know, this is a good question about these insiders jiving with us. Like, where are they getting this info? Well, that's the thing, is that if a team or a player doesn't want you to know you won't know because people who leak stuff they get fired so usually if a team wants it out there they will purposefully tell people that it's out there or if

an agent wants it out there so all the lamar jackson stuff is other executives guessing um and then of course uh here's from dan 15 lamar five draft a quarterback uh this year i assume you mean next year 60 sign a quarterback 15 trade for trey lance five percent we have to get trey lance in this conversation it has not been a quarterback conversation with the vikings if not for uh trey lance making an appearance we should have trey lance on the show sometime be like hey trey are you getting traded to the vikings at any time like you're coming back to minnesota yeah can you tell us that you're not so we never have to speak of it again although he has no control over that so even he wouldn't know um sorry did you have anything more to add about the pie chart before we move on Jonathan I was just going to comment about the the knowing what

the heck's going on and how much of a change that is as you mentioned compared to the Zimmerman Spielman years where it felt like because Spielman had been here for so long you kind of just knew what how the game plan was going to go despite what he said whatever he said it was almost especially at the combine it was almost always go despite what he said. Whatever he said, it was almost, especially at the combine, it was almost always the opposite, especially in the Stefan Diggs situation where he said he wasn't going to trade him, and then, lo and behold, the next month he trades him. It felt like in the Zimmerman-Spielman years, it was very predictable

what was going to happen in the offseason, and over the past two offseasons, it's been wild speculation from the day they were out of the playoffs to the day the season started. And I kind of like it a little bit this way because it provides, it's a more fun off season than just kind of being able to open up the book and know what's coming page after page after page. Jonathan, do you agree with the comments that you look like Kevin Owens? Okay. Jonathan do you agree with the comments that you look like Kevin Owens okay so I was on Ross Ross Brendel's podcast the other week or last week and he ended it saying the same thing that I look like Kevin Owens so Kevin Owens is hot right now that dude is on fire and Sammy Zane the whole thing going on there so uh yeah I i see it i see it now knowing you in person i don't see it oh yeah because i am not as physically athletic like kevin owens is i cannot do half of the stuff he can do uh four percent of no stuff no you can you can breathe and eat but those are the only things

you have in common with pro wrestlers. But that's funny. I didn't notice it, but if you got like real jacked, you would definitely look exactly like Kevin Owens. Here's my next question for you. And this is hard because we just spent time talking about how we really can't predict what's going to happen next. Who do you think is going to be the best quarterback in the NFC in the year of our Roger Goodell, 2025? I'm going to throw a curve ball here. It's Caleb Williams. You're going to say Trey Lance.

I'm going to say it's Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears. Wow. Okay. So you think that I'm not, I'm not saying Justin, no, I'm not even saying that, but because of the way that Ryan Poles has set up their offseason by trading back and getting another first round pick for next year and a Panthers pick that's probably going to be pretty high he's going to have draft capital to trade up and if Justin Fields is anything other than great why wouldn't you take that as you've said in the past keep swinging even if keep swinging for that

great quarterback that that Patrick Mahomes type, if Justin Fields doesn't take that next step that he has to take to become one of the best quarterbacks in the league, if he doesn't take that and you have the draft capital to trade up, to get a Caleb Williams, why the heck wouldn't you take that swing? Even if he shows to be good, you can still trade him for probably good draft capital in return, and then you can go up and get Caleb Williams. If he's anything but good with the roster there, it looks like they're putting around him with DJ Moore as the number one wide receiver. You got Chase Claypool as the number two and whoever else they put around them.

Why wouldn't you try and take that swing if you feel more confidently that Caleb Williams is going to be a better quarterback than justin fields the chat entirely thinks that you look like kevin owens it is uh it is a hundred percent pie chart agreement that you look like him so there you go i i've never found a good doppelganger for myself but you've got this one at least in the face and not so much in the body, but yeah, now that's really interesting. That is really interesting about Justin Fields because what we know about fields is, I mean, there's a few things. One last year, had he had a decent team around him and they wouldn't have won three games. Okay. They would have been a much better football team, but still the throwing is

really concerning. And what they've done is they've set it up to find out now, will they win too many games to be in shouting distance of number one, because whoever is drafting number one, if they need a quarterback, they are taking Caleb Williams and they are not trading him to you because he's been one of those prospects that, you you know for years is going to be at the top i would say probably the best prospect since what trevor lawrence and then before that andrew luck like he falls in that category where we knew for years that uh that that was going to happen so caleb williams is not going to be a guy that you can trade for more likely than not because the team who loses unless they have an injured quarterback their quarterback position is probably going to be up for grabs so that one is it's a bold guess

i'm not saying you're wrong i'm saying it's a bold guess because it could be that the bears are the worst team if they did all this stuff and then he still plays very badly then yeah you could end up with three wins and end up in that Caleb Williams conversation for sure. So I could see that happening. I think that that is, it is a unique way to approach the question. You didn't troll everyone here that's Vikings fans by saying Jordan Love, that I think you could have, I think that was right there for you to just say, well, obviously it's going to be Jordan Love because every Packers quarterback is just instantly great. So, you know, the fact that you didn't go with that, I'll give you credit. I think my answer is

he's not here. I think might be the answer right now that the best quarterback in the NFC North in 2025 does not currently exist in the NFC North because I am with a lot of other people that really questioned Justin Fields passing ability. And it's not so much actually his throwing because he is a great thrower of the football. It's really the operation. It's getting sacked all the time. It's not really having a great understanding of where the ball is supposed to be and kind of having to rely on just sticking on one read and throwing it into a tight window. But even that doesn't work that great at the NFL level. So I think that there are concerns there.

And the Bears certainly did not go all in with the way they approached it. So even if it wasn't Caleb Williams, it could be Drake May, could be a top draft pick. I will agree, though, that at least as of right now, it looks like the Justin Fields thing has a good chance of blowing up on chicago for sticking with him and with the vikings in 2025 i it would be very surprising if kirk cousins was still the vikings quarterback or maybe it shouldn't be because no matter what happens they just continue to extend him no matter they were missing the playoffs and whatever else it doesn't matter they just continue first round out. Doesn't matter. You just keep running,

running it back. But I think that the next Vikings quarterback will be in place by then. And with Detroit, now this is very interesting with Detroit, because if they become a powerhouse within the next couple of years, the problem is that golf becomes very expensive, but also, I mean, the Vikings were able to keep a team together for a couple of years until 2019, that was very expensive. So if golf continues to run number one offenses and or whatever,

top 10 offenses in 2023, 2024, and they're legit contenders because they built this powerhouse, then Jared golf could very well still be the quarterback where everybody else beats each other with pool toys and fools around in the draft and keeps failing and struggling. Like that's very possible. So I think it's amazing how hard it is to even try to look one year down the road and say who the quarterbacks are going to be in a division. It almost feels like college football in a way where, you know, everybody transfers all the time or college basketball. So you say, who's going to be good next year? We have no idea because there's going

to be so much movement, but I think it's a little bit of an exercise of how much do you believe in fields? How much do you believe in Jordan Love, which we can't really tell at all. And do we think by then the Vikings have their future franchise quarterback in place. And, you know, I don't know, as we've as well established, we really don't know. Cause if it's Lamar Jackson, I can tell you, he's going to be the best in the division, which is another part of the Lamar Jackson argument, by the way. And Nick, I mean, Nick says here that Detroit should be going hard after Lamar Jackson. I agree. I agree. There's like 15 teams in the league that really should be trying to do that. And Detroit still, after all their signings at last check of

over the cap.com Detroit was only behind Chicago for cap space. So yeah. Yeah. I mean, they could probably do it a little bit easier there. Okay. A couple more things real quick. I want you to give me your most creative option that we have not touched on yet. We are 45 minutes in we've said Trey Lance. So I don't know if that's a creative option for the Vikings future quarterback. Oh, creative option. I mean, everybody wants to say Aaron Rogers is going to follow the Brett Favre path. That doesn't seem really creative because it's been out there for very long. I'm going to say the guy who grew up a Vikings fan in Kyler Murray, that the Cardinals just want to move on with him.

Jonathan Gannon isn't impressed. The Vikings are like, ah, let's try and take a shot. Kevin O'Connell thinks he can get more out of him than Cliff Kingsbury or Jonathan Gannon were able to. And they offer up enough and get Kyler Murray to come throw the football to Justin Jefferson. That's my most creative option that I can come up with. I like it. Creative options in the chat, if you have any. The first one is trading for Mac Jones. Well, you know, that was weird though, because it seems like

the Raiders did call the Patriots. And I imagine that Bill Belichick asked for kind of the moon there because they don't have to move Mac Jones. I also think that Mac Jones rookie contract, the only way Mac Jones was ever going to work, and it was part of the debate about whether the Vikings should have picked him, is if he was placed in a great situation on the rookie quarterback contract, which we have seen succeed before in the NFL without mega star, perfect quarterbacks, right? That's an important part of this is someone like golf or someone like Wentz. I mean,

if those guys are placed into the amazing situations, they can take you far, but yet new England has not made an amazing situation for mac jones they made it worse last year way worse by having matt patricia and joe judge fiddle around like morons with the offense that made no sense at all guys who have no experience even doing that and they didn't have any receivers for him jacoby myers was by far his best receiver just honestly like total nonsense um i don't know i have one but i i don't want to say i don't want to say come on you have to say i'm gonna whisper it and whisper it for zach wilson

what if like what if no what i said creative what if they loved him coming out and they were like you know what what if we paired him with justin jefferson and uh taught him to stay away from teammates moms or whatever i like how people in the chat were upset with murray pick because of the the ego and the issues oh yeah come up with zach wilson oh yeah mine is much worse than kyla mur. Are you kidding me? Kyler Murray, Kyler Murray, one year ago, one year ago in the middle of the season was being talked about as the MVP. And you can't tell me that Cliff Kingsbury had any idea what he was doing. This matters. This matters that you can set them up with somebody who makes a lot of sense. I like this one though. Convince Tom Brady to come out of retirement. Yeah, I like it. I like it. What if Tom Brady takes a year off and he acts like a dad for a year and he's like, no, this is not for me. I pay people to be a dad. So I'm going to go back at age like 47 and play for the Vikings. Was he born here or something or spent some time here as a kid?

Grandparents are from here or live here or something. Everybody's got a Minnesota connection. We'll find one if he doesn't have it. So there you go. That that's a very creative, very, very creative. Or you know, you as Kevin Owens could go to the Ravens and force them to allow Lamar to come here. That would be it. Yeah, I know. I know.

Nick is saying, you know, report to HR for a drug test. Yeah, I mean, come on. It's funny though, right? Like who, there have been teams that do this, right? There have been teams that, I mean, look at Sam Darnold, that trade for busts. Rick Meyer back in the day, trade for busts. See if there's anything there. Stetson Bennett and Max Duggan have been brought up here.

Yeah, I wouldn't see those as possibility. Bailey Zappi, this is good. Oh, Brady's mom is from Minnesota. There you go. There you go. So there's a connection. Tom Brady spends the year off and realizes he doesn't like the single dad life. He'd rather go play in the NFL one more time.

People really don't like Kyler Murray, but I don't really understand that completely. I do think that they could have done a lot better with Kyler Murray there. But the problem is with the Kyler Murray idea is that he is so expensive. And that is very similar to Mac Jones. If you blow it and you throw it away it's going to be a problem i mean okay this is good this is good jeff george can still tuck the rock yes that's perfect that is perfect you're the best which one do you think was more which one do you think was more harmful to kyler murray the fact that cliff kingsbury was his head coach

and that did some harm to his reputation or the call of duty reddit thread hurt his reputation oh the call of duty for sure the call of duty for sure i like greg says i like the jeff george the jeff george season was incredible 1999 it was very fun uh taylor heineke is another answer here we got um philip rivers i don't know whether to put the inappropriate one on the screen or not but get zach and brady's mom in a darkness retreat tent that's just not that's not right uh that's not right philip rivers those funny jamarcus russell is funny you never know man you never know uh use a supermodel to convince tom brady come out of retirement. Yeah, that's right. He kind of messed it up with the first one. So anyway, we should not give you guys the opportunity to give these answers.

Oh, if this magic happens, it's over, man. Ryan Fitzpatrick. Yes. Cam Newton. Sam Bradford. Taysom Hill is a funny answer. There's lots of guys out there. There's lots of guys out there who could be the Vikings future quarterback. And hey, look, if you go through the history of Vikings quarterbacks, who's going to say anything

is impossible. So now that we've been talking about the Vikings future quarterback here for about an hour, I want you to talk about your feelings Jonathan and uh you know pro wrestlers have feelings too in fact actually a lot of pro wrestling is guys sharing their feelings I mean it is now yeah you hurt me you upset me Roman Reigns you turned your back on me why did you do that that hurt my feelings now I gotta power bomb you or whatever uh so let's talk about ours though which future quarterback path has you okay i wrote most jacked i know what that one is that's lamar jackson but if you've got a different answer most excited most hopeless most nervous most confident most excited would

obviously be hands down lamar jackson finding his way to Minnesota. That would be incredible. That would be one heck of a move for this franchise. Who's done crazy moves in the past, like going to get Brett Favre, like going to get Jared Allen and these moves that just come out of nowhere. And it's like, wait,

what, what just happened? That would be absolutely incredible. The one that would make me feel the most nervous. I've already stated it is trading up for Will Levis. That one would concern me a little bit. If it's trading up for any of the other three, I don't think I'm as nervous, but for some reason, Will Levis just has me nervous. But as you said, we don't know anything about these quarterbacks as proven last year about how the NFL feels about them.

Most confident would also be Lamar Jackson, but the most hopeless is the one that you've mentioned a couple of times tonight, extending Kirk cousins. The fact that it's a possibility has the hope draining out of me already because we've seen what we're going to see from Kirk cousins. It's not going to be any different than what we've seen in the past. They went 13 and three, 13 and four this year, and they still lost in the first round. It's just, I don't feel any, it would not get me or fill me

with any bit of excitement whatsoever. If they found a way to extend him any longer, like his time, he's, he's had a good run. Let's just call it that let's move on and let's find a new quarterback. I don't understand why people would want to continue going down this same path because he said, it's just been mediocrity at this point and be the worst place in the NFL in sports in general is just mediocrity it's just not it's hard to get out of unless you go really really bad but even then because you're so mediocre it takes a little time to get there and it just feels like it drags on forever don't give me that do not put that upon my Vikings fan soul. Yeah, no, I, you know, I agree with, I agree with your list. The most hopeless, I think for Vikings fans in general

would be just not changing anything. And this year deviated from what we thought was going to happen for 17 weeks. And then the 18th week, or I'm sorry for 18 weeks. And then the 19th week in the playoffs, it all came back to reality, right? It was, wow, so much is different here. They're winning all these close games and this is amazing and everything else. And we all wrote the stories, O'Connell and Kirk, they're walking as one into victory and situational masters and all those things. But then at the end of the day, it ended up in the same place. And how is it going to be better than what it was last year?

That would be my question. How is it going to be better? Can you have a better defense? Yes, but you also then just lost a receiver. And are you going to keep the whole thing together? And it's always that game of whack-a-mole is last year had great health. But at some point, even the best training staff is going to have a bad season of health. And with cousins, can he continue even to play as well as he was playing

because his numbers all dropped last year. We can't ignore that part. You can't ignore when you're trying to evaluate where someone is going that, you know, you could have, um, uh, just a drop off the side of the table, but you still have an ownership that might come in and say, no, we love Kirk and we want you to get the extension done. So that would feel the most hopeless, I agree. Most nervous, yeah, I like your answer. Will Levis here would be most nervous because it is. And I would even throw Anthony Richardson into this too.

I like Anthony Richardson a lot as a prospect because I think we've seen this type of Anthony Richardson a lot as a prospect because I think we've seen this type of player succeed a lot of times in the NFL where people go, well, I'm not really sure. You know, I'm not really sure if he can throw and then the guy can throw, right? And that's Jalen Hurts. And that's, that's a lot of them. Even Patrick Mahomes, go look at the scouting reports. Well, his footwork's not good enough and whatever. I mean, there's a lot of that, right? So we've seen that player succeed still the college numbers are not very good for him and that would make you nervous that you get this unbelievable athlete who just

can't really do enough to play quarterback and then you're sort of stuck in the mud hoping that he you know brings it all together and everything else I don't know. So yeah, either one of those guys, the high upside, the guy with the rocket arm, the guy with the amazing athleticism would make you more nervous than Bryce Young or CJ Stroud, who just have incredible college football careers. And as far as most confident, yeah, I mean, there's no question. Lamar Jackson is the one you're most confident in. But I'm also most confident in, it's like a weird way of twisting this. I'm most confident in drafting a quarterback is a good idea because

even if it fails, it will set you up to take the next one. And that's okay. Cause it does happen. And what Chicago has done is good idea. Like they've set themselves up for, uh, you know, being able to kind of have their cake and eat it too in the future. And, you know, guys, your comments are still funny, by the way, that are coming in. Jake Browning is a good one. I will never forget in my life Jake Browning when he had to run a whole practice by himself because everyone else had COVID.

And this is, so this is a comment here that I saw quite a lot last year. They'd rather have Kirk's stats go down if his wins go up. But the problem with that is because he was not as good on a play to play basis as he was in the past, they were in position where they had to rely on these late game wins all the time and the one score wins and having a record of fourth quarter comebacks, that's not going to happen in the future. And if you're projecting what someone is going to be, okay, best answer from Bradley. I'm just going to Kyle Slaughter is the best answer. Having a tough time in the XFL, by the way, for all those folks who wanted him to be the backup years ago. Anyway, so I think, I think his team had like 12 points the other night in the XFL.

Not really a starter, but anyway, so the point just being that if you're trying to project forward, you're going to look at those numbers and say, if you ran that season back and he played the same way and you even win half of those one score games, you are a fringe playoff team. If you win less than half you are out of the playoffs if he plays the same way so now you got a bet that he actually is going to play better than he did last year so you could say oh hey uh maybe you know they'll have they'll have the system locked down or whatever but this is this is kirk like this is who he is this is who he's always been uh is n Stanley still around? That's funny.

That's a good one. I don't understand why they drafted Nate Stanley. That was an odd selection. Tavares Jackson. Yeah. RIP Tavares Jackson. Case Keenum. Case Keenum is on his third stint with the Houston Texans, which is amazing. I saw Sage Rosenfels talking about it the other day on Twitter to some other people, just about second stints, third stints. So anyway, well, this was super fun. And of course, as I say at the end of every show that we do live, you guys make it fun. And especially the last 15 minutes here.

So with all of your potential answers for hilarious, random quarterbacks, Brett Favre has to be mentioned here. How none of you came up with Brett Favre before uh alex did i have no idea but anyway uh thanks for your time jonathan we'll do this again tomorrow night with uh some different questions about what's going on around the league and with the minnesota vikings and until then we will catch you guys all later but uh so so much fun so much fun um sorry i throw this hunterep it, put collar out there on the rookie contract. Hey, did you guys see? If you guys listen all the time and you remember the rant that I had the other day where I

completely lost it when I was talking with Chris Trapasso about people who think they can get 10 yards in the NFL. Kendall Hinton, the guy who tried the wide receiver who had to play in an nfl game he quote tweeted that it was like nope no you guys can't because he an nfl player only got like 14 yards passing so just so you know even the guy who tried it says uh even pro athletes can't get 10 yards playing nfl quarterback and and the idea some people kind of galaxy brain this and they're like what if i threw screens like the defense knows you can only through screens man they're not playing safeties in the parking lot bro they only do that because kirk cousins could throw it over them and

not you so anyway josh freeman tim tebow joe webb you guys are great brad johns hey brad right i tweeted back and forth with brad maybe a year ago i was like brad how's the arm or whatever and he's like still sling it's the rest of my body that's the he does like trick shock videos now doesn't he yeah he can still sling it bring back brad johnson haven't haven't played for a year archie manning all right okay you guys have had enough now you guys have crossed the line all right jonathan uh great stuff thanks for all of your time we'll be back very soon really appreciate all of you watching we have so much still to resolve for the off season and we will be here for you as we do it so thanks everybody for watching and we'll catch you next time