Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Geno Smith and Derek Carr's contracts set the stage for a Kirk Cousins decision and what's the next shoe to drop?

Episode Date: March 8, 2023

Matthew Coller and Jonathan Harrison talk about how Geno Smith and Derek Carr's new contracts impact the Vikings' negotiations with Kirk Cousins and how the team has a fork in the road of either committing for at least 2 years or letting the deal play out or going in a shocking direction and trading him. Plus after Eric Kendricks was released that created some cap space but there's much more that needs to be done in order for the Vikings to get under the cap... who's next? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar, Jonathan Harrison here, and we've got some questions to go through hot route style. Normally we do kind of an around the league hot routes on Tuesday nights here, but there is so much going on with the Minnesota Vikings, so many questions to ask, that we are going to focus it on here as we mostly do on this channel anyway. So a lot to discuss, Jonathan, but maybe the weirdest thing, and this isn't even necessarily where I wanted to start, but it's just kind of a crazy day on Twitter to watch as the Daniel Jones and Lamar Jackson situations have played out. I have to say that I always just expected the Baltimore Ravens

to straight up regularly franchise Lamar Jackson, but I did not expect the NFL and its owners and teams to start waging war on expensive quarterbacks. What a time to see this happen, where it seems as teams come out and tell reporters that they're not going to go after Lamar Jackson and the non-exclusive tag is only 32 million for Lamar as he seeks Deshaun Watson level money, or at least for a very long time, if the NFL suppresses the raise in quarterback salaries, as it seems that they did. This was something that I truly did not see coming at the beginning of this off season, but seems like a concerted effort from the league to say, okay, whoa, Jimmy Haslam kind of went wild last offseason, but we're not letting everybody else follow suit.

You figured something like this might happen eventually. And shocker, they go after the guy who's representing himself, so he doesn't really have an agent to fight back. So that's probably got a lot to do with it in the fact that Lamar Jackson has always represented himself and doesn't have an agent to go to bat for him. So it's not shocking that they're doing this, but it's also weird that it comes in the same week that Derek Carr gets paid the same day that Daniel Jones gets paid the same day that we're getting rumors of Aaron Rodgers

almost seems like joining the New York Jets at this point. It's yeah, it's, it's shocking, but also kind of, it's also not shocking knowing that the owners are the way that they are and always have been. And I think that when you look at those deals for Gino Smith, you know, maybe we could kind of just start there because this is where I wanted to begin. Anyway, Gino Smith, Derek Carr, Daniel Jones, all of their contracts are in kind of the same ballpark and all of them have a theme because each one of these quarterbacks has some questions to them in the future. Like Derek Carr

is coming off of probably his worst career year since he was a rookie and Geno Smith, it's a very small sample size. Same thing with Daniel Jones, where he played excellently this season and certainly very good against the Vikings in the playoffs, who earned him a lot of money. But yet, each one of these deals, when you start parsing it apart, what you find is they're really like two-year contracts that are worth somewhere in the range of $35 to $40 million a year for all three of these quarterbacks, Geno Smith getting the least amount of guaranteed money and a lot of incentives if he performs a certain way.

But that's the theme is that they were not really truly going all in on these quarterbacks and going long-term. And they actually did sign contracts that are reflective of a middle tier of the NFL. This is something that I did not expect again at all. I thought Daniel Jones was going to press them for 45 mil and they were going to get the Kyler Murray type of contract at the top of the market and everything would just keep going up and up because that's how it's always worked. When Kirk Cousins signed his deal, it was the most expensive in NFL history.

And then that got beaten out a little while later. And then on we went up and up and up and up with these quarterback contracts. It's worked that way for every other position. As you see, wide receiver is jacked up to the point where Christian Kirk is getting $21 million a year to be okay at football. And relatively speaking, not compared to me, but compared to say Justin Jefferson or Stefan Diggs and defensive ends, pass rushers, they're pushing $30 million and you just figure this is how it's gonna be for the rest of time.

And yet the NFL kind of pumped the brakes a little bit on this. And I think part of it was, where else are you going? Who is going to pay you this kind of money where there was only a limited amount of teams and they could kind of set the market a little bit more than maybe we expected going into this. But I think now the comparable quarterbacks for Kirk Cousins are very much set and the Vikings have their price. If you'd like to extend Kirk Cousins, this is basically what you're signing him for.

Because if Cousins went and said to the Vikings, I deserve Russell Wilson money. Look at my stats compared to Russell Wilson. They could come back and say, I get that. But also look at your stats compared to kind of Geno Smith and Derek Carr in recent years as well, that those are much more comparable quarterbacks to you than a guy when he signed the deal was a Hall of Fame caliber quarterback. Nobody's signing those deals now. We're going to need more cap space.

And if you do play out your contract to next year, this is what you have to look forward to. No one is paying you Russell Wilson money if you go through this year to next year and hit free agent hit free agency that you are not going to get this type of attention because Derek Carr did not that he got a very reasonable two-year deal so the Vikings kind of took back a little bit of the power here if they do want to extend Kirk Cousins the The outline is laid out. Now, Jonathan, it's entirely up to them of, do you want to do it? Because you have the figures. Now, are you guys going to push the button or not? And if they don't, then what that means is that they don't want to lock themselves into

Kirk Cousins for any more length of time. And that Kweisi Adafo-Mensa and Kevin O'Connell want to find their own guy to draft and develop or to sign in free agency or trade for something else that just isn't Kirk Cousins. We're going to know pretty shortly here because everything has been laid out for them. If they want to do it, then they can do it. Yeah, everything's starting to kind of start move, starting to move fast now across the NFL. You're starting to see the Lamar Jacksons and all this stuff start to play out.

So the Vikings, they won't have to wait long, as you said, to make their decision what they want to do. But I don't see them going for that because with the money that Geno Smith and Derek Carr and Daniel Jones are going to make now, Kirk Cousins has a right to say, look, I've led a team to 13, four record over those guys. Those guys don't have as good of a record as the team that I just led. I should be paid more. And the Vikings don't really have the cap space. So it just doesn't make sense to me that they would do it right now with how things are

playing out and where they're at with their roster as of this moment in time and in going into this off season. Yeah. Will they do it is really the question here. And I don't know, because we had a tough time predicting where things were going to go last year with Kweisi Adafo-Mensa and Kevin O'Connell in charge. And what we didn't really realize is that they had been given a directive to stay competitive. And we know that they already did shop Kirk Cousins last year.

Didn't like what they were getting back. Didn't see any other options. And this year they may run into the same thing, but they don't have to give him an extension. The problem is if they don't give him an extension, everybody's got to go. All parties must leave. Because when you look at the cap space,

it's very easy to say, well, they're 15 million over the cap. Just get rid of Zedarius Smith and you'll be good to go. But it doesn't really work like that because you can't just create a little cap space and then you're good if you're cap compliant. You have to fill out a whole 90-man roster going into the preseason. You have to get a draft class, albeit a small one, that they're going to have this year, but you have to be able to sign a draft class. You have to be able to fill out positions, say the center position, or they want to re-sign Delvin Tomlinson.

How are you doing these things without way more cap space? And one of the options they have is one of these extensions. And when you look at Derek Carr's extension, what's really noticeable is that first year, 2023, his cap hit is actually incredibly low. And then it goes up to like 35, and then it goes to like 50 million. And that's when they'll probably cut him

unless he's done something amazing or they'll just restructure that deal. As so often it works in the NFL when guys sign these long-term contracts is that everybody knows it's kind of like a two-year deal. And then from there, you know, I guess we'll see where it goes. But, you know, if the Vikings don't do that, then they have to be planning on getting rid of a lot of cap space, not just a little and a lot of bodies, not just a little in order to make up for every

thing that they're going to have to deal with here. And the other thing is too, that if they're going to extend Daniel Hunter, this is not one of those situations where you can just massively lower his cap hit by extending him. His cap, it's only like 13 million. Now, if he's going to want 25 to 30 million, there isn't an easy way to just make that less. So does that mean trade Daniel Hunter as part of this? Does that mean cut Zedarius Smith as part of this? Move on from Adam Thielen, move on from Harrison Smith. The first step was Eric Hendricks, but if they don't lower Kirk Cousins cap hit, then there is so much more to go here, Jonathan. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that whole Kirk Cousins move, whatever they do there,

is going to be the biggest signal of what this roster is going to be next year and the following year. Because as you said, if they get rid of him, they're not going to do the competitive rebuild. It feels like if he's gone, it's a full-on rebuild and they're just moving house and they're just getting, they're clearing house. They're getting rid of everybody. And it's not

going to be a fun, much of a fun season. It'll be more of a developmental season. And we'll really get to see how well, how good of a coach Kevin O'Connell is, how good of a roster builder Kwesti D'Affomensa is with what they'll put together next season if they move on from Kirk. But if they don't move on from Kirk, that's also very interesting in what they plan on doing with their roster, with how little space they have to move, how little draft picks they have to get young prospects. I mean, they don't have a whole lot of cap space right now. So what they do after that, it's going to be entirely interesting. Yeah. I mean, it seems

like the only two options are to reset or rebuild. Those are the only two ways to go. And I won't, I promise I won't bring it up all off season, but that schedule, that schedule is just brutal. It has to be mentioned. And how are you filling all of these spaces with only so much cap space to work with? Like think about the linebacker position alone. So maybe they keep Jordan Hicks. I don't know. They haven't cut him yet, but let's just say they move on from Jordan Hicks. You have Brian Asamoah and who?

Troy Dye, William Kwemku, who is a special team guy that was just called up last year. I mean, those are the only guys left on the roster at this moment. So you have to sign somebody there. You have to bring in a corner. You have a center situation where, you know, Garrett Bradbury is a free agent. Oh, by the way, if Adam Thielen leaves, I understand that, you know, we could see a path forward to another receiver making a bigger impact than he did last year, but he had over a hundred targets. Like that's not, you just don't push a button and here comes Albert Wilson to take the spot of Adam Thielen or, you know,

Jalen Rager or something like this is a lot of snaps to make up for, or if Delvin Tomlin's in signs elsewhere, then who are you having playing defensive tackle? You can only draft so much. You can only sign so much. So it's how desperately do you want to scratch and claw? Or do you think in another way that they might be thinking with the relationship between Kevin O'Connell and Kirk Cousins, though nobody

committed to this at the combine. So that's an important note that nobody, neither Kweisi Adafo-Mensa or Kevin O'Connell said, he's our guy going forward. I don't ever want to have another quarterback. Very interesting that they said that about Justin Jefferson, that Kwesi Adafo-Mensah said, I don't even want to be the GM of this team if he isn't there, which maybe is a little aggressive of a thing to say. But, you know, because if he leaves, maybe you won't be.

The point just being that, like, that's the way they talked about Jefferson. And with Kirk, it was like, well, he's good enough to win. We think if you get the, you know, things around him and the same sort of things that have been said, but they could look at it as if you signed him to an extension that's similar to Derek Carr and Geno Smith, that you're going to have at least some more cap space that you create to put some more things around Cousins. And you don't have to win the Super Bowl next year, but

you can competitive rebuild. And two years from now, then maybe you're trying to catch the back end of Kirk Cousins again. But where I keep coming around to this is just that I can't make the timelines work together. I really can't. I mean, even if you're Kirk Cousins and you're looking at this roster and cap space, he's a very aware individual. Is he saying that I want to stay here or is he saying, you know what? Like I might want to see if there's a team

that might trade for me. Aaron Rodgers is meeting with the Jets. We don't know how that's going to play out. They're the most obvious team. San Francisco's name keeps popping up all the time. Carolina, there is a connection. I know kind of a religious connection between he and Frank Reich that those two kind of have talked before on that level, but maybe not football.

But Carolina is definitely looking at quarterbacks. They would be a team to bring in a veteran like Cousins on a one-year deal and then draft somebody and develop somebody. They're in a good place to do that. So there will be options if he ends up being available. So I think that the spread of different ways this could go within the next few days, Jonathan, is really wild. It's like we could be talking about, okay, how are they building around this kirk extension that's similar to derrick carr we could be saying one year left everybody knows it's the final year of kirk or we could be saying kirk plays for the carolina panthers now or the atlanta falcons

isn't that crazy that's how i feel is i i would when we do pie charts i would put like 33 33 33 for all these different options because i really don't know which way it's going to go. Yeah, absolutely. And just think about what, what we were saying, what two weeks ago, after, after a week off from the Superbowl, it felt like, and just like, all right, can we just get to the combine already? Can we get to just the craziness? And now it's here and it feels like we almost can't keep up with everything

that's happening across the league and not, not just Vikings but like everything with Lamar Jackson all the quarterbacks and how how it all affects the Vikings and it's crazy how much how much the Vikings are affected by what's going on outside of them because whatever happens with Aaron Rodgers will be a big signal towards the rest of the NFC North hey this division's up's up there for grabs. Who's going to come and take it? And will the Wilfs see that like they did last offseason and kind of play on that and hope that they can continue their winning ways? Or will the smarter side of, you know, all this rebuild talk, will that kind of get a hold and say, all right, let's take a step back.

Yes, the division's there up for grabs, but in the long run, it's not going to help us if we continue just eating up all our cap space and then we have nowhere to build in the future. So yeah, it's all very, very interesting in how everything's playing out and how quickly it's all playing out. By the end of this podcast, we could have a completely different world. And the fact that it hasn't happened yet that I've been recording a show or doing a live show and something's broken. Like the fact that that hasn't happened yet. The other day, someone got fooled by a fake account and in the comments was saying like, Oh, this is happening. And I was like, Oh man, once again, uh, but that it was just

a fake account. Um, so, but we are relying on you guys in the comments. If there's breaking news to start shouting at us like crazy people, cause I can't look at Twitter and talk at the same time. Or I'll just, you know what happens to me? You remember this when we did live radio together. I'll start saying the things that are tweets. I lose my concentration and I'll just start saying tweets in front of me. So we don't want to do that.

But I do think that if you're the Vikings, we all sort of see the way that this probably should go. And what's very interesting to me this off season is even people that I know that follow Purple Insider or email me, tweet me, whatever, who have been really on the side of Kirk Cousins and really enjoyed his last season, which you should have. Eight fourth quarter comebacks, eight game winning drives. That was a heck of a year for Kirk Cousins, the throw in Buffalo, all the crazy games and everything else. And him kind of showing that

he could be clutch and he could be the leader in the locker room that they were looking for kind of dispelled a lot of things about him that I've always said on the show, we have to make sure we've got the right criticisms for Kirk Cousins. If we're saying he's not clutch or he can't win a Monday night football game, like that's just not right. Like those are not the things that are actually true about why this team hasn't gone farther with Cousins. And we don't have to get into the reasons because everybody knows them, but no matter how much you are a Kirk enjoyer, you look at the landscape. How do you say it's a good idea to bring him back on an extension like that of Geno Smith or Derek Carr?

Now, they're not exactly the same. So I should say that the Geno Smith's extension does give them flexibility to draft Anthony Richardson or Will Levis or whoever they want. But they also have the fifth overall pick and the Vikings do not. In fact, they're not even close. And it would be very difficult in order to, you know, try to trade up. They would have to really trade the entire farm in order to do that. So, you know, I think that where it makes the most sense is to let the thing

just play out and let him play out through the next season. But this game of musical chairs that we play with quarterbacks, Jimmy Garoppolo has been injured a ton. There's still a bunch of teams that need quarterbacks and everyone's coming from the combine where they've got a feel of the landscape of where these guys are going to be drafted because the NFL usually knows more than the mock drafters when it comes to where these players are going to be picked. So if there are teams that are outside of that party, let's even say the Raiders.

If you're outside of that party, if you're the Raiders and you can't get in, you're knocking on the door and it's Houston who is getting the trade up with Chicago or something. Are you making a phone call to the Vikings saying, we really need a better quarterback or we don't have any at this point. Maybe we'll go with Kirk and sign him to an extension

and go from there. Like, I don't know. There's so many different ways that this could go, but I do think that no matter who you are, how you feel about these last few years with Kirk Cousins or how much you've cheered for him, it's just hard to make the particulars work, the contract, the age, the length. And even after these deals were mid tier deals, which they definitely were, and we now have a mid tier market, I still can't make it work where a mid tier deal that pays him $38 million a year and has to be kind of locked in with guarantees for the next two, three years. I don't really see how that would be the smartest route for the Vikings to go.

No, and I don't think they should go that route. I mean, if this is the first question that we're going with that you wrote out in the email, I don't think they should. He's 35, as Ron in the chat pointed out earlier, his age. It's just not there right now with where some of this roster is. You have TJ Hawkinson, you have Justin Jefferson, you have Christian Derrissaw. All these guys are younger. These are guys you want to – these are almost cornerstone of the franchise guys that you want to build around. You don't want to have a 35 year old quarterback who's on

monster money, eating up that, that salary cap space, because those guys are going to need contracts. And the Justin Jefferson thing has been hanging over this club for the better part of last year, going into this summer summer if they don't get it done this summer it'll hang over them next summer it's just that's something that they have to figure out TJ Hawkinson most likely deserves a contract for the way he played for this fight the Viking squad and what they gave up to get him probably going to get a contract Christian Derrissaw has proven that he's one of the better left tackles in the league he's going to get a massive contract you can't have at the point where those guys are signing their contracts at 36, 37 year old quarterback eating up 38,

$39 million of your salary cap space. You just can't do it. That's, that's a roster that's desk or that's kind of prime for having that rookie quarterback contract on their roster, leading them into the playoffs and into the future. You, Kirk Cousins just, as you said, making the timelines fit, it's hard to do with the money that it would take and kind of the roster that you'd have to put around there. It just doesn't make sense cap-wise. It doesn't make sense roster build-wise for me. Even the hardest core of Kirk Staines have to realize

after the past couple of days, after the past couple of quarterback contracts that were signed, Kirk Cousins probably isn't long for this team, unfortunately, for those fans of Kirk Cousins. And I think that what you just mentioned is very, very important about Christian Derrissaw, Justin Jefferson, and TJ Hawkinson, because Jefferson's contract extension is available this year and Derrissawaz will be next year and Hawkinson is this year as well. And that is a lot of money to put into very, very talented players. So if you do draft a rookie this year, even if it isn't one of those top four, but you'd

like it to be, you'd like to be able to trade up for one of those top four guys, but you can drop that person, that young quarterback, into a great situation with the league's best receiver, a top three to four tight end, a top three to four left tackle, if not maybe number two behind Andrew Thomas or the New York Giants. I mean, you are talking about one heck of a situation. Oh, by the way, maybe the best right tackle in football and also high draft

picks at both of the guards situations that maybe they could continue to get better after this. Like this is pretty good for any quarterback that's going to be set into this team. And I think that if you're not, I mean, there's a part of me that would bet a little bit more on letting it play out than anything. But I think that if you can't get into those top four, you're kind of between a rock and a hard place because if you're drafting Hendon Hooker or if you're drafting Tanner McKee, you're really not making great odds plays to what's going to make the difference in the future. You're also not getting anybody who has a freakish element to them. It isn't just Anthony Richardson, who's kind of freaky. I mean, CJ Stroud is unbelievable at

throwing the football and will Levis can throw a football through a wall and, and Bryce young can make plays all over the place. Like these are the guys that you really want. You're not in a position to get them, but let's just say though, for whatever argument's sake, that even though they couldn't get them, they moved on from Kirk Cousins and signed Jacoby Brissett or somebody else like that. You're still having a probably a competitive season. It's not like those quarterbacks, those veterans like your Andy Dalton or like your Jameis Winston or Jacoby Brissett are so bad that no one can throw the ball in the direction of Justin Jefferson or take advantage of that offensive setup. You could still

win some games that way. You're just not really competing for the Super Bowl, but you're not with Kirk Cousins either. And I think that's the point. Like, would you win eight or nine with Kirk or seven with Jacoby Brissett? What difference does it make? You want to set yourself up also for that draft for next year because there are some very good quarterback prospects next year as well. There's going to be a flood coming into the league and you want to make sure you grab one. So as far as what will they do, I would probably say if I had to, they will let it play out

and just let his contract expire and have him be a free agent next year. But what they should do, I think is very clear, move on, trade him away. Don't be afraid of whoever is going to fill that spot because whatever veteran quarterback you call up, that's trying to hang on in the league and keep starting spots, maybe Baker Mayfield, who doesn't want to throw the ball to Justin, whatever his middle name is, Jefferson. I mean, right. Every person, every person, every quarterback, every veteran quarterback, free agent who you called for a one-year contract was going to say yes to coming in and throwing the ball to Jefferson. And I just don't

see a huge difference between winning seven or nine games. And with their schedule, it's hard to see any more than that. Whether they want to see that whole picture, whether the Wilfs see the whole picture, I have no idea. But now that the price has been set, with the fact that there is a middle ground,

that maybe increases the odds that they do a middle ground type of contract with him. But I don't think that that's a great idea. And it really did stand out to me that Kweisi Adafo-Mensah said, we can only project two years out. So if they want more than that, that was kind of how I interpreted it. Like if they want more than that, that's going to be pretty tough. But I think it's just the time right now after seeing these deals, if you still have to pay him $37 million two years from now on the cap, how is that better than where we're at right now?

So let me move on to the next kind of topic though, that we've got going on here with the Vikings, which is after releasing Eric Hendricks, they didn't make any moves today, but still clearly way over the salary cap. Jonathan, what do you think the next Vikings move is going to be? So I went to over the cap to kind of guide me on where they, where these numbers are at. And the first name that popped up is the Darius Smith. I know he probably fits kind of the Brian Flores blitz style, but you look at his numbers, his cap hit is $15.4 million this season. And you'll save 12.1 million. If you caught him with only 3.3 million in dead cap. I think that's the easiest route to take there. I know he had a decent first half of the season,

but the second half of the season just fell off. And it just didn't seem like that production was there. Yes, there was probably the injury going on as well, but that's a guy who's had an injury history. Do you want to continue relying on an older outside linebacker who's already shown that he has an injury history, showed it the last half of last season, but he does have that ability to be a dominant force like he showed at the beginning of this season. I don't think it's worth $15.5 million against your cap when you're tied up against the cap to begin with. Another one that popped out right right away and i know there's going to be a lot of vikings fans that hate this idea and it's only going to save you probably two billion dollars but cj ham his dead cap money is only 750 000 and you'll save three million dollars so as much as i would hate

to see cj ham because i just like having aback. And I know the show is noted for loving having a fullback. That's that seems like an easy cut for, for the way they played. They didn't really use them all that often. It just doesn't seem to fit. That position just doesn't seem to fit in Kevin O'Connell's offense. If you're looking to save cap, any, any amount of cap, that's probably going to be the easiest one besides maybe Jordan Hicks and what you'll save from him.

Yeah. I think that would be very bad for this show's brand to not have a fullback because at least once a year we spend some time talking about how effective the fullback can be. The reason I would say that I think they'll just do something with that contract and keep him is because of Matt Daniels and the special teams, because he plays on every single special teams unit. And he would probably find that to be just as valuable as having him in, in the offense. I also know that Kevin O'Connell talked and I asked him about this and writing about this as well, about the running game situation that he was not happy with their performance in the running game and wants to look at how they

can improve that. Now I've got a secret for you that it's really probably just the running back. I mean, when you look at how PFF graded their offensive line, the rushing yards over expected, which were actually under expected with Delvin Cook, his age, his injury history, it's pretty clear. I actually ran this number that Delvin Cook had the most runs of zero or negative yards this year in the entire NFL. And that fact can't be lost on them, which is why I would think that Delvin Cook should be next on this list. But I've been given pause because Tom Pelissero said he expects Delvin to be a Viking next

year. And look, if they're doing this reset and they're going to not win that many games, sure. I guess that's fine if they want to keep them because what difference does it make? But it doesn't really make a lot of sense to draft someone like Ty Chandler, have Kenny Wong Wu on the roster and just the nature of how running backs work, where you can find them for cheap and free agency. You can find them in the draft. And I'm watching the combine thinking there's a, you know, five or six middle round running backs. Every one of them's putting up great numbers. Like these take two swings or something like that. Take

one in free agency at someone who's sort of lightly used and maybe in their mid twenties, take it like Jarek McKinnon ends up with Kansas city and plays a big role with them or Latavious Murray. Um, you can sign those guys as long as it's not major risk. The Vikings got a lot out of Latavius Murray when he was here. So there's way better ways to approach that. That would be first on my list that that should be one of the easiest choices they have. Again, we don't know if they're going to do it because they always have this deep love for players who were once good and aren't anymore. And by the numbers, by the numbers, it's kind of wild. You go back to 2020 and Delvin Cook rushing yards over expected is elite. He's gaining eight tenths of a yard over on every carry,

what you would expect, which adds up to a ton over a season. This year he was in the negatives. Like that's a big change for somebody over a short period of time. But that's running backs. Like you see Tennessee now is shopping Derrick Henry. Two years ago, the guy is like a Madden cover level player. You know, the premier running back in the league, he's throwing people. And then two years later, his team wants to get rid of him. The Panthers traded Christian McCaffrey after signing him to the extension.

This really never works. So I think it's time for the Vikings to move on from Delvin Cook. As far as Zedaria Smith goes, it again all kind of ties into what are you doing here? Because there's no reason to try to keep Zedaria Smith long-term if you're not trying to necessarily chase the Super Bowl this year or you're not in a position to do that. I would much rather see draft an edge rusher and play Patrick Jones. Patrick Jones developed quite a bit from year one to year two. That doesn't mean he looked like he was going to be the next great Vikings edge rusher. I didn't see Chris Dolman there when I was watching him play, but I did see some flashes though.

We do the tape piece over at the newsletter each week and look at some of the things that we observe on tape. And that was one that stuck out to me in a handful of games like, okay, Patrick Jones is making some plays. Would you rather see a whole season of Patrick Jones to know if you got a guy there or see Zedaria Smith play half a whole season of Patrick Jones to know if you got a guy there or sees Zedaria Smith play half a good season. It's just the reality of what happens to every player is eventually they hit this age and we could go kind of around to all the different options. The guy that I least would

see going somewhere is Harrison Smith, unless there's a big offer for him. I think that you're going to want him in your defense for Brian Flores. I also think they want to keep him in Minnesota for his entire career. Adam Thielen is the next one to make a decision on. And that's one where Kirk is the ultimate swing guy. Like, which direction are you going? Are you going rebuild, reset, competitive rebuild, or all in? That's all Kirk.

But another guy that will tell us is Adam Thielen, because they can move around money and restructure. And when he talks about the Vikings and his side discussing that, it's really an easy button to push. It's just a restructure. It's like they would do for many other times. Of course, that pushes money down the road, but it would just be a regular restructure that they have done for all sorts of players. Again, it comes down to whether they want to do it or not. And with Thielen, if he wants to go, especially that's fine. One thing I've thought of is how you go back to Thielen and Cook after both of their sides, people connected with them, whether it's agent or, you know, Instagram and, and implications in interviews from Adam Thielen.

But, and Jeremy Fowler reported this as well from ESPN that he wants a different role. It's like, how do you bring them back in the locker room with Justin Jefferson after they've been openly complaining that they didn't get the ball enough and he gets, which really says he got it too much. But again, it's a, it's a, it's a weird angle, I think, because he was so dominant and you had a top 10 offense, but once the season is over and you lose, it's every man for themselves. I just think if we were ranking like players to go, Zedaria Smith is a good call, but Adam Thielen might be up there.

Delvin cook. I mean, how different is this whole thing going to look if that's what they do? But I also don't really see a lot of other ways around at least two of those three, unless maybe you're trading to Neil Hunter, but that actually doesn't help you right now with the salary cap situation. That's something you'd have to work around and maybe do it after June 1st or a designation, but just the way that the thing works out, it's really not that advantageous to trade him money-wise right now.

So if you're looking to create that cap space, it really comes down to Zedaria Smith, Delvin Cook, and Adam Thielen. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Thielen and Cook, I agree with you. I wanted to go hot takey and hot rowdy for the answer, but I definitely agree that those two guys are most likely the next two to go, especially with what you said about how those surrounding them have talked about their roles.

And considering you have the best wide receiver in the league, maybe the best non-quarterback in the entire NFL on your team, and he kind of single-handedly led the offense to what it was this year because they pumped the ball to him so many times. Why would you complain that about your role when you have Justin Jefferson on your team and he's leading your team to what it did this season? There's, it's not an easy way to bring those guys back because he'll see what they

said. He'll know that they want the ball more that they think that he got the ball too much. And he's thinking, guys, I'm, I'm the best. I'm the best receiver in the game. Why would you take it away from me? That makes no sense. I won a national championship because they fed me the ball. Why would that be any different in this league? Cause it's shown to be successful so far. So yeah, he'll see that. And if they're including him in the conversations, like Quezzy kind of hinted at and said that they are doing,

that's not going to be an easy way to say, hey, these guys, I know they complain about you, but we're going to bring them back because we like them and we want them to be Vikings for life. And even though it doesn't really make sense for the roster and it hurts us in the long or hurts us in the short term with the cast face, we're going to bring him back because we like him.

It just doesn't seem to mesh with how they want to build the culture. If you want to, if you want to go back to that term that coaches like to hit on, it just doesn't seem to mesh with that. And as far as your point on Harrison Smith, he's the one I said, I don't see him them moving on because he just seems to fit with what Brian floors would want to do,

especially blitzing the safeties. It kind of brings Harrison Smith back into the role that he was under Mike Zimmer and takes him away from the role that he was under at Donatello that completely just kind of neutered his game. If you want to talk like if you want to say that it wasn't the same Harrison Smith we saw the past couple of seasons that we saw last season. And it seems like the Wilfs want to make him a Vikings for life. But I also thought that about Eric Kendricks and we saw what happened

yesterday. So that, that one kind of went out the window on that point, but Harrison Smith just seems like a guy who is going to be here next year because he fits with what this defense wants to do next year. And he's probably the best leader that they have left standing after getting rid of Eric Kendricks. Yeah.

I think it's a good point that the leadership matters there with him because they want Louis seen to be a star at some, at some point. So if you have one more year of Harrison Smith before he say retires, uh, I guess he could do an Ed Reed and go play for the Texans for a year if he wants, but, uh, it would be nice to have him play with Louis seen because he's been so helpful to other players along the way in helping pumping up their game because he's so dynamic and does so much that that's a good guy to learn from a good guy to be in the locker room with. I no problem.

If they decide to keep Harrison Smith, the others, it does have the potential to get kind of nasty there. I mean, it did with Kyle Rudolph at the end where he had an injury and didn't come back from it, even though it kind of looked like he could maybe do that. That was just based on the injury reports, not accusing him of anything, but it got a little ugly and a little tense. And then Rudolph did an interview at the end of his time where he just kind of went scorched earth.

He said that they wanted him to play tackle and they were asking him to block all the time. And he was offended that they had drafted Irv Smith Jr. and all those things. I mean, that's not how you want it to end with Delvin Cook or Adam Thielen, but look, we've seen this go through a bunch of times. I mean, even Chad Greenway was unhappy at the end of his tenure when the other two linebackers were playing much more than him. So in my mind, there is no reason to sort of carry on with that unless you think next year, we're coming back, we're going to compete for the Super Bowl, we're building on 13 wins. But I would also direct you to all Vikings history. And every time they've won 12 or 13 games,

what's happened the following year, they've always fallen off after that and it kind of looks the same way as this year if we're projecting at this moment today but so much can change it's just at this moment today it's hard to live in reality and say oh yeah you've got to bring those guys back because the band is staying together and we're going to the moon after a season where you still ended with a negative point differential, despite a lot of things going your way. If it doesn't next year and they can argue all day long, oh, well, we'll be more comfortable in the system. But I don't know that we've ever seen that actually improve anything. I mean, they had the same system for three years with the Kubiaks and it really didn't change anything. So I would expect the same results if they keep the same

people together, except for they won't have eight fourth quarter comebacks because that was the most of all time. And, and I'll say, I will say this a bunch of times. This is why you hire Kwesi Adafomensa to know that, to know all of that, to see the time horizons and to work within the time horizons. And if you're the Wilfs, that's why you hired him. So you should listen to him. If those are his ideas. I don't know if they are kind of sounded like they were from what he said at the combine, but I don't know that for sure. Uh, the, the other question I had, uh, for you is a little bit, you talk about hot takey, but once, once we get 40 minutes into the show, you can just, you know, throw your feet up and uh whatever let your hair down

you got enough hair to let down um so the lamar jackson thing is weird uh with the non-exclusive tag and definitely weird is the atlanta falcons being out that's how you know the collusion's happening is the atlanta falcons would be an amazing landing spot for lamar Jackson, but they ain't doing it. So should the Vikings like, you know, make a phone call to Lamar Jackson? Should they check on that situation? I don't think it's really hot take you to say absolutely. They should check with Lamar Jackson to see what he want. It makes complete sense. Every team in the league should be calling the Atlanta Falcons, as we've discussed on hot routes, plenty of times should be calling. The Atlanta Falcons, as we've discussed on Hot Routes plenty of times, should be calling. They should be going after every quarterback because they have the best situation to get a quarterback and plop them in to a really good situation with the young

pieces, especially in the passing game that they have there. The Falcons are absolute morons for not calling, for making that call. It just doesn't make sense for them. This should be an easy sell for him to indoor games, nine out of your 18 games every season. You also get to throw to Justin Jefferson. Do I need to really sell you on any more than that? You, you literally just throw it to him and your quarterback rating goes into the hundreds. It's, it's that simple. You don't need to, you don't need to stress about having questionable receivers or a questionable offense like they had in Baltimore the past six or five however long he's been there you don't have to worry about that you have a good passing game you have a good offensive coach it seems like in Kevin O'Connell knows how to build an offense yes absolutely make that call who cares if it costs you two number one draft picks it might be worth it because he is at the top of

his game. He's an MVP. He's already shown that. Can he remain healthy? That's a bigger question, but I would take that risk in a heartbeat because he's finally the guy that you've been looking for at that position. And they have a offensive line that can run block and has athletes up there. Ezra Cleveland is a great athlete. And you know, the other two tackles, tremendous athletes. That would, I mean, it would be wild. It would be absolutely wild to put him with Justin Jefferson. He's had very few good receivers. And by the way, I mean, he's made Mark Andrews into a star as well.

So I think he utilizes the tight end well. And what Baltimore has proven is you could kind of throw any running back into the mix because Lamar draws so much attention. There are drawbacks of Lamar Jackson. One is that he's been injured the last two years. That is absolutely a concern. The other is the price of what it would get to have Baltimore not agree to it because it seems like the Baltimore found a way to not be the bad guys. What's going on here? It's like, okay, nudge, nudge.

How about all of you not make an offer? Or if you do, let's make it very reasonable so we can match it. And then he has no choice, right? Like that seems to be what their plan is, is that they are daring the rest of the league. Are you going to be the one that puts 50 million down? Are you the one that's going to put 200 million in guaranteed down?

And if nobody does, then it's, oh, what a shame. I guess we get to keep you at 40 million or 38, which is what someone other team is probably going to offer at some point. Now, there are other problems to this, which is that if you have to extend Derrissaw and you have to extend Jefferson and you have to extend Hawkinson, you are talking about an insane amount of money to then pay $50 million on the cap to Lamar Jackson, which is probably that where you have to approach to get the Ravens not to do it. It's like probably 50 million. However, if look,

I mean, how fun would this be? Right. I mean, I don't know. Just do this. Right. How could you tell anyone not to bring in the MVP of the NFL and give him the best receiver in the NFL and say, let's see how crazy the football gets. And you know what? It might look like Dante Culpepper years where their defense was so horrendous that they could score all the you know they could score all the points and everything like maybe maybe but Dante Culpepper also went to the NFC championship I

don't know and they didn't have a good defense then uh I it just you talk about entertainment value it would be through the roof and here's where the difference maker would come down to is if you hit on a couple of draft picks on the defensive side, this would be how you do it because you're not going to spend any money. But if you hit on a few draft picks and you've got a good defensive coordinator there, can you be even a little bit above average on defense or average? And you are a Super Bowl contender. I don't know if Lamar Jackson will ever win a Superbowl, but I know he can lead an elite offense. And I know that he's

never had a receiver like Justin Jefferson or a coach like Kevin O'Connell. His coach has always been a former special teams guy who, you know, hung on to Greg Roman for probably way too long. And as far as the comment section asking, what do you do with Kirk? Well, you have to trade Kirk, but you can be over the cap now until the start of the season. So you could do this right now, find a trade partner for Kirk, as long as it's before the start of the league year. Would it be incredibly difficult to figure it all out? Yeah, you'd have to get rid of a lot of people and a lot, although if you're giving him this massive extension, the first year does not have

to be insane. We've seen that from all these other contracts that the first year doesn't have to be nuts. Uh, but yeah, it would be wildly difficult for this to happen. And there's a lot of roadblocks and there's a lot of risks, but it's also something worth taking that big swing for because it's finally the bit, it would be finally the really big swing, like to go after the guy that's the quarterback you've been talking about wanting since Dante Culpepper, who would be your franchise quarterback locked in and is a superstar athlete. And you know what, if it blows up on you, I wouldn't criticize it at all. I just said, look, like, look, well, it blows up on you, I wouldn't criticize it at all. I just said, look, like, look, well, it blew up on you, but at least you took the big swing to try to make

it happen. So yeah, I mean, if they got a chance, go, that's how you swing for a Superbowl is, is swinging for a potential, like number one offense in the league. I don't, I don't see any other real route to doing that outside of the one we talk about all the time, which is to draft someone and build around. And this feels like a move that the Wilfs would want considering their, their MO from last off season. We don't want to lose. We don't want to tank. Uh, what better way to do that and move on from Kirk than get the league MVP from a couple of years ago, a guy who will bring all the eyeballs of the NFL onto your team because of how that offense would look and how this offense would play with Lamar Jackson as the quarterback. It seems like an easy enough sell for Kwesi because it's like they don't have to lose.

They don't have to take the step back theoretically. They'd have to give up, what is it, two first round draft picks and obviously have to pay him a boatload of money. But if the Wilfs don't ever want to step back and they want to continue their winning ways, this seems like the perfect quarterback to do that because he's better than the guy you have now if he can stay healthy. And it takes advantage of a weak NFC quarterback wise right now.

And if Aaron Rodgers moves out, the NFC North is yours easily with the offense that you'll have. And you'll just have to trust that Brian Flores can coach up this defense. Like he coached up Miami's defense when they were actively trying to tank. And he was saying, no, I'm not going to do that. And he coached them up. You'll just have to have Brian Flores do much more of a coaching job than I imagine he signed on for.

But Hey, if you get Lamar Jackson, I think it's absolutely worth it. Yeah. And this isn't by the way, just for the comment section, we you get Lamar Jackson, I think it's absolutely worth it. Yeah. And this isn't by the way, just for the comment section, we're past the point of them trading Lamar Jackson. This is now because of the franchise tag they put on him. It's basically you put down an offer and the Ravens decide whether they want to keep them or not. So you don't actually have to give up anything for him. You don't have to trade them Christian Darasol or something, but you do have to give them two first round draft picks. that's the difference now you're assuming the

draft picks you know aren't going to be very high but you know I look at it the same way with Denver trading for Russell Wilson where that did not work out uh now of course Lamar is like way younger so asking about his health it is a concern but he's also like 26 somebody said and I don't know if this is a hundred percent true, but he's like the same age as Stetson Bennett, who's coming out of the draft this year, which is really funny because he came into the league, I think at 20 years old. So he is not all that old. He has been banged up the last couple of years, but he's not like ancient or anything. He still is an elite player at his position and probably will be for a few more years.

As long as he doesn't have those kind of bad luck injuries. But it really comes down to, are you just going to put down the money and take that swing or not? And then you also do have to have somewhere to send Kirk Cousins or you will not be kept compliant by the first day of the league year, which they would find a way. So anyway, I guess what I would say is just, I don't, I'm not saying this is realistic. I'm not saying I expect it or that they're going to be in on it or that anyone's going to be in on it because it looks like the whole league is saying, Baltimore, that's your guy. Let us give you a little solid here and make sure we all together keep down the quarterback

market. But it only takes one phone call. And if I, if I was the Vikings, I would have to highly consider it just for that being an actual big time swing at potentially someday winning a Super Bowl. Last thing for you, Jonathan, Aaron Rodgers met with the Jets. Now this is really funny. I don't know if people realize how funny it is that he met with the Jets ownership, but Woody Johnson comes of Johnson and Johnson fame. Now, I don't even have to explain the rest of this, right? Why this is funny for someone who doesn't believe vaccines work, that he's meeting with Johnson and Johnson. Like, okay, let's just, you know, what did you guys talk about during your meeting anything

interesting uh but anyway this meeting with Woody Johnson and their coaching staff and everything else and uh oh hi Nate Hackett great to see you here why are you the offensive coordinator of the Jets after you stunk like probably because of the connection with Rogers. Anyway, also Rogers once insinuated that Johnson & Johnson and the companies of the like were forcing media people to criticize his opinions, which is just like the funniest. And also let me throw out one more about how funny this all is,

is that Rogers is on the record once talking about chemtrails, which is just a conspiracy theory about planes. And he's going to go to the jets. If that's not the funniest also planes fly over the jet stadium constantly. This is, you know, anyway maybe they don't in Wisconsin. I don't know if they have planes there. So anyway, how many wins would the Jets have with Rodgers? That's the real question. But I am absolutely dying at all the irony of this and the Favre thing.

Yeah, I was going to say, you're completely missing the Favre thing where he was noted of not wanting to follow the same career path as Favre and stay a Packer for his entire career. Where is he going to go after the Packers? The same place that Favre went in just absolutely hilarious fashion. And it's ending in Green Bay the same exact way that Favre did where the Packers are just like, we don't want to tell you. We don't want you. We want you to say it. Can you please do it? It's the most Midwestern way to do the breakup that the Green Bay Packers are doing right now. And they're doing it for the second time in what?

15 years. It's incredible how that organization just repeated itself, not only winning one Super Bowl with the Hall of Fame quarterback, but also just the way they're breaking up with them and the team they're sending him to. It's impressive what Green Bay has done. I actually think I went and did a little research on this one. And I think the Jets might be able to win the AFC East if they get Aaron Rogers, look at their schedule because they finished last place in the AFC East. They've got a fourth place schedule ahead of them. And the teams, the conferences they are,

the divisions they face this year are the NFC East and the AFC West, which normally you'd think, Oh, that's going to be tough. But the, the games they have at home, the Eagles and commanders from the NFC East. So you're already facing the Super Bowl runner-up at your place in New York. And then the Chiefs and Chargers. So you get two of the better teams, you get the two

good teams from the AFC West at home coming to your place across country. The teams you have to go and face, the Cowboys and Giants and the Broncos and Raiders. And then you also host the Falcons and the Texans. Seems like easy wins there. And then you have to go to the Browns. They have an easy schedule considering the talent they have on that roster. And they were seven and 10 last year. And six of those losses were by one score or less. So that seems like an easy turnaround. If you can get Aaron Rodgers in and put and have the talent around them that the Jets do, it almost feels like a team that if Aaron Rodgers can play to some kind of respectable level better than he played last year, that seems like an easy turnaround for them and an easy division win for them considering Buffalo might have to take a step back because Josh Allen's contract is hitting the

books and what they're going to have to do with their roster once that hits. Yeah, and the Patriots, they should be better a little bit because they do not have Matt Patricia attempting to call football plays. They have an actual offensive coordinator. Absurd. Miami should be good, should be, if Tua stays healthy. If Tua stays healthy or if Tua is even their quarterback, like who knows where this is going to go. It would be funny if one of the teams that leaked

they weren't chasing after Lamar then did um right but i don't know if that's going to happen or not i think the answer is probably like 11 i i don't think that rogers has as much in the tank as you know maybe uh he did two years ago or anywhere close to what he did two years ago garrett wilson's pretty good And Brees Hall's coming back for them. They got players. But it's going to be really difficult to work that out for the salary cap situation because his contract is just insanity. So it's not like they could do a lot more.

They kind of have what they have. But yeah, I think they could compete for the division and be very good. I don't know if they're exactly a Super Bowl contender, but I can see the logic behind that and why he would want to go there uh also you know you're right it is it is funny that green bay is kind of saying like so do you just want to like you know can you just like that you know it's getting late and uh we just you know long day tomorrow So can you just get traded to someone else? It very much feels like that, that they do not want him to say, boys, I'm coming back. That's maybe their nightmare. So anyway, I guess we'll see how that one plays out. But all the reports coming out of that

situation are saying that it's not that close to a decision. And I guess, you know, if you're Derek Carr, you probably thought, well, they're going to meet with Rogers in New York. I'm just going to sign somewhere and make sure I have a job as opposed to waiting and waiting and then not being all that good. So we'll find out. But it is funny. Like history is repeating itself, especially since the state of Wisconsin is like 20 years behind anyway. Come on, Wisconsin. You deserve to get roasted for being Wisconsin. Anyway, sorry to all the Wisconsin listeners who are Vikings fans.

I know you exist, but you deserve it. So anyway, well, Jonathan's been fun. And with all of you who watched live and we're going to do lots more of this, as I mentioned,

I've stacked up some fans only questions. So keep an eye out for more of those episodes. And also just laugh at me for how like immediate the takes go wrong when we're talking about, well, I think this is going to happen. And then by the next day, that's the NFL off season though, folks, that's why we're doing a lot of these shows. So we will have a really fun time. This is one of the most exciting times of the entire calendar year. You've got your March Madness coming up and then all sorts of hell breaking loose in the NFL with free agents.

The league is going to look wildly different in three weeks than it does right now. So make sure you keep it tuned here to the channel. Thanks for your time, Jonathan. Thanks everybody for watching and we will do it again very soon. If you haven't subscribed, do that so you know when we're going live.

And when we're going live. When we schedule for 9 o'clock, it won't be 9.02 again. I promise you guys. I promise. Take care, everybody.