Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Gridiron's Ollie Connolly analyzes the Vikings' window to win and makes a bet on the Rams

Episode Date: June 30, 2022

Matthew Coller is joined by Ollie Connolly, managing editor of Gridiron and author of the newsletter The Read Optional. Connolly talks about why he thinks an average season for the Vikings would not hinder their future. He discusses what moves this offseason would have made the future stronger and how they can get an extra 5% out of the offense. Plus he breaks down why the Rams should still be the Super Bowl favorites in the NFC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Crowler here and joining me, not the first overseas guest that we've ever had, but happy to welcome in Ali Connolly, who I've followed his work a while back. Somebody tweeted me. It's kind of funny how we get connected. Somebody tweeted me and said, you got to follow this guy. He does great football stuff. So he writes the newsletter Read Optional, also the managing editor of Gridiron what is up ollie great to have you thanks for having me it's great to be here so i've been following gridiron and you guys tweet out clips of things you say and of course covering the vikings every time someone says anything about the vikings i go oh can i use that is that content i see content uh it's june ollie so this is how life is but you did say something interesting about the vikings that kind of matches up with each week we've kind of had themes and this is time horizons week so we've been going through quarterback futures teams that could be super bowl contenders for this year and i wanted to talk to you about teams in their super

bowl window but as teams sort of you could put them in categories of different uh this team is a super bowl contender boomer bus this team is rebuilding things like that i wonder where you think the vikings fit into this because when the general manager calls it a competitive rebuild but doesn't do rebuildy things i'm not sure exactly how to view them. Yeah, they're kind of trying to straddle that middle line where it seems as though they said they used, what, five of their first six draft picks on defense, right? So they've said all that stale stuff at the end of the Zimmer era, we can correct that with new faces.

They just got every athlete in the draft. Who's the quickest, longest, fastest person in the draft? We'll draft all those fellas, and we'll figure the rest out from there and then hopefully kevin o'connell can squeeze what five extra percent out of all those unbelievable pieces on offense hopefully they can get something more of cousins i imagine is their thought process and given how watered down the nfc is as a whole you can as your first year as a staff and a gm head coach partnership at least make the playoffs which buys you probably two years in a market of saying, now if we decide we've got all those young guys on defense,

we think two of them are legit, the other ones we'll discard along the way. Now let's go and really figure out what we want to do at quarterback, which is the main thing. And we know we have these great offensive pieces, no matter what, at least two of them in Jefferson and Thielen. So that seems to me what their timeline is. And it's kind of similar to what the crossroads atlanta was at a year ago where they could have either said let's tear this whole thing down

and trade matt ryan back then and trade julio which they did or you could say let's go with one last ride with these guys and maybe spend some money and they took that mid-ground right they traded julio they kept matt ryan they tore everything down around right and it was a disaster because the team had no talent. The Vikings, at least, I believe, are in a position to kind of still take that middle ground because of where the NFC is at, because of their specific quarterback situation,

the timeline of that contract is different than Ryan's, obviously, and then he kind of trade there. So I can imagine it being frustrating when you kind of want them to be in one category or another, but it at least makes sense. I mean, I always admire a team that says, So I can imagine it being a frustrating when you kind of want them to be in one category or another. But it at least makes sense to me. And I always admire a team that says, let's let's let's have a crack at this, even with the guys still on the roster, as opposed to taking the easy path, which would have been the no one would have blamed them for the full tear down and rebuild. But then you're still looking at three years of trying to figure out exactly where you are. Yeah, I think it depends on how much you subscribe to the Ricky Bobby school of,

if you're not first, you're last. Because that's something we talk about all the time is when you take the same route as the previous general manager, where there was a lot of people with great memes of like the one where you unmask the person and it's actually still Rick Spielman running all the team and calling all the shots so when you don't go different routes aside from changing the head coach and you say okay well a lot of it must have been mike zimmer's fault or we're kind of in the same place we just need to make the playoffs to kind of what ease the fan base's fears that you've sunk yourself into endless mediocrity but the risk that they run is if you end up with the same results

then you're going to look at the coach and say oh i guess he wasn't the answer right and you're going to look at the roster and go you signed short-term contracts for guys now you have to replace them like how are you going to rebuild these spots if you don't have people who are developing into those positions that you would have, you know, either drafted or, you know, signed younger players to longer term contracts. When you sign a Jordan Hicks or Patrick Peterson, those are positions you have to replace later. So I think they've put themselves in a spot where they actually have to be very good. They should really be considered to be among those teams that are in sort of the last part of their window to win, even if we don't think that they're

necessarily Super Bowl contender. No, I agree with you. And I think it will be more what I mentioned before about trying to buy yourself three years by having the one good year where you get just before, you know, those legs are really creaking. All those guys you mentioned, it's pretty bad. Can you get them to week nine with enough wins where you buy yourself three years essentially to do what you really want to do and i'm with you they could have probably done more cosmetic surgery on the edges i think and took more punts on some younger players who if they shine then you get them on a cheaper second contract with you that would have been maybe the smart to me but the league is in a funny place where we had kind of the the process came from philadelphia and the nfl was like let's try and

replicate that you saw that in miami you saw that with Cleveland. And then everyone sat around and said, well, the NFL is a bit different. And just kind of, you look into it, Justin Herbert, you know, you can tank all you want and you end up with Tua. You can get to the great spot you want to get to, get the course that you want to get to. They tank for two years to get Tua. And then they look around and go with the other guys, the best players since Dan Marino to enter the NFL at 25 right so it's just not the same sport it's really a dart to the dartboard approach you cannot do that in one off season so I admire them saying put our heads down get through one year we know this offense is good enough to carry us probably to the postseason because the conference is so weak now and that's the thing you know if

the con if they're in the AFC I think there would have been a race to a bottom type situation because the conference is so weak we know this offense is good enough to probably get us to eight wins as i said can we patch work together something on defense by taking all these guys and then we can flip it the next year and go five then all of a sudden you look over what would it be next season i don't know 15 16 draft picks and you say they took they took uh eight players on each side of the ball now that would be a very rick spielman type approach of taking as many players as possible although most of his would be in the sixth or seventh round um so what you're kind of describing here as far as the competitive rebuild is almost what buffalo

did when sean mcdermott got there they actually stuck with tyrod taylor to start they didn't move on from him immediately and start Nathan Peterman, though they tried to throw Peterman in at some point, which was very bizarre. And he threw like eight picks, but they, they, they made the playoffs that first year and then they drafted Josh Allen.

And then they took a step back and had to build it up from there. I think it's an interesting point about trying to make the playoffs and be competitive and sort of endear yourself a little bit to the fan base to say, we do know what we're doing. We are competent. Now, can you trust us a little bit? I guess that that almost feels like playing politics, though, a little bit, because as opposed to living in reality and trying to appease an ownership, possibly, that's always wanted to kind of be in that playoff race because living in reality feels like we've done this so many times. And you mentioned getting 5% more out of Kevin O'Connell, right? But like Kirk Cousins has been a very good version of himself over these past few years.

So where would you see, like best case case scenario where does that five percent come from i really don't know you know it's it's different talking i guess to a minnesota specific show than when you're trying on the national media and you try and convince them he's actually not the guy you see in the prime time games if you go and watch him in week three you know he's really really good in spots i don't know where that five percent is i really don't i that would not be cousin specific that has to be to do with the offensive line. That has to be to do with, I think, a more malleable run game as opposed to the same old, same old,

which was kind of what they got the last couple of seasons, and that would be where O'Connell, I think, could shine. So you'd be looking at things separate from Cousins that maybe would then have the knock-on effect of backing up the coverage, which then would make things easier for him to play action all that stuff squeezing five cent out of him purposefully that's you probably maximize that last season i'd say and it's not been good enough that i fully get that the alternative though is just to do the tear down then what you're purposely winning four or five games i'm not sure what the the point of that

really is i really believe in the nfl and i think the nba to be fair where the this kind of idea of the purposeful teardown we've seen the building good habits is real you know purposely having a losing culture hangs around for a long time people start saying i'm not going to practice today if you can build really good habits if the whole only thing that comes out of this season is that lewis sign can be a really good post safety. What's wrong with that? That seems like a good year. You win eight games, whatever. You take another swing in the draft and you try and find a quarterback. I do think there's a thing here too, where we see what happens with the veteran market and Lamar Jackson's not signed his new deal. I know Minnesota might not be the top of

QB's preference list, right? If we were drawing up now for where they want to live and play football. But this idea of having an almost Denver-ish type vibe where you prove that you have something to hold on to, you go to a superstar and say, we've got Justin Jefferson, man. That's the best receiver in the NFL. Look at what our OCU came from that McVay stuff. Look how good he is at game planning this stuff when he's the top guy.

Our defense, look how young and fast that is. Those guys are going to be really good in year two. You can see a world in which, if I'm looking at any roster in the league now where you could microwave excellence in the second year with this group, I do think Minnesota's the one, because if those defensive guys are good and you have the room to maneuver by getting out of all those aging players

for the second year, I think the path is in there. Yeah, so it is easy for you to say, hey, if you win eight games and your first round draft pick was good that's good for you not so easy for the fan base who's dealt with four years of expectations where it's been super bowl or bus to get back to the playoffs and they've won one playoff game after having one of the most expensive quarterbacks in the nfl coming off an nfc championship in 2017 like there's a lot of misery that's built up over these past four years and that's one of the things about being a new coach of this team for kevin

o'connell where he's coming in saying hey guys like i guess if i make the playoffs that's pretty good right and everyone's like dude we have been through this so many times you don't understand and then when you don't overhaul at all, you set the expectations at a different spot because I think that the fan base would have been okay with taking that step back, which didn't have to mean tank, by the way. Like you bring up the Philadelphia process. With Justin Jefferson, you can't really tank.

It would have just meant moving on from the Cousins contract, bringing in someone like Jameis Winston or Mariota, doing what Denver did with Teddy Bridgewater, having that bridge quarterback. But I do think that's a great example. And I was just writing about this today, and I wonder what you think about it. I was going through the quarterbacks who might be available next year.

My God, there's a lot of them. I mean, Ryan Tannehill, Derek Carr, Carson Wentz is basically on a one-year deal, Daniel Jones, Tua. There's all sorts of people who could end up being out there i feel like it's the new nfl to to not really commit yourself quarterback wise and i think the vikings didn't really do that with the very short-term extension but to not commit yourself and build up a roster to where you can be the team that some really good quarterback says maybe i want to go join that team.

No, I agree. Like you said, they've got too many good players to tank. I think what you're raising is a good point, is not trimming the fat either as a tone setter on some of the guys who were really creaking by the end of the Zimmer era and were so considered as, whether that's true or not behind the scenes, as loyal Zimmer guys.

They've been through all the battles and maybe it would have been time, I think, to move them on. Guys like Patrick Peterson, I don't know what the point of that deal is right the Jordan Hicks one you mentioned committing money to a one down player in the NFL in 2022 as a new forward-thinking GM makes no sense to me you can find those guys week three preseason right there there's hundreds of them roaming out there who can play down for you in the NFL um so yeah I that stuff doesn't make

much sense to me but if they want to as you said position themselves to be in these sweepstakes for the quarterbacks you mentioned those guys there you wouldn't call those super duper stars i wouldn't i don't think any of those guys are better than cousins um in terms of talent for talent but that are going to be superstars also if lamar does not sign that deal as an example right and then what are the knock-on effects of if Lamar goes to wherever he would wind up going to let's say um Kyler not signing his deal and all that stuff right there's going to be players a level above even what we're talking about there that will be available and then just having ammunition to move up in the draft that would be the other thing so um yeah I like I said I get what you Like, it must be, it is like the definition of insanity, right?

The cliche of they are banging your head against the wall. Okay, so we're going to do a one and done in the playoffs again. What is the point of this? You almost would like to have a new set of guys, a new brain trust say, trust us, guys. This is three years. We think we can really build a foundation this year and it'll be in three years.

Don't worry, we're moving on from Kirk. We know that's not good enough. And it's kind of frustrating to have them, them i imagine acknowledge we know this isn't good enough so let's just do the not good enough for a bit and then we'll try and figure out down the line but i genuinely making that leap from being pretty good to champion is easier than going through the rebuild to try and build to a champion unless you hit on Joe Burrow. That's the only example you can find of saying, we were terrible, we drafted Joe Burrow, he made us great. That's the only one.

I love Will Levis. I love this year of quarterbacks who will be coming into the next draft, but trying to find one who's got that Joe Burrow-ness is not easy. Yeah, I think what everybody's trying to emulate is a team like Kansas City and now it's like, my homes, my homes. But they were good before with Alex Smith. They had built a good roster. They had a very good coach.

And I agree with you that establishing all of those things is extremely important. When you throw rookie quarterbacks into garbage situations, I think it really affects them unless they are super, super, superstars. But even Trevor Lawrence, this great prospect, struggled a lot last year with that clueless situation with Urban Meyer. So I do agree with you that you cannot have a garbage fire of a franchise and just be like, hey, QB1, all yours, my friend. But I also think there was a world where they could have kept one foot in and one foot out, but they didn't really do that and so like you're saying with patrick peterson and his deal it's like competitive rebuild actually sounds okay but where's the rebuild part and i think that's that is the frustrating part about talking about this

this offseason is it's sort of like with quesia da fomento where i've said before like where's the analytics like when do we get to see those? You mentioned the draft, but there weren't like these analytical moves where you would see the PFF people like celebrating, oh my gosh, they did this thing that we've wanted them to do. It was more like sort of status quo. And I guess what I wonder from you, and I also want to talk about some other teams

who are in their like hardcore window to win, but I guess I wonder from you, like, should we be patient on this because it was a new gm just having to drop in and sort of quickly figure it all out or is this sort of like well it might not be as different as everybody wanted it to be i mean i would be patient i i love what they did in the draft and i know what you're saying about not necessarily being all the top pff guys but his job is not to you know browse PFF and click on the big board.

You know, he'll have his own vision for the game. I think what they tried to do with the draft was get right on at the right point of the evolutionary cycle of the league, right? It was a lot of hybrid players. Lewis Sine was the most essential. He was the keystone of that great Georgia defense. The whole structure falls apart if he is not as special as he is as essentially a low post defender without a high post, right? That's insane what they were running there, right?

But it only works if he's as special as he is compressing the middle of the field as being the robber essentially in coverage and not being the deepest defender. That is really unorthodox to do at any level of football. And he's the guy who made that whole thing sing. So you take him, that's really good. Booth is a wonderful long shot, right? He's got all the measurables. I don't know if he can play football,

but if you're doing a competitive rebuild, well, they've got Patrick Peterson, who they know can play football, but the legs might not be there. Let's go get the guy with the legs who we don't know if the football is going to be there. So I like him taking massive swings. Asamoah, I was not as big on him as some other

people but it's a completely different body type than what a lot of the league is running with where you could you could easily see where in three years he's out the league right can't play the run or he is like the new mold of everyone wants themselves and asamos that's just another giant swing of bleep it we've no one's got pressure on us necessarily let's go take a swing on one of these guys so i think they're jumping right on the right evolutionary track of kind of where the cardinals are at now defensively but their players aren't that good and trying to see where they can emulate that model whereas in three years they can morph as well as anyone while staying in the two deep safety stuff which is now the invoke part of the league what you have to do is be able to be

basically pretty solid on the back end these days where we went through this era of the back end moving a lot and the front didn't change a lot now we're changing the front and we're keeping the back end steady and their draft point to to that of being the quarters deep team where they move the front a ton that would be exciting to me that would get me excited as a fan i'm a nerd i know that but that that gets me excited from the outside that the question is how what will the offense look like long term when they get off the cousin's train, I guess. Folks, want to remind you to go to SodaStick.com. That is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com.

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S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. Promo code Purple Insider for 15% off. Right, right. promo code purple insider for 15 off right right and that a lot depends on justin jefferson and also how long adam theolin can play at a high level because last year before he got hurt he was playing well in terms of his number of catches per game but yards per route run and things like that had really sunk for him and i don't think he's a downfield threat anymore at this point which is why i was kind of advocating the idea of a wide receiver in the draft they traded out of that but everything you said about lewis scene i i totally agree i mean i think that rebuilding your defense from the back end to try and stop the pass is the way you need to go it's

just with like this situation also didn't really play well to them with no quarterbacks in the first round except for Kenny Pickett. And that's not a guy that was a good enough prospect to want to go all in on. So they kind of got caught in the middle there. But I agree with you that I don't think it would be the right idea to say, well, they did a lot of the same stuff. So if they only win nine games this year, it's just completely blown up and you'll never win. It's just that you want to you wanted to see them get some players, I think, in free agency as opposed to older guys to fill spots, guys who might have been good down the road. And instead it was like, OK, well, here's your kind of spot filler and whatever else that you're going to have to replace in the future. And then you also left uncertainty with Cousins. It wasn't an all in five-year contract,

but it wasn't a, Hey, this is absolutely the last year of cousins. So I kind of view it as they're on four-year contracts, uh, Adolfo Mensah and O'Connell, which is short by NFL standards. It's almost like the first two years, you get a chance to win with Kirk and the next two years, you are going to be rebuilding a lot of this and you have to show that you're going to win with the next guy yeah I think that's right um or at least show us the plan after year one I guess you tell us after year one is the plan to roll with him again are you in or what is going to be the plan for we do the sit of the rookie for one year hopefully and or we take a big swing on the trademark or we do the following one the Kirk one is the it's the most frustrating one and the most understandable one because we can all

sit here and say not good enough to take you to the super bowl the classic is the line right not good enough to take you there good enough to take you to the playoffs what do we do um well in an ideal world i'd give them a two-year contract okay great that's what they did it's like uh well who do we moving on to like you said well we're in a draft with kenny pickett if we're in the draft with the year of rosen and there was the five guys i know some of those turn out to be terrible but there was five of them there's josh allen there's rose and all of them then you take the quarterback so it's they just got caught in a hard spot on that one where i would say from the outside you'll be disappointed from a team building perspective is when you get that first

off season you can just do whatever you want, essentially, because it's just zero pressure. Why would you not go for guys, the second team guys who flamed out somewhere, who you never know what you're going to get? And maybe Miles Jack comes in, right? He's been bad for two years. Big name has been terrible for two years in Jacksonville. That's a terrible situation. There's no talent around him. Why would you not bring him in and say, let's see after six weeks if it works.

If not, no money. Let him go. If it works, great. We've've got a value steal we sign him to a better contract we know he fits with what we want to do why they went more veteran as opposed to trying to get the second contract second team flamed out here before guys that is puzzling to me and that's where i thought with the new brain trust coming in and having this kind of, you know, from the Browns tree, that would be what they would look to do, which was to take swings on those 26 to 28 athletic prime guys and see if they could get anything out of them moving forward. Or do the classic thing of, all right, who's got a bust first round draft?

Always. That's like the chiefs thing of like, were you a bust first round draft? Play for the chiefs. yeah and you know if the thing about moving on from kirk the one benefit would have been that you just would have had more money to spend to sign people to long-term contracts like the one contract i would say is a good one is probably harrison phillips i don't think he's a game changer of any kind but he's a young ish player a young ish free agent that you could say, hey, let's give you like five more mil than these other teams, but let's make sure this contract takes you through

two, three years. So you're helpful right away. And then later when we're really ready to win, you're also still here under a decent contract. I think that taking that route maybe would have been a little more helpful than spending. Like I was looking at, and I know maybe he didn't want to sign here. I don't know, but like DJ Reed was 26 or maybe 27 years old. And you bring in Peterson instead.

It's like, well, if you had the money from moving on from Kirk and you had Mariota, even though he can't win either, it's like, well, your team's not going to be trash. And Justin Jefferson is not going to hate his life. He's going to get the football, but you have some other players that you were able to spend money on. That was kind of part of my logic of,

if you move on from cousins and create that 35 million, you can give that to other people who can be long-term parts of this. No, I, I agree with that. And I love DJ Reed as a player. That would have been a really smart pickup and was a smart pickup. I can't believe he went for that price. It was really staggering. And you could have took a swing. Marcus Williamss i've been writing about him at some recently the best free safety in the league was out there that was not a big deal that baltimore gave him because no one wants to pay free safeties you could have got gonna got him you could have seen and then you would have been happy days we've got our safety set the next four years let's go

find a quarterback that there are a bunch of different paths they could have taken i would have personally been out of the kirk thing because i'm just not down with the i know i don't like my quarterback and coming into work every day will be really stressful if you just know you're looking at him every day like you know i want to move on from you in two years what are we doing here what is this fake pretense um but the options were just so limited you could do the mario to thing i guess but i don't know by week four week five i think you would also be regretting that it's also not fun to lose every week right coming into work so it's a tough one i think they're in

a fine spot i really do it and that kind of staggering of contracts with the way that the teams and the players are working together now you can do that you could do that in week eight of this year if you wanted to go and redo the deal and stagger the deals in some way so i think they'll be fine and i also i don't think this is the end of their roster right we've seen if these are smart guys which they're purported to be right this is a smart brain trust that's what we keep hearing well then if you're looking around and the rest league is in bleep the pics mode then why would you not like the feeling situation what is value for feeling if you're not so sure about the legs going beyond the kurt cousins era why would you not say look let's get out of this for a three or a two or three that becomes a two by week seven if there's a contender out

there so if I was them I would be hoarding those veteran guys purely with the intent of saying that week eight picking the phone up and saying let's let's have a little bit of a of a shopping spree here and see what we can get for going into the offseason right if you end up in that spot though where you're selling off veterans by week eight, man, then things went pretty wrong for Kevin O'Connell, right? I mean, it depends what their dynamic is and what their trust level is. How much would they miss a Patrick Peterson if they gave him up for fourth? How much does that make them win, lose games? The Pats let go of Stephon Gilmore last year.

They sat him down all year. They let him go and had no material impact on their season went to the panthers and left him for agency so there are ways to game that system i think without it having a real material impact on you i mean if it's as simple as are you winning the super bowl this year by week eight and you know you're not going to it feeling is not going to change the odds and you could still make the playoffs without him and get to go and get a third round pick let's just say that's the value and then you'd have to weigh up as a staff well if we didn't want to have him beyond this year anyway that price tag let's go do it i think you can win and move off some veteran pieces so you and i think a lot of the same way as if like it

doesn't matter if it's realistic but should you be doing it anyway and i like i think with something like that if they are even at 500, ownership would not give the thumbs up to trade veteran players because they'd be saying, well, we want to make the playoffs. You can't get rid of that guy. But I totally agree with you. I mean, I think that if you were to trade off some of the veteran players at that point that, I mean, even they have combine them as their third safety, who's a good player,

at least looks that way from a small sample size from what we saw last year if there's a team that's desperate for Harrison Smith and you're 500 you should absolutely be doing that I just know that they won't yeah you know we saw that even a couple of years ago they were one in five and they still didn't trade everybody they traded Yanni Kingakwe because he wanted to go but But aside from that, they didn't trade anybody. And they tried to take a run at the playoffs because they got a win against Green Bay to go to two and four, two and five or whatever. Like it's just classic sort of football stuff. But it's hard to convince super rich people that you're not going to do everything you can for the playoffs.

And I think that's where there's always this bit of headbutting. But I want to ask you about some other teams it that are in their like last legs of winning window and to me that starts with the packers the rams and the tampa bay bucks unless brady could play till he's 50 maybe but um i thought he said it at like age 38 like i want want to play till 50. And you're like, all right, clown, whatever, man. And then like, here he is. Which of those teams, though, if I gave you 100 of my dollars and you got to bet it, or how would you split it up? You don't have to bet it on one team.

How would you split it up? If I gave you 100 bucks and I said, you have to use this 100, I give you a ones, 20s, and fives, and you can bet it on those three teams. How would you split up your money? I can't believe I have to do math. This is going to be a real. I don't know what it is in UK dollars. You call it quid. We do call it quid. Yeah. Wonderful. Yes. I've just done this, this preview annual.

So I've been through all the teams in excruciating detail. So we're in the dead of the off season.season i am just overflow with takes like nobody's business because i've just had to write all these team reports for hundreds of pages um i kept coming back to you know i really dislike when there is like a national pick that everyone expects like last year it was the la only super ball right and i always try and cut against the grain like no real football people know the bills are better than those teams and you do stuff like that and i keep looking at the rams going i cannot believe how good they are i assumed that everyone had to leave the the whole point of the strategy was they all arrived for a year they won the thing they all waved on the on the the buses and then

they were never to be seen again and that's not really what happened they are so unbelievably stocked and i don't know why they would have any kind of drop off of anything they would get a bit better because some of those guys who were bit part players last year when they they really coalesced down the stretch of the season they didn't figure out who they were defensively until the very latter part of the season and that was von miller independent he just happened to be an unbelievable player so i i don't see how they wouldn't be great again the packers one is tough because I think they're so, I think they're now championship good enough on defense

where they could carry a decent team to a championship. I think that that defense is that good. And then obviously the offense is okay because it's got Aaron Rodgers and Matt LaFleur. So, but then I still just don't know about recreating Devontae Adams in the aggregate. You cannot recreate or replicate what that guy did for that specific system

in one offseason with those players they've signed. So I'm less... The Packers scream to me of another get into the playoffs, tons of hype, and then it all goes wrong on one night. And they're out of the thing. The Bucs, what reason is there for them not to just roll again

outside of Todd Bowles and him not managing the time well enough between being the game planner on defense and doing all the head coach nonsense of booking the travel and approving who's on the flight and all the stuff that those guys have to deal with picking the right tackle when you don't really want to because worse goes down you know all that stuff that he just wants to be in a room game planning defense and so I think those three are still the prohibitive favorites comfortably but i just keep going back to the rams i know we've not had a back-to-back what's it's the patso 304

whenever it was but they they are just so unbelievably loaded i thought they would all leave and they did not and i know that they will we we just know right now that there'll be two more guys there by week 10 that are not there now that'll probably be great players uh the uh cap doesn't exist people getting really excited about everything you're saying there it does folks they'll pay for this eventually just not today um it's uh not when those guys are still there right right not when anyone cares you know the minute that all that hits the fan mcveigh is going to be like same with Sean Payton yeah you know I just feel like it's time for a life change I'm gonna go work for Amazon Prime for 68 million a year or whatever um but you know I think all of them have a great case but how are you spreading my

money around so I'd go 60 rams wow okay yeah I think that they are better I think they have the cleanest roster both sides of the ball that you just know what you're getting from both of them. I have questions about Tampa's secondary, and I have questions about what that Packers offense looks like in the postseason. They just don't have the – you do need a game-breaker on offense in the postseason.

I know that people think you can scheme your way there. It's different when it's Tom Brady and it's all clicking and it's New England and it's Belichick. It's different than anyone else has ever done it in the modern era which is you need a game breaker unless you discover the rpo before the league realizes the rpo exists those the two paths to winning in the postseason and i just don't see well they just don't have a pure outside game breaker that demands coverage so that makes life easier for everyone else which that is what they need yeah i also think that you need like three,

three, not game breakers, but three dudes who are really good. And so they got Sammy Watkins. Sammy Watkins as your third wide receiver or second wide receiver in Kansas City, depending on what you call Travis Kelsey. But if he's your second or third option, you're like pretty, that's great.

He could beat Richard Sherman off the line of scrimmage once and make a big play. But if you're going to him all the time i mean we kind of saw that in buffalo where they wanted him to be the guy and it just didn't really work out and so then you're bringing in rookies too and asking them to play with aaron rogers who as uh everyone knows is super easy for everyone to play with and to get on the same page with he yeah he's never been problematic at all in this area just seems like it's sort of it you know what it screams it screams 98 receptions for randall cobb or something like yeah yeah and they're all eight yard passes so i i agree that i think that that is uh that's a shortcoming of theirs and this is why

i would i would also go with the rams here because i feel like they just have weapons on weapons on weapons and an offensive line that is replacing andrew whitworth with another good tackle so time to throw lots of open wide receivers mcveigh like this is not really changing and their defense could actually probably improve a little bit from last year where they were in the regular season yeah the big thing for them on offense, you know, all these wide zone then boot guys who became the info guys, right? The wide zone was back with Shanahan and McVay. They've all moved on. They realized the defense said, cool. All right, got that. We're going bare front. We're going too deep. Happy days. We can shut that down now. And so they all had to change. And Shanahan

said, I'll draft Trey Lance. And McVay said, I'm going to go super spread. They don't run the wide zone, they're booting more. It's super spread football. It's basketball on grass. It's Stafford getting the ball out the five wide. And they built this really unorthodox, intricate, cool two-tiered passing system, which was really impressive last year. Now that's the way he clearly wants it to go

because they used to have Robert Woods, right? And that was a tight end, running tight end routes dressed in a wide receiver's body. That's how they use Robert Woods and it freaked teams out. Now he's gone super spread. He's right, I'll ditch Robert Woods, right? And that was a tight end, running tight end routes dressed in a wide receiver's body. That's how they use Robert Woods and it freaked teams out. Now he's gone super spread. He's right. I'll ditch Robert Woods

and I'll sign Alan Robinson and he can play in the post on one side and we'll have Cooper Cup and three receivers to the other side. So we'll win through play design on one side. And if we don't win through play design, we'll throw it to the big fella on the outside who's bigger

and can box everyone else out. And probably they'll sign Odell Beckham before the season starts. He'll probably be back there on a cheapish deal and i just don't know when they're humming like that now and that took them time to figure out last year too that didn't really click they had a really good start to the year then he ditched all this traditional stuff and put a new system in place basically and it really got clicking by the end of the year so on both sides of the ball as good as they were last year and they were really good by the time

the playoffs rolled around, I think they will be better to start this year. I want to ask you about a couple of the teams, and then I've got a quick game for you at the end. But the teams like Arizona and Dallas, I just don't really know what to do with them. Like as far as placing teams into categories of their windows, because Dallas has a lot of young-ish players,

or young players in Micah Parsons case or CD lamb who are really good. And it feels like they have a wide open window for a couple of years as soon as they maybe move on from their head coach. Uh, and Arizona's in a weird spot though, because even if your quarterback is good, as soon as you pay him, it becomes very difficult to sustain the level of roster and if we're being honest on defense especially they just don't have a great roster on defense so everything is kind of got to be the kyler murray show they make a panicky trade for hollywood brown like i guess i feel like these teams are sort of floating around in existence of being relevant and probably good

and competitive but not in that same category of where i'd say boy this is their year yeah the cardinals one is a mess um and it screams of by week six they throw vance joseph under the bus for the fact that they ripped the defense apart what was already a part that they had purposefully not addressed any level of the defense really i know they people think they spent all that stuff on linebackers they did that in the first round they just ignored the rest of the roster he scotch tapes together a really creative cool unit and they say thanks to that vance we're taking everyone else away now and we're going to trade a first round pick for hollywood brown and everything we do is putting more assets into the fact our quarterback is

acting like a mopey teenager every day so we need him to not be moping so now we're going to blame you in week six when this all goes to crap and we're gonna have to fire someone i'm sorry that seems to be the message of the offseason they have no pass rush right they have marcus golden and jj watts you're really good players when healthy they are never healthy anymore so that that's a real problem and you can move and be creative and spin safeties and you know put linebackers in all different spots as much as you want but if you have no pressure the whole thing's a wrap particularly when your cornerback room is like theirs is and even on offense you know they that is a team that says we want to play one-on-one football at the nfl level um which is not sustainable hence the the second half of the year drop off he has because everyone in the nfl is a

good athlete to our athlete people in the nfl you need d hop and then you need a second d hop right and they've lost Hopkins what is it six eight weeks I can't remember six yeah Marquise Brown cannot separate from coverage that people still I really believe people have not watched Marquise Brown since Gus was screaming Hollywood in Oklahoma and they think he's that guy he's never been that guy in the NFL he's not being a game breaker in the NFL. You have to have such outrageous speed like Tyree Kill to be that in the NFL. He just hasn't been that guy. And then to re-sign Zach Ertz, that boggles my mind, re-sign James Conner. And it's like, you played one-on-one football with these guys last year.

It wasn't good enough. Why would you say let's roll this whole thing back and then panic trade, like you said, for a guy from Baltimore, who Baltimore is happy to let go. Their only concern there was their own Mopi quarterback, was will he be upset we're trading his friend? The call of the conversation was, we want to save our Mopi quarterback. Let us check with our Mopi quarterback.

It's okay to trade this bad player. It's unfathomable to me. So the Cardinals one, I think, has a chance to be really rough this season, but then their quarterback is so special. They will win nine games because the NFC is awful and he's that good. And it'll save everyone's job. Yeah.

And I have no idea what to do with San Francisco, by the way, because we have no idea what Trey Lance is going to be. And just because Nick Mullins can average eight yards a pass attempt, Kyle Shanahan doesn't mean that Trey Lance is automatically going to be a great quarterback. And last year, I don't think there was enough there to really be able to pick up on you're moving away from jimmy garoppolo that's kind of up in the air uh dallas is the other one that i just want to ask about because i feel like that's a very it would be a very good situation if it wasn't mike mccarthy where we would be look at this roster. They could be great for like four years with the players that they've built up on, especially through the draft and finding some other nice players. Former Viking J Ron curse was playing a big role for them last year. That was a good find for them.

But the McCarthy thing holds me back from ever thinking that they'll be able to go anywhere. Oh yeah. Their championship winner was last year. That roster was outrageous. You know, everyone knows the receivers, three number one receivers,

two great tight end, six linemen. They played the six linemen regularly because they were like, these six are really good. Can we get them on the field all the time? Two running backs, a quarterback running Peyton Manning system at Peyton Manning level. That does not happen.

That's very lucky. Oh, and the defense is now really good after being a disaster zone the year before. That was the window. You lose Randyregory you lose pieces on the back end you lose the third receiver it's just they were so overwhelmingly good last year and it fell so short i don't know why they would magically be better when they lost the thing that made them special last year which was quality depth they that's not a deep roster this year and last year

not only did it have all the super duper stars everyone knows the second guy off the off the depth chart was also unbelievable that's why they could go weeks where you didn't realize Lawrence wasn't playing because they had Randy Gregory and Mike Parsons now they need all those guys to be healthy all season they've never shown they can do that with all those guys one of those guys in every position group is missing basically every week including the quarterback and now the backups aren't anywhere near as good as they were last year. And I just think it's unfair to expect Dan Quinn can take that group to that level and then maintain that. Defensive football doesn't work like that.

It's never stable year to year. And offensively, they fell off so massively. You know, they became predictable. It became not quite a gimmick-based offense, but once Dak got hurt, all their explosives came essentially off gimmicks. So then now you're wondering about the health of the quarterback and whether the quarterback run game is a viable thing, which they kind of need it to be at least a little bit. So yeah,

that one's not for me. And then that one is another one, you know, you mentioned Sean Payton before, I mean, what week is it going to be where they elevate Dan Quinn to head coach? You know, it should probably, it should probably be today. Let's just get it done to get out the way, you know? Yeah, no no for sure and i think that it's amazing how quickly it changes where one year you think well we were great last year we just need to fix x y and z or this will be better but then all of a sudden philadelphia is coming for you and washington as much as i don't trust carson

wentz they won seven games with taylor heineke like they have a good roster and they're coming for you and now the giants might not be coached by the worst coach in the league not named Irwin Meyer like things change really quickly uh so here's the game uh Ollie tell me first of all what year it was that you remember football like what was the first year that if you thought back in your brain okay I remember this season or that Super Bowl or whatever it might be well it's certainly not Super Bowl I can't remember the year someone can fact check this i remember reading a sports illustrated article about a quarterback who won a game on a broken leg and it was a quarterback in nice high school who snapped his leg and then ran a quarterback drawing for the winning touchdown

and that quarterback was tim tebow wow nice high school yeah how about that so that's my first football memory and I was reading this thing in a hotel in Boston going, what is this thing? And I love everything about this, that this guy was 16 cared this much about, we did not care that much about sports where I was from. I was like, yeah, no, I need to know everything about this game from this point forward. So that would be the first memory. Okay. That's amazing. I'm glad I asked. Well, the, the, the game is that i'm going to tell you a franchise and i want you to tell me the first quarterback you remember and then we can talk about it okay so uh let's go with kansas city chiefs who was the first quarterback that that you remember as the qb of the chiefs kyle orton kyle orton

was he he was a chiefs quarterback i think so did he not wear eight for the Chiefs was that only very possible now we now we have to look this up what a great show he did I don't know if I've ever told the Kyle Orton story on the show but uh Kyle Orton was I think he might have uh yes number eight look at you what year was that that would have been 2011 okay wow and how about this for you this is why we play this game because he started three games and he won two of them so i even i as a fan of journeyman backup quarterbacks didn't even remember him playing three games for kansas city so uh i worked in buffalo before i moved to minnesota to cover the Vikings. And Kyle Orton was their quarterback in 2014 because E.J. Manuel started, then got benched.

And Kyle Orton, after the final game of the season, they went in for the post-game interview. Quarterback always talks. And Orton said, I'm retiring. And that was it. That was it. Or it was like locker clean. I'm leaving the next day.

He just said, I'm out. I'm done. I'm not doing this interview. I retire and he never played again and i've never seen him in the media i've never seen him again either he would have some great stories he doesn't manage to face the earth i just want to ask him about that decision where he was just like at he told the radio play-by-play guy like at his locker hey can you go tell everyone i retired and the play-by-play guy came on the radio and said, guys, Kyle Oren just retired. I was like, what?

He just did what now? How about the Houston Texans? Oh, well, that's a tough one because in my, I remember playing, do you remember the coach, the Madden coach game you could play on PC? Oh, yes. Yeah, I played that. The year that that game came out was you had the first pick in the draft you played the texans i would just play every day and you just do the

draft the game was so horrible of playing the games the only fun part was signing the players and doing the draft i would wake up every morning and i would just debate between drafting vince young or not like that's what i was doing so in my head i want to say david carr but i can't remember actually watching him but he's he would be the one back that i remember yeah david carr but the thing is that i'm not sure anyone's actually seen a david carr football game that's the thing is like he was watching those expansion team games yeah if you ask someone describe what david carr looked like as a player well they can say well he got sacked a lot because I've looked at his pro football reference page. But you're like, but what did he look like?

I never saw a game. Sage Rosenfels comes on the show all the time. So, of course, my first Texans quarterback would be Sage Rosenfels. Matt Schaub would be another possibility. Great one, yeah. Matt Schaub won a ton of games, man. Yeah, he did. Yeah.

He won a ton of games. Gary Kubiak in the boots. Just running the boots over and over again how about um let's see here how about uh would would carolina be would that be cam for you how about detroit no carolina would mean derrick anderson oh detroit would probably be it would would it be stafford that i definitely i mean i was obviously covering the game before Stafford, but my mind is blank about who was exactly playing,

lining up for those, that 0-16 season. Maybe John Kitna or... Oh, Kitna is, yes. Joey Harrington. Harrington, that's another good pull. And Drew Stanton and Drew Henson. Drew Henson. Brady's the starter at Michigan before Brady got there.

Yeah, like I remember him a little bit for Dallas getting in football. Yeah. Drew Henson. I saw Drew Henson as a AAA baseball player playing third base. This is when he was the biggest star in the world afterwards. Yeah. Was he going to play for the Yankees? Yeah, Scranton-Wiltsbury-Yankees is where I saw him. Yep yankees yeah oh yeah that's why it's a great games who was playing quarterback for back of the day

well uh let me see here people could follow you on twitter at uh ollie connelly which is o-l-l-i-e connelly and um also you're the managing editor gridiron but also your newsletter read optional um is a is a must subscribe so really great to get together with you this was a editor of Gridiron, but also your newsletter, Read Optional, is a must subscribe. So really great to get together with you. This was a lot of fun. I'm glad we could have this conversation. And now since your camera is weirdly zoomed in super close, I feel like we're close. Oh, we're very close now. We could not possibly have our faces virtually closer. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Anytime.