Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Harbaugh hired in LA, will the Vikings regret not hiring him????

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

Matthew Coller talks with Vikings fans about Jim Harbaugh being hired by the Los Angeles Chargers and goes back to the Vikings' hiring process when they brought in Kevin O'Connell rather than Harbaugh. Will they end up having regrets? Plus Joe Buck said he wishes he never made the "disgusting act" call. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by PrizePix. Go to prizepix.com and use the code PURPLE for a first deposit match up to $100. prizepix.com, code PURPLE. everybody welcome to another episode of purple insider matthew collar here with you and we are going to talk about this evening a topic that I have mostly avoided over the last two years, but can't avoid today because Jim Harbaugh is back in the NFL. Jim Harbaugh hired as the coach of the Los Angeles Chargers. So we need to talk about it. We need to go back and look at the hiring process bring in kevin o'connell not jim harbaugh what we might see from jim harbaugh with the los angeles chargers and talk about whether

the vikings made a mistake not hiring jim harbaugh now that another team has brought him back and i will say that part of the reason that i haven't wanted to talk about Jim Harbaugh much, though, on every stream, there is one person in the comments who's saying, should have hired Harbaugh, should have hired Harbaugh. And it's like, OK, OK, guy. OK, we got you. It actually kind of reminds me of discourse on other things regarding Minnesota sports. And I'll give you an example. The other night when we were talking about the draft and I got a little worked up on the show, if maybe some of you were here and you noticed. And one of the issues was that with every idea that we talked about with the draft and all the evidence that we sort of compiled about the draft and reasons for the Vikings to pick a quarterback, there's always going to be people who say

Christian Ponder, Christian Ponder, Christian Ponder. It's like, okay, I got it. But that really doesn't have anything to do with today. In fact, I was too young to rent a car when Christian Ponder was picked. I mean, that was a really long time ago now. I wasn't even close to moving to Minnesota when Christian Ponder was picked. It's been a very, very long time and has no relevance to what's going on with the Vikings whatsoever. And then I'm going to make another connection here and follow with me. Joe Maurer, this reminds me in a way of Joe Maurer.

My impression of Joe Maurer when I moved to Minnesota was, this is one of the greatest players of all time. You go to his baseball reference page, compare him to the other players when it came to the catchers and their value and their wins above replacement and everything he gave to the team. And yet when I got here, I realized that there's always a person every time you talk about Joe Maurer, who's yelling, what about his contract? What about his contract? What about his contract? And I'm like, I get it.

I get it. Most of his career was spent being one of the greatest players in history. But I suppose at the end, when he played first base in a non-salary capped league he was overpaid which it makes no difference whatsoever because there's no cap but I guess it was his fault that the owners didn't want to pay for other people I don't know what I'm supposed to tell you he also hit over 300 as a first baseman one year but there's always one person I'm sure that Joe Maurer is not the only baseball player who had a nine-year stretch of greatness and then was not as great toward the end of their career,

but there's always that one person. It's the same with Ponder. It's the same with Maurer. And it seems to be something that we do. And Jim Harbaugh has fallen into this category where every time we discuss Kevin O'Connell and the Vikings future and what they're going to do and everything else, there's always the one should I hired Harbaugh should I hired Harbaugh? And I get it. And sometimes I can be that person as we relive things and look back in history. Maybe I'm the person that says, guess you should have drafted more quarterbacks like Lamar Jackson. I'm going to be thinking about that this weekend, but I think it's, it kind of goes along to the, are we analyzing and criticizing something or looking deeper into it? Or are we just sort of

senselessly throwing stuff around because we're angry that things haven't worked out. Right. And that's where this all ties in to Jim Harbaugh, because just like the Maurer conversation, just like the draft conversation, to me, all of the facts and information at the time of the hiring of Kevin O'Connell would lead me to believe that that was the right decision to make at the time for the franchise. You think about they were coming off of Mike Zimmer, who was an older school coach that was very hard on people and was, I mean, I guess him and Spielman both kind of running things by themselves, as much the rest of the organization, the people who work inside the building were left to feel on the outside by those guys, not having the collaborative type of approach. The culture inside the locker room was extremely bad. And also they had a coach who was defensive minded and not

a quarterback guy. And Kevin O'Connell was coming from the McVeigh tree, which has had a ton of success as an offensive mind that had just gone to the Super Bowll working with a veteran quarterback who hadn't quite produced as much as they did before, who would bring a much more positive and maybe less controlling attitude to Kirk Cousins. That all made so much sense to me. It was everything that I had like written down on paper for what they should be looking for, for a coach. And when they brought in Jim Harbaugh, I thought, well, this doesn't make as much sense to me because if you hire Jim Harbaugh, you are handing over your entire franchise to Jim Harbaugh. However, every time the Vikings lose or Kevin O'Connell makes a mistake in a game, whether it's a trick play that we've criticized quite a bit, or the running

game isn't good enough, or they can't get backup quarterbacks to be as good as Kirk Cousins, whatever it might be, then there's always the person. What about Harbaugh? What about Harbaugh? And you guys know that I used to watch a lot of South Park back in the day. It reminds me of a South Park episode. Hopefully there's some other South Park fans where they were talking about how the Simpsons did so many episodes that they covered everything. So everything within a South Park episode, one of the characters says, Simpsons did it, Simpsons did it. And that's how it feels with Jim Harbaugh. And when he wasn't in the league, what we could still say is, well, look, I mean, it's not like anybody else has hired this guy.

So it makes sense that the Vikings wouldn't. But today is your day, Harbaugh person, because not only is he back, he is back with a team. And I'm sure this is not a coincidence that has a franchise quarterback and has been down pretty bad over the years with Justin Herbert. And now he's got an opportunity to be the savior of the Los Angeles Chargers. And so I'm going to get into your comments and reactions to whether the Vikings should or will ultimately end up regretting not hiring Jim Harbaugh. But I'm going to stick with the decision at the time made more sense in my mind to hire Kevin O'Connell than it did Jim Harbaugh. And because the circumstances are so different between the Los Angeles Chargers, who drafted, by the way, a top-notch quarterback,

who is replacing their other top-notch quarterback who they drafted in Philip Rivers. Anyway, if you're the Chargers, you must really believe in drafting quarterbacks. They went from Bree after Ryan Leaf. How about that? Wait, a franchise drafted a bust, Ryan Leaf, and then picked Drew Brees, Philip Rivers, and Justin Herbert? Interesting stuff. Anyway, so taking over a team that already has a franchise quarterback

is a little bit different from where the Vikings are right now. And what they've gotten out of Kevin O'Connell so far is a tremendous start with his first season, a disappointing performance in the playoffs. And then a year that was going up and down like a roller coaster until Kirk Cousins got hurt and then it had a little more roller coaster to go but ultimately ends up the same way it usually does when backup quarterbacks come into play which is you end up missing the playoffs now if we look forward to the future if the Vikings are going to draft a quarterback bring in somebody to work directly with O'Connell, it's on him to work with that player's strengths and weaknesses, maximize everything that they can do,

and go forward and build around them the same way we've seen a lot of other teams have success and not be the Chargers who failed to build around Justin Herbert. That's the goal. That's why you hire Kevin O'Connell, not just to come in and fix the culture right away, but also in the long term to draft and identify the right quarterback to play for them for the future and then be in lockstep in the same way you see from an Andy Reid and a Patrick Mahomes. That's the dream, right? The coach and the quarterback are tied at the hip. Patrick Mahomes. That's the dream, right? The coach and the quarterback are tied at the hip. They're connected. They run the franchise. And that's

how we do it. That's the dream of everybody. Now, had they hired Jim Harbaugh, they probably also in 2022 would have won a lot of football games. I don't know what the culture inside the building would have been like. And I think that the same results probably happen this year, except for maybe the running game is better. But if we're going down that road, I mean, does Kirk Cousins Achilles not have any problems under this scenario if they had hired somebody different? Like, I don't know. But, you know, I think that as of right now, we would still probably get a lot of the same results from what we were talking about with Kevin O'Connell, which was a really good first season.

And then probably if an injury was going to strike, it was going to strike anyway. And that's where we would be at, still looking at who's going to be the quarterback of the future. Now, the odds of them getting J.J. McCarthy might have gone up had they had Jim Harbaugh. But with this decision to hire O'Connell versus Harbaugh, I don't think that it comes down to whether Harbaugh succeeds with the Los Angeles Chargers. I think it comes down to whether Kevin O'Connell makes the right decision, the organization makes the right decision at quarterback, and if they can maximize that going forward, and if they bring back Kirk Cousins because O'Connell wants nobody else but Kirk Cousins, and they go eight and nine, then you know what? Maybe you'd

be right, and you should have hired Jim Harbaugh and not stuck with Cousins and drafted his own quarterback or whatever. Maybe that'll be the case. I think it entirely has to be graded and judged, that decision that the Vikings made, not O'Connell versus Harbaugh, because the circumstances are going to be so much different. And by the way, Harbaugh is going to have a hell of a division to battle with in the coming years if the Raiders are competent with Antonio Pierce. And of course you've got Kansas city out there, Denver, I would be less scared of, but you know, it's a, it's a tough division to play in and to succeed. It's a very tough AFC to succeed.

Lamar's not going anywhere. Allen, uh, Stroud, Trevor Lawrence is coming. You know, you've got a lot, a lot, a lot of good teams in the AFC that he's going to have to battle with. And if Jim Arbaugh falls completely on his face and loses like crazy in Los Angeles, lot a lot a lot of good teams in the afc that he's going to have to battle with and if jim arbaugh falls completely on his face and loses like crazy in los angeles i won't say see i told you so because he would have been taking over a team here that was primed to win the division at the time in 2022 and who knows where it would have gone from there now of course if he acts like a

complete lunatic and loses his marbles and uh is Urban Meyer or something, maybe then I would have said then I will say, see, this is why you hired Kevin O'Connell. But I go I go entirely on what was the decision at the time for the Vikings? What made the most sense at the time for the Vikings? Not a couple of years later, let's see what he does over here. Let's see, you know, what happens over here. It's more going to be judged on the decision at the time and what Kevin O'Connell does here with the future of the quarterback position that will determine, I think, whether the hiring of O'Connell was a success in the right move or not. So far, I think the results have been fine I mean a 13 win season that was kind of a little bit bogus as far as like the team's actual strength it's a good start you can't argue with it the playoff game you certainly can uh fourth and eight play call you

know we pin it all on Kirk not a great play call either there has been times where I think everyone has been frustrated with the obsession with passing. Even when Josh Dobbs is your quarterback, the lack of a run game, sometimes the too cute nature. Although you saw that with Andy Reed as well. A lot of coaches have that in them. Andy Reed running an end around to a receiver at the goal line, rather than just handing it off and going up the middle for a touchdown. Like there there's O'Connell's not the only one to do it but I think the critiques a lot of them are right of the Vikings current coach but I don't think I've seen anything so far with Kevin O'Connell that would make me say oh my gosh they really should have hired Jim Harbaugh instead and

if the Chargers start 10 and 0 next year, I still won't say that because it's a different situation. That's how I'm viewing it. That's not hot takey. I understand that. But that's how I would look at it. It's very similar to when you draft someone. When you draft someone, it's, was this the best guy to draft at the time and then we'll see and you think about like Laquan Treadwell now in the afterward you can all say oh well should have been Michael Thomas but then go back and look at what the draft analyst thought of Laquan Treadwell what he did in college how much they seemed to need a receiver at that time it didn't work out but there's a difference between saying did it work out and the results and was it the right decision at the time?

At the time, it felt like Laquan Treadwell was a great pick. He was amazing in college. And even though he didn't have a great 40, there's lots of receivers that don't have great forties. What was Adam Thielen's 40? Like that's not a determining factor of success usually. So that's my point is we, we have to look at these things at the time, the process, and then we'll see how they ultimately end up playing out. All right. Let me get to your

comments. Also, I've got a quote from Joe Buck that you guys are going to want to hang around for later that, um, maybe we'll change your perspective on Joe Buck a little bit. Uh, JP says, uh, he wouldn't have changed the culture like Kevin O'Connell did and for sure wouldn't be willing to let vets go and would push for Kirk staying. He's a great coach. I don't know if at the NFL it's been a long time. Well, that was part of my issue a little bit. And you go back and look at the San Francisco 49ers,

and this is where he's hardball like a fox. I mean, he really understands timing in going to the Los Angeles Chargers. They are down bad, but they have a really good quarterback. And all you need to do is better than the last guy who did horrendously. And then you look like a genius. So he's very, very wise in taking this job. And I think it's a very favorable job because there's not very many where you get to drop in and get a franchise quarterback right off the bat like Harbaugh. But part of it for me was that he has not had success

in the NFL, hasn't been in the NFL for a really long time. So are we sure that it's going to work the same exact way? College is so much different than the NFL and it worked in San Francisco, but it really only worked for a short period of time. And he joined the 49ers not long after they had been pretty bad and they had gotten a ton of draft picks and go look at those teams and how they drafted right before Jim Harbaugh showed up. It was no coincidence. Now that's not to give him no credit. He coached them really well. And I like to go back and watch old games as you guys know. And I was watching, I think it was 2012. Yeah. Playoff game against Atlanta, super physical team, really well coached, great running game, a lot of open receivers in their past concepts i mean he was he was a good

coach and then it started to kind of come apart a little bit and then he was out pretty quickly and harbaugh has this way of always being in the middle of stuff and rubbing people the wrong way and and my thing at the time was do you want to hand over your entire franchise and its future to one guy? Because if you hire Jim Harbaugh, and this is what the Chargers are saying they're comfortable with, and I get it from their perspective, but did you want to just say, it's this guy's franchise now. It belongs to him. You hire him, it's him. He's in charge. He runs the whole thing. That's why college is so great for Jim Harbaugh, because you are the guy. You are the king when you are the coach in college.

Usually in the NFL, it doesn't exactly work that way. So there were, I think, reasons to think that they didn't want somebody who wanted to be king again, the same that Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman kind of looked at themselves. Jay Jesus says all depends on, on whether the Vikings will regret it. If within four years, Jim brings the chargers to a super bowl and K KOC does not then. Yes. Yeah.

It'll be one. It'll be very similar to what I was talking about with the draft where it's like, will they regret not taking Michael Thomas instead of Laquan Treadwell? Like, of course they do because the results were that Michael Thomas turned out to be great. Laquan Treadwell. Like, of course they do because the results were that Michael Thomas turned out to be great. Laquan Treadwell didn't, but I don't know if like, that's not the same as the decision that they made at the time and which player they picked.

Right. And that goes for anything. It goes for, you know, did you pick this quarterback or that quarterback, Mitch Trubisky versus Patrick Mahomes? Maybe the process on that was, was bad. And that's what we need to look at, right? The process of the decision was Mitch Trubisky versus Patrick Mahomes. Maybe the process on that was bad. And that's what we need to look at, right? The process of the decision. Was Mitch Trubisky really a better prospect than Patrick Mahomes? No, of course he wasn't. Go look at Mahomes' stats in college and watch him play. So that's what I mean is that if I felt like Jim Harbaugh would have been a better choice for the Vikings franchise in that moment, then I would say, yeah, you know what? They might end up regretting that and should have done it.

It's kind of like when we talk about the 2022 draft, where Louis seen one, the defensive player of the game in the national championship. And then it's six foot two and two 15 ran a four three. And you go like, all right, well, I get that he turned out to be a bust but gosh everything looked like it was supposed to be good with that player right at the same time positional value they did not take a great position for positional value and they asked for it a little bit there by taking a position that can often hinge on the system that a team plays like safety so i think that these things become a little more

nuanced. Like what would Jim Harbaugh have been like here? How different would it be? Where, how would they feel about this decision right now? Like, would he be drafting JJ McCarthy right now? And if that was the case, uh, then you'd feel good about it. Or would he have, like you said, would he have wanted all those veteran players to stay and keep running it back because he would be entirely in control and not the general manager? Because is is Casey because Casey was already here. Is Casey Adolfo Menzo really in control of the roster and decisions? If Jim Harbaugh is here? Absolutely not.

He works for Harbaugh. If Harbaugh is here and then you would have just been entirely at whatever whim Jim Harbaugh wanted at the time at the quarterback position and everything else. So that to me would have been quite, quite different. Jason says in two years, KOC will be fired and Harbaugh will be in the AFC championship game. Okay, well, you are from the future. And tell me what else is going to happen. What stock should I invest in? I mean, look, we all know with Kevin O'Connell what his future rests on, right?

We know that Kevin O'Connell's future rests on what happens at quarterback. Because if the Vikings end up drafting a quarterback this year, and it's the right player, and it's a great fit with Kevin O'Connell, and he's throwing to Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison and TJ Hawkinson, and they add a little bit better interior offensive line, and they're running the football, and they use the money to build up the defense, and they are neck and neck with the Packers, with the Lions, then Kevin O'Connell is going to look like a great coach. And what we know is that Kevin O'Connell can maximize receivers. His receivers have had a ton of success since he

got here. Justin Jefferson's numbers somehow got better. Jordan Addison was a success right away. TJ Hawkinson has been great since he got here after a couple drops to start the season, but overall has been really well used. The pass blocking has gotten way better since Kevin O'Connell got here. They can throw for 400 yards with Nick Mullins in at quarterback and win a game with Josh Dobbs where he's got to explain the offense into his headset, right? There's a lot of things to work with here at the quarterback position. So if they do the right thing and get the right guy and it works out for them, he's going to look like a genius and he's going to be talked about as one of the best coaches in the league.

Even if there are some of the shortcomings that he has, that's still going to be what happens, right? If you pick the right quarter, like, look at like look at Matt LaFleur right now. Matt LaFleur halfway through the season, Green Bay Packers fans are going, do we have the right coach? And then by the end of the season, they're going, we have a great coach. Why is that? Because Jordan Love played great.

Because Jordan Love made a lot of great throws. And then Matt LaFleur worked with him and maximized what he could do best and what he was most comfortable with, it's going to be the same story as with Kevin O'Connell. If you end up building a complete roster on the defensive side, we know that you've got a fundamental part of it, which is the guy knows how to draw passing concepts. He knows how to dial them up.

He knows how to get receivers open. That's a pretty big fundamental thing to have in the NFL, but it's not going to win you a championship alone. That's where your roster is going to come in. That's why Kyle Shanahan, when Nick Mullins was a starting quarterback, didn't win because getting open receivers is not enough. It's usually comes down to the entire roster. So that's, what's going to determine where Kevin O'Connell goes. I mean, you can make your predictions, so you could come back and say that you're right, but you know, look a lot of times in Minnesota sports, if you predict that a bad thing is going to happen,

you usually get it right. So you can be that person if you want to be, but I don't think we really know. And would I be shocked if Jim Harbaugh is in the AFC championship? No, because he inherited a great quarterback. I mean, he took over a team. And when he was in San Francisco, he took over a team that had drafted a number one overall quarterback in Alex Smith and had started to emerge as a good player after a couple of years of development. And then, then you know he takes over a roster that had drafted extremely well and he ends up looking great i don't know if that's quite the case with the chargers because outside of justin herbert that roster is pretty spotty so there will

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with the code Purple Insider Free. HelloFresh, America's number one meal kit. Mr. Wonderful says, Harbaugh builds strong and tough D-line and O-line, the foundation of winning football. Watch the chargers become one of the toughest teams in the league. Yeah. I mean, that's definitely true.

I don't know what team doesn't try to do that. So that's, that's one thing like what, what team is like, you know, what we really need is a soft D line and a soft O line. But that was very true in San Francisco. And when you're at Michigan and you can recruit whatever players you want, they had an awesome defensive line, an awesome

offensive line. That's true. And I think what Harbaugh really does understand, and this is where you're right about the tough football, is he understands how to run the ball. And this is something that I've been critical of Kevin O'Connell for as not really being fluent or truly getting how to create a run game. And maybe some of that's just that his running backs haven't been that good. But I don't see an offensive line that is working in unison and you feel like, man, they've really got it with the way that they play as a run game. And I've never felt that way about the Rams since maybe one year of Todd Gurley, but even Sean

McVay, I don't think that that's really his thing either. I really feel that way about Kyle Shanahan though, in San Francisco, a lot of what you're talking about though, comes down to the players. He is going to try to build a tough defensive line. And look, the Vikings put a lot of draft capital and investment into their offensive line through draft capital, but not the defensive line so much with their draft picks that they have not drafted many defensive linemen. But in the NFL, it's just different. It's not like you could just go recruit all the best big guys. You have to be able to sign them. You have to be able to identify and draft them and then hope they work out and hope they stay healthy.

And what he inherited in San Francisco was a team that was perfect for him. Perfect. And that they had a great offensive line, bunch of giant dudes, one of the best running backs of all time in Frank Gore and took everything off of that. Does that mean he's going to be able to do the same exact thing with the Los Angeles chargers? I don't know. Let's see. Phil says chargers and Michigan need to send Kirk cousins and the Wilfs a thank you letter.

Cousins pounded the table for Kevin and the Wilfs went along with it because of the relationship with Zimmer. Okay. I don't, I don't really follow exactly that. Is that a theory? There's lots of theories. There's lots of Harbaugh theories of,

and I've heard too many of them to definitively say what happened for why they did not hire Jim Harbaugh. People have brought that up. They've suggested that Kirk cousins didn't want Harbaugh and wanted Kevin O'Connell. People have brought up that the interview was too weird for the Wilfs and didn't match up with what they wanted. There's there's theories, but I can't definitively say this is exactly what happened now, Michigan. Yeah. I agree with you saying Michigan for sure. We will see with the chargers. It has been a long time since he has been a head coach in the NFL.

And so often, it's really the roster as opposed to when we're talking about the head coach. A lot of times, it's the roster. Can you build the roster? Brandon Staley may have looked a lot smarter if they could have built the roster. And I saw a really good analytics guy, Arjun Menon, tweeting about the drafting with the Chargers and how Tom Telesco, who's now going to be the GM with the Raiders, he did not draft well for years. And what does that result in?

Now, I don't think Brandon Staley was was a good coach but that ends up resulting in brandon staley having to try to desperately sign players like jc jackson like eric kendricks to fill out his defense and we know that that's not always when you're kind of reaching for players to hope to fill spots and you don't have a deep team it's it's a problem and when you don't draft well and this is the biggest problem that the Vikings face on their defense. So let me continue to scroll here. Lee says, is it a fireable offense to quasi of Harbaugh takes the chargers to the

AFC championship. See, this is what I'm talking about is of course not like it honestly has nothing to do with the Vikings of what happens with the chargers. It's, it's just exactly like the draft. It's exactly like the draft where it's like, is it a fireable offense?

If a player who you didn't pick becomes a star, like, I don't think so. And not if your pick made sense. Now, if you start doing stuff that makes no sense, did it make sense for the vikings to hire a young offensive coordinator from the sean mcveigh tree that just won the super bowl yes i like i don't

know i mean when we talk about this harbaugh thing it's almost like they had hired uh you know some really awful coach that was already fired or something or some someone who had made no sense like they hired joe judge or they hired urban Meyer instead. I mean, we, when we talk about the two candidates and what was a better fit for that time you know, I think, especially when we consider that the locker room was a lot of Zimmer's locker room and they were looking for a significant change in how things were done at that time as well. And would Jim Harbaugh have been a significant change from Mike Zimmer being an old school coach to an old school coach in Jim Harbaugh? He might very well be the right coach at the right time for the Los Angeles Chargers. But I don't think

that that has a whole lot to do with the Vikings decision when they made it going back. One before I die says, did you see Jeremy Fowler write about his prediction of Kirk to the Falcons? Fowler knows some stuff. Yeah, sometimes. I think that that was based on what executives thought was going to happen, right? I think, isn't that how that article works is he calls some people in the league and he says, what do you think is going to happen? I have been leaning much heavier toward the Vikings looking for a quarterback in the drafts than bringing back Kirk Cousins recently. And that's not as, even as much as like we've discussed the playoffs and what the playoffs should say to the Vikings. I've actually thought more

about Kirk's perspective and just how much the Falcons make sense. There is the connection with his wife and I think she's from Atlanta or something. I'm not, I'm not too concerned about that, but it's more of if you're Kirk cousins, you have to live in a year to year world because your Achilles just popped and you are past 35, which is a graveyard of quarterbacks, unless you're going to the hall of fame. So you have to live in a year to year world. If you Kirk cousins, like I'll throw out another old television reference, any boy meets world fans from way back in the day would remember an episode where they're trying to make a decision and they're putting Skittles, I think, on one side and Skittles on another side of the decision.

So this is for this, this is for this. If you're Kirk Cousins, you get a bunch of Skittles out and you start sliding Skittles over to the Falcon side versus the Viking side, you're like, well, I've got a lot of weapons with the Vikings. They've also got a lot of weapons in Atlanta. And now he doesn't know who the coach is yet, so that also really bogs up this whole thing, but it's not Harbaugh. And if he didn't like Harbaugh, well, then he won't have to deal with that. But is this team ready to win right now would be a lot of Skittles more over to Atlanta. And then talk about sliding Skittles to one side.

How about the division? And if you're Kirk Cousins, what are you looking for most? He's got to be looking for most changing the narrative about Kirk Cousins, right? If I'm him, that's what I'm trying to do. If I'm Kirk Cousins, I am trying to walk out of my career like Matthew Stafford and have people say about me, that guy was a winner. Even though he didn't do it here, even though he didn't do there, he was a and that's is that going to happen here with this division i don't know i really don't know uh let's see i don't know if it's pronounced savis says we're so screwed could be uh our coach does not have a killer instinct or good game management skills and our general manager doesn't know what the hell he's doing.

See, this is what I'm talking about. This goes back to the Joe Maurer thing where I started. Like, are we really making points here? Or are we just throwing stuff out because we're mad that the team isn't as good as we want them to be? Right? It feels like a defense mechanism for Minnesota sports fans that they always do this with everything. Where it's like, hey, Joe Maurer goes to the Hall of Fame. Yeah, what about like that last year we played first base, made $23 million.

You're like, well, it's like lacks a killer instinct. They won every one score game one year, and then they didn't the next year. I know that Kevin O'Connell fumbled or maybe that was actually other players with the ball. But I think with Kevin O'Connell this year, well, one, you found out nobody's a miracle worker. Okay. It was great what he did with Josh Dobbs, but nobody's a miracle worker. And what was his record by the time Kirk Cousins got hurt? It would have been 13-4 and then uh four and four at the time so 17 and eight so 17 of his first 25 games they win that's it's pretty hard to say that like he can't do anything as far as game management it's spotty uh i would say it's average i i'd like it to be better i agree with

that killer instinct though i don't even know what that is Like I'm not sure what you mean By killer instinct it sounds like Just a thing you say To say something to demonstrate That you don't believe in them and as far as Quasey not knowing what he's doing that's another thing I'm not sure I really understand because Like if we take the totality

Of the decisions that are made And again let's do the Skittle thing Where we could slide decisions to each side. Were they good decisions? Were they bad decisions? Was it a good decision to not extend Kirk Cousins last off season and not pay him what he wanted? Well, he tore his Achilles and now you have quarterback flexibility as opposed to being locked into a guy who's 36 and tore his Achilles. That's a lot of skittles over to his side. Moved on from Delvin Cook. That was a good decision. Drafted Jordan Addison instead of keeping Adam Thielen. That's a good decision. Moved on from Eric Kendricks.

Signed Ivan Pace Jr. as an undrafted free agent. That's a good decision. There's quite a few of them that have worked out quite well. And then there's others that have not. Marcus Davenport, that's a bad decision. The 2022 draft is filled with bad decisions that are both process and results. I remember people being unhappy with me on that evening when I questioned the positional value of drafting a guard or drafting an injured corner or whatever. And so the process wasn't good for that. So we've got, what we have is a sample of some good things and bad things that have put this team in a position where they have a lot of weaknesses on their roster that are not going to be easy to get out of, but they also have a lot to work with in the future. And let's keep in mind a salary cap situation that if they don't bring

back Kirk becomes amazing after this year. I don't mean just okay. I mean, like you're the team that walks into the grocery store after you just won the lottery that you could buy all the lobster and steak you want. If they have a rookie quarterback contract going into 2025, is that good? Like that is good. So, you know, not knowing what he's doing. Well, I think there's been a lot of decisions made so far that have led us to a place where they have a chance to execute this competitive rebuild plan, but we're not there yet. And I think with both of them, as we talk about, you know, will they regret not giving Harbaugh the keys to the franchise. I mean, we're just not there yet in knowing whether Kevin O'Connell

or Kweisi Adafo Mensah is going to be a success here. And I think a lot of you like to call it before it happens. And we all do that with sports. I'm saying lions are going to win. And then if they do, I'll give you a good example. The, what I played you guys the other night, me saying the bills kicker is a problem. Watch out. And then he kicks it. I'm like, oh, I knew it. I'm like, wait a minute.

That's not great. They missed the field goal. But so we all try to do that. And there is a defense mechanism. And you guys know I grew up in Buffalo. So me thinking that a kicker was going to go wide right, right? So we all have that tendency. But I think what we need to

acknowledge is that we don't really have an answer yet with either one of these guys. And there's reason to look at Kevin O'Connell and say, you know what, if they get the right quarterback, this team could win a lot of football games, even if they have to play in some shootouts, because they just did in 2022, we can look at Kweisi Adafomensa and say, this plan that they put in from the start is on its way. And it's been rocky, but it's on its way. Could it fail though? Yes. And if they bring back Kirk Cousins, like is the pressure on? A hundred percent, a hundred percent. Now this, this one might be my favorite. Mark, Harbaugh probably doesn't hire Donatello as a defensive coordinator. Might want to check where Ed Donatello was working back in 2012.

I mean, Ed Donatello was working for the San Francisco 49ers. So, you know, that's a good one. But, you know, he might have fired him. Maybe. Maybe he would have fired him. You know. Ben says, and that was a mistake, by the way. When we take stock of mistakes or successes, huge mistake by Kevin O'Connell, not just firing Ed Donatel halfway through the season.

Absolutely should have done it. Buffalo did it with their offensive coordinator who wasn't working, and they were this close to being in the AFC championship in part because of it. So, yes, that goes down as you got to learn from that one. Cause that was a mistake. Ben says, do you think Harbaugh and Kirk would coexist? I'm not really sure. You know, he coexisted with Alex Smith and Colin Kaepernick. He's a former quarterback. You know, his quarterback from Michigan is talking about being a first round draft pick, potentially JJ McCarthy. So I'm, I'm not really sure. Uh, but I

do think that someone like Harbaugh wants to be in control of everything. And is that going to work for a quarterback who is very rigid? I'm not really sure that it would have worked out. Let's see. Digital planes. Media says, Hey, Matt, love the show. Sell me on taking pennix at number 11.

That's not, that's not a hard pitch. I mean, if the Vikings move on from Kirk cousins, whatever quarterback they like most, take them at number 11 and whether it's McCarthy, Bo Nix trade up for Drake May, I don't care. Just you got to try.

You got to try. You got to take one of them. So if they like Pennix, take Pennix. And as far as a skill set, that's not a hard one to sell you on either. A big giant left arm of his. Dude's got a cannon. And I could envision him launching footballs downfield to Justin Jefferson. So it's not, it's not a hard sell. There's concerns about Pennix, but if they think that he's the guy and,

you know, senior bowl's coming up here, we're going to have a senior bowl correspondent. I'm not going because I have some travel the next week after that for a couple of days, but I'll have a correspondent. Somebody who's going to be covering the Senior Bowl for Purple Insider down in Mobile, Alabama. We'll have guests and stuff from there. That'll be fun, and we'll learn a little bit more about Michael Penix and Bo Nix. Blantos says,

possible Harbaugh wanted Cousins extended more than Quasey did. It's possible. If Harbaugh wanted to coach a rookie quarterback, he would have tried for the commander's job instead of a well-established quarterback that could be true it also could be that the the simplest answer is correct which is that they sat down with Jim Harbaugh and went over how they thought they wanted things to operate and it wasn't a fit and Kevin O'Connell was just a better fit. That's also possible as well.

Hamza says, I think Harbaugh is very similar to Zimmer in the fact that he wants to run the ball and play defense. I don't think Justin Jefferson would enjoy a run-heavy defense. Glad the Vikings, or offense, sorry. Glad the Vikings chose Kevin. That could be part of it. That the philosophy, they wanted a philosophy change away from an old school approach. And look, I think running the ball is super important. And this is something that the Vikings have to improve. And if they don't, it's going to be

really tough. If they do not improve their running game, getting to the playoffs, winning playoff games, it's not going to be easy. We see all these teams when they need a first down with a couple of handoffs and they don't have to always put it on there just entirely on their quarterback. That's important. And the Chargers last year had a pretty horrendous running game around Justin Herbert. And I think like personally, look, this is the thing about Jim Harbaugh is that I actually like a lot of his philosophy and I go back and watch those games. And somebody mentioned offensive defensive line, a joy to watch those old teams that

he had when they were at their best and the way that they worked the past game off the run game. I think defenses hate that when you can work the past game off the run game, we saw like a lot of play action stuff for Jordan Love that got wide open receivers and look Michigan I mean what's what is an easier way to win when you could just hand it off hand it off hand it off run an occasional play action get 25 yards hand it off again like that's easy as heck for everybody the offensive linemen love it the coaches love it the defense hates it can you

really do that still in the nfl i don't know if you can do it the same way that they did it with frank gore but you can you can definitely still work your pass game off of your run game uh at the time though as they were going off of zimmer and the kubiak style i think they wanted to lean into kirk cousins more and it resulted in some of kirk cousins best play that he's ever had as they were going off of Zimmer and the Kubiak style, I think they wanted to lean into Kirk Cousins more. And it resulted in some of Kirk Cousins' best play that he's ever had in his career. And that's another thing that we can't really overlook here. Was Kevin O'Connell great with Nick Mullins and Josh Dobbs,

who out of 70 quarterbacks that played this year were probably the 62nd and 64th best uh probably not no i i if if their plan in the future was nick mullins that i would say fire everybody but it's not uh with kirk cousins i think we can all agree that he played some of his most confident comfortable football especially in the biggest moments under kevin o'connell and that's what you were looking for you weren't really looking for at the time how can we lean into the run game especially since delvin cook wasn't exactly the same so uh steve said vikings wouldn't have any bad head coaching hires if season ticket holders

were given a vote now that this is interesting you know i've thought i've thought of this before steve this is interesting on all head coaching hires and give them votes on all first and second round draft picks as well. So I've, I've thought of this before. I had this thought that what if we viewed football teams as like public entities? So there were votes on stuff now, first round draft picks, I think that's too far because you're like, you need scouts and stuff to figure that out. Like, you don't, you don't just want everybody just taking their random guests. Although, you know, the draft is so random that maybe you do just as well as general managers. So maybe I should take that back, but to vote

on the people in charge. And if you actually had control over whether they stayed or went with their jobs, you'd probably be more responsible than in a comment section where you come in and say, fire everyone, right? When you actually got to the ballot box, should we re-up this person as opposed to owners making that decision? I do think that the public might do a better job of that than owners would, because a lot of being a crazy owner who's demanding stuff from them. And I'm not saying that the Wilfs are crazy, but they're demanding in the same way that a lot of other owners are. And, you know, would there be more of long-term approaches if it was just the football people making those decisions and then they were looking for their next election? Although

election years would be troublesome, right? You'd have to sell everyone on the long-term plan. I'm sorry. I'm not sure how to say your name. Zaqua, maybe? Kevin has to develop a run game. All the best teams can run the ball. Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. There's a difference between saying that running should be the main part of your offense, which is wrong versus saying you really do need a run game. And does anybody want to face Christian McCaffrey with the 49ers up seven points in the fourth quarter? No. Or Jameer Gibbs or Aaron Jones or, you know, whoever, uh, even Isaiah Pacheco is a great running back. It doesn't matter where he was drafted. I mean, I like, he is a, a really good running back. Uh, Will says KOC has a very similar career start to Matt Nagy had all the breaks in year one, absolutely no commitment

to the run game. Uh, the only time Matt Nagy would was against the Vikings where, uh, Montgomery would end up with a bunch of yards. Yeah. I don't know. I i mean that seems very different to me because matt nagy came in with someone else's quarterback mitch trubisky and i i don't know if it was all the breaks as much in year one for matt nagy as it was they had an unbelievable defense but maybe you're right maybe it was a one score game thing but i think that their defense really took them and then trubisky was better and i think uh, than he ever was after that, that a major part of the mistake from Matt Nagy was trying to make Mitch Trubisky into a complete pocket quarterback, as opposed to a running and scrambling quarterback, which he should have

leaned into. And that was maybe Matt Nagy's biggest mistake. The other thing is that Mitch Trubisky is terrible. And that's, that's what got, let's be honest. Like that's what got Matt Nagy fired. You know where he is now, right? In the AFC championship game, working for Kansas city. Like what got Matt Nagy fired? Is that right? I think he is. Uh, what got Matt Nagy fired was his quarterback failed. And what made, what made everybody question Kevin O'Connell was that the quarterback got hurt. And that's why, as we go forward here, the determining factor for how this goes will entirely be on what they do at quarterback. And I think that's just the reality. Derek says, any of the top three, Chicago, Washington, New England, going to trade out of their picks?

Feels like they're all going to stay there. It really does, doesn't it? It really does, doesn't it? It really does. At this point with Chicago, I just don't see any way they can stick with Fields. I wavered. Going to get Courtney Cronin on the show later this week, so we'll hear what she has to say.

They wavered as Justin Fields had some moments this year, but they were just moments, kind of fleeting as always with Justin Fields. And I think they're going to go Caleb Williams. They're going to do the thing that they should do, which is just pick the number one guy. And if it doesn't work out, they'll build an incredible roster for the next guy. And it'll probably be some other GM to do it if they, if it fails, but they have a chance to build a really special San Francisco like, or lions like roster, probably even better on the defensive side with all the

money that they have to work with. So they should do that. They should just draft Caleb Williams, number one. And Washington and New England desperately need quarterbacks as well. I could see New England being a team that calls about Kirk or that tries to get Baker Mayfield or something and tries to turn around quickly. But I mean, Gerard Mayo's just taking over. The expectations are not high considering how bad they were. He's going to have some time there. I, I, yeah, I mean, I think it's going to be very hard unless they don't believe in one of the guys. If they don't believe in Daniels, if they don't believe in may the same way that other teams do, and they don't think that's their guy, then it is possible to trade up. I think it's going to be

very difficult for the Vikings to get up that far to be able to take one of those quarterbacks. But the things that we think we know now, it almost always turns out we don't. And that just goes for Will Levis or Malik Willis. Like there's been so many examples of players that we really thought were, man, we are like locked in on this guy. This is going to happen. They're going to draft that. And you know, it doesn't end up happening. Folks, if you've been listening to the show, then you know how much fun we have been having with prize picks this year. Just go to prizepicks.com slash purple. Use the code purple for a first deposit match up to $100.

And let me tell you how it works. If you haven't heard us talk about it enough yet or you haven't tried it yet, very simple. There are yardage totals on prize picks. You either pick more or less and boom. Each week has been a roller coaster ride of fun. And the best part is that when I have a bad week, I didn't lose much. It doesn't cost much to play. You can turn $10 into $250 very easily.

And if things go sideways for you, you're not out a whole heck of a lot of money. That is prize picks.com slash purple, just more or less on yardage totals. And you are in prize picks.com slash purple, the code purple for a first deposit match up to $100. Uh, Michael says if Harbaugh was the coach, he trades cousins. There are certain teams and coaches cousins can't play for if harbaugh was the coach he trades cousins there are certain teams and

coaches cousins can't play for and harbaugh tomlin and belichick are those types oh yeah and zimmer i mean i i don't know if any of that's true um i don't know i mean i really don't know like do could he not play for belichick i don't know it depends on the offensive coordinator the offense the system the situation i don't know why he couldn't play for mike tomick? I don't know. It depends on the offensive coordinator, the offense, the system, the situation. I don't know why he couldn't play for Mike Tomlin. I just can't say that for sure. Now, he may have traded Cousins because he wanted to pick his own quarterback. Now, that makes a lot more sense.

Thielen was undrafted. Yeah, I'm aware of that. That is true. Yeah, I knew that. Ran a 4-4. Is that true? What did Adam Thielen run? I think we can all agree that Adam Thielen was not the fastest wide receiver, which was my point.

Let's see. Now, he would have not had a combine, right? So he ran a 4-4-9, which is not that fast for a wide receiver. And I mean, technically, yes, 4-4, but 4-4-9, so a 4-5. It's a little faster than the Kwon Treadwell, but it's not blazing fast by any means. That was my point, that receivers and the 40, they don't tie together. It's like 40 equals success. That's the point. In fact, it has a negative correlation because the NFL drafts for 40 way more often than they actually should. So that's kind of what I was getting at with Laquan Treadwell. I wasn't implying that he was as slow as Treadwell, just that the 40-yard dash is not like a determining factor of what makes a receiver good or not. Javier says, don't you think if Kirk stays healthy, it only or if kirk stays sorry uh if kirk stays it really only means that he cares about the money and what it represents and not

winning a super bowl well you know that there's a lot of as kirk cousins might say there's a lot of factors right and money is definitely one of them it's's no guarantee that the Vikings offer the most money. They certainly did not last year. It might be about where he lives, his family, knowing the organization, knowing that it might be about his relationship with Kevin O'Connell. It might be about Justin Jefferson. It might be about thinking that he was on the cusp

of this team being really good, and that if he comes back, that they can patch work the defense together i don't i wouldn't go as far as to say if he comes back it means that like he doesn't care about winning but i think that if you're looking really critically at the situations he could join there are better ones than this and there are easier tracks i think um easier tracks to a nfc championship than coming through the nfc north uh mitch says killer instinct is scoring a touchdown staying aggressive when you're up four midway through the fourth is that from a

specific game um i mean as far as fourth downs go and things like that, like going for it, they've been a fairly aggressive team when it comes to fourth downs. Are we referring to the Bears game? Because Josh Dobbs threw four interceptions in that game. Are you sure you want to be like super aggressive at midfield with Josh Dobbs? I don't know. The opposing quarterback had done nothing all day long and your punter shanked a punt and then you allowed a wide open receiver. I mean, I don't know.

Like, I don't think that they've been lacking aggressive. You know what I think it is a little bit more with Kevin O'Connell is it's sort of a lack of consistency with some of this stuff where with Dan Campbell, live or die, what you're going to have with Dan Campbell is aggressiveness. That man is going to chew tobacco, bite kneecaps and go for it and try for two and try to win games and whatever. Right. You know that sometimes with Kevin O'Connell, it can be today. We're doing it this way, but next week we're going to do it a different way. So we're going to go for it at this time. We're going to take a shot at this time and then we're going to not do it the next time. And I felt in different moments like there was a little bit lacking in consistency there. But I think that when Kirk is the quarterback, there were a lot of situations

where they were very aggressive in trying to win games, but everything changes when you do not have your starting quarterback. That's, that's the difference. Phil says, I just don't see Kevin separating himself from cousins. Just looking at the Rams and Stafford possibly, possibly, but if you're Kevin O'Connell and you look at this draft class and there's six guys who could potentially be first round draft picks. I mean, uh, like if you're O'Connell, do you want your shot? I mean, if I was him, I would want my shot. Kevin O'Connell goes to the Combine. So a lot of coaches, head coaches, actually don't these days go to the Combine.

They feel like they can get more work done doing their schemes and scouting and everything else back in their team offices than going to Indianapolis. So there's a number of coaches who don't. And last year when we sat down with O'Connell in Indy, which we're going to do again, and this show will be in Indianapolis and sitting down with Kevin O'Connell, Kweisi Daffo-Mensa, and so forth. But last year he told us that one of the things that he likes to do is scout every single quarterback. He likes to meet with them, be in the room with them. And part of it is you never know when those quarterbacks are going to come up sometime down the road. He wants to know them. He wants to understand their skillset. He wants to be there at the senior bowl, the workouts,

the pro days. I mean, it feels like the man's kind of itching to take his shot at picking one. And you're right though, when it comes to Kevin O'Connell and Kirk Cousins, that connection, I think, is what Kevin O'Connell wants to do is use his whole playbook. And I think where he got really frustrated with Josh Dobbs is he didn't want to chop that playbook down, but Josh Dobbs also couldn't run it, so there was just a disconnect there. And let's not forget that Dobbs ran into a couple of good defenses and that's where it was a disaster. The bears and Raiders defenses were kind of great at the end of the season. And that was a big part of his failure. But you know, O'Connell with a rookie, this would be my concern, I guess, with a rookie is can he put in everything he wants to put in offensively? And he, is he going to be able to shape it and pare it down? Or does he need his veteran quarterback who can do everything? Uh, Travis

says, do you think they'll panic and pick a quarterback or no? Uh, to me, picking a quarterback is never a panic move. Never. Even if you pick a bad one, even if you overdraft one, uh, even if we look back and say, well, there was a draft analyst that night who said that they reached, it's always a good move. It's always a good move to pick a quarterback. Uh, if you need one, if you don't need one, um, you know, the Ravens didn't need one when they picked Lamar Jackson, the Packers didn't need one when they picked Jordan loves. So that's like not panicking, I guess, and planning out for the future. But there are plenty of teams that I don't know if you call it panic or just had to do the obvious thing and draft one. The Cincinnati Bengals were in pretty rough shape when they picked their quarterback.

Weren't they? I don't know if that was panic or not. I'd be panicking if I was the Bengals and I was the worst team in the league. But then they got Joe Burrow and they didn't have to panic anymore because it's so difficult to figure out which quarterbacks are going to be good and which are not. And the value, if you draft the correct guy, then it makes so much sense to do it. And I don't ever look at it as panicking. I look at it entirely as just the right, right thing to do. If you need a quarterback, if you don't need a quarterback, like you should be looking a couple of years down the

road. That's kind of the argument. If you were a Will Levis person last year for the Vikings, now they got Jordan Addison. That's great. And I wasn't real impressed with Will Levis, but if you were just taking a quarterback just to take one, and then you look at the Titans, they can pick somebody else if they want to, they trade up they can draft you know bonics if they want to they don't have to be stuck with will levis for the rest of time sometimes we act like if you draft a quarterback you just have to play that guy for the next 11 years and there's no option uh juan says how should we prepare for the moment when they re-sign Kirk? I don't know if I'll be okay. Uh, you know, if, if they do that, if the, if that happens, um,

it will be difficult for me to talk through the way that it's going to work. Right. So what I try to do on the show philosophically is lay out the decisions, my opinion on them and how they could work or how they could fail. Right. That's kind of what we do here. And so when we talk about like when they signed Marcus Davenport, I thought, OK, makes sense to me. Here's how it could succeed. Two years ago, the guy was great. Here's how it could fail. The guy could get injured. And guess what? It failed. The guy got injured, but we do that with everything, right? And if they bring back Kirk, I can tell you how it's going to fail. I've got six years of that telling you how it's going to succeed is hard. And what even is success? Is getting to

the playoffs a success? Losing in the first round a success? Would they have to be playing this weekend on championship weekend to be a success? How do they get there with this roster, with this quarterback? That's the hard part for me is I'm going to have to think long and hard, like how not spin, but how can I even formulate a path where that ends up working? That's going to be the difficult thing. Alexander says, that's my hope that the group think is dead wrong on quarterbacks like they always are. Yep. Usually they say that the mocks at the beginning of the college season are sometimes more accurate than at this time. I would not be surprised by that. Yeah. You know, the league might not be as high on Jaden Daniels being their franchise quarterback. Someone like the Patriots or Washington may not look at him and say, we are going to build our whole system around him. We're going to try something else. Washington might look like they're too far away to do it. And then when you get to those next teams,

your Arizona and your chargers, well, those are the types of teams that you would want to trade out of. Right. So you might be right. It is very possible that it's not just one, two, three,

that those guys end up going like some of the mocks think that they are. So anyway, well, I wanted to bring you guys this because I thought this was quite fun. And I actually started thinking about it. Well, let me answer a couple more questions real quick. But I've got something fun to end the show here with. And I was actually going to start with it until the Harbaugh thing happened. It's been a great discussion, and I really appreciate all of you guys. And I just wanted to say that the way that you guys act in the comment section,

thoughtful opinions, but good ones, not insulting each other, not going after each other. Just giving me your feedback to what I'm saying is great. It makes this really fun. It's the reason I'm going to do this, continue to do stuff like this. So I just really appreciate you guys being this way. Lots of great discussion, dialogue, questions, all that stuff that makes this absolutely worth it

and a really enjoyable experience. So I really, really appreciate that. And I hope a lot of you continue to join with your good thoughts. Even some of you that I shoot down, like don't take it personally. If I shoot you down because like your, your thoughts are driving the conversation still Jordan says, percent chance the Vikings are irrelevant for the next 10 years.

I have no idea, but 10 years is a really long time. The Vikings at least once every decade are relevant, you know, 1998, 2009, 1998, 2009, 2017, 2022. And we'll see from there, but this is a franchise that I think always seems to find a way and has

enough talent to be relevant. Once a decade, the idea is that you want to be relevant every year, not just once a decade. And that's why you pick a quarterback. Of course, uh, will says,

uh, if you had to redo 2023, would you rather have will Levis and Puka Nakua? Well, of course, Puka Nakua. Yeah. I mean,

of course we can always find the guy who's drafted in the third round and becomes a star and go, why didn't we get that guy? Uh, but, uh, to your, to your question though,

I mean, it's really like a will Levis or Jordan Addison. Would you rather have Will Levis or Jordan Addison? And I think that's not an easy answer. I mean, OK, obviously, if you could give me the superstar from the third round, yeah, I'm going to take him. But I think they made a great selection in picking Jordan Addison. The answer probably depends for me on what they do right now i mean if they bring back her cousins

then i would say you know what i would easily give up jordan addison for another quarterback who was young and had high upside but jordan addison and the next quarterback are related we cannot understate how great and valuable jordan addison. And I mean, value in comparison to what a wide receiver is worth. So a receiver with his production is worth 20 million a year. And that guy can't make 20 million a year for like four more years. I mean, that's really, really valuable to have Jordan Addison on a rookie contract. It's, it's a huge hit. You can't just say like, oh, well, they hit on that one guy. No, no. It's a huge, huge value hit to have Jordan Addison. And he plays a role in whether the next guy is a success. I think at this moment, I would rather have Jordan Addison, but that may change,

I guess, based on the results that may change. Yeah. I mean, look, if they had drafted Will Levis right now, I think you guys would feel pretty good. You'd be like, okay, we're going from Kirk to the next guy and we'll see what happens. Alexander says, would you spend on the best guard available in free agency if they plan to draft a rookie?, like Kevin Zeitler, I think is a free agent. There might be one or two other guys, but there's not a lot of huge difference makers, but give me somebody, give, give me somebody who can run block. I mean, Dalton Reisner did a good job, but you know, give me somebody who can run block for, for that position. But I think that they already have a good situation on the offensive line for the first time in quite a long time. So, um, all right,

one, one last one, and then I'll get to my fun thing at the end. Uh, Dan says, I know too many fans that are solely concerned about next year. Oh, Kevin Dotson.

Yeah. Good call. Good call. Uh, Dylan. Thank you. Yeah. Kevin Dotson is another guy.

I think he's a good run blocker, right? They could use that. I know too many fans solely concerned with next year that thinking and the team historically doing the same is why next year is always a big problem stick with the plan draft quarterback dead on dead on dan it's got to be multi-year plan not just what we got to win next year what about next year what about next year so um sue says i assume it's uh sue and

then you have a much longer name but that's easier to say for me uh would you uh bring life back to the fan base if we draft a young quarterback uh even if we suck and become the 2023 panthers well you can never you know you can never really know what's going to happen once you draft that quarterback. That's for sure. But it would, yes, bring back life. I agree. And I have heard from so many people. I said on the show maybe a couple weeks ago something about the stadium and how it wasn't the same. And how, like, I just didn't feel the same vibe and the same energy from U.S. Bank Stadium.

There was a lot of this year kind of like, oh, well, you know, we're going to lose again. And that kind of fatalism type feel. And I think in part because it's just boredom. It's like, you've seen this over and over and over again. And there isn't that intrigue that you show up with. It's basically, if we lose, this is terrible as opposed to like, what's this going to be? What's this new guy going to bring? It, you know, so even like a head coach brought that for a minute, but then, you know, it kind of like grew stale a little bit, a new quarterback for an entire season, even if the season didn't go great, as you mentioned, like, would it be, I mean, if it's as bad

as the Panthers, I think by the end of the season, no one's intrigued anymore. But if you're talking about even even in the middle of that, like even so, Anthony Richardson only played a couple of games for the Colts. But how do how do their fans feel right now? I just very, very fascinated by what's coming next. If they bring back Kirk, you know what's coming next. Javier says last question. If they resign Kirk and the defense gets crushed because of a lack of depth it goes six and ten does koc and kam quesadilla flamenco come back clean house i i really don't like uh being the person that calls for jobs like that's a hard place to be uh as a

reporter as a analyst whatever because a lot of things happen behind the scenes. You don't really know about how it's executed, how it operates, you know, how the the luck factor, all these things that go into it. And with Zimmer, we knew how it was operating by the end. But I would say when it comes to this situation, if they put all their eggs in the kirk cousins basket that is such to me like the antithesis of what they should be doing and is such a big bet on competing for the super bowl next year and only next year that if they went 6 and 11 let's try somebody else yep that means to me your plan didn't work or that you deviated from it when you shouldn't have. And you don't deserve to keep going because I can't really trust you to execute a plan going

forward. But the problem is the ownership, like if they're the ones who actually made that decision, but we can't work in that world. We can't work where we judge a general manager. And then with everything that happens, we go, well, maybe it it was the owners maybe it was the owners for all 32 or 31 uh franchises outside of the packers but i would say yeah i mean if that if that happens if they go six and ten with kirk back then you know i i don't i don't need any more of this but if they draft a quarterback and go six and 11 then absolutely stay on that track. Keep rebuilding. And I think that what they've done so far, and this is what I try to help with.

I've looked at the 2025 salary cap situation. I was looking at it today. And I know they're going to have to fill the roster and everything else. But they have done an excellent job of clearing out a lot of those old contracts, clearing out the dead money, and being ready to really truly spend as much as they have to spend in a couple of years if they have the rookie quarterback contract. And I promise you, a general manager, when he can go out and sign the best player in free agency, is going to look a lot smarter than when he shops in the bargain bin. You can say, Oh, this idiot got Marcus Davenport. Yeah. You know, you, you, you look a lot smarter

if you can sign the best guy. And, and by the way, Davenport was a short-term signing. It didn't work out. It's not going to hurt a long-term, but you know, when it comes, when it comes to the, the long-term, they'll be able to compete for the best of the best. If they've got the salary cap money to do it. And then again, you just, you look a lot smarter or when you could be the team that trades for Tyree kill, you look a lot smarter. If you can afford him, then you do, if you're trying to sign Byron Murphy and hope he changes her whole defense. Like there's a big difference there. Okay. Let me get to the fun thing.

I wanted to end the show on today. I was taking a look at the, this is football podcast by Kevin Clark of ESPN, formerly of the ringer. Great, great guy. He actually is quoted in my book. He's been a big supporter of my career and everything.

So great dude. Always loved Kevin. One of the best football writers out there. Great podcaster, everything. Huge, huge fan of Kevin Clark. So I always watch what comes across my Twitter. And I saw today that Joe Buck was talking about something he regretted. And I was like, okay, I'm going to click it.

Let's see what he says. And here's what Joe Buck said on his famous Randy Moss disgusting act call. He said, quote, I can't believe that came out of my mouth. That was too far. It was not calculated. And knowing more of the backstory, I understand it more. And he's referring to the fans mooning the bus as the Vikings came in to Lambeau Field. And so here's my thought on that, that there are a lot of people who still don't like Joe Buck because he said it was a disgusting act for Randy Moss. And it has become a great part of the lore. In fact, I'd love to tell Joe Buck buck it's actually great that you said that because it really has become part of randy moss's lore there are our old friends at soda stick t-shirts have a

t-shirt of randy moss mooning the packers and everything and it just if he hadn't said that i don't think it would have gone down the way that it did not only that but that was a touchdown that put the dagger in the packers in the playoffs right like that was the it's over good night green bay touchdowns was such a great memorable moment and if i was joe buck i'd say don't don't take it back buddy don't take it back it's in the lore but i would say say to Vikings fans, if you're still holding on to a Joe Buck grudge, let it go. The man said he wishes he didn't say it. And also, Dan, that's funny. Does he make the Hall of Fame without that call? Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and say yes.

I know you're kidding. But also, I was walking into the stadium one night, and I was behind a guy who was probably 20 years old and he had a jacket on and it said, dig sideline, unbelievable on it. And obviously that was Joe Buck, you probably think it's great. Like Joe Buck, he had that amazing Minneapolis miracle call on TV and like he, he gave it everything he had in that moment. It really is probably Joe Buck's best call he's ever had. And, uh, that was, that was your moment. So if, if that didn't wash away any of the old uh bad feelings toward joe buck then you know i don't know then you're just holding on to it too much but he even has said today that he regrets it he shouldn't have said it so you know there you go let it go let it go that's my thought and uh appreciate that joe buck was part of your lore all right so uh great stuff everybody great stuff uh glad that everybody could tune in and have a really fun

and uh enjoyable chat with a less ranting uh than the other night so manny and i'll be back tomorrow and we're going to talk about a report, something that Ben Gessling, my friend Ben Gessling from Star Tribune said on with Paul Allen the other day. Jonathan Harrison transcribed that for me. So I've got those quotes about the Vikings trading up and something that he said. We'll talk about that tomorrow. Plus, of course, preview championship weekend and then keep your eyeballs out i've got a conversation scheduled set up hopefully it works out with uh courtney cronin soon enough so thanks again everybody for watching and we will catch y'all next time football