Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Harrison Smith blitzes are back, Packers trade leverage and roasting bad free agency moves

Episode Date: March 17, 2023

Matthew Coller and Intern Haley English talk about whether the Jets or Packers have leverage in the Aaron Rodgers trade saga. They discuss how Harrison Smith will be used differently under Brian Flores and look at the best and worst moves during free agency so far. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew collard here along with intern hayley english who has both praised and roasted free agents on purpleinsider.com so we will talk about her list of the best and worst moves so far although moves still trickling in a little bit here uh as we speak mike gasecki is now a new england patriot because Bill Belichick is obsessed with tight ends. He loves tight ends more than you love anything in your life. But Haley, this was an exciting week for you. You grew up a Jets fan. You've dealt with a lot of quarterback badness in your life.

And now Aaron Rodgers just shows up and says, I want to play for your team. How do you feel? Yeah, I can't even believe that those words even came out of his mouth. I was watching Mac. If you want, it was happening. And he was like, I want to play and my intention to play for the New York jets. And I was like, can you just say New York jets? Like what? That's crazy. I mean, like, I feel like all jets fans kind of felt it coming and like the excitement was already there, but just him saying it was kind of like crazy. And now, yeah, you just got to get through trade talks and hope that you don't give up too much. But yeah, very exciting time for

Jets fans because they've been in quarterback hell for almost ever. So the conversation now has turned to the Jets and leverage and so forth. And I see the internet constantly arguing with itself about how much the Jets are going to actually have to give up. And I can see arguments for both sides. I mean, you're trying to get Aaron Rodgers. It's a quarterback. Quarterbacks cost a lot, especially ones that are going into the Hall of Fame. At the same time, it is over, over with the Packers.

Over, over, over, over. Nobody is going back with anybody. He will not be returning to the Green Bay Packers over, over, over, over. Nobody is going back with anybody. He will not be returning to the Green Bay Packers. So I think that the truth is probably somewhere in the middle where they shouldn't have to give up the entire franchise to get Rogers because there's no other option than him being traded there. But at the same time, he already said, I'm going to be a Jet. The Jets tweeted out that he's going to be a jet. He's talking to Joe Namath about his number. Like you've got to do the deal if you're the Jets.

So where is your opinion on what he should be traded for? Yeah, I've been going back and forth on this leverage thing. And I feel like, cause McAfee, once he said he's going to the Jets, McAfee was like, the Packers have no leverage at all. And I was like, oh, interesting that he thinks that because I feel like the Packers have some also so I feel like it goes both ways and you can definitely argue both sides um but I don't think Joe Douglas the GM of the Jets is gonna like give up anything um as crazy as a first round pick to get Rodgers because the Jets

gave up almost nothing to get Brett Favre back in the day. I know it was definitely a different situation, but I think hopefully the Jets will be able to get Rodgers for a second-round pick, third-round pick, something conditional maybe. So I don't think the Jets are going to give up first-round pick, and I know the Packers kind of want that 13th overall pick, but we'll see. Hopefully Joe Douglas can pull off another little fleece of a team like he flees the Seahawks for two first round picks for Jamal Adams. That's right. That's right. That's one of the best trades of the last decade. Jamal Adams is just not that good. Yeah. I think that if you're Joe Douglas and you're calling the Packers, you're saying, who else are you going to trade them to? Where are your other offers show me the

other offers you've only got one and it's us you kind of have to take what we've got and of course the Packers will say but we have Aaron Rodgers and what other quarterbacks do you have um so it is kind of like the uh yeah you love the office the the standoff where they're pointing the finger guns at each other it's just like that's how this feels um but the both sides are so motivated to get it done that that's the key for for finding uh the middle ground here because i somebody did ask me yesterday hey what if this rogers thing fell through could they trade kirk to the jets like no i don't think this rogers thing is falling through not after we've gotten this far down the road and i think that rogers even to come on internet television and tell everyone that must have a good sense that it's close to actually

being finished it's just that there's no hard deadline that they need to do it it's not like they have to get it done today so they can continue to negotiate this thing and work out their off seasons and their caps and everything else. But I wanted to ask you where that moment ranked of Rodgers saying he was going to be a Jets among all of your Jets fans. And this is what I do try to tell Vikings fans sometimes, is that they have had a lot of really great moments over the last couple of decades. They've had NFC Championship appearances. Favre came here.

Superstars. Amazing wide receivers. The Jets have been a hellscape. I feel like this has to be in the top five moments of your lifetime watching the Jets. Just Aaron Rodgers saying he wants to play for your team. Yeah, 100%. I really was trying to think about my best moments as a Jets fan.

I really can't think of anything. We haven't beaten the Patriots in like five years. There's been like awful quarterback play. There's nothing to look forward to on offense. I was like eight or nine years old when they had the AFC championship back to back run. So that's like too far behind that I can't really remember much of it. So honestly, this and the moment that they drafted Sauce, because I was in MetLife for the Jets draft party,

holding up a sign that said, we want Sauce on draft night. So that was one of the best moments of Jets history for me. But honestly, this might rank as the best one. Yeah. I think that if you made a best moments in Jets history of your lifetime, Rex Ryan saying, let's go eat a snack on hard knocks might actually make the top five. So not much to say for accomplishments, but maybe this will be your year with, and look, you know, he's got half the green Bay team there, but Garrett Wilson and Aaron Rodgers history with number one wide receivers is pretty

darn amazing. He's not that far removed from throwing to Devante Adams. No one knows this better than our audience who has watched him back shoulder Devante Adams and Jordy Nelson to destroy the Vikings. I had this stat in an article the other day that his career against the Vikings, Aaron Rodgers, he's thrown 57 touchdowns and eight interceptions during all of his 29 games in the regular season against the Vikings. So they are thrilled to see him leave. But I want your hardcore analysis, try to take off the Jets hat for just a second on why you think this will work because here in Viking land, once upon a time, they had a team that looked like it was set up for greatness. Just need to add a quarterback who's a veteran and they missed the

playoffs the next year. So tell me why Aaron Rodgers will fit in New York. Yeah. The Jets like obviously had one of the worst offenses of football last season they were ranked 29th in points scored uh 30th in total epa they're 31st in red zone offense and 28th on third down conversion so that's like almost as worse as you can even get um so it's honestly almost like only up from there and with the defense that they had they were the number one graded defense by pff last season even though like you can debate that obviously the 49ers defense is probably better than them um but they allowed the fourth least points per game and they were fourth in epa so one of the best defenses out there and they're pretty much just a quarterback away they had

like breeze hall go down with an injury and they had the offensive line kind of get diminished to like third string backups other than their center. So as long as they can kind of stay healthy on offense, putting Rodgers in there with the offensive rookie of the year, Garrett Wilson, will ideally make a difference. And, yeah, the Jets have had no quarterback play literally since 2006 when PFF started even grading players. Their quarterback NFL rank in terms of um their pff grade the highest one was 17th in the nfl that was chad pennington back in 2006 and last year

uh mike white was their highest graded quarterback at 61.3 and that was 40th in the nfl so anything average quarterback play which aaron rogers had like an average PFF grade last year, but obviously back-to-back MVP seasons the years before that. So anything remotely close to that will get them so much better than 29th, 30th, 30th in the NFL. And I think you do get an Aaron Rodgers that is motivated to show that the Packers never should have drafted Jordan Love, never should have had anyone to try to replace him. And he had said that last year it felt like it was over even just during the season. So feeling like he's disrespected because he's disrespected by everything. He's disrespected by science. He's disrespected by the media. You're disrespecting him right now by being excited somehow. I don't know how. That's just his personality disrespecting him right now by being excited somehow i don't know how uh

that's just his personality but that also does lead to the possibility he gonna actually shows up at otas shows up at minicamp and all of a sudden goes back to being the quarterback that everyone wanted him to be as opposed to the guy that looked like he couldn't stand playing football anymore last year and it was i mean but the whole thing, you have to admit, here's the one rain I would drop on your parade is only to say, this whole thing is ridiculous with him going on the McAfee show, giving us a dissertation. I used to have, and I'm sure you've had these like three-hour classes

that you take once a week. That was watching him on McAfee until he actually got to the point it was like okay buddy tell us all about your darkness retreat and everything else and he said and this would be the one concern you have is that he was 90 to retire until he got out of the darkness which you know him or Batman saying that I'm not sure which one, but that is the one concern is once somebody has kind of decided they're retiring, it's hard to like turn the lever and turn it back on. And I think we even saw that from Tom Brady in the first half of last year where he was like, I'm retired. Oh wait, I'm not retired, but I'm like going to miss half a

training camp. And it just kind of became a whole circus i think that there should be some concern there that if he sort of got excited about it and then that wanes and maybe physically he isn't the same as he used to be that it might be disappointing yeah i love that i love that we've normalized the phrase darkness retreat. I feel like months ago, no one knew what this is. And now it's all that everyone's talking about. But yeah, it definitely is a weird situation because he had said he was 90% retiring. And I think he has that kind of like fire inside of himself now just because the Packers kind of blatantly said they don't want him back after they told him to his face like hey you can come back and you'll be the quarterback here um so I think it's a little different than Brady's situation because he's going to another team now and not like coming back with the same team like Brady was um so that's the only difference I have with that but it is a little concerning um let's just hope that he still has that drive to play with his new team what's your stance on uh darkness retreats uh no I would never do it no I just appreciate the sun uh every night I have a darkness retreat it's called me

going to sleep and then I wake up refreshed and go about my life uh yeah stuff like that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me but that I think that, and the New York media is a real thing. This is not your safe space in green Bay, which is just a very college ish. Some people in Minnesota might say cult ish type of place where it's, I mean, when you pull up to Lambeau Field, there's a fence on the other side of the road. I think it's Lombardi Way because, of course, it is. And people have carved in Aaron Rodgers' image and Brett Favre's image into their fence. I mean, that is a totally different atmosphere than playing for the New York Jets. And I think that there is going to be a little bit of like splash of cold water for Aaron Rodgers of what it's like to be there.

At the same time, I do agree with you that it's a good situation to drop into. How do you feel about the AFC East though, with him coming to it? Because Buffalo is still strong. They are not maybe as strong as they were two years ago, but not going anywhere. Miami is still good. If Tua is healthy, the Patriots exist, which means that they'll win like eight or nine games just by existing. I don't think that they're good, but they do exist with Bill Belichick. It's not the easiest division. It's not the easiest conference. And we'll talk about the NFC quarterbacks in a little bit, but it is unbelievable the competition that he has to go up against here with the Jets. Yeah, it's kind of horrible how good the AFC East is now. I think the Jets will be in contention for the division title.

And that's kind of the first time that's really ever happened um because they they were so close last year like they started out really well and were kind of right behind the bills there and then just fell off the track and lost like their last six games of the season so if they can do that with like horrible quarterback play i think they can be up there in the division um i think the bills will still win it and I think the Jets will get like right behind them like wild card spot I don't believe in Tua to stay healthy the whole season I know they really really like beefed up their defense so that's kind of scary a little bit um but yeah like the Dolphins brought in Mike White I'm like tell me you don't

believe Tua is going to stay healthy without telling me you don't believe Tua is going to stay healthy like he's obviously I think the best backup in the league Tua's going to stay healthy without telling me you don't believe Tua's going to stay healthy. He's obviously, I think, the best backup in the league, but he can't stay healthy either. So, like, Matt Milano broke his ribs. Matt Milano just signed an extension with the Bills. So, somewhere Matt Milano's smiling that he gets to hit Mike White probably twice a year this year. And the Patriots, yeah, I'm always scared of the Patriots.

I just want to beat them at least once this season. We'll see, but hopefully the Jets can contend for second place, maybe even first in the division with that. Yeah, I mean, I think that this has potential to be for the Jets a season where they are legitimate contenders. It also has the potential to totally implode, and the McAfee announcement might end up being the best moment of the Rodgers era.

You don't know. I mean, this has gone either way. Imagine being a Broncos fan last year, where you're like, I can't believe we just got a hall of fame quarterback. This is incredible. And then it collapses. But in Tampa Bay, when they got Tom Brady, I'm sure there was the same excitement and then they won a super bowl. So not really knowing there um and look in 2017 2018 aaron rogers didn't play as well and you'd look at his numbers and be like is something wrong there is he kind of fading and there was the rogers is washed and everything else and people were making charts but the thing is that sometimes past performance doesn't always predict the future um especially when it comes to hall of fame quarterbacks that we've seen them bounce back. So I don't know. I mean, I have no idea. I think for the Jets,

you absolutely had to do it. You had to do it. There was no other choice. If Aaron Rodgers wants to play for you, then is that better than trying for Jimmy Garoppolo or getting Andy Dalton or whatever? Yeah, that's a way better option. So I send you a list of all the Jets quarterbacks to ever play for them. And before we move on to some other things, I wanted to ask you who the funniest quarterback on the entire list of all the QBs who have played for the Jets. Oh, and I wanted to also know how funny it is that Mike White played amazing against the Vikings defense. I mean, it's just like, you're reading all these Mike White stats, like, oh, yeah, it was really bad.

He was 40th by PFF and everything else. Imagine what he would have been if he didn't have that incredible game against the Vikings, which, hey, Daniel Jones is a very rich man because of as well. But the funniest quarterback on the list for you of all quarterbacks who have played for the Jets? I don't want to say it's like the funniest, but like Josh McCown being on there after playing, what, one season?

So he's played one season. He's already on the top like 15 passings for the Jets. And Sam Darnold being eighth on that list after being like God awful for his entire career with the Jets and we'll see if Shanahan can fix him this year um but yeah the top three quarterbacks in terms of like leading the receiving yards haven't played since like 1990 so yeah the Jets have had such an inconsistency at quarterback ever since like 1995 probably um and I was too young for Chad Pennington I was too young for Vinnynington. I was too young for

Vinny Tessaverde. So the first quarterback I remember on that list is probably Mark Sanchez playing. So yeah, not the best list there. The Sanchez. Yeah, right. The number two behind Joe Namath retired in 1992, Ken O'Brien. And Richard Todd is the next one. He retired in 1983. And that's your top three. And it has been a passing era now since really the late 90s, Haley. And so someone should have been able to pass this. But going down the line, yeah, I mean, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Geno Smith are top 10 in franchise history in passing for the New York Jets, which on its face is funny. I mean, the funniest name on the list is Dick wood who played in the sixties. That's just objectively hilarious.

Uh, but go scrolling down the list though, because you know, I, I just really enjoy journeymen and backup quarterbacks and random quarterbacks playing for certain teams. The fact that Mark Brunel played for this team is really funny to me because I have no recollection of that whatsoever. And apparently he threw for 144 yards and two touchdowns. I mean, Mark Brunel of my childhood was one of the best quarterbacks, but that was in 2011. Rick Meyer playing for the Jets is funny. Bryce Petty. Remember when people thought Bryce Petty would be a thing?

That's always great when there's a college quarterback who throws for a gazillion yards and people are like, well, maybe. No, not maybe. Nope, not at all. I mean, it's just a great list. Our guy Brooks Bollinger, who's from Minnesota, is on this list. Quincy Carter shows up. Matt Sims. Who are these people?

Luke Falk. It's incredible. Luke Falk was drafted with incredible. Luke Falk was, he was drafted with the same pick as Tom Brady and came in the game when I forget who it was, like went down with an injury and just fans were like, Oh my God, this guy's the new Brady.

Like we're going to have him because he did really well when he came in and then he just did horrible every game after that. So yeah, that was a funny one. Tim Tebow. Were you aware that Tim Tebow completed 75% of his passes as a Jet? Do you know that? I have a Tim Tebow Jet t-shirt that's like half my size now.

No way. Really? That is hilarious. He went six for eight with 39 yards passing. Yeah. How about that? Jeff Blake was apparently a... I had no idea Jeff Blake played for the Jets.

So yeah. All right. Good times. Well, that's your history and it is a disturbing one. So I'm going to close out that page. And let's talk a little bit, some biking stuff here. Harrison Smith returns and you tweeted about this yesterday. I mean, I think that if you're talking about how it affects them in the future, we're still kind of waiting to see what his contract details of his restructure are to really know if it's going to affect them a lot in 2024.

But there's no getting out of that contract in an easy way. I do think that I am a fan of just ripping things apart and just throwing it all into the Mississippi River and saying goodbye to it. But if you're Brian Flores and you came here, you want Harrison Smith to play on your team. Also, you have a lot of young players and inexperienced players on defense. You have to keep some people, even if you're bad, you have to keep some veteran players. And now, I mean, looking around the division with Aaron Rodgers gone, we'll talk about the NFC quarterbacks. They should be thinking we can compete, even if it's not likely that they're competing for a Super Bowl this year. But your take on Harrison Smith returning just from the perspective of how it looks on the field.

Yeah, definitely. And like my first intro to Harrison Smith, I really didn't know much about him until this past year. But I was in a fantasy football league that included defensive players and he just happened to be on my team. So I was like familiar with him already. But yeah, he was the second best blitzer on the team behind Eric Kendricks. And that's really good for safety because usually that's dominated by linebackers. So good for them for utilizing Harrison Smith in that way. So I was kind of glad they kept him just because you're bringing in Flores, who's a really big blitzer, and especially he used safeties really well when he was in Miami and Pittsburgh.

So I think that continuity with Harrison Smith being in that secondary and kind of helping these new players because the cornerback room is going to be entirely different. But yeah, I like them keeping him. He didn't blitz a lot last year, only 8%. But before that, his average from 2020 and 2022 was 20.1%. He was a part of 21.1% of blitzes. And last year he was successful on 72.7 of them. So that's a stat that's like probably looking Brian Flores in the face and being like, okay, I can use that. He's going to be my Blitzer. And I like that they kept him.

Yeah, I think that this is the system that they really needed before. Yeah. I think with Kevin O'Connell, there was a lot of it with the Rams and their connection with Brandon Staley was rooted in Fangio type system. And, you know, let's play the two deep safeties and everything else, but it's sort of missed one important fact that you have Harrison Smith and what every defensive coordinator should be doing all the time. And Brian Flores said this,

and it's, you can say it, but you really need to actually do it, is that it has to be malleable. It has to be where you take players and try to put them in their best positions and you adjust your system to them, not them to you. And Harrison Smith, as you mentioned, he still picked off five passes last year. He still played well in that role. And, hey, his body didn't take still picked off five passes last year. He still played well in that role. And Hey, his body didn't take a whole lot of beating last year because he was playing in the parking lot. It was one of the, I brought it up a hundred times on the show, but it was just

one of those things where it's like, Ed, come on, man. I mean, I know like Ed was very much the system, the system, the system, the system. And if you're just not paying attention to one of the best blitzing safeties, one of the best box safeties of the last decade, and you're just telling him to play the way that you've always had people play, then you should have gotten rid of him last year if that's how you want it to play. But instead, you know, he stays around. He's a guy to for Vikings fans. I mean, he's just been such a staple and a huge part of this defense for a long time, but I think that that fit matters. And I think instantly they are a better defense. We've talked about their opposing quarterback schedule, but they become instantly a better

defense because they're going to use these guys in the right way. Yeah, definitely. I think it's good that they kept him around for all those reasons you just said. Yeah. Another thing I want to ask you about was Byron Murphy. So we talked to him yesterday and he talked about playing in the nickel and outside. And I was looking back at his statistics and it looks like to me that he was better when he was playing in the nickel. This is a move that you had in your article as a potential guy that was intriguing because he would be an upgrade from last year. Where do you feel like

Byron Murphy fits into the Viking secondary? Did you like that move? I did like that move. I know he wasn't my like top on the list for the Vikings. My top was Cameron Sutton and probably Emmanuel Mosley also. And they both went to the lions. So that was as a Vikings fan, I'm like, or like for you guys, I'm like, oh, that kind of, like, that's annoying because they went to the division. And they're two of the best cornerbacks that were coming out. And then Cameron Sutton was probably the best in man coverage, which Flores really, really likes. But Barry Murphy, he's not bad in man coverage. He played at 22% of the time last season. And when he was in man coverage. He played at 22% of the time last season. And when he was

in man coverage, they had successful EPA. So they held the offense and negative EPA on 44.9% of snaps. So that's not great. He was much, much more successful back in 2021 and 2020, where he played 25% man coverage in 2021, and then 48% man coverage in 2020. And he was successful on basically 55% of those snaps. So that's a big jump. And I think he's more comfortable in man coverage just because he played it a lot in the previous years and didn't play it as much last season. So I think he can transition really well to Flores scheme. That's probably going to include a lot more man coverage than the Vikings played last season. Yeah. And I noticed that his PFF grade in man coverage last year was not good, but it was on like 14 targets. I don't know what I'm

supposed to do with that. This is, you can tell me because you studied this for an article. I think it was, was it your first or second article just about cornerbacks. I think it's really hard to figure out what those, which ones of those statistics matter and which don't, I don't know how big of a sample size do we need to be able to project forward? What a cornerback is going to be. You can eat a lot more than just 14 targets though. Cause that's not, that's not a lot. And I wouldn't think much of that PFF grade just because like it's 14 targets like so much can go bad on 14 targets and he can look like the worst corner in the league but he could also be

amazing on just 14 targets and he can look like the best corner in the league so he's gonna need a bigger sample size obviously um his stats compared to all the other um top freezing cornerbacks out there were not like the best because he allowed 38.9 yards per game but that's like that's still really good for a corner but obviously the other corners out there were better in terms of that stat as well as he allowed a 63.2 completion percentage that's kind of his like a little bit of a concern stat because you want to see that in the 50s pretty much but I think he'll definitely be in a better situation with the Vikings because the Cardinals are kind of like on a tank right now.

They're not going to have a quarterback. And I don't know what good it would be for him to stay on that defense. So I think he'll be definitely a little better on the Vikings, especially with an experienced Flores coming in. Yeah, I think also looking back at his 2021 stats, as you mentioned, they're just a lot better than they were last year. And getting a corner off of a down year when he has a history of playing better, I think it's just a good bet for them and somebody that they can fit in where he's needed. I would prefer to see him in the nickel because I think that that

position is really valuable and maybe underrated. If anything in football can be underrated because everyone knows everything, but that position doesn't get a lot of attention when someone's really great at it. And I think that he could fit in there in Flores' defense. And also Flores' defense is going to ask, and he even said this in his press conference, it's going to ask your nickel to play in man coverage as you focused so much on, because that's really what Brian Flores does. He tried to downplay that in his press conference. Brian Flores like, well, you know what? Like, man, we know it's on paper.

We know what you do. So you like that one. I think that one fits in. We're still kind of waiting as we record this on Marcus Davenport to figure out what exactly is happening there, because he was not introduced when he was expected to be introduced, which is happening there because he was not introduced when he was expected to be introduced, which is a little fishy.

So we just wait on that. But I wanted to go through your article that you just wrote, the best and worst free agent signings. And I have asked you to roast the worst. So do you want to start with the best or the worst because you have roasts for them? We'll start with the best, I think. them um we'll start with the best i think okay

okay let's start with the best all right so uh there was some dispute in the comment section about your number one best move which was the 49ers signing javon hargrave and i think the uh it's a very respectful comment section so no one was roasting you. But the argument was just that he is coming off kind of his best sack season and getting peak money and 30 years old for a defensive tackle. I don't think his agent, because a lot of those guys stay good, but you had Javon Hargrave to the 49ers as your top move. Why was that? Yeah, I think that was a great move.

I know he came with a very hefty price tag at $21 million per year. But the one stat that really sticks out is that he had 63 pressures alone last season. And the 49ers, they have Nick Bosa, but their defensive tackle positions haven't been absolutely amazing. They had a combined between all of their interior defensive linemen had 59 pressures combined so Hargrave by himself is ages above the rest of them and I think with losing um Jimmy Ward and Emmanuel Mosley they lost a couple players on defense um in the coverage unit but I think their like trenches on defense are just going to get so much better and kind of take the load off of the coverage unit just because they'll be probably a little weaker in that area.

What is your opinion on this? Because I think it's interesting. The 49ers over recent years have seemed to decide that if they have beast defensive linemen create pressure that they could kind of fill in where needed in the secondary. I think that that's an interesting strategy. It has worked for them, got them all the way to a Super Bowl at one point. Philadelphia kind of did this, although James Bradbury fell in their lap last year, which really helped their secondary unit. But, you know, the Vikings, as they kind of rebuild this thing, I wonder about your theory on like, should they be drafting more defensive linemen and hope that that evens things out or should they be putting even more into the cornerback

position? Cause this really has worked for San Francisco. Yeah, it really has. And I think it's an, it's an interesting strategy. Um, but the Vikings coverage unit was just so bad last season that they really like, they need someone back there who can make a play because the 49ers still have good cornerbacks and good safety still on their roster so that's going to obviously help them but if you only put money into the trenches and you'd kind of leave the part of the field where like the passes are thrown like if you leave that like entirely wide open with like entirely rookies and unproven players, then you're obviously not going to accomplish anything.

Yeah. And then if you never play tight coverage on them, that kind of defeats the purpose as well, because that really seems to be San Francisco's thing. It's like, we're going to pressure you and we're going to play tight coverage and not give you time to work the ball down the field. And so all your underneath stuff is going to be hard to complete. And I think it's a good theory, but you can never have corners that are just flat out garbage. Then you just get destroyed or a system that doesn't work at all. If those two things happen, you end up giving up 400 yards to Mike White. I won't go through every single one, but I am interested in your opinion on the Bears linebackers because they let Roquan Smith go.

And now we have to consider relative, though, because they still have a ton of cap space after all of this spending. So they had to spend it on something. But they let Roquan go. They signed T.J. Edwards. They signed Tremaine Edmonds. What was your opinion on the way that they spent on the linebacker position? I think with T.J. Edwards, they hit that out of the park. That was, I think, one of the best value signings that was out there.

I know Jamel Dean signing for so much less than what his contract was projected to be with the Buccaneers. That was surprising. I think that was a good value as well as David Long going for, I think, five and a half million a year with the Dolphins when he was projected like over $10 million a year. So, yeah, that TJ Edwards signing I think was great. He kind of had a breakout season. And he was, what, the sixth highest PFF-graded linebacker for like all of defense

with an 81.6 grade. So I was very, very surprised they were able to get him for cheap and then they went out and i think they extremely overpaid jermaine edmonds um at what 18 million a year i think he signed for and roquan smith only went for 20 million when he signed that new contract with the ravens i'm like you just overpaid for a linebacker who has very very inconsistent debts he was somehow like the third highest graded linebacker in coverage this season after being like the worst graded linebacker in coverage um in the prior season and his run defense grades have been all over the place so

i don't really trust that jermaine edmonds is going to make an immediate impact in uh chicago so i don't think it warrants paying him 18 million a year when you can keep Roquan Smith and just pay him 2 million more. So that was kind of the weird thing with the Bears linebackers, but I really liked the TJ Edwards signing for them. I think Edmonds tells us a little bit about linebackers. I mean, one, Matt Milano had an unbelievable year next to him that might help, but also how much, and we dealt with this with Anthony,

Anthony Barr all the time how much splash plays can play into how they're graded so you know past breakups interceptions sacks tackles for loss all those things if you get them they're inconsistent a lot of times so if you get them one year you can grade really well if you don't get them the next year you can grade poorly and not only that too but if you make mistakes how much they're taking advantage of because you can make a mistake as a linebacker and the quarterback doesn't see it and it's fine or in some samples teams can attack a certain linebacker and they can make a lot of mistakes and their grade looks horrendous the linebacker and corner and safety grades when it comes to coverage

are all sort of like buyer beware. It's not don't use them. It's try to really understand how you're using them, but also having been in Buffalo and seen Tremaine Edwards up close, I can see why Ryan Poles would like it. This is one of the biggest freakish, most fastest, ridiculous people. Like this is a guy that i would use as an example for i don't know if you saw me tweeting about this or heard the rant from the show the other day about fans who think that they could get 10 yards playing quarterback in the nfl and you're like okay i just want you to meet tremaine edwards just meet him you don't have to say anything else just stand next to this guy and tell me you're getting 10 yards against

an nfl defense you won't so i think with one though, could kind of go under the luxury category of like, it's probably somebody that Ryan pulls loves. It's maybe less data driven on that one. And more of like, this guy's an absolute freak athletically. And that defense needs just needs upgrades. How much of the bears in your mind, upgraded so far i think they definitely got better um they did add an offensive lineman i believe um i don't remember which one it was nate davis yeah yeah so like i think that was a good signing he was one of the better ones out there um and then they did add obviously edmunds and and Edwards and what receiver did they get I don't remember DJ Moore DJ Moore yes yeah oh yeah yeah in the trade for the number one pick I think that was a great

trade for them um like in terms of what they got like DJ Moore was obviously I think a better option than getting another second round pick um because he's a proven receiver. So you're getting the weapons for Justin Fields. Can he make the throws? I don't know. But they definitely got the pieces around him that they should win a couple more games next season. And when it comes to free agency with receivers, that's a trade you have to make because you can't sign any.

They're just bad. There's just, there's just not a good list of wide. If Jacoby Myers is like the prize prize then it's not a great situation all right uh i told you you got to roast these teams that made bad moves uh oh also i wanted to touch just briefly on this because we've got a little like it's felt like my hair's been on fire this whole week with all sorts of different moves and this is a little bit of a lull so we can talk about darren waller and how some somehow josh mcdaniel's master of dealing with people manipulated darren waller

to the point where they had to trade him by revealing that he was getting married to WNBA star Kelsey Plum, champion of the Las Vegas Aces. And he was not invited to the wedding, as she tweeted. And I guess somehow this created an impasse, and they had to trade away one of the best tight ends in the league. I mean, this is one of the funniest stories. The NFL just creates so much drama every day that we move on from these things, but it's like,

can we just stop and talk about how much of a sitcom this was? Like you love Seinfeld. This was Larry David. Larry David wrote this. He wrote this. This is one of the funniest things that happened in the NFL in like the last five years. Yeah,

it really is. And after the Packers offered a second round pick for Darren Wall last year and they declined and now they deal him two of the Giants for a third-round pick, it's like, tell me you wanted to let him leave. They didn't want him on the team anymore for some reason. Josh McDaniels is the weirdest guy ever, and I think he just wants to bring his old Patriots to the Raiders there because they just signed Kobe Myers.

But, yeah, it's very funny the way it was handled. And I don't think you're going to see anything like that anytime soon. No, I don't think so either. Yeah, clearly there was something off between those two to begin with. And then that was like the final straw. Do you like Curb as well? You got to like Curb, right? Curb? I don't know what that is. Oh, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David's show. Oh, wow. If you're a Seinfeld fan, please, please you got to like curb right curb i don't know what that is oh curb your enthusiasm larry david's show you oh wow if you're a seinfeld you please please find it because uh it's it's very it's the exact same humor as seinfeld it's just with larry david in it and it's incredibly awkward and funny

uh you yes you will love it if you take nothing else away from this internship it'll be that um okay let's talk about just the last thing is this graphic that Ari Myroff put out there. You know, he used to work for PFF. Now he's with 33rd team of the NFC quarterbacks. And I just want to read them all out loud. Oh, wait, I didn't let you roast the free agent. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah. You got, that was supposed to be the highlight of the show. I'm sorry. I was just moving on because we were making fun of Darren Waller. All right. So your worst free agent signings roast the way. All right. So the first one was the Falcons trading for Patriots tight end, John O'Smith. So Falcons, you traded for another tight end that you can ignore just like you did Kyle Pitts.

Boom roasted. Yeah. Boom roasted. I don't understand that move at all. John Smith was one of the worst free agent signings for the Patriots and for like almost NFL history, just because he signed for so much money and did absolutely nothing like what like caught 250 yards last season. That was about it. So combined,

if you combine that with Kyle Pitts is 356 yards last season, nine tight ends. The NFL still had more yards than them combined. So I don't understand that you're that with Kyle Pitts is 356 yards last season nine tight ends the NFL still had more yards than them combined so I don't understand that you're just hurting Kyle Pitts in my opinion and stop drafting or stop trading for tight ends that are not good some people just love tight ends uh Bill Belichick and Arthur Smith apparently uh yeah, that one is weird. I guess it's like you bought it for nothing. But why did you buy it? It's like going to a yard sale and seeing something that catches your eye and being like, oh, it's only 50 cents. I'll buy it. And then you take it home and go, why did I buy this?

That's John. That's John Smith. Why did I buy this? All right. What's the next one? All right. So the second one. Second one's funny because it's Daniel Jones.

And it's not really like a free agent, but he re-signed with the Giants. So it's Daniel Jones' agent at Cowboys fan because he convinced you guys that 15 passing touchdowns deserves $40 million per year. Boom roasted. Boom roasted. Come on. Jimmy Garoppolo had signed for basically half that money and he threw one more touchdown pass, but he played in six less games than Daniel Jones last season. So Giants, I don't

know what you're doing. Daniel Jones' agent is a genius and I really believed a lot more in Brian Tafel, so I don't know what you're doing. I just want to see his stats when not playing the Vikings. Just what, what is it? What are his numbers when not playing the Vikings? I do think Darren Waller helps. They have given him some help there. Uh, thank goodness that a marriage got announced that wasn't supposed to be announced. So that was helpful, but I, I like that. That's a good one. Yeah. I mean, I think with the giants, because they want to play off game, they were, and the Vikings, this happened to them in 2019. They were just in a position where if you overachieved

or you had this big, exciting moment that, you know, you kind of had to do it because then Giants fans would be like, wait, who's our quarterback then? And the answer is probably Daniel Jones has never averaged seven yards a pass attempt. And that's, I mean, think about that. Like you're paying $40 million a year for a guy who's never averaged seven yards of pass attempt, which Josh McCown could do. So I like it, uh, onto the next, Oh, the next one. I really liked the next one. Yeah. So Matt, uh, Matt Gay kicker signed with the Colts for four years and 200 or

$22.5 million. And I got to imagine if he got $200 million, but yeah. So Colts, you don't have a quarterback offensive line defense or any wide receivers, but you decided let's give a kicker the largest free agency contract in Annabelle history. Signing the Superbowl winning kicker is the closest you're getting to the Superbowl. Anytime soon. Boom roasted.

Love it. Love it. That's great. Yeah. This one makes no sense. You have so many needs with that team and you're spending money on a kicker. He is the fifth best kicker of all time by field goal percentage. And you're probably going to need to kick a lot of field goals. I would guess boom roasted. Uh, did you roast a Tremaine Edwins to the bears or do we kind of already talk about

that one? Was there a roast? Uh, the roast was just that they didn't pay Roquan Smith and they gave him a ridiculously high contract. That's not a great roast. Taylor Heineke was your last one. Yeah, Taylor Heineke. So he signed with the Falcons for two years, $14 million. So Falcons, quite the quarterback battle you got going on there. Everyone's on the edge of their seats for wannabe knockoff Jalen Hurts

versus Mr. Eyled by two points over the soon to be Superbowl champion Buccaneers in a wildcard round. Boom roasted. It's great. This, this could be, this could be a regular bit where you're forced to roast things. That's good. So make sure you go check out the list. Purpleinsider.com is where you can find it. All right. So just last thing then I wanted to, I wanted to read the NFC quarterbacks out loud at this moment and just get your reaction because Aaron Rodgers joined the AFC and he may regret it after I read the list. Carr, Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Matthew Stafford, Brock Purdy, or Trey Lance, Gino Smith, Justin Fields, Jared Goff, Jordan Love, and Kirk Cousins. I would love you to react to that and rank your top five NFC quarterbacks. Yeah, it's bad, especially that NFC South there with Derek Carr kind of being the only

quarterback who's kind of played games and is half decent. So yeah, so my top five, I went Jalen Hurts number one, although I am kind of weary about putting him number one, just because he is kind of a product of what's around him. He had the best offensive line in football, the two of the best wide receivers in football. So that's why I'm a little concerned to put him at number one but obviously he's still a good quarterback and do a lot running with the ball um at two I put Dak um I think he has a little more upside than Kirk Cousins because I have Kirk at three um I put Stafford at four but if he's healthy I think he could easily be like number one maybe number two um especially like when he won the Super Bowl like that season even though he threw the most interceptions I think he could easily be like number one, maybe number two, especially like when he won the Super Bowl, like that season, even though he threw the most interceptions,

I think he's still better than most of these quarterbacks. And then five, I was debating about five, but I think I landed on Jared Goff just because he's been really good with the Lions. I know like he's not that quarterback who's going to get you kind of to the Super Bowl, but he's been half decent. And that's just kind of the story of the NFC quarterbacks. Like the number five quarterback is not really going to try to make a run for the Super Bowl. It's amazing. It is an amazing list. It will change very soon because you're going to add a Bryce Young or CJ Stroud or Anthony Richardson, and maybe three of them to this division,

depending on how things go. But the AFC is so resolved for most teams with their quarterback situations that you're going to have this influx. And this is how it happens, right? The AFC, most or all those guys were drafted and then they just became good players. And that will happen now with these quarterback media teams. So the way that I started looking at quarterback rankings last year, I wrote an article about this is what we usually do is just talk about what we think of the guy's skillset. And then like what he most recently did. And with Jared Goff, there isn't a lot of respect for his skillset because he is not super fun to watch. He's not dynamic. if he has to run one step he will throw the ball directly into

the ground it's insane it's like i mean like did you never practice this did you just stand in one spot anyway so that is what what hurts him for people is that he's not dynamic he's not exciting but he has led three top five offenses in his career. To me, he should be number two on this list next to Jalen Hurts because circumstances matter. He's got a really good team around him. He's got great receivers. He's got a great offensive mind, and he can execute that offense. So I try to look at it as where will their passing game,

where will the offense rank with this quarterback in that context, and not so much just based on their talent so I would kind of have probably Jalen Hurts, Dak or Jared Goff because both of them can lead elite offenses and have done that before and then Kirk Cousins after those three Matt Stafford maybe right after that but Brock Purdy also has to be thrown in here because they had an elite offense with Brock Purdy last year. And whoever plays for the 49ers with those weapons will have an elite offense. So it's funny because like these quarterbacks in this list is not good. And yet out of the top 10 offenses in the league, you could make a pretty good argument that five of them will still go to these NFC teams based on

what is built around these quarterbacks. And we don't know how Derek Carr is going to play in New Orleans, but I think that they're set up okay for him to be pretty good. Geno Smith could come back and be good. Justin Fields could improve. So it's weird because I don't want to be like, well, actually, they're really good. They're not. It's not a great list.

But there's a lot of really good teams here, I think, built around those quarterbacks. Yeah, definitely. Do you think that, like, let's say Brock Purdy and Trey Lance are both not ready to start week one. Do you think if Sam Darnold leads some sort of offense that Brock Purdy did towards the end of that season, do you think he'll be on this list? I think what would happen with Sam Darnold is he would have five to seven games where you went, Oh my God, that is the best quarterback play I've ever seen in my life. 397 yards, five touchdowns. And then all

the other games would be horrendous. And they would have four in or like that, that would be what, what it is for him because you, we do talk about it. Like you could drop anyone into this offense, but when Nick Mullins played in the offense, I know he had good yards per attempt, but they lost all the games. It just like, it's not, it's not going to work. You need competency.

And I think, I think, I think the NFL just missed Brock Purdy. I think he could really play like having seen him practice here against the Vikings last year. And in preseason, I think he's actually really a player. It's not just,

Oh, they just threw in anybody. I think the NFL just kind of missed that guy. So, all right, before we wrap any Vikings questions for me, I do have one. And I kind of,

yeah, I kind of related it to the jets because now obviously we have, well, we'll have Aaron Rogers. So who had it worse? The jets against Tom Brady for all of those years, or the Vikings or the Lions and Bears or whatever, with Aaron Rodgers for all those years?

That is a great question, and it's very similar, because you could make the argument that the Vikings had this longer. You have to go all the way back to Brett Favre, not just Aaron Rodgers. And I pulled the numbers on this. You'll appreciate. Since 1992, the two winningest teams in the regular season in the NFL are the Patriots and the Packers. So just a statistical thing, because I know a lot of analytics people say, well, KB wins aren't a real thing. Please explain.

Please explain how the Patriots and the Packers are the number one and two winning teams and explain how Aaron Rodgers won his division eight times with all sorts of different teams and explain how Tom just explain. I just want to hear that. How's that work? It does. QB wins on an individual game basis. And when it comes to middling quarterbacks, they're very much dictated. But if you have a great quarterback they're going to win all the time and that's what both divisions have dealt with for the longest time why it is worse to be the jets or the bills or the dolphins is that because brady won the superbowls rogers got one and then at very least there was a ray of sunshine in minnesota each playoffs where they would go to the n NFC championship and couldn't

recover an onset or yeah couldn't recover an outside kick or had a punt blocked or all these different things that got in Roger's way so even though he did win one and he played spectacular against the Pittsburgh Steelers and got his trophy and got his ring and never has to give that back he also dealt with about 12 years of torture when it came to the playoffs and lots of horrendous losses where tom brady he was it's funny how the razor's edge works because brady is this close to losing about five super bowls and won all of them and rogers never got there because of all these kind of little things a play at the goal line his coach decided to kick a field goal against tampa bay rather than having him try to kick a field goal against Tampa Bay rather than having

him try to throw a touchdown. Just, you know, all these little things. And at least Vikings fans got to say, aha. Take that, you Rodgers. Yes, you're where we want to be, but at least you didn't win the Super Bowl. So I think it's been much harder because every year, and not only that, when it comes to the Super Bowl, it's two weeks of talking about how amazing Tom Brady is.

So if you hated that, you hated it many, many times. I think it was worse for the Jets. Interesting. Yeah, I see it definitely both ways because, like, the Packers have been good for so long with those string of quarterbacks who just have been amazing. And we'll see if Jordan Love can become that, and then the Jets can trade for him in 2038 whenever that happens

um but yeah I think if the 49ers did not exist um Aaron Rodgers would have like four Super Bowls right now because how many times did he lose to that team only in the NFC championship game it's that it's ridiculous it's amazing and then just even the last one where Jimmy Garoppolo was hurt you're going to Lambeau from San Francisco. It's like, there's no chance that they win that. And special teams ends up getting Aaron Rogers in that one. So anyway, Haley, great stuff on your article. And I think we do have to have you roast more people more often because that was a terrific segment.

So great, great work. Looking forward to what's coming next. And we will talk again next week. Thanks for your time. Awesome. Thank you.