Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Harrison Smith is staying, Marcus Davenport's deal isn't finalized and we wait on other resolutions

Episode Date: March 17, 2023

Matthew Coller talks with Vikings fans about Harrison Smith taking a pay cut to stay with the Vikings. Marcus Davenport was not announced by the Vikings today -- what's happening? Za'Darius Smith also remains a Viking, as does Dalvin Cook. What does Alex Mattison staying mean? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here with you. Thank you so much for joining on the live stream. If that's how you're watching or if you're listening, appreciate you as always on a March Madness evening. So have March Madness on the TV. Listen to some Vikings talk here. And we've got a lot to discuss tonight, including an interesting twist to the Vikings offseason that happened today out at TCO Performance Center. So as always, welcome in the comments section.

Your questions. Got a lot of great questions from fans today for the Friday mailbag tomorrow. And I imagine you guys have a lot of same things on your mind. So fire them up. I'll put some comments on the screen and answer any questions that you have here over the next, you know, 45 minutes to an hour. But the place that we have to begin with is Harrison Smith, who is coming back. A very interesting move today for Harrison Smith to decide to restructure his contract. And to tell you the truth, I think that I expected it for Harrison Smith to come back.

I mean, for one, I don't think that last year was really the year that Harrison Smith wanted to end on. I mean, playing for Ed Donatel, being misused, and we can really point to it on paper, how he was the smoking gun in a way for, ironically, the hitman, the smoking gun in a way for ironically the hitman the smoking gun for ed donatel not adapting his system to his player's strengths in the ways that he should have and you don't have to look any farther than the amount that the vikings blitzed harrison smith compared to the past and played him

in the box compared to the past where Mike Zimmer had always used him a lot at the line of scrimmage, always used him as a blitzing weapon. And that was something that Ed Donatell seemed allergic to doing. And there couldn't be, I think, much more of an obvious mistake than not using Harrison Smith up at the line of scrimmage. He is one of the best box safeties of the last decade. You know, you had kind of Troy Polamalu before that and Harrison Smith and what Cam Chancellor going back a little bit. Those are your box safeties and to not use him in that way. It just struck me as bizarre. And I think that when he looks at how Brian Flores uses his safeties

and the defense that he deploys, he's going to be a lot happier. He's going to be used a lot better. And I also didn't look at Harrison Smith as somebody last year that was washed in the same way that you may have looked at other players that they've moved on from recently. But I didn't think that Harrison Smith had nothing left and they had to absolutely move on from him. It does bring about the question though, of course, so now where are we at? Because after Adam Thielen was released and we were talking about on that live stream, okay, is this really a rebuild now? And my answer was, yeah, I mean, I think that it is.

I think that that's the direction that we're going is we're gonna see maybe a complete roster purge. And then we didn't. And they restructured Kirk Cousins to make some cap space, which further pointed toward, okay, they're not getting rid of everyone. And yet still here we stand wondering what's going to happen next. And each day I've come on here and said, should be coming soon.

These answers should be coming soon, folks. I promise you it's coming soon, but there has to be answers to these situations. And also we need to talk about Alexander Madison as well and what that means. So plenty of news. But also, this is a question from Asa here, is the Marcus Davenport situation, which now we have a situation with Marcus Davenport because we went out today, the Vikings beat, and we went to the press conference expecting Marcus Davenport

along with Byron Murphy and Josh Oliver. And we got two out of the three, but not Davenport. And I don't know what is happening because the answer was like, oh, contract things need to be resolved and so forth. But we don't know if that's regarding his health or if it's something else when it's the details of a contract. Remember, until it's really final, until it's registered with the NFL, it's only agreed upon. And it seems that Jimmy Garoppolo is dealing with the same thing with the Las Vegas Raiders. It's only agreed upon. That doesn't mean that it is signed, sealed, delivered. So since they just announced Byron Murphy and Josh Oliver, those ones are in

the system. And it's not about the press conference, it's signing them. And you've probably seen the Vikings tweeting out, they've signed their contracts, they're in the system, they're good to go. But that is not the case for Marcus Davenport and how that thing is going to work out I don't know because the Vikings was it PJ Hall was that the guy's name that they picked up off of waivers brought in for a physical and then went oh no no we don't think so and then they brought him in and then he was right back out if that happens with Marcus Davenport that is going to be a pretty big blow. And I don't want to overreact

because this might be all taken care of by tomorrow or there might've been a situation. There's a lot of different options here what this could be. There might've been a situation where they needed to create enough space for Zedarius Smith. And this is exactly what Thomas is getting at in the comments here is, could it be that Zedarius Smith. And this is exactly what Thomas is getting at in the comments

here is could it be that Zedarius Smith is the holdup that they are still trying to trade Zedarius Smith rather than just cutting him? And that's, again, I don't know. I mean, does that seem like a likely scenario? Yeah, it does. But Marcus Davenport has also had some issues in the past with his health. And I got a message from somebody who is really dialed into the Saints that said, kind of always something with Marcus Davenport. And that's not really what you want to hear as far as the situation goes. But if I had to take a guess, I would say that it's more likely that in order to make the balance work of the books with the salary cap, since you can no longer go over the cap after the league year starts between

the end of the season and the beginning of the league year, you can go over the cap as long as you are cap compliant by that first day. So they were cap compliant by the first day, but until they make the signing, they have to make sure they have enough space and they also signed Alexander Madison. So if we're adding up all of the tea leaves there, then probably what's going on

is that they need to figure out how to move on from Zedarius Smith in order to include Marcus Davenport and to make it official official with him. That's the best guess. But if it's something else, then, uh, you know, I guess I don't know if it's something else when it comes to Marcus Davenport, but it's not going to be good for them if it is because we were looking at that as an A-plus type of move where you get somebody that has potential high ceiling

and has sacked the heck out of people in the past with nine sacks two years ago, but last year only had a half a sack. And he's had a lot of pressures in his career and a lot of good PFF grades, but not consistent sack production. Still, that seems like a really good bet for the Vikings to make. So if that ends up not coming to fruition, then they have to look around and scramble and figure out what to do.

If he came in and again, this is running through a bunch of scenarios that by tomorrow could all be resolved. But if he came in and there was something that did not work out very well with Marcus Davenport, whether it was his past injury history, his details of his contract, of how much is guaranteed, how much would go away if he's injured, what his incentives are, all those things. If there's something that's a holdup and it ends up not working out, then kind of who's next? Or do you call up Zedarius Smith and say, actually, Zedarius, you're going to stay. You're going to be a Minnesota Viking. And then you could be

talking about a potential dispute there. So which way this ends up going with Marcus Davenport, I don't know. If I were to take a guess, I would say more likely than not, Marcus Davenport still becomes a Viking and it just depends on moving on from Zedarius Smith. But the other question is, why has that not happened yet? Are they going to shop him all the way to the final minute on Friday before his contract has, I think it's $5 million that's guaranteed in the middle of Friday. So that might end up being a thing that they're waiting and trying to shop him to the last minute. What you saw with Darius Slay was the Eagles tried to shop

him. And I know he just came back to the Eagles, but they tried to shop him and I know he just came back to the Eagles but they tried to shop him and it ended up you know that nobody was going to pay for someone that was going to be released and so they couldn't find a home and think about how good Darius Slay is how good Zedarius Smith is but it's really all about leverage and that situation should get itself resolved at some point very soon, but until it does, it still remains uncertain what's going to happen there. But anytime you have a player that's supposed to be announced and he doesn't get announced, you go, is everything okay? Is everything all right? And if there is one downside to signing Marcus Davenport, it is that he has not been able to play full seasons. And it is that he has this extensive injury history. And I think that if the Vikings, if they're making bets on guys,

that if they get healthy and they've just had some bad luck like Byron Murphy, and they go forward from there and play great, those are good bets to make. I will maintain that's good. Those are good bets to make. But if they think that their medical staff can just magically solve problems, well, they shouldn't go that far in believing in themselves because we saw what happened with Andrew Booth Jr. last year, that somebody with extensive injury history ended up getting injured quite a bit. Still, no criticism for the Davenport move as long as it ends up working out for them, but mysterious until it does. So if you're interested, my takeaways from just the other two is that Byron Murphy seems very comfortable with the concept of him playing nickel corner. And as I did a little more research on him

from last night, I noticed that his best season was when he played the most nickel corner. So if I had to guess right now, I would say you're going to see a lot of Byron Murphy as a nickel corner. And somebody sent me a look that they did, somebody mathematically inclined, a look that they did about outside and inside corners that essentially showed how important nickel corners are to defenses. And I think, you know, Harrison Smith is a guy who's been banging that drum for a while, but if Byron Murphy can become their nickel corner and play really well, they could solidify that position, which is just increasing year after year in its usage. I think when Mike Zimmer took over, it was maybe 50-50 between base

packages and nickel, and now it's nickel or dime. You're always having that slot corner on the field. He's almost never coming off outside of just pure running situations. So Byron Murphy could turn out to be very valuable there. And of course, there's an injury that they have to worry a little bit about from his back from last year. So a lot of moving parts still. We'll get into the Delvin Cook stuff, but rumors continue to swirl as they always do when a player is on the trade block.

And it wouldn't surprise me if there's a ton of conversations going on with him because the Vikings simply cannot make this work right between and I guess I should never say this when it comes to their salary cap because they will make things work if they want to but with Delvin Cook and Alexander Madison it just would defy any logic to me that they would get Alexander Madison to agree to come back without knowing what they were going to do with Delvin Cook, because don't you have to tell Alexander Madison how he's going to be used? And wouldn't his goal be to be in a position where he could be a starting running back? And I'm not

sure that there are a lot of other teams in the league that would make Alexander Madison their starting running back. So I think that that points strongly toward a Delvin Cook trade, but there isn't as much of a hard deadline as there is with Zedarius. So by tomorrow afternoon, we got to figure out what's going on with Zedarius Smith. With Delvin Cook, this could stay up in the air for quite a while for them to figure it out, but it makes a lot of sense to me to just move him off to the highest bidder if they can for Delvin Cook. And I think there's probably a handful of teams out there that would do it.

And maybe there's just particulars involved, how much money and everything else that's going to go into it. But I think that Madison signing makes that much, much, much more likely that they will move on from Delvin cook. And then there's the question of, do we like the Alexander Madison signing? And I do, I know that, uh, it's a little bit of money, but it's not a lot of money. And we're talking about somebody who has hardly any mileage on them. That's for sure. No injuries that I can remember of any significance for

Alexander Madison. And he's not a speedster. He's not a breakaway runner. He's not going to get you too many 50 yard touchdown runs, but he is very consistent. And I did this today. Someone asked about the negative runs because Delvin cook had more negative runs than anyone in the NFL last year. I think it was 63 negative runs. That's a lot of, a lot of, or zeros or negatives. I went through Alexander Madison's career and I could only find eight. And a lot of that's offensive line, but the man knows how to plow forward. And also a subtle thing that I think that Alexander Madison is very good at is actually catching the ball. Delvin Cook, I don't believe

really ever had the best hands where they could trust him in more of a receiving role, but Alexander Madison usually is pretty good with that. There was a play, maybe 2021, where they had him run a slant and caught a touchdown, and I think they could use him a little more in that role, and I think Kevin O'Connell wanted that out of the running back from the way he talked last year. And then it just never came to fruition. So, you know, I think that Alexander Madison makes a lot of sense as an experienced running back without a lot of mileage who can play and, you know, he's intelligent and, you know, he can pass block. He could do all the things that he's asked to do. But also it gives an opportunity where one guy doesn't have to be the entire backfield. And that right there, I think cost them in recent seasons. If you look at Delvin Cook first half versus second half of any season

of his career, it is a significant difference. And part of it is that the man is just used like crazy. It's almost like the name recognition, the draft status, and how good he is at his peak made them just continue to run him out there constantly. And they never, ever seemed like they wanted to take him off the field. And by the second half of the year, he was dragging. And that was the case for this year. His last hundred yard game was against the bills. Think about when that was,

that was in the middle of the season. I think that took them to like eight and one. And then the rest of the way, he never had a hundred yard game. I mean, I don't know why they never wanted to make a rotation out of that. They drafted Ty Chandler. He was banged up for a good portion of the season, but he didn't get used. Madison barely got used. So, and then they use Madison at the end of the year against Chicago. I know it's backup stuff, but I mean, the guy can play, he's a good player. And a lot of people wanted him traded last year when Ty Chandler had a couple of good preseason snaps. It's like, there's no reason to be giving away somebody who can play. And I think bringing him back is just fine. If you pair him, if you don't ask him to be giving away somebody who can play. And I think bringing him back is just fine. If

you pair him, if you don't ask him to be a 300 carry back and you have a rotation in your back field, Ty Chandler is blazing fast and has great quickness. And also Kenny Wong was one of the fastest people in the league. You'd like to see him actually get used. Although it seemed like there was some unhappiness with Kevin O'Connell in regards to Ken A. Wonguang I'm not really sure what exactly that was about but re-signing Alexander Madison bottom line there's no other way to read it points toward moving on from Delvin Cook the question is just can there actually be a trade that gets pulled off is a team going to actually give the Vikings

something for Delvin Cook? And is that why this is dragging out with both he and Zedaria Smith? From Asa again, can we give a moment of silence for the legend Chris Thomason leaving the Vikings media? Yes, from the Pioneer Press, our friend from the beat Chris Thomason is heading to cover the Denver Broncos. He announced that today. And I'll just say this, that, you know, all of you, I'm sure know Chris Thomason's personality on Twitter, and he's very funny. And he tweeted out what has now become infamous with the Prince photo that he got from Harrison Smith, which if you saw Harrison Smith on Instagram, he put a Hitman logo on Prince's hat. So that was good. But, you know, and I think a lot of you may know him also for there were times is extremely funny, witty, really knowledgeable and worldly guy that we've enjoyed having. So, you know, I know.

And I thought also that, you know, Mike Zimmer made himself look bad on a number of occasions by going after one reporter in particular, when a lot of the questions that were being asked were stuff that any of us would have asked. There was something personal there for Zimmer, and I thought it made him look kind of small to try to bully somebody the way he did, but not a reflection of who Chris is, by the way, just as a person, in my opinion. So we will miss him. We will definitely miss him. He is one of the wittiest people that I have ever met in my life. And since day one that I got to the beat, he was always incredibly nice to me. So yeah, it will not be the same without him.

From Jacob, do you think that they are complimenting, or I'm sorry, contemplating maybe keeping Zedarius to play with Hunter and Davenport for 2023. The thing about that is how does it work? Getting under the salary cap, like there are only so many more buttons that they can push. If when they trade away Dalvin Cook, it doesn't create a whole heck of a lot of cap space. So, you know, how are you going to make this happen? Could they rework Zadarius' contract?

But he's going to want more money. Even if you push some of it down the road, how does that end up happening? That you have Zadarius Smith, Davenport on a $13 million deal. And oh, by the way, Daniil Hunter has to be sitting somewhere with his agent smoking a pipe wondering, when is my turn? Right. When is my turn to get this big contract extension? So that, yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't know how that would happen. I think that they would ideally have wanted to keep Zedaria Smith. If you're keeping Harrison Smith, then that means you're

trying to build up this defense to be a lot better for Brian Flores. And that seems to be what they want is to have Brian Flores get a much improved defense. Naturally, I think when Brian Flores came here, I'm sure one of the big questions was, hey, do you think I could keep some good defensive players if you're Brian Flores? I'm sure he wanted to make sure that he was going to have some players to work with, and they likely thought, the way that things at least have played out, that Zedarius Smith was going to be one of those players. And then he said that he wanted a new contract, he wants to be released, and he sells his home. All of a sudden things become a little dicey.

With Daniil Hunter, there likely won't be a resolution for some time with Daniil Hunter because they cannot trade him until June 1st at the earliest because of the way that his cap pit is set up. And it also doesn't even make it easy then. So are you trading him later in the summer are you letting him play out his deal but he can't be very happy with that and at some point it's like is Daniil Hunter going to dig his heels in or not because he's been kind of a good soldier with them year after year where we have this discussion about Daniil Hunter's contract well

last year he put up the numbers to get the extension. And if I had to guess, I would say they do eventually sign the extension. But as far as Hunter, Davenport, Zadarius, I don't think that it can work salary cap wise. I think their plan was with Zadarius wanting a trade or wanting to be cut that, okay, we're going to move on from him. Davenport is basically going to be his replacement. This from Todd, what would you think if the Vikings drafted a wide receiver in the first round? I would think that they were doing the right thing because look with the other positions. And if you look down the road, you're always drafting to try to look a year down the road most of the time, but wide receiver is a little different from that, where we have seen many situations where a receiver comes in right away and is a contributor, if not very good right away.

If he's not going to be a Laquan Treadwell type of bust, many times you will see a receiver come in and at least contribute. And then year two, they'll start to take off, take like a Devante Smith or a Jalen Waddle, where you can get production out of that receiver right away. So that's a good thing for that situation is it fills Adam Thielen's spot in an ideal world. And then long-term, you have Justin Jefferson becoming expensive. Well, your wide receiver two is still on a rookie deal.

Very important kind of moving parts to that. I think that's what they would want to do. And look, if you add up the other pieces around Justin Jefferson, so we always talk about around the quarterback and we include Jefferson, but let's talk about everybody else. Not named Justin Jefferson. TJ Hockinson is a great underneath wide receiver, but I believe he caught one pass that traveled over 20 yards last year. He's not a downfield type of threat. He's underneath yards after catch. Josh Oliver, I think, can have a little more of a ceiling as a pass catcher, but he's a blocking tight end, as he was willing to tell us in his press conference today. He's a blocking tight end. And then you have KJ Osborne, good player, great wide receiver three, somebody you want on your football team, but not a massive threat for opponents when it comes to as a downfield receiver. You just don't see attention being drawn to him in the same way. And then what Jalen Rager, Jalen Naylor, who does have blazing speed.

We don't know what he can do yet. Maybe they're very confident in him, but that's unproven. So all those things come together for me and say, wide receiver is a hard thing to replace. I think there's two things that are really hard to get in the free agent market. And one is interior pass rush, because there's like 12

guys who can do it really well and wide receiver because they usually cost so much in free agency or you have to overpay mediocre guys like Juju Smith Schuster or Jacoby Myers. So I like the idea a lot of wide receiver, but if they drafted a corner in their present situation, would anybody think that they were nuts? If they drafted a outside linebacker to rush the passer, would anybody think they were nuts? I wouldn't. I would say get that best player available to build around your defense because there are a lot of pieces that need to be taken care of.

This from Alex. Can you explain Kirk's cap hits per void year? Some are saying that all the cap hits will take place in 2024, but why are the amounts on over the cap? I assume you mean four through 12 million and 25 through 27. So yeah, here is the distinction that I got a little confused about on the first day after this happened as well. There is a date in February. This is my understanding next year where it quote accelerates all the other dead cap hits. So if they have Kirk cousins on the books at that date, if they, if they have him on after that date, then it's spread out to those other years but if

they don't then it all goes to 2024 that is my understanding so the the most likely scenario is that right after the season they will make a decision on cousins extend him cut him and if they don't extend him they will cut him immediately and not wait until that date accelerate or they'll use the accelerator kind of thing. So it goes all into 2024. That is my understanding of how that works out. But sometimes with the salary cap guys, it is confusing. And I apologize for times where I have also had these problems where I think that I get it. And then there's like, oh, there's this one other detail. And that's kind of how it worked the other day where I was trying to get it figured out. And it's like, oh yes, there's this one other detail where it all goes into 2024. And then you're rid of it after that, which I think is part of the benefit in

their mind, but they pushed a lot. They pushed a lot into 2024. This is a great question from Adam, and you may be just as confused as I am. This is the confusion live stream where we're not sure what's going on with Marcus Davenport, not sure what's going on with Zaria Smith, not sure what's going on with Delvin Cook, and not sure if it's a rebuild or the salary cap uh and uh adam says i can't tell if the vikings are running it back or setting up for a serious rebuild and i can't either uh i i do know this it's probably the truth in the middle uh it probably is exactly what quacey told us it was and it's probably competitive rebuild because harrison smith was a linchpin to this kind of thinking. It was, if they move on from Harrison Smith, then, okay, a lot of stuff is different

now. And this is a very different roster and they're rebuilding a bunch of positions. And when I think of rebuilding, it's not that you need to be just garbage or something, but a lot of it is playing younger players. So if you were to have at the safety position, Josh Metellus and Cam Bynum and Louis Seen battle it out and the best man wins. And we'll see if one of these guys becomes a future star or the, you know, we have a starting safety pair. Rebuilding is a lot of finding out. You could call a lot of it finding out. You take away the pieces that you're sure of and you find out about the rest of them.

Well, they're not going to do that. And maybe you could say last year they found out on Cam Bynum that he's more of a backup type player. And I would tend to agree with that. This year is about Louis Seen and he's going to play with Harrison Smith. And I'm fine with that. I. This year is about Louis scene and he's going to play with Harrison Smith. And I'm fine with that. I don't think this is like a tremendously bad move to keep Harrison Smith. And if he wants to retire a Viking, he has earned that right to retire a

Viking, especially in taking a pay cut as it seems for this year. And I haven't seen the cap figures if they're out on over the cap, let me know, but I have not seen those yet, but it's still, that's not rebuilding. If you say to a player, if you want to come back, you can, who's a veteran. That's not rebuilding. Rebuilding is thanks for the memories. We're going to try out these younger guys and running it back also would have probably included moving heaven and earth to keep Adam Thielen, to keep Eric Hendricks, and maybe to keep Zedarius Smith. It would have been a new contract for him that has not happened yet. It might have even been bending to Kirk Cousins to make sure his cap hit got even lower, although they got it down to 20 million. And this just shows you in what bad shape they were to get it down to 20 million and still be having these conversations about needing to get rid of players to even add a rotational pass rusher in the past

with injury problems. I mean, that just shows you how many issues they have, but they haven't pushed a couple buttons that they could. Straight up cutting Zedaria. Smith has not happened. And there's there's a couple other things Brian O'Neill as a restructure hasn't happened it really seems like what they want to do is have a good year and fight as much as they can to win the NFC North again

and which is possible and then after that have a team that's very strong to drop in the next quarterback into whether they draft them this year or next year, that seems to be the way that it is set up. So yeah, I mean, I don't know that it fits very well in either one of those categories and it is difficult to escape the middle. That's something that they have not really been able to do in all of the Kirk Cousins years, but at least we kind of understood in the past that it was all in. And, you know, I thought that also that the TJ Hawkinson move was a very all in move for last last year and that signified that they understood that this year was going to be a lot harder and yet you're still looking at some players that were long-term staples that are on the roster as we speak right now now if they move on from delvin and they move on from zadarius

it'll be rebuildy ish and bringing back garrett brad is not a, it's not a win now move or a rebuild move. It's kind of now and then, because you're going to keep him for multiple years. So, you know, I, I don't think that it fits perfectly into either category, but if they lean too much toward running it back and hurt themselves for the future, then you'd be concerned. If Delvin Cook comes back with Alexander Madison, we're going to be like, uh, what, why? But it just doesn't feel like it's headed in that direction. I think that we have a good sense. And I was kind of joking around about Zadarius and Delvin and all the things that we're waiting

on, but I think we have a good sense where these things are headed. And if they go that direction, then I think it is in that competitive rebuild where they have not significantly harmed themselves aside from that Kirk restructure, that they have not significantly hurt themselves for the future. And they have found some pieces that they're going to learn about Byron Murphy and potentially Marcus Davenport. Let's not make that assumption anymore after today, but I'll say probably Marcus Davenport as well. From Alexander here, would you be down with drafting Kalijah Kansey at 23 if it means interior pressure, but he's only a rotational player or is terrible in the run game?

Yes, I think that I would. You'd have to have somebody else next to him that could stuff the run, and they do in Harrison Phillips, who's going to be here for some time. But there is nothing like interior pressure, and we have seen it just wreak havoc on the Vikings for many years, all the pressure up the middle. And there are so few guys who can do it. If you give me a Grady Jarrett, who's not necessarily a dominant run defender, but he can create tons of pressure,

then I think that that has so much of a benefit that you'll take the L's in the run game because you can kind of cover up for that if you have someone who's going to dominate so much. Now, when you say rotational, though, that kind of matters what you mean, because if rotational means he comes off the field on third and one, OK, I don't care about that. If rotational means he can only play 400 snaps because it's got to be only on third down, well, that's a little bit different. But if you gave me a version of what Tom Johnson was in 2017 and souped that up, or if you gave me, actually, there's an even more recent example, the good Sheldon Richardson in 2018, would you take that with the 23rd overall pick? Oh, yeah.

You would take that over with the 23rd overall pick for sure. And if Kalijah Canty can be that, comparing him to Aaron Donald is just ridiculous because no one's going to be Aaron Donald. But if he's Sheldon Richardson 2018, I mean, that's a pretty good weapon to have that they have been without since 2018. From Asa here, considering how rough Jalen Carter has been recently, do you think there's a chance he falls to 23? If he does, would you want the Vikings to possibly draft him? That's a really tough one. I mean, I do think there is a possibility. Yes, that he continues to fall. Absolutely. That he continues to fall down the draft board because if you show up at your pro day and you're not ready to go,

what does that say about how serious you are? That's a major concern. And then you add the other thing too, that caught everybody by surprise and so forth. I mean, that is all really bad signs and just, you know, this, there are off field things that you can say, all right, this was immaturity from that guy, or that was something that he got caught up in or whatever it might be. You know, if there was some partying issue or something like that, can he mature? Can he adapt to the NFL life? Okay.

Well, you've probably seen a lot of guys do that, but to not show up ready to go at your pro day is a very bad time. I mean, this is a, this is a job. So any job that you have where you show up and you got to punch the clock every day, that's the NFL. It's a little different than your job, but it's a job. It's not college where you own the university and you can do whatever you want. And Jalen Carter, not understanding that he needed to be ready for this and showing up way overweight. To me, that's just, that is just probably a no-go. I don't know. I mean, I know he's very talented. I just think it's a no-go. That's so much risk in a draft pick

that you really, really need. I, yeah, I, I, I just, I just can't go there. I just can't go there with Jalen Carter. I think that it should just be kind of like a non, don't bother, don't go for that, just totally pass. Even though he's extremely talented, you're just asking for problems. And he might be good. He might be good right away. But the league adapts to you.

And look, it's hard to maintain success if you're going to be overweight, you're going to have problems off the field, if you're not going to take it seriously. Pretty big issues there for him. Too concerning for me to say yes to that, even though it would be like a good deal. Let's see from Thomas.

I'm all in on DJ Chark. shark okay i i mean that's totally fine to be in on dj shark as someone who could be a helpful receiver at a very cheap price but not passing on the receiver in the draft because of dj shark as is j Jason brings up. He's been injured quite a bit, and I don't think you could really trust him, even though he is talented, that you could trust him to be your number two wide receiver. Chark is much more of a number three, number four on a great team. Think about what you look at with teams that are going deep in the playoffs. Let's throw out Kansas city because it's Kansas city and they've got my homes, San Francisco, just drafting Brandon.

I, you, when they didn't even have to, uh, Debo Samuel, George Kittle, they've got weapons everywhere. And they said, you know what? We could use one more. And they went and got Christian McCaffrey. DJ Chark is a nice receiver to have on your team, but not somebody that I think you want to rely upon to be next to Justin Jefferson long-term. And that's what you're looking for. And nobody knows better than this franchise,

how having two great wide receivers can be good for you. You can find corners in free agency. You could find run stuffers. You could find linebackers. You could probably even find some edge rushers in free agency because there's a lot of guys who can rush the passer. What is hard to find is super talented wide receivers just floating around free agency. Oh, look who it is. Our friend Paul Hodowanek wants to talk about Austin Schlopman. Well, you know what, Paul? I will. They brought him back, and that's a good decision. I felt really bad for Austin Schloteman. He got hurt against the Packers,

and that really threw everybody for a loop with Chris Reed. And I wonder, I still do wonder, if Austin Schloteman had not gotten hurt against the Packers, would he have started against the Giants? Or was it Garrett Bradbury having to push to come back so they didn't have to play you know Chris Reed in a playoff game against Dexter Lawrence and then Dexter Lawrence put up like 200 pressures in that game anyway Austin Schlotman was gonna have to hang on for dear life against Dexter Lawrence but I think with it being a healthy good player as a

backup he probably would have been more OK than Garrett Bradbury was. And it really hurt them in that game, the way that Bradbury performed against Lawrence. And I still wonder if he was pushing to come back too early because just of the situation. But Schlotman is a solid backup. It's a good player to bring back. And if you think that there wouldn't be a live stream or emergency podcast for a backup, we did an emergency podcast once when they traded for Mason Cole. So do not question how important those backup linemen are, Paul, not here, not in this place.

Jacob says, I think we might have something with Jalen Naylor. You never know. Yeah. You never know is kind of the key point though, right? I think so too. I think he might be able to play. I was very impressed when he got in. The guy is super fast and he can catch the football, but we're talking about number two wide receiver. We're talking about who's going to be Chris Carter's Jake Reed. If you're going back to the early nineties, right? Who's going to be the second receiver that makes it impossible to cover both the AJ Brown, the Devante Smith, the Brandon Iuke, the Debo Samuel. And I think it's kind of a little theory aside from, I'm sure you guys would love more to think that Aaron Rogers just choked in the playoff games. And I'm not going to tell you you're all wrong or anything about that. But I always felt like in the playoffs

asking a team with really one wide receiver, like Devante Adams, to go all the way through the postseason with every game where that receiver has to dominate is very hard. And even think about sections of this Viking season, where there are four games in a row where Jefferson just annihilated everybody in every game. And against good teams, This is where wide receiver to wide receiver three become extremely important. So yeah, I mean, I'm going to, I'm going to stay on that and stay kind of all in on that opinion. But if you tell me, Hey, do you want to draft Elijah can't see to chase the passer? Like, yeah. Okay. I mean, this is the problem

with the roster is that you can make a pretty good argument for drafting quite a few different positions. Let's see from Jason with Harrison Smith back and seen projected to start can combine and move back to corner since our depth is so weak. He was a press corner at kale. I don't think so. Maybe nickel, but I don't think so. There is a skillset required to play corner in the NFL, a physical skillset. Cam Byam is one of the smartest players you'll ever run across. I think he'll be in the NFL for 10 years. He is just highly, highly intelligent. But there is a, you must be this tall to get into this ride, to play NFL corner. And he doesn't get into the ride. Uh, nickel is, you know, I saw Anderson day hole play nickel for a game in the playoffs in 2019. It's a little different. Uh, you can,

with your intelligence, manage your way around nickel, but I think that's why they got Byron Murphy is to play the nickel. Uh, but I think that Bynum is more of a safety and a special teams player and a good backup to have on your team. If Lewis scene wins that job, a good safety net, if Lewis scene does not. And if he does not, then we start talking about like, Oh, that's not a very good sign, but you know, that's going to be something that plays out during training camp where they stand with that. I just think with Cam Bynum that he's, he is kind of where he's supposed to be. Even on draft day, I remember Rick Spielman introducing him as a safety because I think that that's what he is.

From Digits, look how much younger and more efficient the team is now. Are they? A little. A little. They're a little younger. Byron Murphy helps. Marcus Davenport helps maybe assuming that we're good there and that it's all set but are they are they fundamentally massively different

from moving on from two players at this moment Thielen and Kendricks Jordan Hicks is still here Harrison Smith is still here there's those are two areas where you could have found out could have found out can Troy die play or somebody else that you draft this year found out if say Josh Metellus can be your starting Senate safety. So they're not doing that. They're not finding out at a lot of these positions. I don't know that they're way younger yet. If you move on from Zedaria Smith, you move on from Delvin Cook, you start to move more in that direction for sure. But as of this moment, if they do find ways to keep those guys, then it will feel very much like, Ooh, I don't know. You know, very, very much like,

are they really doing enough rebuilding? This is a point that you could make. Thomas says Randy Moss had off field issues that caused him to slip. I get that. But was Randy Moss's off field issue, a lack of commitment to football? No way. Randy Moss went to Marshall and did insane things. And Randy Moss went to the combine and put on one of the greatest performances ever in NFL combine history. That was Randy Moss' issue. The farthest thing from Randy Moss' issue was caring about football. That man cared about football. You know, I know there's the play when I want to play and there's a lot of other quotes from him.

And there's things that he did that you could say, yeah, he was being a diva. Yeah, he should have run blocked, whatever else. But no one questioned when he came out that he wanted it. And that's my issue with Jalen Carter. And when you point to Randy Moss, there's a lot of other players that I could point to that didn't work out because they had this issue. Isaiah Wilson was one of them recently.

Isaiah Wilson was an absolute beast and just didn't want to play. Didn't want to do the work to play and didn't seem to like football at all and was immediately out of the league. So, I mean, look, I get it. I get it. The guy is a monster, but I just do not see it is a good idea for them to draft him if he drops that far. Because if someone that talented drops that far, that means the whole

NFL thinks, oh man, this is a major, major problem. You know, if he's going that far because his talent is number one overall. So if he's dropping and dropping and dropping, then yeah, that means that everybody thinks this is not going to work out. And I guess it's hard to say how far he's going to drop. I wouldn't even be surprised if it goes past where the Vikings are at. Everyone loves the Duke in every live stream and every Friday mailbag and everything else.

People want to ask about Duke Shelley, and I understand that. He was good for them last year. I don't know. I don't know where that stands. The best that I got is Duke Shelley tweeted out some eyeball emojis the other day. The reality is that Duke Shelley is a third tier type of free agent. You have your first wave, your Javon Hargraves, your everybody's seeking after these guys. And then after that, you have kind of your second tier, which is where your Byron Murphys are or your Marcus Davenports.

These are interesting free agents who have talent and who are drafted high. And then your next tier are guys with small sample size, weren't high draft picks, might fill out a roster. They get picked up a little later in the process. So I think with Duke Shelley, that's really what you're looking at though. They did, you know, sign Austin Schloteman, but they can't sign Duke Shelley until they have all these other things resolved first. That one can wait because it's not like there's a hundred teams that are calling like, Hey, uh, where's Duke Shelley, you know, and so forth. And if you lose Duke Shelly, that's okay. It's okay. It's not like he is a, a great story for sure. And I love the way he played. He played super aggressively

made plays on the football and he's a unsung hero or whatever, not to you guys who know, but he's a hero of the 2022 NFL season. But if you're trying to project forward as him being a major part of this thing, it's a lot harder to say that in a larger sample size, Shelly would be someone that you want as a starter. So that means that if he comes back and he is a backup for you and he's depth and he plays special teams, oh, that's fantastic that's great because you know he can go in and play but it's not much more than that if someone else signs him it's okay what you're hoping for is for the vikings to have andrew booth jr and a caleb evans as you're starting outside corners and then on your inside is byron murphy and that those guys

all grow together and you can have them over multiple seasons. Because think about this. This has been a major, major problem for the Vikings is just continuity. For several years there, they had Trey Wayans, Xavier Rhodes, and Terrence Newman all playing together. And then after that, it was Mackenzie Alexander who they developed. That was a good group that knew the system, played together, had chemistry, played with the safeties for a while.

That's all good. And I think that in a way, like basketball, when you see a basketball team stay together over a number of years and they know where each other's going to be, they communicate well. I think secondaries could be a lot of the same way. So can they find three guys in this cornerback group to stay together over multiple seasons? And of course, injuries might end up getting in the way of that. But as far as Duke Shelley, I'm not saying that he's a guy that you want completely gone. But as a depth player, it's totally fine. If he wants more than depth money, then, you know, then you, you move on and you're okay with it. Who's the ideal wide receiver two between free agency and the draft. I don't think that there is any wide receiver twos

in free agency. I really don't. Maybe you could have made an argument that Jacoby Myers was. I like him as a player. He was kind of the only guy on New England who put up some good numbers, but he's already signed. All the rest, I know DJ Chark is a player that is worth taking a swing on, but it's all like take a swing on type guys. I don't think that there is any sort of free agent right now, unless I'm missing someone, let me know. But I can't think of anybody who's a free agent that you would say, absolutely, that guy's a wide receiver too on a great team. And maybe DJ Chark would have been a few years ago with Jacksonville, but he's had a lot of injuries over the last few years.

And he played about half the season with Detroit. That to me is a wide receiver four, that if he gives you anything more, and that goes for almost every free agent, it's a three or four. If he gives you anything more than that, great. I like Zay Flowers a lot. I also like Jordan Addison a lot. He's a little bit on the, I mean, there's a lot of small receivers here. The guy from TCU is a beast. He's probably going to go higher than where the Vikings are at, but there are, I think, multiple good options for the Vikings of good route running players that could pressure opposing defenses, or at least have the skill to if they end up working

out in the draft that project much more as wide receiver too. And no matter how much you like Jalen Naylor, he barely played. I mean, we're going to have to see more from Jalen Naylor to really know. And then if he turns into a great receiver, that's phenomenal. They have had a history of finding these guys late in the draft, but I just, I don't think you can rely on that and say, okay, it's Justin Jefferson and KJ Osborne and Jalen Naylor. There has to be another player there. And I don't think it's coming through free agency. Maybe they've got their eyes on someone in a different round,

but that's why it points to me to wide receiver in the first round as being pretty good potential. Would trading up for a quarterback be smart for us since it's Kirk's last year? We assume that it's Kirk's last year. I won't count that one out. It's kind of like Brady retiring or something. It's like we all think, but then we won't know until it actually happens. Yes. Trading up for a quarterback would be the best way that

they could set up their franchise for the future. And it would be smart. Whoever falls, any of the four top quarterbacks, I think that if you were to rate them like a one to 10 scale, how good of quarterback prospects they are. The difference is probably, let's say a 9.5 to a nine or something. Like all these guys are pretty close. They all have reasons to really like them. And just like every quarterback ever, they all have reasons to say, well, this could happen or that could happen. Right. But if they traded for a rookie quarterback

now, then he could sit behind Kirk cousins, which would be phenomenal for that player. And then take over next year in 2024, even though they wouldn't have as big of a benefit for moving on from cousins because of the dead cap you can still give the man justin jefferson and more and set him up with a pretty good offensive line with two very good tackles and be on your way to developing that person as your franchise quarterback in the ideal scenario and then have several seasons where you can under his rookie quarterback contract, load up the rest of the roster. So yes, the answer is 100% that that is a smart move if it can happen. The problem is the next question here from B Young, how far would a quarterback have to fall?

That is the hard question. Now, if we go to the past, we have seen the Bears trade up for Justin Fields. And I don't remember exactly, was that from like 21 to 12 or something, something like that from the twenties up to the early teens. If one of the guys gets into the early teens, I think that does become possible. And, you know, Dennis points out that they don't have a lot of draft picks. However, you can move a first, a next year's first. And of course you would say, well, look, you don't want to do that because they've got these other roster problems. And that's true.

But by the time you're ready to compete with that guy, you can make up for what you gave away in free agency. And I present you the Chicago bears who still have the most cap space in the league, despite spending all over the place so far. Um, so you can even that out, but if it took a next year's first, then I think you still have to do it because of how ideal the scenario is for that player to sit for a year behind Kirk Cousins. And, you know, it's brought up, you know, doubt any of the four quarterbacks are going to fall. No, they're probably not, but not into their lap at 23. But we all think that we know exactly where these guys are going to go. And what history constantly proves to us is that we don't. History constantly shows us that the NFL has different

ideas than mock drafters because we always take mock drafters word for it. This is not LeVar Burton, folks. You don't have to take their word for it. They get it wrong sometimes. They don't know sometimes where people are going to go. And so if there is a quarterback that drops, then that could be the guy that, um, that you go after. And I could definitely see that you draft them, you develop them for a year, a true development, not just sort of trial by fire, like happens to so many quarterbacks. And then you hand them the keys. It's an ideal scenario. Can they pull it off? Do they want to pull it off? That I don't know. From Joe, did we prematurely give the front office too much credit for finally doing the rebuild part of the competitive rebuild?

Kendricks and Thielen were obvious and they aren't moving on from other obvious players. So if they move on from Z'Darrius Smith and Dalvin Cook, that will mean, what, four major players that were very expensive and past their prime that they moved on from. And they've brought in younger players who have potential, but they're taking swings on. So in that case, I would say that is pretty rebuilding if they move on from that. That is pretty competitive rebuilding. If they come back and say, now actually we're keeping those two guys. And oh, by the way, our 2024 cap hit is going to be higher.

Then yes, then we have to take all that back. We do. We do. Because it really was pointing that way. And then it was like, well, wait a minute. Now are we actually going to go all the way in after Harrison Smith? But if Harrison Smith and Jordan Hicks are the only veterans they really end up with at the end of the day, then yeah, it's still very rebuilding. You got to have some veterans. You can't just throw all of your veterans away. You need some players to kind of set a standard and

help Brian Flores coach the defense with young players and things like that. A good point by sloth that, uh, everybody mock drafters were sure that Mac Jones was going number three. They were sure Malik Willis was going to go high. And it's just, it's just very clear that they don't really, really know. I think that a lot of times they can get a good idea and get a lot of them right of who's going in the first round, second round, whatever. But there are situations where they slip through the cracks and quarterback seems especially hard.

I mean, did anyone in mock drafts have Lamar Jackson as 32 years ago? There was debates over, is it Josh Rosen? Is it Josh Allen? Is it Baker Mayfield? Who's even going number one? Usually they don't know. So I don't want to pretend that I have a good idea just based on mock drafts. Thoughts on Hendon Hooker, older and coming off injury, probably wouldn't be a first round pick without the injury. I think that if you're talking about drafting someone in the fifth or sixth round, who's a quarterback, that's okay. I guess I'm not going to fight it, but if you're going to pick a quarterback, pick a quarterback, like go all in.

If you're picking someone who's 25 years old, the likelihood that that player improves really at all from that age is very low. One of the reasons you pick Anthony Richardson is because he started for one year and he's going to get much, much better in a best case scenario. You don't really think that someone is going to get much better once they're 25. He could become a good backup, maybe even a fringe starter. It's just hard to see him becoming like a franchise quarterback. So you're taking your shot at franchise quarterback. That's what you're really aiming for. And I agree with Alex. I mean, if you go through every one of these last drafts, there's always one quarterback that falls. It usually happens. And that's what they're

looking for now. This year, I would think that they're looking for if one quarterback falls, then they're going to have to really, really think about it because they have created an end date for Kirk Cousins. And it was brought to my attention that if you trade Cousins after June 1st, that you can spread it out. But the cap, the dead cap hit, but that's, that's a really hard one to see is trading him after June 1st, when everybody's roster is set and everything else, nothing is impossible. It's March madness, who knows, but I really have a tough time thinking that everyone's roster will be set. Everyone's quarterback situations will be set. And then suddenly in

the middle of the summer, they just trade them away. Unlikely. It did happen with Sam Bradford, but unlikely, I would say. And yeah, I mean, Brandon Whedon's name comes up here and look, Hendon Hooker could become a good player, but if he's drafted in the third round, what are the, really the chances you're kind of doing another Kellen Mond thing? Take somebody who's a freak. Take someone who's a monster. Will Levis has got a monster arm. Anthony Richardson is one of the best athletes to ever play the position. Bryce Young is a wizard. CJ Stroud is maybe the most accurate quarterback to come out since I don't know who years. That's what you're looking for. People who have cheat code talents that could be the next number of stars in the league. That's what you're looking for. Get in on that. Don't get in on that.

Well, you know, we'll take a third rounder and kind of see. From Jacob, would we still be okay trading future picks in this year's draft to get a quarterback? What could we give up that wouldn't hurt us too much for this window to make a serious run? In my mind, the next year's first does not destroy you. If you have to give up a next year's first does not destroy you. If you have to give up a next year's first and change to move up to 12 or something, 14 to take a quarterback, that is not, that's not going to hurt you that much in my mind, because one of the reasons why is because you already have

young superstars. So you're not saying, and I mean, Jefferson and Derrissaw and O'Neal, you're not saying, oh no, we don't have any talent on this roster. You already have those players that can be put around the quarterback, and then you can fill in the rest in free agency. So I'd be okay with giving up that next year. Hendon Hooker is a freak, would have been a top five pick if he didn't get hurt. Nope, that's, sorry, Jason, I don't get hurt. Nope. That's sorry, Jason. I don't think that's true. Uh, he's older than I am. He's look, if you're 25 years old, you're going to dominate college football. It's just a fact. And I, you know, I think, I think he can play, but I don't think that he is a guy that you look at as a top five pick because you have to

look at skill sets, not just statistical performance. As we know from college, you have to look at projectable skill sets. How does this guy match up with the biggest freaks in the universe? Does he have the arm? Does he have the size? Does he have the speed? And, uh, you know, I think that hooker can probably play in the NFL. I don't think that he matches up with those other guys, but maybe he would, he would have been taking probably higher, but at 25 years old, I think everyone learned their lesson with Brandon Whedon. So anyway, let's see. We'll answer one more question here. Are the Vikings going to pay Justin Jefferson this off season or next off season? I am sure they want to do it this off season. A hundred percent sure because Kweisi Adafo-Mensa told us. Can they do it is interesting because usually the benefit of signing

that contract early is if you can move some of the money into right now and spread it out. So you don't have huge cap hits later, but they really don't have any cap space to allow for that. So that is tricky. Does Justin Jefferson, does he want to sign the contract now? Does he want to figure out what they're doing at quarterback? And also, does he think that if he waits another year, he's going to be worth even more because there will be more pressure on the Vikings? There's a lot of moving parts, but if they had their choice,

they would do it right now, today, this moment, they would do it for Justin Jefferson. It really comes down to how he feels about it, which may be one of the reasons that they can't let everybody go because his feelings have to be considered in all of this as well. So anyway, well, this has been really, really fun again. Every day we've gotten some breaking news to work with and talk about and kick around. Harrison Smith is back. That means at very least, they're not clearing everybody completely off this roster,

but still a lot to be discovered. So tomorrow, guess what? I'll still be around. I'll still be waiting for answers just like you guys. I'm sure we'll get some resolution on Zedaria Smith, Marcus Davenport, go from there. And then we'll see on Delvin Cook. That one looks like it could take a little longer to play out. But, you know, who knows?

We just finished doing a show, which means it could happen five minutes from now. So thanks again, everybody. All you folks who join. I'm just so appreciative of all the great questions. And I've really enjoyed doing this more often and I want to continue to do so throughout the off season because you guys make it really fun, especially as NCAA games are going on and everything else to have this many of you guys watching and listening is awesome. So thanks so much for the time and we will catch you guys

again soon. Appreciate it.