Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Have the Vikings closed the gap on the Packers? ESPN Wisconsin's Jason Wilde joins to discuss

Episode Date: March 30, 2021

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You make one snarky comment on Twitter, and the next thing you know, you're on the podcast. So, hey, I'm moving up in the world. I told you that was the tradeoff. If you were going to make a joke Friday mailbag question, which I think I did answer in the Friday mailbag anyway, you have to come on the podcast to talk with me. And you and I both have to own what we talked about before the season about how the Packers were going to regress and they and they didn't so why don't why don't we start there with what we weren't right about because we were in complete agreement like you guys botched the draft

and they didn't add any receivers in free agency for Aaron Rodgers and then they go 13-3 again and Aaron Rodgers was better. So what did we miss when we were having that conversation? Because I don't think we were wrong about last year's draft, but I guess it just didn't have the impact that we thought it would. Yeah, they didn't get any help from their first-round pick, obviously. They got controversy out of that deal, but he certainly did not contribute uh meanwhile aaron rogers watched justin jefferson who was the guy that he wanted to see the packers draft do okay for himself it appeared like yeah you know he he wasn't bad as a rookie up there in minnesota um i'll tell you the number one reason

why we were wrong was that we didn't appreciate just how good aaron rogers was going to be and i did a story for the athletic it was one of the few Rodgers was going to be. And I did a story for The Athletic. It was one of the few that I was able to do amid the pandemic. And I talked with LeFleur and Nathaniel Hackett, the offensive coordinator, and Rodgers. And it was just, it was fascinating to hear how really COVID-19 forcing the offseason into the virtual realm was the best thing that could have happened to the Packers in their offense. Rodgers, LeFleur, Nathaniel Hackett, their quarterbacks coach, they all got together, just those four, and they broke down the offense. Here's what I like. Here's what I don't like. Here's what I'd like to bring in from a previous offense I was in. And they created this amalgamation of an offense that obviously was

fantastic. I mean, led the league in scoring. Rodgers wins the MVP. It still was Matt LaFleur's offense, but even Matt LaFleur would tell you it is our offense is how he described it. And Rodgers, he got the buy-in from Rodgers that, quite frankly, I think you and I and the rest of the planet wondered if he could get after the drafting of Jordan Love. So he was magnificent. They managed to do it without adding a lot of weaponry, obviously. I still think that – I don't care where they got. I still think they should have

drafted a wide receiver I will continue to believe that because maybe Chase Claypool doesn't drop the crucial two-point conversion in the NFC championship game which might have been the difference between a Super Bowl berth and not but the bottom line is Rodgers was magnificent and now they're not sure they want to you know have them around beyond this year so we'll have to see how that plays out well we'll definitely get into that but i was going to say that that's not the first time that i've heard players and maybe there's a little like biased here but talking about how the virtual meetings not only didn't hurt them but may have helped some guys and that was something kyle rudolph actually brought up on the Pat McAfee show about Justin Jefferson.

He felt like the guys having to just sit at their computers and sort of study and get ready rather than going out there and practicing on the field, that they had a better idea of it because they basically spent the whole summer just studying, being ready for it, instead of traveling around, going to workouts, whatever. Now maybe that's just because those guys don't want those workouts but you look at the rookie class and how well the rookie class performed a lot of players across the board shined in this class and I think that you know that was overstated last year and we didn't know we had no idea how much that was going to impact things

but it really seems like a lot of teams, players, rookies, young guys did just fine without all that OTA and minicamps though. Yeah, at least if they didn't play for the Packers, right? Because the Packers got next to no, they got the lowest contribution from their rookie class of any team in the league. And so, look, I do think that there was value into how they went about it. I also think, you know, it's the old KISS principle, keep it simple, stupid. I think that factored in as well. I mean, if you're not going to add more pieces, like the Packers obviously didn't do last year, you have to get really good at what it is you do do. And I think they did that, and then

some. So, you know, the other part of it, though, and not to besmirch what was a magnificent season for Rodgers, but I don't know if he puts up the same numbers in the opener in Minnesota if there's a full stadium at U.S. Bank and he can't get the Vikings to jump off sides in their own stadium. And I just, I do think that there was also this perfect storm of that type of environment. There is no quarterback that could take better advantage of it than Aaron Rogers. No, that's a great point. And he absolutely did.

And not only that, but rookies were playing in their first games and Cameron Dantzler got smoked a couple of times by Aaron Rodgers. So when we talk about our main subject, which is closing the gap if the Vikings have or not, that's another part of it. It's just U.S. Bank Stadium has not been friendly to Aaron Rodgers at all. And Mike Zimmer has been very good in U.S. Bank Stadium against Aaron Rodgers. And in that game, he has just a dominating performance, as you might expect. And this year, now the Vikings are bringing in Patrick Peterson. They're bringing back Mackenzie Alexander to reload their secondary.

And I think that that is the biggest area where they would be making gains, is just that if they have one corner not work out, if they have one corner dip in his performance or get hurt, then they at least have a parachute. Last year, they're playing a guy off the street in Chris Jones, who is just one of the worst corners I think I've ever seen play, gave up 131 quarterback rating into his coverage. So that's not going to happen again.

And right there alone, I think that at least evens the playing field for the game at U.S. Bank Stadium next year. Well and the other thing that the Packers did really well that made Aaron Rodgers more effective was they ran the ball really well this offense is predicated on and we've seen it during telecasts Matt Hasselbeck broke it down for Taush and I on our show on ESPN Wisconsin that the whole concept is as the quarterback is hitting his third step, you have no idea if it's a run or a pass. And their play-action game was magnificent. And it's such a stark contrast to their play-action game under Mike McCarthy, which players will tell you they had run fakes that did not match up with a single run that they actually

ran in their offense. And so defenses were able to say, well, that's, it does a pass. That was not the case last year. Now I do think the Viking pickup that the Packers are going to be jealous of and could impact them the most is Dalvin Tomlins because they wanted to trade for him at the deadline they were interested in him then and now not only did they not get him but now you're putting him in the middle of a defensive line that hey Aaron Jones is a known commodity now he's had back-to-back 1,000 yard seasons he's had 35 touchdowns, including playoffs the past two years. The Vikings are well aware of him. And A.J. Dillon may be a big bruising guy, but he does not have a ton of experience after his rookie year. I think that that's one of those areas where you start, you

put crowds back in the stadium, you have a defense that can stop the run effectively, and you make it harder. I'm not saying that Aaron Rodgers can't get the job done, but it's going to be a more difficult challenge against the Vikings for just those two reasons alone. Now, when Aaron Rodgers was having his most difficult matchups against the Vikings, though, they had Everson Griffin, who would battle against David Bakhtiari, and that was worth watching back on film alone, those two guys going at it, because those are the elite of the elite when they're battling in 2017, 2018, 2019. But now you have Daniil Hunter's situation is still very much up

in the air. I'm not willing to say at this moment, you have Daniil Hunter until he comes out on Instagram or something and says, I'm fine, I'm coming back. And if they don't have the OTAs out there, then we might not know for a long time. So I'm not guaranteeing that, but say he comes back, I still don't think that the Vikings are any good at really pressuring Aaron Rodgers, and even if they're better at coverage and even if they're better at stopping the run, this is where I don't know that the gap is closed a whole lot yet until they can show me that they have someone that's going to get after him, and maybe that comes in the draft.

Well, you know, I will always remember the Yannick Ngakwe era. It was such a musterous era. Team leader in sacks. You joke, but he was the team leader in sacks. That's like the year that Ha Ha Clinton Dix led the Packers in interceptions with, I believe, three, and he was traded at the trade deadline. That's not what you're looking for. I will say this.

They may not have added edge-rushing help, but I don't think David Bakhtiari is going to be ready for the opener. So you may have a pedestrian edge rusher who will have a better chance at productivity because he won't have to go if they play early in the season, which they seem to always do at least once. He won't have to go against David Bakhtiari. So, you know, I don't know what their plan is. They have not ruled out the possibility of him being ready for the opener, but he tore his ACL on New Year's Eve in practice. That is a timeline that you just sunk millions upon millions of dollars into him. I don't think you rush him back for the opener.

I think he starts the year on PUP and you play it safe with him. Okay, let me zoom back a little bit on this because we sort of started getting into the like Packer versus Viking matchup a bit. But just in general, in the big picture, are you feeling like this is more traditional Packers for you to be able to ice fish or do whatever you want during free agency? See, I was busy. Every time I recorded a podcast, they signed somebody right after.

The Patrick Peterson thing was big. The Delvin Tomlinson thing is big. And so we were really dialed into oh here here goes zimmer pedal to the metal rebuilding the defense and the packers are what remember that picture of belichick last offseason where free agency started and he was like sunning himself somewhere like that was the packers and tell me why explain that to me well there's a couple of reasons why and first of all i was not ice fishing i don't have an ice shanty like you do um look there's a couple of reasons why. And first of all, I was not ice fishing. I don't have an ice shanty like you do.

Look, the number one reason is they didn't have the cap room to be spenders, right? They started the offseason well into the red. They restructured virtually every contract they could except for one, which is curious. And we'll talk about that, I'm sure. They wanted Aaron Jones back. They got him back at what I think is a bargain. Basically, that contract is two years, $20 million. So they did not pay through the nose or even pay like the Vikings did for Dalvin Cook.

So, you know, they got him. They let Corey Lindsley depart. They let Jamal Williams depart. They have added no one other than a long snapper who has never played in a regular season NFL game, has never played in a preseason game. So it does feel a little Ted Thompson-ish. Goody, Brian Gutekunst, the GM, told us in early March or early February, he's only talked to us twice via Zoom this offseason,

but he basically said, look, if there's a player that's there, we can create the cap space. Now, they created a bunch of cap space to get under and enough to get the Jones contract done. But they didn't create any more, and they certainly did not make an effort on anybody of significance to bolster their lineup. This is very much like the Ted Thompson era when I knew that while my colleagues were going to be working very hard the first week of free agency,

all I really had to focus on was where are the Packers players that they're not re-signing going because there ain't anybody coming. There was the exception with Julius Peppers in 2014. was where are the Packers players that they're not re-signing going? Because there ain't anybody coming. There was the exception with Julius Peppers in 2014. There was the exception with Charles Woodson and Ryan Pickett in 2006. But mostly, it was all quiet on the Eastern Front, if you will. So, look, the big question is obviously with Rodgers and his contract. If they wanted to add to their team, they could have easily created roughly $14 million in cap space by adjusting his contract and taking his base salary, taking the $6.8 million roster bonus that was due on the third day of the league year, wrap them all up in a nice little package, make them a signing bonus,

and suddenly you've created a bunch of cap space. And while they did it for a bunch of other players, they didn't do it for the quarterback. And if you are a Packers fan who is also a subscriber to this, you're probably wondering, just as I am, why? You mean why you're a Packers fan who's listening to me or why they didn't restrict? I know, I know what you mean. Well, as a subscriber, I don't wonder, but they might. You know, it's like counterintelligence, right? You can learn all about one of your biggest rivals this way. And that's why I like having you on, because I think that there is a fascination at all points of the year with what

the Packers are doing, that Minnesotans are always looking to the east and saying, like, oh, they didn't sign anybody. Are we gaining ground on Rodgers? And the answer is, you know, a little. But with the future of Rodgers, though, I mean, this is something we talked about last year before the season started, and your feeling was that Rodgers went into the year taking the approach

of this might be it for me so I'm just kind of throwing caution to the wind and I'm going to go out there and play and see what happens well he's still on the team and Jordan Love was the number three quarterback so that um we may have been right about that drafting that particular quarterback I guess we'll see but what what is the deal here? I mean, do you feel like now this is going to be Aaron Rodgers last year, or are we just going to do this dance every year and it's going to be like Favre-ish in a different kind of way? Yeah, that's, you know, that is the strange thing about it is that he, Rodgers is literally the anti-Favre when it comes to this issue. Now, there are some similarities elsewhere,

and if Rodgers ends up playing for someone else, you can bet your bottom dollar, Annie, that he is going to want to stick it to these guys just as much as Brett Favre did. This is hard to explain without being too conjecturey but the problem is is that there's no logical explanation for them to not have converted the 6.8 million dollar roster bonus to a signing bonus that would have cleared four million dollars in cap space alone by making that one small transaction and the fact that it didn't happen, especially when our mutual friend Tom Pelissero pointed out that Rogers contract has automatic conversion language in it. So they could have just converted it, handed them a check.

You know, one of those big, like publishers, clearinghouse checks, 6.8 million. And it's a signing bonus now in the memo section. And we're going to spread out $4 million over the next two years for cap purposes. Boom, voila. Now you still have his base salary that you could also convert. So the fact that they didn't, the fact that they paid that bonus and did not adjust his contract, it is, and we've been talking about this on our shows repeatedly, but there's no real logical explanation other than Brian Gutekunst wants to keep his options open after 2021. That's the only logical inference to take. Now, is there the flip side of maybe Rodgers is like, look, I don't want to, I'm tired of this.

You drafted my replacement. I responded with an MVP season season I don't want to be here anymore so I'll give you this year and then I want you to let me go just the way Tom Brady was able to go I don't think they'll do that but if that's part of it then maybe that's why all I know is that when you draft the quarterback you know the microscope is going to be on you and every move you make will be scrutinized or every move that you don't make will be scrutinized and this is a move they didn't make and it only leads to one conclusion as of now that is hey if we keep him for this year speaking as gutekunst we came for this year he plays great but we don't win the title i want to start the new era if we trade him we get 21 million dollars in cap space off of our cap by moving on

from him if we push money into the future we get less and less by moving on from him the the problem is that i i do believe that what Rodgers really wanted, and that's why he made the comment after the NFC Championship game about all these guys with uncertain futures, myself included, was not because he was considering retirement. It was because he didn't know if the Packers would commit to him longer than 2021. And at this point, they have chosen not to do that. And the reason he's the anti-FARB is that they could have easily said, look, Tom Brady is getting paid $41 million this year, and he is counting $9 million against the cap,

which is some math that I don't entirely understand. But Aaron Rodgers is getting paid far less than that but is counting 37.5 million against the cap the most in the league I'm not an accountant but that doesn't sound like that makes a lot of sense it doesn't but I also think that it does make sense the way that they're playing it to kind of go year by year a little bit with Rodgers because they just have that ability to do so anytime a quarterback gets past like 35 you kind of have to do that because you never know when if it's not Brady uh you never know when the hammer's going to come down like with Breeze this year for example

all of a sudden Breeze just had no pop on the fastball anymore and he was not really that far above average of a quarterback and then was clearly done and he ends up retiring same thing happened with Peyton Manning where he was great and then he was awful and if you're a general manager you've got to be thinking a couple years down the road for if he hits that cliff this year, then you can always just move on because he's done. And you know that even if he goes off the cliff, somebody else will be interested in picking him up because there are so many teams in dire situations with quarterbacks. So you can always trade him away. I think it makes a lot of sense to handle it this way, even though I didn't like the draft pick of Jordan Love based on the player and his profile as a college player,

I still thought that that made sense because you always just have to be giving yourself a backup plan for when it's time to move on for Aaron Rodgers. I think the only thing is trying to balance going all in while you have Rodgers and worrying about the future because you can kind of like miss the present as you're thinking too much about the future. And when the future has a giant balloon payment that is going to create a much larger salary cap in 2023, you can push a bunch of Aaron Rodgers money into 2023. And if you don't want him to be your quarterback by then, no big deal, because the new TV contracts are going to make the salary cap explode. I mean, they doubled. It was a 100 percent increase in their television revenue. So I think the struggle for at least a portion of the fan base here is that and I don't want to besmirch Kirk Cousins.

I know he's an avid reader and listener. I don't want to besmirch Kirk Cousins. I know he's an avid reader and listener. I don't want to besmirch Mitch Trubisky or, you know, whatever happens. You can't besmirch Dalton. The only people who can't besmirch Dalton are Vikings fans because they lost to him last year. We can't. We do have that right. But when I look at, you know, they signed Dalton to a one-year deal. There was also part of it, and I am not a conspiracy theorist type, but that struck me as we want to keep our options open in case Russell Wilson

or, heaven forbid, Aaron Rodgers becomes available after the 2021 season. Now, the reason it doesn't make sense is that Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy may not be employed by that time that happens. But look, I do think that there is a, at least on this side of the border, a failure to appreciate how bad it can be. And even Kirk Cousins, who I don't think is a bad quarterback, isn't good enough, right? And Mitch Trubisky definitely wasn't good enough. And for all of Matthew Stafford's efforts for so long, he wasn't good enough, institutional problems notwithstanding. Jared Goff wasn't good enough. Now he's been traded. And as I look around the league, I see teams that have drafted their Jordan Loves,

and they stunk, right? I mean, you know, there's no guarantee that Jordan Loves – in fact, the odds are infinitesimal that you would be able to go Favre, Rogers, and then another, not even Hall of Fame quarterback, just a great one. I will be, and again, I have nothing against the kid. I don't have loyalty to Rodgers on this. I just think the law of averages tells you that he's more likely to be the guy that got picked after Aaron Rodgers by Washington in 2005 than he is to be Aaron Rodgers, who started as the number one overall pick and tumbled all the way down the

draft board. You know, I just, I don't think the likelihood is there. And you invested in him while you still had Rodgers, believing the best, the worst time to look for a quarterback is when you need one. Okay. But it looks like there's been a few teams that have managed to go get quarterbacks when they needed them in short order so maybe that's not an adage that still holds true hey everyone i want to tell you about our

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that there are different rules. I mean, it's almost like what Tampa Bay did this year. It was the ultimate all-in. So you pick up Antonio Brown, and there's a decent chance Antonio Brown just implodes. Now, he didn't, but it was 50-50 that he was just going to end up causing some other problem. But they said, who cares? 50-50 chance that Rob Gronkowski's back falls apart. Who cares?

We've just got to make these moves to build up everything we can around Tom Brady, because this is really his one shot to win the Super Bowl, and it ends up working out. And that was my argument against Jordan Love last year was, you know, if you do draft Justin Jefferson and he works out, or whoever, even somebody who wasn't as good, if it's Henry Ruggs, he probably makes him good. Well, whoever you're getting whatever wide receiver instead you're thinking too much for the future and you're missing the fact that you don't get these shots over and over and over as you're saying like if Jordan Love is not good which the bottom of the first round is a graveyard of

quarterbacks like welcome to where Brandon Whedon was picked right just like this is not a great place to be selecting a quarterback after the whole league picked over the guy and said, no, we're not going to do it. And then you're the ones who do. That's not often a great place to be unless it's an exception with like Lamar Jackson, where there was just bad process from every team on that one. But I want to know from you, these last few years, the whole story has been Rodgers versus his own team in some way or another, whether it's his own coach or now it's his own organization trying to look past him.

And they've still won because of it. I mean, the last two regular seasons, you're 26-6. The Vikings have three of those years in the last 30. So that's not too bad of a place to be in two of the last three years. I just wonder five years from now, how these last five years for Aaron Rodgers will sort of feel to Packers fans, you think? Yeah, look, he was not great in 18. And you could say it was because he and McCarthy had really like boys to men reached the end of the road and then he was not great in 19 either and you can say well that's because it was a new offense for the first time since his rookie year of 2005 he had Mike Sherman as the

head coach McCarthy came in in 06 so he had never had a different system as a starter. But everything clicks. He stays healthy. He plays the way he does with, I'm sorry, but still inferior pass-catching talent. I mean, I am a huge Robert Tunyon guy, but I have to acknowledge that with another quarterback in the division, maybe he's not that good. Now, maybe he's George Kittle and he is that good, but I have to at least acknowledge the possibility that he's not. MVS, fantastic downfield threat. I'm old enough to remember a guy the Packers had early in my career named Corey Bradford,

who did the same thing. He was great running down the field and on deep shots. But in the intermediate area, he was inconsistent. And that's what MVUS was. He was great on the downfield shots. He was fantastic. But the idea that they were as close as they were and that they were willing to trade up to 26 to take Jordan Love

and give up a fourth-round pick, which they have mined the fourth round for some really good players, including their franchise left tackle, that if you're willing to do that, were you willing to go up higher and get the guy that I know Courtney made the bold prediction on ESPN.com that he would have a Moss-like season and I bookmarked it and she should take the mother of all victory laps because she nailed it but if you were willing to go up for love were you willing to go up higher for someone who would have been able to do what he did but do it in your offense we'll never know the answer to that.

And here's the one thing that I have noticed about all GMs, even the ones that I consider friends and have a ton of respect for, they're all, to varying degrees, stubborn. They all believe that they are right, that their assessment of a player is right on the money. And Goody may be right about Jordan Love. He may be the next Patrick Mahomes I don't think that that's the likely scenario so now you're left with did we do everything we could

while we had one of the greatest of all time at quarterback to maximize that window and that's you know however frustrated Vikings fans are with the disappointments the Vikings have delivered during their lifetimes whether they're 20 years old or 40 years old or 60 years old or 80 years old there are frustrations the Packers fans have too and their expectations are different and they look at it as 30 years with two of the greatest quarterbacks ever, and we have two Super Bowl titles and three Super Bowl berths. And that may not be as disappointing as having the, you know, empty trophy case that Packers fans love to sing Vikings fans for. But, you know, our mutual friend, Judge Zolgad, I mentioned something on Twitter a while back about the heartbreak that Wisconsin fans have experienced in a variety of sports, including the Packers.

And he's like, whoa, Jim, no, no, no, no, no. We got you beat there. Oh, there's no question. There is no question that Minnesota sports is dominating Wisconsin when it comes to heartbreak and ineptitude. Even the Milwaukee Bucks are way better and way more competent than the Minnesota Timberwolves, who I think might have the lowest winning percentage of all sports that have ever, teams that have ever existed.

So that's tough. But yeah, I mean, so right, no one's crying any tears for Aaron Rodgers and his one Super Bowl or and Brett Favre and his one Super Bowl because there are people who would throw themselves off tall buildings to get that one Super Bowl or and Brett Favre and his one Super Bowl because there are people who would throw themselves off tall buildings to get that one Super Bowl for the Vikings at the same time I guess that gets to the root of what I was asking is like is it going to be looked back at five years from now let's assume Jordan Love's not Aaron Rodgers I'm pretty safe in saying that but what in five years when Rodgers is gone and wherever maybe he's gone to the Bears maybe

he's retired we don't know he's a different kind of dude but he's gone you look back and you go man 13 and 32 years in a row and you couldn't get there and hey when you were at the goal line you kicked the field goal there if you had another wide receiver who was even in the ballpark of Devante Adams like would he've gotten open at the goal line? Like all those things. It just feels like there's varying degrees of regrets. And I was like thinking about regrets, like varying degrees of regrets. There's like the Yannick Ngakwe regret where you're like, well,

we blew that one because that guy wasn't fit at all and whoops. And then there's like a deeper sort of regret that's we really should have gone to another Super Bowl or won a Super Bowl, but instead we decided we needed this, that, or the other thing, or we couldn't get along with Aaron or whatever. Like whatever it would have been is I feel like on the day-to-day, these people who are around each other so often and these GMs who have their big plans and everything, it's very easy to miss the forest through the trees. Like, you have one of the greatest quarterbacks ever. Don't forget it. Yeah, that's a great reminder. And I agree with you to actually answer your question, which you've now asked twice because I didn't answer it the first time. I think a lot of it, frankly, will depend on

how good Aaron Rodgers is for someone else. I really do. And yes, how good is Jordan Love? And how do they take a rookie contract quarterback and spend the money elsewhere. I do believe that there was a belief with, you know, Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan and Matt LaFleur that this offense was dummy proof. That you could put Jared Goff, you could put Jimmy G, you could put a declining, theoretically, Aaron Rodgers. Didn't matter. This offense is that good. And frankly, Rodgers has acknowledged that this offense has made him better and made his job easier, which is what he wanted when he grew tired of Mike McCarthy. Here's the problem there. We're seeing what the Rams have done.

We're seeing the bold stroke that the 49ers have done. Now, they're obviously going to draft the quarterback, who is probably going to struggle to some degree as he goes through growing pains, whatever he gets on the field. But that is a tacit acknowledgement that it can't just be anybody. It's got to be someone special that will really turn this offense into the transform. I think they watched Rodgers run a version of their offense, and those two guys were like, holy crap.

This is a different level when you have a gold jacket guy running it. So I think how Packers fans and how Brian Gutekunst and how Matt LaFleur will view these next five years is contingent on what Jordan Love does and what Aaron Rodgers does for someone else whenever that happens because I look back on the 2009 NFC championship game this is not Detroit man this is the Super Bowl and if Brett Favre wins that game and then they go and win the Super Bowl, how is Ted Thompson viewed? How is Mike McCarthy viewed? How is Aaron Rodgers viewed? And frankly, you combine Favre's failure

with then Rodgers' triumph the following year and everything is hunky-dory in cheeseland take those two pieces and flip them and have farve win the super bowl in 09 and have rogers throw a game-breaking heartbreaking interception at the end of the 2010 nfc championship game and then let's talk about how people are viewed around here because then if everything else stays the same you know you've got the 14 meltdown in seattle you've got a 16 team that rogers willed to the nfc championship game that had no business being there you've got a 19 team that their defense couldn't stop raheem mostert to save their lives and they look like they didn't want to be there you've got a 20 team that got everything they wanted, and then Rodgers didn't get the job done, their defense didn't get the job done at the end of the half, and just enough things

went wrong for them to go home with another heartbreak. And so I think the answer to that question, as much as I'd love to get my crystal ball out, is if Rodgers plays well, they move on from him, and then goes somewhere else and plays really well, maybe even wins a Super Bowl, and Jordan Love is just a guy, history will not be kind. And it's important for Packers fans of a certain age to know, because I lived through it as a kid, the 70s and 80s were not fun and we have you know we have an ongoing debate on our show would you take nine losing seasons if I guaranteed you a Super Bowl title every 10 years and a lot of people like of course why wouldn't I man the adulation the excitement of

winning a Super Bowl you still have to live through those nine years in between you get hit by a bus in year three and you didn't get the Super Bowl before this started and you don't get the next one like that there is that aspect that you just don't understand how much it sucks to be a fan of a team that sucks. Well, so I grew up in Buffalo and moved here, so my teams that I have covered or grown up with are 0 for 8 in Super Bowls. I would hand you, if I were a Bills or a Vikings fan give me 19 bad seasons for one Super Bowl because that I mean look at Tampa Bay like does anybody in Tampa Bay today care how bad they were for the since the last time they went to the Super Bowl not a single person cares today nope they they would easily go through all of that over and over again and I know and trust me I was covering a team to start my

career that missed the playoffs for 20 straight seasons. It is a nightmare. But what's even, I think, much worse is the nightmare that Vikings fans live of their team 65% of the time since 1990 going 8-8, 9-7, 10-6, or 11-5, and mostly winning a first rounder, being kicked out in the first round. Like for Vikings fans, they have to treat their trips to the NFC Championship as their titles. And so they would a million times, I think, give you that. So I think it's a fun debate for sure. But I think when you're on the side of it with no titles and you've never had that, you're like, whatever it takes. I also think the same way for rebuilding and what your aim should be as a

franchise. And this is where I would criticize the Packers for last offseason and for this offseason. What is your goal? Is your goal to set yourself up for the future? Is it to win the division? Is it to do everything you absolutely can to win the Super Bowl? And clearly they're just not doing that this offseason so far. Now we'll see what happens in the draft, but you never know, like you said, how much a draft class is going to impact your following season. You can't just bet on that and have – like the Vikings draft is a great example. Their first first-round pick is amazing. Their second first-round pick was one of the worst rookie corners statistically.

It's like who knows, right? Both taken in the same round and one contributes right away. The other one does not. So that's, that would be my criticism. If I was doing your job at ESPN, Wisconsin on a daily basis would be like, look, you only get so many chances at this. And every day that you have Aaron Rogers is another chance at this. And I look at the Packers going into this year as they'll be good. I mean, two wins against Detroit, probably two wins against Chicago, probably split with the Vikings. That's kind of how it plays out. And you're competing for a Super Bowl again, potentially.

You're going to win a lot of games. But can you get over that hump? I mean, PFF did a study on this about teams with only one wide receiver and sometimes even only two wide receivers. It's like in the playoffs, the other team spends their whole week building up to how we're going to slow down that one guy. And so Devontae Adams, as great as he is, he might be the best receiver in the game, but a single wide receiver can't just take over playoff games and drag you into a Super Bowl.

It's like, do you guys not see that? I mean, because I saw him get like 67 yards or whatever it was in that playoff game. And yet you're still not adding wide receivers in a situation where there's wide receivers available. I mean, Will Fuller for 10 million bucks goes to who? Miami? I mean, would he not want to play with Rodgers? I don't know.

To me, it's just bizarre because if I'm them, I look at Tampa Bay and go, man, they added everybody with two legs that was fast. They drafted a guy who had big numbers in college in Tyler Johnson, and they're bringing in all these other guys. They bring in Leonard Fournette just to see if another guy. They were taking shots all over the place. A couple of them click and they win the super bowl and and this year it could all go the opposite on all of those

guys and oh yeah for sure but but you but you tried the shots were worth it right and and you know the what's the old basketball saying about uh miss 100% of the shots you don't take? I mean, there's a clear distinction between head coach and general manager, right? That's why never the twain should meet, in my opinion, because those are jobs that have, to some degree, not exactly aligned goals. The head coach needs to win now or ain't going to be the head coach. The GM usually has some room to play with. And that's one interesting thing about this whole saga is that, you know, first of all,

I think the coaching staff would want Aaron Rodgers to be the quarterback till kingdom come. Like we'll ride him until he stinks. I don't care because we're going to go 10 and six, 11 and five. We're going to make the playoffs. You don't fire me for that. You know,

I mean, Marty Schottenheimer may have gotten fired for that, but they ain't firing Matt Lafleur for that. The GM isn't losing his job when you're winning that often. But if you move on from a Hall of Fame quarterback after this season, and then your handpicked successor is not very good, and he goes and plays well elsewhere, that's what gets you fired. And I'm not saying that that's going to be the case.

None of us knows. Just like none of us knew for sure that Aaron Rodgers would turn out to be Aaron Rodgers. And it wasn't until his third year in the league that he had that game in Dallas that told everybody, okay, this guy can play. And you talk to the coaches that were on that staff, and they'll say, we saw it way earlier than that. That's just when you got to see it. Well, Aaron Rodgers was terrible when he played in 2005, and he wasn't much better when he played in 2006.

He played in one game where Favre hurt his elbow against the Patriots in the first half. Rodgers comes in, plays the entire second half on a broken foot, and they get shut out. He did not have this. He didn't go into that going, God, can't wait for this guy to be the starter. But by 07, it's one of my favorite stories, and I don't think Tom Pelissero was supposed to tell this. But by 07, it's halftime of the NFC Championship game. And Brett Favre is again in, it's so cold, I don't want to be here, and he's playing like garbage.

And Mike McCarthy says, in the locker room, if I had any balls at all, I would go to Rodgers in the second half. Now, that is one of my all-time favorite stories that does not get told enough, in part because I don't think McCarthy wanted Tom Pelissero to tell that story. But he did. And because he did, we all like to tell it now because it's true. And so when I look at that, how good do you feel about Jordan Love, say, even this year? Because you've moved on from Tim Boyle, your backup, who, again, he didn't play any meaningful snaps during his time here either.

But you move on from him. Now Jordan Love is going to either get – he's going to get experience. He's going to get a preseason. He's going to get a bunch of snaps in practice, opportunity to improve. He's also going to have the opportunity to do what Rogers did his first years, which does not look very good in games. And that's only going to intensify the concern if you move on from Rogers after this year.

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You will love it. Plus, keep your eyes and ears out for our giveaways going on on this show as well on social media. Follow them at SodaStickCo on Twitter and at SodaStick.com for your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. Code Purple Insider for free shipping. What's the statute of limitations on stories you're not supposed to tell, but then you tell later? Like five years? That's a great question. Because Palisaro told that story sooner than I think the statute of limitations should have allowed for.

Okay. Well, we've all done it. You get a great, you know, get a great tale. And sometimes it just comes out in conversation. There's another story after that game that I'm not allowed to tell that someday the person most involved will hopefully sign off so I can share it. But I think Favre will have to be like dead for me. Oh,

the stories that people aren't allowed to tell involving Favre would be one. Not those kinds of stories. Okay. All right. Not those kinds of football story. I'm just saying that I couldn't avoid that joke. So, um,

let me ask you this before we wrap up. It's been super fun. How good do you think they are? Because last year we made our mistake. We thought 13-3, they won't do that again. They're going to be like 9-7. And I think that our logic was right, but the results said otherwise.

However, they did allow holding last year from everyone. There were no road games. So like there were a lot of things that were sort of friendly to quarterbacks. Records got set. Everybody had over 100 quarterback rating. I mean, when a guy has like 105 quarterback rating and only ranks like seventh in the league, you know it's been a pretty crazy and weird year. So I think that maybe we were just a year early,

and yet the Packers still should be the favorite to win the division, even if the Vikings have made progress with their defense. The gap, in my opinion, is closed a little bit, but we can't sit here and say, oh yeah, the Vikings have overtaken them this offseason, as long as our main subject of this conversation is playing quarterback. Yeah, and look, the reality is that gaps can close suddenly, and I'm not talking about in Southdale Mall. The reality is that the conversation last offseason was, have the Packers done enough to close the gap with the San Francisco 49ers? And then they had a ridiculous number of injuries,

and suddenly it wasn't the issue now. Suddenly it was not keeping up with the 49ers. So, look, the Packers had relative good health for most of the season. They had even better health the previous year. So, again, regression to the mean makes you a little nervous that the David Bakhtiari injury is kind of a harbinger of things to come. The mistake we made was we bet against Aaron Rodgers. And he was otherworldly.

I mean, his passer rating was one point below the NFL record that he set in 2011, threw more touchdown passes. He looked like he had fun. And when we talk about him treating last season like it could be his last, he just drank in every moment that he could. And I'm sure he'll try to do that again if he's still the quarterback this year so if as long as he's a quarterback yeah they're a 10 and 6 11 and 5 team I was skeptical about how much they improved after the draft that was when we had our conversation was after they had not done anything to help themselves and not done anything at free agency other than Christian Kirksey and Ricky Wagner, who were stopgap guys, who were cheaper alternatives to guys that signed elsewhere in Bulaga and Blake Martinez. So yeah, you know,

the challenge here, though, is you look at their schedule, and with the 17th game being against the Chiefs, they've got Baltimore, they've got San Francisco, they've got the Rams. I believe they've got the Saints. Now, again, who knows what the Saints will be, right? But they've got some really good teams. It has the makings of a challenging schedule, and it has the makings of if there's full stands, which, again, we don't know. If you haven't gotten your vaccine, you probably won't be able to go in the stadium. But if you're playing in full stadiums and U.S. Bank is as loud as it normally is and your fans are traveling to try and take over stadiums and having a lot harder time

because everyone's excited to be back in the stadium and they're not selling their tickets, I think the Packers will have a more challenging season. So do I think they'll go 13-3 again? No. Check back with me after the draft and see if they actually did things that can help Rodgers in the short term and this team in the short term. I reserve the right to change my mind, but my gut tells me that a third straight 13 and three season is just as unlikely as Jordan Love being uh Michael Jordan well it's definitely not going to happen if there's 17 games I can confirm that um yes good point it's gonna take a long time to get used to referring to teams differently because I know what they mean like if you go 10 and 7 do you have a good year i don't know i honestly don't know like is that good 9 and 7 we'd go like yeah you were pretty

mediocre but you have 10 but you still lost 7 i'm not really sure i'm gonna have to consult uh like years years of football forward then i'll decide like five years from now i'll know if 10 and 7 is good and and what constitutes a great individual season right where does the benchmark have to be for rushing and passing and everything else i will say this we did a poll on our show and we asked if you were excited to have 17 games uh and it was either yay more football yes or no 16 was plenty and i was stunned that it was that i mean we were over like 4 000 votes so it was statistically significant and it was like 70 percent no 16 was fine so the players don't want this most of the fans don't want this but the owners want this oh yeah the tv networks

want it and that's why it happened hey but it's going to benefit thousands of packers owners am i right yeah their their dividend checks will be huge that's right that's right um yeah i don't know i you know what i feel like is that for reporters, a 16-game season in playoffs is really exhausting. But I feel like fans get worn down by the season too. I feel like this is one of the issues why spring football never works. The talent is, of course, part of it. But also, you're just like, I need a break. I need a break.

Let me know when it's free agency time. I need to step away from football because there's fantasy football lineups and there's a lot of like just emotion each week putting so much into your team and living and dying with every play. Like you can't do this much longer. Well, if Mark Cuban, I don't I have never believed that Mark Cuban would be proven right on that whole quote where he said, pigs get fat and end up slaughtered. I still think the NFL is as durable a good as anything we have in sports. But I'm not sure that 17 games is that big of a boon if you're a sports fan. But again, I'm just covering the games. I'm not rooting for anything. So I'm not here to tell fans how to feel about really anything other than maybe the idea of moving on from a Hall of Fame quarterback prematurely. That should scare the crap out of you. Yes, yes.

And I also know myself that when we get to the week 18 or whatever, I'll be like, football, let's go. Week 18, like, I don't know. That's just how it's probably going to actually be. It's the same thing when they let another playoff team in. I was like, I don't know. That's just how it's probably going to actually be. It's the same thing when they let another playoff team in. I was like, I don't know about the competition here. And then, like, it gets to, like, nine hours of football? You know, whatever. So that's how it goes.

Jason Wildey, always fun to get together. We'll hope that our predictions turn out to be better than they did last year when we were talking before the season. And we will do it again. We won't wait this long in between to check in with the Packers. I fear of scaring off the audience by people who say i don't know would you take the championships i'm not sure um yeah i i'm sure the vikings fans uh answer differently but it is always great i'm sorry i'm not as good as your other podcast guests but i appreciate you still

guilt tripping me into coming on anytime I mentioned you on Twitter. Well, you can at least top Judd Zolgad. So that's all that's important. That's a really high bar. He's as good as it gets. And I'll tell you this, my boss, Brad Lane, really thinks the world of you, which again, I don't see it personally, but he seems to be a pretty good judge of talent.

Yeah. Well, I really loved working for him and we got along really well and still stay in touch. So tell him I said hello, or I'll just text him anyway. And mention that you were awful on my podcast. So, and you said I – Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. And you said I ice fish. You can't get me to ice fish.

In your shanty, which has a really nice door. Three-season porch is what this is. It's beautiful, and I hope that it's well insulated because as a fellow Midwesterner, we still have cold nights in May and June. All right. Thanks, Jason. We'll get together soon, man. I look forward to it, buddy.

Thanks.