Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How do this year's results impact the Vikings front office's approach?

Episode Date: January 7, 2023

Matthew Coller answers Minnesota Vikings fan questions, from whether the Vikings will rebuild following this year to whether the No. 3 seed is actually better to whether they can cover up the issue at right tackle in the playoffs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Liquid Death, delicious water that's bringing death to plastic. Learn more at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and this is a fans-only podcast leading you up to Vikings and Bears. Unless you'd like me to go through every matchup, maybe position by position. We could look at the Harrison Hand versus Justin Jefferson. No? Nobody? Okay, that sounds like a good idea. But it is worth mentioning, at least from the injury report today,

that Z'Darrius Smith was not at practice, but it was for a personal issue and not for an injury. Of course, when he was not on the field at practice, we're looking around at each other like, what's going on? But it is a personal matter, not injury related. Cam Dantzler apparently tweaked his ankle again, the same ankle that's been giving him problems all year long. And he was limited in practice. He is questionable for this game. And it's really Duke Shelley's job.

And Kevin O'Connell even mentioned that Duke Shelley broke the team down after practice. So, you know, gave them a little speech at the end of practice so Duke Shelley clearly the guy at cornerback now but if you were hoping for cornerback depth in case of an injury well Cam Dantzler is still banged up and so he's questionable Brian Asamoah also questionable he was limited in practice all week he got injured toward the middle end of the game in Green Bay. And so now we're talking about not a whole lot of depth at the linebacker position if Brian Asamoah can't go. And they probably should be cautious with him because he's been a nice rotational player for them. And it feels like when they get to the playoffs, they should still use him because I think he's given them a little more energy than, say, Eric Hendricks and Jordan Hicks. But, you know, behind them, you don't have a whole lot. Troy Dye, we haven't seen much this year. William Cuencu, I think that the two guys that are behind Brian Asamoah on the depth chart.

So we'll see if they decide to mix him in. And James Lynch and Garrett Bradbury are out. With Bradbury, this one's becoming pretty concerning because Kevin O'Connell said that he wanted to see him get into some practices, at least on a limited basis this week. And Bradbury was a DNP all week long and is out for this game. So his status for next week, we will see. But he has not practiced now in several weeks with that back injury. So that's a pretty big concern.

And yeah, on the other side, if you guys were worried about not seeing Sterling Weatherford, you won't be seeing him. Sorry, all the Sterling Weatherford fans. He's going to be out for this game. And I apologize. I know it's going to be tough to watch with him out. Nathan Peterman, Kirk Cousins. But you know, Kevin O'Connell changed his tune a little bit today after practice about the whole thing about playing starters. And he kind of said,

instead of this time, like, oh, you know, the first time he talked about it, it was more of, well, yeah, we're going to play those guys and we'll try to be smart about it and so forth but this time he gave a little hint of maybe if they get ahead then they're going to be pulling some guys out of the game i still think it's taking a little bit of an unnecessary risk in particular because i think that they could still crush the bears with nick mullins who is a way better nfl quarterback than nathan peterman and probably with a lot of their backups that they should be able to beat this bears team if they really want to and i also don't think san francisco is going to lose in arizona but you know if you're

maybe if you're kevin o'connell you think if you sat the starters and lost and then arizona somehow beat San Francisco, you would not forgive yourself. Maybe that's the reason that he feels like he has to do it. He talked about getting a bad taste out of his mouth. I don't know. But it seemed like his tone changed with the idea of how much they were going to play the starters. So that'll be a main storyline from Chicago.

So let's get into your fans-only question. This one comes from Chicago. So let's get into your fans only question. This one comes from Alex. After the last couple of weeks, feeling like this team has fallen off a bit from the week's proceeding. If they lose in the first round without the team looking more consistent in their play, do Kwesi and Kevin O'Connell read the writing on the wall and decide to rebuild from the ground up instead of tinkering with aging infrastructure. Yeah, this is something that Will Raggetts and I talked about a bit on the show the other day, is what they're going to do after winning this many games. There's also a part of me too that is like, a lot of questions this week about the future and about rebuilding.

It's like, man, you guys are on the cusp of winning a 13th game here. If you just take care of Chicago and that happens once a decade, uh, your assessment of how they've played recently is not wrong though. And I have a crazy stat for you in just a minute, but you know, in some ways it's kind of like, all right, buck up soldiers. Like you're about to play playoff game with a 13 win football team. And And so there's, you know, it should be pretty exciting. But I feel like the Packers' loss took very much, as Mike Malarkey once said, sails out of the wind for Vikings fans. And a lot of thoughts have turned to what if they lose in the first round and then what? And, of course, you know, as soon as it ends right away,

as soon as it's over, we'll turn our attention to that. I haven't looked in depth at the salary cap situation. I haven't looked in depth at the draft, at their draft capital, at their options, all those things because it's been one of those years where it's every single week the game is a big deal. So we'll get into all that eventually at some point. But I did want to add, like, don't forget, though, even though there was a bad loss there. And Patrick Royce would probably tell you about 1987 where he wrote a column.

He told me about this once, that he wrote a column after they lost the game at the end of the season about how this Vikings team is going nowhere. And then they went to the NFC Championship game and they were a play or two away from going to the 87 Super Bowl. So, you know, I don't know that the way that a team ends a season is always indicative of what's going to happen in the playoffs, if that makes you feel a little bit better. But let me give you the mind-blowing stat, and then I'll answer the question. The mind-blowing stat is the Minnesota

Vikings for point differential since the win in Buffalo are minus 51. And I had to double check this to make sure that this was even right. Minus 51. And there's only four teams that have a worse point differential since week 10. And that is Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, and Chicago. How crazy is that? Since week 10. And those teams have a combined three wins. And the Vikings in that span are five and three. I have never seen anything quite like this.

I mean, almost every team at the bottom of the point differential since week 10 has a losing record as you would expect, except the Vikings, because the losses have been so miserable, but they're playing a team in the first round that certainly gives them a chance to win. And then you see what happens. And I got a question the other day about San Francisco. Like, is it really a foregone conclusion that they would lose to San Francisco in the second round? And my answer is far from that. Far from that. We don't even know if they're going to play San Francisco in the second round

because upsets are always, always possible in the first weekend of the playoffs. We never see them coming. We're always shocked by them. And that's just the NFL. And that's why we watch. And so I think when we talk about bad matchups for the Vikings, it's always out of 10 games, you might give the other team six. That's how it always works in the playoffs in terms of matchups go. So if they played the Lions, you'd probably go 50-50. You'd probably give the Packers maybe six out of 10, but I'm not

even sure I want to give them that much credit. I mean, most of these things are coin flips. And even with San Francisco, if they play the Packers in Santa Clara, would you be shocked if Brock Purdy, the moment's a little too big for him and Aaron Rodgers rises up and, you know, whatever, like from there, I mean, who knows what's going to happen? So, um, I think the, the fatalistic Vikings fan attitude is always to assume that the season is over after a bad loss. And I mean, gosh, if you're on social media for the first quarter of any game, you'd think that the season has been over about 15 times this year. So, you know, like here let's play off time. Okay. Playoff time. It hasn't

happened in a while. Like, uh, prepare yourself. So, all right, now let me, uh, answer your question. I don't see it. I don't see any chance that they decide to rebuild, even if they lose badly in the first round, if Daniel Jones puts up 400 and they lose 35 to 21 in the first round of the playoffs, I still cannot see. And looking at historical examples, I can't find one. I peeked around at other teams that had won 12 or 13 games, even if they did so in uninspiring fashion. And I couldn't find anybody who the next year decided to tear it down.

And if you have an example, I mean, feel free to tweet it at me or email it to me. But I can't think of seeing that happen. I mean, the 98 Bulls last dance thing, just not very often. I mean, even like Sean Payton hung around for one more year in New Orleans. And that's the only difference with the examples is if you have an all-time great quarterback retire after that but even then you won't find teams that won 12-13 games that started tearing all the pieces apart the 2020 Pittsburgh Steelers are one of the most comparable teams to this year's Vikings where a lot of people throughout the season didn't believe in them and in fact Ben Roethlisberger's

numbers from 2020 look a lot like Kirk Cousins numbers from this year. If you go back and look and you know, they brought Roethlisberger back for 2021. They didn't say we're moving on and drafting a quarterback and all that stuff. Um, no, they, they continue to play that out and they made moves to try to win now. And I think that the Vikings will as well. I just think it's going to be a lot of the same. It will be a lot of restructuring contracts, deciding maybe this guy or that guy is going to be out at a certain age. I mean, that could be the running back position, which they drafted one last year in Ty Chandler. And I think that

they liked what they saw from him at the beginning of the season. Maybe we'll see in Ty Chandler. And I think that they liked what they saw from him at the beginning of the season. Maybe we'll see some Ty Chandler in this game. I'm not sure, but I think he's healthy now. So that's possible that we see him a little bit against Chicago, but you know, Eric Hendricks might be on the chopping block. Like there could be some changes there, but it's just when you have Justin Jefferson and you can put up a top 10 offense, which right now they're eighth and Hey, which right now they're eighth and Hey, I mean, they could score 40 against Chicago. Like this could be the game that changes around all the point differential stats against the bears with them playing Nathan

Peterman. So, you know, if you end up as a top 10 offense, it's just really hard for me to see them saying, Oh yeah, you have Derrissaw, you have Jefferson, you have a quarterback in Kirk Cousins. There's almost no chance they're moving on from, I mean, almost zero. Maybe they don't extend him, but there's no chance they're moving on from him. So Cousins is coming back. Like they're not going to say, let's tear it all down and rebuild. The most rebuildy thing they could possibly do would be to draft a quarterback and get on the Alex Smith plan. And remember when that happened, like what Alex Smith lost in the first round, right? And then they moved on to Patrick Mahomes. So, I mean, that's kind of exactly how it went in Kansas City

with Alex Smith. And if you're looking for a comparable quarterback for the way that Kirk Cousins has played this year, Alex Smith is one of those guys. I did an article on it looking at comparable quarterbacks to the year that he's having, and Alex Smith's name came up in three separate seasons, actually. So it's been a Smithian type of season where they've won games, the numbers are not that impressive, and so they could look down the road, especially with the price tag for Cousins, and rebuild from that perspective.

But they're going to try to win. You know, I think that they just have too much talent to not. But it's going to be that retooling. And they're going to hope that the draft class, Lewis Seenan, Andrew Booth Jr. could come back and give them more. That Brian Asamoah will probably be a starter next year. You know know all those kind of things that they can add another piece or two but I don't see them in any way saying no we were frauds all along I mean think about the people that you would have to convince of that

which would be very difficult the ownership if you owned the team and they won 13 games and your GM came to you and said you know what we really need to do is get rid of everybody. I think you'd be like, huh? What? Just go do it again. So, you know, there is some logic to it. I don't think you're a sociopath for asking about that or thinking that it's a good idea considering the age of some of the roster to do an actual competitive rebuild because you cannot, we've gone over this a million times, but you can't tank when you have Justin Jefferson and Christian Derrissaw. These players are just too valuable and too good to do that, but they could have, I mean, think about the defense of this team. They spent on Harrison Phillips. They spent, I mean, Patrick Peterson's been great,

but they spent on Jordan Hicks. You know, they brought back Daniil Hunter, so they spent on him. They reworked Harrison Smith's contract to make sure he stayed around. And they made sure they kept Eric Hendricks. And they rank 31st. If they had competitively rebuilt the defense, where would they rank? 31st, maybe? I mean, would it have been worse? Probably not not if they

had helped themselves for the future. So there's certainly an argument to start resetting that side of the ball and taking a long-term approach, but I just feel like they're going to restructure every contract under the sun, try to create as much cap space as possible and run it all back and take another shot at it after this i i just don't think it would be an easy sell to ownership that they should start taking away pieces rather than you know running it back in the same way they did this year and hoping for a little more chemistry here or there a little better defense and maybe a new defensive coordinator i think that's not a foregone conclusion, but very possible.

So correct the weaknesses, continue the things that you did well, do it all again next year. I think that will eventually be their approach. Appreciate that question. Folks, if your new year's resolution was to treat yourself a little bit better, I've got a suggestion. Death. That is liquid death, actually, because it's a delicious mountain water that comes in a tall boy can. And I'm telling you, it just tastes different. It's ice cold and much better than water that tastes like a plastic bottle. In fact, liquid death hated plastic bottles so much that was what inspired their name. They also give a portion of profits to end plastic because cans are so much easier to recycle. So if you want to give it a try, nudge along that New Year's resolution. Maybe put the soda aside and give Liquid Death a try.

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Is there any evidence that only Udo is a decent right tackle? I think I remember him being terrible at right guard, but still significantly better than me. Well, they're all significantly better than us at everything physical. In fact, I was at practice today and I was watching DJ Wanham and Justin Jefferson throw the football back and forth to each other. Just casually tossing it back and forth, back and forth from 55 yards away from each other. Yep. They were throwing the ball to each other 55 yards away because Jefferson was standing at the 10 and then DJ Wanham was at, I think what it must be the other 35 and just tossing it back and forth,

playing a little catch. I mean, that's the same distance that Tom Brady threw the ball to Mike Evans last week for a touchdown for a 60 yard touchdown, how far it traveled in the air. These guys. So the athleticism and the things that they're able to do with their bodies, they'll always be way better than you and everyone you've ever met. But to your point about Ole Udo,

in comparison to NFL competition as a tackle, is bad. That's just the facts. I mean, last year he was graded under a 40 by PFF in both of his starts at tackle, which a 60 is still not very good, but it's kind of average. 70 is good. 80 is really good. 90 is a phenomenal all-pro type of day. So think about it this way.

Brian O'Neill would routinely put up 70 to 80 grades and Christian Derrissaw is getting 80 to 90 and Ole Udo at tackle, left tackle, ended up with 40s. So last week he actually did okay coming in off of the bench, but now you're giving teams a chance to prepare to go against him and I think that even the talk about Blake Brandel tells me that they would like Blake Brandel to get healthy and play in that position rather than Ole Udo so if you're the fourth tackle there's no argument that I can make that that's going to be okay it's what it really comes down to is like bad tackles will get beat five times a game. Think about the precision of someone like Joe Thomas or even Christian Derrissaw or Trent Williams that they just don't

get beat. It'll be zero times. It'll be one time. I think Brian O'Neill was averaging like 1.3 pressures allowed per game, just crazy stuff. And in comparison, the bad players will allow five pressures. What you have to do is survive those five pressures. So if you remember when TJ Clemmings was playing, he was giving up like four to five pressures per game on average. But a lot of times it was a strip sack. It was a sack on third down. It was big plays, taking them out of field goal position, and it just killed them at times. And the same thing can happen here. If you can survive those handful of miscues and bad plays, then you can get away with it. And the Vikings did, by the way, in 2018, it was, no, I'm sorry, 2017, that was when Nick Easton got hurt and they reshuffled the offensive line in a very foolish way, in my opinion. And rather than just plugging in a backup guard and keeping everything the same, they moved three different players.

But Rashad Hill was the right tackle in the Minneapolis Miracle game. And he got beat a handful of times by Cameron Jordan, but they survived them largely to be able to continue to move the ball. So it's not like one player being out is going to completely tear apart your offense. It really depends on, you know, those mistakes are going to come at times, you know, pressure's going to happen. How do you deal with that? How do you work around that? And the biggest thing is likely to use two tight ends more often with Irv Smith coming back to put TJ Hawkinson over the right tackle, to chip, to just give him a little help over there. But we did see earlier in the season that that was limiting at times when Christian Derusaw was out for the offense and being able to do all the things they want to do

because you always have to dedicate one person to that extra rusher to give a chip to give a double team to shift the the attention there but the fact that Christian Derrissaw is healthy this does help quite a bit because they can turn the protection toward that right side to help Ole Udo and leave him on an island and feel really good about that and that's the value when coaches talk about left tackle being like really valuable. I mean, that's one of the reasons because you can help other people. Uh, if you have that left tackle, if you don't against the best edge rushers, I mean, then you're just asking so many people to play one-on-one and that's why it's a weak link system.

Um, you know, so anyway, yeah, there's, it's not good. Like there's just no two ways about it, but they might be able to survive it. I don't think he's so terrible that they can't survive it at all. Uh, but by the numbers, it's a pretty tough situation. He does commit a lot of penalties, which is another thing to watch this year. They have been so good at not committing penalties, but he's a guy that has that tendency. All right, this is from at FossDootball on Twitter. You said this past game reminded you of the Green Bay game in 2019, and I see the parallels, but I thought of another game, the 2016 Vikings game versus the Packers at Lambeau.

The only reason why is because of the players not listening to coaches. While going against the game plan is different than not wearing the recommended cleats. It's still wild to think the organization that plays at Lambeau every single year would have a misstep like this. Wes Phillips seemed pretty annoyed by it when he was asked and kind of got into stern dad mode. He certainly did. I have struggled with how much to make of this story because i i think that the vikings losing as badly as they did it's a really easy thing to point the finger at and for coaches to focus on because they did warn them and they did tell them guys you got to wear these thicker cleats but then you had justin jeff Jefferson and Adam Thielen kind of snapping back a little bit with the, well, in pregame it wasn't that bad and so forth.

And let's see, I think Justin Jefferson said that your shoes stick in the ground more and you can trip and it's harder to run. But then Patrick Peterson said it's not, it's fine. I mean, just, I don't know. I think it's really just because they lost the way that they did. They certainly should have worn the cleats that they informed them to wear, but I don't know how you tell Justin Jefferson what shoes to wear if you're Kevin O'Connell.

Like, what, are you going to send him home? I mean, oh, sorry, Justin, if you didn't bring your seven whatever cleats, uh, you could just catch a bus back to Minneapolis. Like, I don't know. I mean, you just, you kind of got to let him figure it out himself and they won't make that mistake. The next time, maybe in Santa Clara in round two, that they'll wear the proper cleats and definitely this week against Chicago. Um, but part of me thinks that had they won or had it been a better game, we wouldn't have heard anything about it. They would have probably just talked to the players about it on the sideline,

fixed it, changed the cleats, and moved on. But it was really because they got killed. It was something that they kind of couldn't help but bring up, that they were right as a coaching staff about the cleats. The difference with that is this team is going into the playoffs as a number three seed, most likely with 13 wins, most likely.

And that team in 2016 was turning on their coach. This is not turning on their coach. I think this was players making a little bit of a misstep with the, I don't know, like double meaning there or pun intended. But they went out for pregame and they felt like it was going to be okay. And they just, they were just wrong that it wasn't okay. It turned into a slop fest as the field got more slick when the sun went down and the temperature dropped. And that was a mistake. And it was a costly one because that interception when Jefferson fell down that was turned into a touchdown by the Packers and that's where they really started to run away with the game if the Vikings had scored a touchdown there

it would have been 17 to 10 so it did really change the game because then all of a sudden if I'm remembering correctly it was 24 to 3 and then we're just talking about kind of game over at that point. So it did change things, for sure. So I'm not saying it's, like, not a thing or that it didn't impact them. I just think that, you know, probably that one play and the overall results really stuck with the coaching staff, and that's why they were mad about it. But in 16, Zimmer had lost the locker room largely.

And they were frustrated with him throwing players under the bus. They were frustrated by the previous week's scheme, which allowed, if I remember, Eric Swoop to dominate the Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium. With Adrian Peterson's comeback and how that whole thing was handled from his meniscus injury. All those things. It was a very tense situation, a lot of frustration. And I think they wanted to send Zimmer a message that they were not very happy with the way that things had been handled. And to some extent, he got the message through the next year. And I think Case Keenum might argue that he never got the message or Eric Hendricks or some other players after that. But that was much different.

I mean, that was like about something that was telling him something. This was not, I don't think, a disrespect or a middle finger to Kevin O'Connell or anything like that. I think it was just a bad choice. I truly believe that they just thought it was going to be fine and then it wasn't. And maybe just the Jefferson was less comfortable running with the bigger cleats. And so now he's going to have to try it in Chicago. But that one was different because they had already missed the playoffs and had done it in such terrible fashion the week before against a bad Indianapolis team.

So, you know, I see your comparison though. I still think, and I've brought it up on the show before, but I still think it's like 2019. And I think even how the fans felt in 2019, because it was a hugely hyped game with stakes. If you remember 19 in week 16 and the Packers just dominated them in that game, they couldn't move the ball. Green Bay ran all over them. And there was a feeling that the Vikings were just not good enough, that it was mostly an easy schedule. And they had played the Lions a couple of times that

were really bad and racked up a ton of points on bad teams. I think it was, was that an NFC East year where the East was really bad. And so it's very similar to this where like the whole outside world is questioning how strong you really are versus your record. And here we are with that happening again, particularly in these last eight weeks, you know, second half of the season here where they're just five and three and have had, you know, and one of those five is that big comeback against the putrid Colts. So, you know, like, I think there's a comparison there that you're still going into the playoffs and you still have a chance to go deep, deep into the playoffs,

but the confidence the fan base has in the team is probably shaken. I don't know if it's shaken in themselves. It could be, but in 19, it really wasn't. I mean, they went to New Orleans and still won that game. But will it be this time when everybody has kind of watched this happen week in and week out over the second half of the year? I'm not sure. So there are some similarities, but I think it's a little different than 16. All right. This one comes from at Bueno Sports on Twitter.

Do the Vikings want the matchup the two seed comes with? Yeah, I mean, so I think what you mean is, is it better that they get the number three because they get to face the Giants? And my answer is, I get where you're coming from, but that's kind of a rationalization, right? Because you already know that the two seed is most likely off the table.

And again, I don't want to just say that these things are all decided because crazier stuff has happened. There's even an outcome where I think Dallas can be the one seed. Like, again, not going to happen more likely than not, but totally possible somehow that that could be the case with, you know, this final week. And the NFL has just thrown us curveball after curveball all season long, including, and thank God that DeMar Hamlin is doing much better now and was able to, you know, communicate with his teammates from the hospital and everything else. But think about how much of an impact that event happened and how crazy the AFC playoffs were already going to be with

all those great quarterbacks in the playoffs. And now how much crazier that could be where they could be playing on a neutral field for the AFC championship. I mean, this is just such a wacky season that I don't, I don't know that you could ever say that anything is decided, but I think that talking about the number two or three seed is a rationalization because everybody would have wanted to beat Green Bay and hold on to the number two seed and take on all challengers. But because you lost to Green Bay, it's much easier to say, well, you know, we don't want to face them. They know us too well. They've got Rodgers. We'd rather face the Giants. And I do think that

the Packers and lions are a little scarier, but either way, you have to beat a mediocre team to go deep in the playoffs. And if you can't, then you were never a contender to begin with. Right? I mean, so one of those three teams, or I mean, Seattle deserves to be thrown in this mix too, because Seattle could certainly be in it. All of those teams are about the same strength and how they match up against the Vikings is maybe slightly different here or there, you know, so Green Bay has got a good defensive line and they've got Rogers and the lions just have the Vikings number with Jared Goff and their great offense, but Seattle's got a pretty good offense and great receivers that the Vikings probably won't be able to cover. And the Giants just took them down to the final moments and they've got a good coach and they've got a good defensive line

and pass rush, but they also all have weaknesses. Detroit gave up 300 yards rushing. The Packers still don't have a scary passing game. It's better, but it's not terrifying on paper. Seattle, Geno Smith has faded, as 500 backup quarterbacks often do, toward the second half of the season. And, you know, the Giants have Daniel Jones, who I think that you and I have as many big-time throws as Daniel Jones does this year. All of those teams are mediocre. None of those teams are real contenders

for the Super Bowl this year. If you are, you could beat any one of them. It's always been about that road to the Super Bowl and how much it could be impacted by having to go to San Francisco potentially in the second round. That's what it's really about. So the first round matchup to me was, yeah, like it's better to play the giants no question about it i think they're the weakest of that group except for probably seattle but if if you're gonna battle for the actual super bowl you're gonna have to face somebody good and you much much rather would have seen the second round matchup be at home which again i don't want to say is impossible like san francisco has been amazing in the second half of the year. They have the best point differential since week 10, but that does

not guarantee they're going to win their playoff matchup. Like it could still very well be the Vikings at home in the second round. Um, but you've definitely wanted, if you're going to eventually face the 49ers, you wanted it to be at home. You did not want to go out to Santa Clara. And I even thought, well, the cleat thing sort of made me laugh, but you know, maybe that'll be the difference, right? Maybe the, uh, Vikings coming to their senses about the length of their cleats will be the thing that turns the tides and they win in San Francisco. I don't know. Um, so it's, yeah,'s, yeah, I just don't really look at that as, I mean, anything more than just being like,

no, this is better for us somehow. Yeah, maybe a little, but not in the long run. All right, next question comes from at Vikings Skullchant. You're in front office meetings this off season. Make the case for drafting a quarterback in round one, letting Kirk play out the final year while sitting the rookie, and then make the case for trading Kirk, drafting a rookie and starting him week one.

The second one is pretty impossible to tell you the truth. Drafting someone this year, especially when you don't have a high draft pick, and the teams that do have high draft picks are absolutely picking quarterbacks, most of them. I mean, are you going to take the sixth best quarterback and trade Cousins and start him, and then at the same time try to convince Jefferson to sign a long-term extension when he's not sure how good that quarterback's going to be? That is pretty dicey. So that second one is a really tough one to argue. It's very hard to say that Cousins, after winning all the games the way that he did this year, oh yeah, sorry, man, here's the door. How are you going to do that when he just got this team

to a place that they have not been before with him as the quarterback. And then you throw them out the door for a draft pick that isn't even one of the best prospects. Like, I don't know. And, and I've always said, and you guys know this, that if someone is a first round talent, then yeah, I mean like that means they probably have an equal chance as the number one overall pick. We've seen that from Allen, Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, those guys not being the first guy off the board. Still, in a year where there's a lot of good

prospects, are you going to be able to get one of them because the league is just so quarterback needy? How much would you have to trade? You already made a trade for TJ Hawkinson. Like, I can't make the case for that. But the other one, the case is very clear. Kirk Cousins and his age, it's just not very likely that this thing gets better from here. He could have a better year next year statistically, but is he going to get more arm strength? Is he going to get more athletic? Is he going to get less beat up? And at some point, Kirk Cousins probably gets banged up a little too much and struggles, right? Like this will happen at some point because here's how I know it's happened to every single quarterback who's ever played in the entire NFL, except Tom Brady, I guess. But even Aaron Rodgers, like he's been banged up throughout the years and he lost some receivers, didn't play as well, but almost everybody outside of the all-time legends, and even sometimes them, they're all going to fade at some point. And if Cousins comes to you and says, I want a five-year contract extension to be a Viking for life, I just don't know how

you can do that with his age, with historically what happens to quarterbacks after age 34, 35, and with the price tag for Christian Derrissaw and Justin Jefferson. I just don't see how it's really possible to sign him to a long-term extension. And that would leave you with, forget about the immediate needs. There's no bigger need than quarterback. Draft the quarterback. Hope that guy is the guy. And maybe that involves spending as much draft capital as you can to trade up for the fifth best quarterback in the draft. Like maybe it's Anthony Richardson or someone

like that. That's the argument. The, the succession plan from a Smith to Mahomes is the, the, the thing that teams have surprisingly not really copied. I thought that they would after Mahomes sat for a year. I thought that they would. It makes so much sense. And even the Jets are saying, you know, we really should have sat Zach Wilson and he might've been awful either way. That's actually quite possible, but you saw how in over his head he was. And this happens to a lot of quarterbacks. I don't think you get as much out of that first year as these teams hope by playing him for that first season. I just feel like they're in a position where they're going to look at the draft as a place to fill a need in the first round. They're going to say, and not wrongly, we'd probably need another

receiver. And if you draft a receiver, look at Chris Alave, look at Garrett Wilson, look at what Justin Jefferson did. Those guys can help you right away. They might be looking for that. Drake London, I think was even doing pretty well in Atlanta for times. Traylon Burks has had his moments. Those guys, if you pick the right one, can help you a lot right away. And that might be the case that they try to make. It's like, look, we can run it back with one more receiver that is a downfield threat because they've had nobody else that can beat man coverage outside of Justin Jefferson. I would be surprised if either one of these scenarios played out,

but I think there's a much better case for drafting a guy sitting him than there is for moving on from Cousins altogether. I don't think. That would be shocking if they decided to do that. But looking toward the longer-term future, two years down the road, that's a much different conversation than talking about getting rid of him next year, coming off of this season. All right, let's go to Jeff via email. I think it's okay to at least peruse the cap and contract possibilities for next season. I've heard you talk a bit on the podcast lately about it. So I look at the 2023 over the cap numbers and figure Kendricks is gone and Thielen or Harrison Smith are post June cuts. I would not assume that at all, by the way, would not assume that at all.

I think that it's possible, but would not assume that because I think that this team wants those guys to be Vikings for life. That's just my guess. Anyway, back to the email. They'll probably be able to restructure some other deals and make a decent amount of room to at least manage the roster without too much pain. The snags could be Hunter and Zedaria Smith. They are both under team-friendly contracts, but as you've said, they'll want to get paid. My question is why? Other than retirement, what other choice do those guys have? They would be in effect playing out their contracts and about to be free agents in 2024,

so they have a great incentive to play at their best. As far as them not being happy, who cares as long as they play well. Yeah, If that was the reality of how things actually worked, I might agree with you, but it's not. It's not this. I mean, when you have a player of that caliber, they, with that much money, they will hold out on you. They will pressure you. And Zedaria Smith, you talk about him. I mean, he's 30 years old. Zedaria Smith could tell you if he wanted to, to just go fly a kite. And I, and I think there are, and I'd have to check on this. There are escalators in his contract that have to do with how many sacks he gets and things like that. Next year, his cap number is 15.6 million. And in cash, I'd have to work that out. Um, but you know, in cash,

it's going to be a decent amount too. So it's not like he's not going to get anything, but it actually might benefit them to try to rework that deal if they can, to maybe even lower that cap number. Daniil Hunter is the one that will not be playing on that deal. There's just no way. There's just no way. He's earned a ton of money over his career and he can hold out if he

wants to. Um, that's the thing about these holdouts. It's like, well, they're gonna, they're gonna find him like, yeah, that's right. But he's made so many millions of dollars that that is a drop in the bucket next year. He is, I mean, he's going to make like $11 million cash next season. Come on. That's not, he's not going to play on that type of deal so they will very likely have to sign him to a long-term contract the thing is that with hunter for his cap number for next year similarly that can be lowered though because right now it's at 13 well maybe and lowered is tough to say lowered is tough to say because he's also got the void deal. Yeah. That one, that's one that, I mean, he's going to want to get a long-term deal that averages 20 to 25,

if not more million per year, that puts him up with the elite pass rushers. That's what he's worth. That's what he's going to ask for. And I think they kind of have to do that. I get what you're saying, like too bad, but every year we get the, we have those conversations where people say, well, it's his contract. So too bad. But that's not how anything works because there's a lot of pressure that ends up on the team. And they basically have a crossroads because the player can demand out. And you look at what Devante Adams, where it was like, you know, he demands out and you kind of have to do it because the man is in a position where he could just sit and not play. And then it becomes a bad look for you. And then it becomes, you get trade offers and some of them are good enough and make it worth it

and all those things. So Daniel Hunter is going to either get a long-term extension or he's going to get traded. Those are the two options in the off season. I don't see any way that it's like, just let him play it out and be miserable. That players just have too much power in this world now to do that. And you can like that or not, but it's the, it's the reality of the thing. So yeah, I think it's okay by the way that we took some time to talk about some future stuff here because no one's excited about Vikings and Bears next week though it it's going to be whether it's fans only or everything else it's going to be all about the matchup I mean that's the only thing in the world that matters um what happens in the future we'll have plenty of time to talk about that but it's

playoff time man I mean this is this, you just don't get this every year. And if anybody should appreciate this, it's all of you and we'll figure out all the other stuff. We'll have the draft experts on, we'll have the cap experts on, you know, we'll figure all that out in the future. Um, but, um, you know, they're gonna, they're gonna feel the team next year, I promise. And we'll figure out what it's going to look like then. But everything will turn to this playoff game. And then once it starts, everybody's zero and zero. And we can have a lot of fun seeing what happens.

I got another message the other day from someone who was talking about, you know, driving a long way to the playoff game. And kind of feeling fatalistic about this. Like, oh, I'm going to waste my time. I'm going to waste my money. It's like, man, haven't we been through this so many times with this league and how many things can happen in this league to not be like that. And also, and I'm sure that you deal with this and like, look who you're talking to, but I'm always, I'm always just the truth guy. Right. Like I don't, I don't go the other way either. Or at least in my mind, I don't.

There's so many people who have decided that it's over already. And that's odd to me. And this could be old takes exposed for me. I don't know. If they lose by 30 points, I guess you could all come back and say, see, we know the Vikings. We know their history. But I don't know.

I was in the building for the Minneapolis Miracle. I was in the building for the minneapolis miracle i was in the building for the largest comeback in history i was in the building for the the win against new orleans in 2019 like you can't tell me that there's just any game you go into with the players that they have that you can't win that's not possible so anyway look at look at me telling you all to buck up after what happened in green bay the best i could do for you is that it's not possible. So anyway, look at me telling you all to buck up after what happened in Green Bay. The best I can do for you is that it has been studied. And how you end the season,

your last couple of weeks, does not predict what happens in the playoffs. If there's any predictor, it's more toward the back end of the middle of the season. So if that makes you feel better. Anyway, thanks so much for listening, everybody. We will talk to you after Chicago.