Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How does the quarterback drama with Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray impact the Minnesota Vikings?

Episode Date: April 16, 2022

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom talk about recent drama with Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray and what that says about the future of the quarterback position and whether it makes a stronger argument for the Vikings to draft a quarterback or hang back and wait until there are available QBs when it's time to move on from Kirk Cousins. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with Sam Ekstrom. We've got a game of not talk me into, but talk me out of later coming up on the show. But I wanted to start right out with you. We won't complain about the weather. I promise not too much to start this. But by just stating that our excuse for not being good at golf this year is that we got off to a slow start because of the weather that when it's June and I'm still, you know, chipping short or hitting it over, uh, the, the green or, you know, going bunker to bunker, like our friend, Jace Frederick, uh, that'll be the reason it'd be like, well, you know, there was snow on the ground in April. We just got a slow start. Well, and we'll be able to blame the conditions of the golf course as well, because the golf

course won't be in as good a shape. The greens won't be rolling as true. We'll be able to blame the lumpiness of the fairways and the moisture that is, you know, slowing the rollout. So I think we've got plenty of excuses to have a very unaccountable summer of golf. Yeah, as if we hold ourselves accountable anyway with those six-foot gimmies and so forth. Well, I want to talk about, speaking of excuse-making, Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray, because quarterback drama has sort of you know drifted into draft season here with Baker Mayfield going on a podcast saying he felt quote disrespected which certainly all quarterbacks that haven't won anything or really been that successful or put up great numbers are disrespected

when their teams try to look for a different quarterback and Kyler Murray is another really interesting one because he has put it out there that he's not going to play unless the Arizona Cardinals give him a contract extension. Now it's not, Sam, that quarterback drama is new. I believe there was something out there when Russell Wilson was negotiating his deal that he might go back and play baseball, even though he wasn't that good at baseball baseball if he didn't get the contract he wanted and of course he got it Dak Prescott kind of went into the franchise tag area and Lamar Jackson right now does not have a contract for the future and here we sit with Kirk Cousins signing his extension giving a somewhat passive aggressive press conference and I just found it kind of interesting that it's like

are the younger quarterbacks just being more aggressive about this and open about how they feel about their situations but I don't know if it's generational because Matt Ryan demanded a trade when his team went after Deshaun Watson so I guess generally I want to know what you make of the amount of drama that is going on with quarterbacks at this moment. Yeah, well, you brought up Wilson, and I think he's the same draft class as Cousins, too. So he was obviously willing to kind of go that route and leverage his own success. But also, he's Russell Wilson. He's really, really historically good. And he has a little more power, I think, than someone like Curt Cousins, who, you know, I think he went on Adam Thielen's podcast the day after his extension was signed for sort of a victory lap.

But he's not going to go out and blast people, at least publicly. You know, maybe he works through his agent behind the scenes, maybe stuff gets said, but he is kind of an aloof customer when it comes to saying anything publicly, whether it's, hey, thanks for the memories, coach, or good to throw passes to you, Stefan Diggs, stuff like that, or sorry, Vikings Nation, we didn't get it done for you this year. There's not a lot of that. There's not a lot of messaging either way from Kirk. Does it surprise anyone that Baker Mayfield went scorched earth on the Browns

at all? No. I mean, Baker Mayfield is to his credit and detriment. He is going to speak his mind and some people will love him for it when he's playing well and it's cool and fashionable to sort of be that brash voice. And it's going to work to his detriment when his team misses the playoffs and he is forced out of his city. And now it looks like sour grapes for, for Mayfield, right? I'd be curious to hear what Jimmy Garoppolo would say unfiltered in a podcast right now too, because he's sort of in limbo with San Francisco and he's pretty much said all the right things all along. It's been San Francisco. That's been kind of wanting to get rid of him and there's been no trigger pulled on that deal. But isn't this all about like athlete empowerment, right? Of, of this kind of very recent era,

which I think kind of began in the NBA and is trickling toward the NFL. Like it's not all the way there. It's not equal because one player doesn't hold as much power, um, you know, on a football team, except for the quarterback position. That's the one position where one guy actually does hold quite a bit of power. Um, and you know, what did we talk about for years in the NFL contracts are, you know, just, just rip them up. They they're not real because teams can get out from them from any time. They're not guaranteed. Well, look at what quarterbacks have started accomplishing. They realize that they've got a lot of power and now they've set the standard and really beginning with Kirk cousins that our deals are going to be guaranteed. And I think it's

all the momentum is only going to favor the players. I mean, pretty soon it's going to be wide receivers getting guaranteed deals. It's going to be edge rushers getting guaranteed deals. And that's going to, I think, become somewhat of a norm at certain positions in the NFL. So it doesn't surprise me that quarterbacks are using their power more because we've seen it. It's already gone down that road to some extent. So as that occurs, we're going to hear hear more um i think vociferous speech from them and they're gonna want to control where they play and who they play around and who their coach is and who's managing those teams i mean they're i'm not saying that they're lebron but the quarterbacks are going to be kind of like co-gms i think that's the direction that it's going where they're just

going to have more and more voice in uh in these decisions here's what i think of is with the transfer portal with college athletes college coaches cannot stop complaining about the transfer portal it's just incessant every single day there's a new story about all coaches they're very frustrated with this transfer portal and these players and they're entitled and they just don't want to stick through it and all these things. And that might be true. They might have some points there about, you know, players not really sticking with a program and making it really difficult to build a program because players, if they don't get what they want right away, are just going to another place. However, it's not changing. So the teams that are the best at taking advantage of player empowerment are the ones that are going to get the edge instead of complaining about it. What you should do is try to hack the system and try to take advantage of it in any way you can. So I was listening to a Dawn Staley interview and she just won the national championship

and she was talking about NILs. And she said, as soon as they allowed the nils what happened was she went to agents she knew and set up her players with agents she knew so those players could be handled correctly with their new money that they were going to get from advertising and local deals and things like that and looked for advisors to help them handle it that she knew were proven in that space and so what basically she did there was said like i'm going to help you with this thing i'm not going to push back against it i'm not going to say you guys need to worry about your basketball she said i'm going to help them handle and manage all these things because if you do go play pro, which South Carolina players

often do, you're going to need to handle that at some point anyway. So why don't I help you do that? And that to me sounds like a coach who really understands that, hey, if now it's out there, if you go to South Carolina, you're going to get help to get yourself more money. And if you go to, this kind of works for the Rams in some way. Like if you go to the Rams, like they're going to trade a first round pick for you and roll out the red carpet for you if you're a big star, that you're going to get your opportunity there. And this has sort of been the case with every team that can win anyway. Like every team that can win, if I'm Kansas City, come play for us. You could win a Super Bowl, right?

But I think that there's even more to this is you kind of can bet in the future on the idea that there will be available quarterbacks who are disgruntled. And so the Vikings have locked themselves into cousins only for another year. And we have advocated, of course, drafting a quarterback, drafting Malik Willis if he's there, or even picking a second rounder is maybe something you could try. But next year, 2023, pick a quarterback for sure. Make that guy your future. But also if that guy doesn't work out, someone will be available. I don't know who it is, but I don't think I would have guessed some certain guys that became

disgruntled at this point. And we're looking for possible places to go. And if you're the team that puts your roster and your coaching staff and your culture and all that stuff in a position to, and your salary cap in a position to welcome in a quarterback who maybe at that time might be expensive, but you, if you've done your cap stuff, right, you could figure this out and you can handle this to be able to bring in a special quarterback who's unhappy or won't get paid in another place. And that has to be a consideration going forward. It is going to be absolutely ridiculous if the Carolina Panthers have botched everything and then they end up with Kyler Murray or I mean, even the Miami Dolphins who have just been a total disaster and they were trying to do some crazy thing with Tom Brady, where he'd become an executive and then unretired to play like all this stuff. They're a mess.

They're being sued by their former coach. But if they get Kyler Murray, that team might be fantastic because Kyler Murray's unhappy. And how would they be able to do it? By getting their cap correct. So this is, I think this is a legitimate consideration going forward for the Minnesota Vikings when they do think about who's going to be their future quarterback. Well, doesn't it just double down on the notion that having a quarterback on a rookie deal is smart? I mean, I think you might have retweeted or Eric Eager retweeted the numbers on quarterbacks that had their fifth year option picked up,

like an absurd number of them made deep playoff runs or made super bowls in the last x number of years i wish i remembered the stat specifically maybe you know what i'm talking about you'll look it up while i keep while i keep rambling um but if you've got the rookie quarterback then you're set because that almost guarantees that you have the cap flexibility to bring in a veteran quarterback if the rookie thing isn't working out if after two years you're in a to a situation where you're not sure if our quarterback is really going to get us over the hump or if you know a jalen hurts situation if your quarterback is kind of in the middle you've got the flexibility to to go make a move in miami obviously tried with this tom brady shenanigan that fell

flat and now brady looks like the bucks were suddenly his second choice which is really weird i don't understand that whatsoever um he obviously wants to stay in florida for that no income tax but i uh i think it just tells teams hey either we want a top five or top 10 veteran who's established, who's willing to switch teams, or we want the rookie. And if the rookie works out great, we're set. And if he's not, well, we have the ability to bring in veteran du jour. So I think that that just sort of supports what we've been talking about all this time, is that if you are stuck with an expensive quarterback who's in the middle of quarterbacks that's kind of the worst

place to be i am struggling to find the statistic from eric uh but he tweets too much yeah i know it was something to the effect of like look how look how successful the teams have been who have drafted these quarterbacks more or less i mean which we know and you can look at it oh you got it okay good from from 2011 to 2018 so the sense of the new cba 60 of first round quarterbacks earned the fifth year option 28 led their teams to a conference title game while earning rookie deal money that That's so incredible. So that, what that means is, and of course every draft class is different, but if you're the Vikings going into a decision, do you want to draft a quarterback or not? You're looking at a three out of 10 chance, you end up in a conference. And this is, you know, that doesn't exactly mean what it means,

but, but history three out of 10 have made it to a conference championship game and six out of 10 get their fifth year option, which means that their teams have bought into them. That is pretty overwhelming. And I think it also points to quarterbacks coming out in the draft are just better than they've ever been because they can work with quarterback gurus from the time that they're teenagers and the amount of first read throws in the NFL, the amount of schemed up throws and screen passes and things like that are all going up and up and up all the time to make quarterback play easier and the bootlegs and the things that Shanahan does and everything else. And so the other element of it is, I think that while it is player empowerment,

it's also teams getting wise to this, that they're saying there is a very, very high threshold to pay a quarterback. And this is what the Vikings decided, like kind of decided against, but they might be one of the reasons the teams think this is that the Vikings said we can sign the mid-pack quarterback to an elite contract and we can make that work. And everybody in the NFL got to watch it not work. And, and also, I mean, it's not just him. We all agree. Russell Wilson is better than Kirk cousins, but their team fell apart around Russell Wilson eventually when they couldn't afford to restock the roster and they missed on some draft picks. And so the only way to really

do it is to get very lucky in the draft at all these other positions and then get very healthy and then have things break your way. And it just doesn't happen all that often. So I think it's a two part thing where Arizona is looking at Kyler Murray and I think they will eventually pay him, but they're probably saying, are we sure though? Are we sure? Because Kyler Murray has done really, really well in the first halves of seasons but then in the second half does it sound familiar in the second half and then in some of the big games where other teams can solve kyler murray because he's got some kryptonite to his game

he's kind of either a boomer bust quarterback it's big plays down the field or it's big runs from him or it's just not being all that effective and And once he lost DeAndre Hopkins, again, does this sound familiar? Like once he lost his top receiver for a little bit, he's a completely different quarterback. And those are the things that you're looking into now with the Ravens. I think Lamar Jackson's probably on a different level, a guy who's capable of winning an MVP, but even then they had some injuries last year. His play was not quite to the level that he was when he was the MVP of the league and it's just getting I think very dicey as the quarterback contracts keep going up faster than the cap expands and you have also more qualified quarterback prospects

even in a bad year we're still going to see three or four guys get drafted in the first round. And they all have upside of being good starters. And here's the Vikings as with everything else sort of stuck in the middle of this, of down the road, they're going to change quarterbacks, but right now they're in that spot that nobody wants to be. Yeah. And you know, I think the Vikings approach flies in a previous era of the NFL. Like I'm, I'm thinking back to the story I wrote last week about the 92 Vikings, um, where they were coming off a couple bad years and there was maybe a little contemplation to, to tear things down with a new coach, but mostly they were like kind of full steam ahead and think of who they were going full steam ahead with. Rich Gannon, Rich gannon was like a middle

round draft pick i think he spent a couple years on the bench he was extremely underwhelming in two years as a starter and it took him until the end of year three for him to get benched for sean salisbury but i mean they were just meandering there with gannon but that but that was just how things were like all the quarterbacks were slow play. There wasn't a lot of urgency because the contracts weren't as out of control as they are now. Like teams also realize that the quarterback contract kind of needs to be correct. Like if we're going to give this money out, we got to get it right. Um, and Oh, by the way, we also have the urgency to sort of win right away, or people are going to get fired because there's not as much patience in the NFL. There's not as much patience in the fan bases, the front offices,

the ownership, the quarterbacks themselves. Everybody is a little more impatient. And I've always said this, that it's kind of it's two years. You got two years to prove it or at least show major progress or else there's going to be changes made. That wasn't the case 20, 30 years ago. And now the demand for success is so urgent that it's changed this league and it's created this quarterback carousel that is just spinning and spinning more rapidly. And I get the sense that we're not going to see a regression back to the way it was. I think it's going to keep spinning. You're probably going to see, I would guess, well, I don't know if I can say that. I was going to say you're going to see some, you know, maybe shorter, like massive shorter deals because, you know, everybody wants a little bit more flexibility.

But there is the aspect of sort of the bidding war, which creates those longer deals and it gives more security to the players. So I get that. But I don't think it's going to slow down. I mean, I think that for the foreseeable future, we are going to have radical off seasons at the quarterback position. Yeah. And the way that I think of it is now, uh, and I'm trying to pull up the exact quotes from, uh, from the movie heat. Have you ever seen the movie heat? Is that a Sandra Bullock film? Uh,

no, this is, uh, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. All right. I don't know what I'm thinking about. I love Bullock, but no,

I haven't seen it. Okay. All right. So anyway, so it's, uh, Pacino plays a cop and De Niro plays a guy who robs banks and stuff. And it's this whole chase and it's a phenomenal, phenomenal movie.

But anyway, one of the things that De Niro says a couple of times, and I think I've got the quote here. He says, don't let yourself get attached to anything that you're not willing to walk out in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner. And if you don't have Aaron Rodgers and you don't have Patrick Mahomes, that's how you should treat the quarterback position is if you feel the heat around the corner, which is basically like a contract, or if you can't win a Superbowl with that quarterback, whatever, you got to be ready in your situation to walk away from that in 30 seconds or less, or have a contract you could

get out of, or a quarterback that you could get away from. And that's why when they signed Cousins with the no trade, that was the part to me. It wasn't the next year. It was the no trade that I went, oh, that's not what you want, because then he can tell you to go fly a kite if you say, hey, Kirk, we've drafted another quarterback and worked out a trade for you to go to whatever team.

And he could say, no, I'm good. I think I'll just play this out. And then you kind of have to just throw up your arms. But if you draft a quarterback, the best part about it, one of the best parts, I mean, the best part is the upside that the guy could be a superstar. But the other best part is that if you feel that the guy isn't any good, you can walk away from him and go to the next guy. So if you're the Chicago Bears, and let's say after this year, you have drafted Justin Fields and he stinks, but you're also a team that's going to create a bunch of cap space because they've torn it all down. They're going to create a bunch of cap space for next year and then look like, hey, we're a team that you want to come play for, disgruntled quarterback who can't get a contract extension or whatever else,

and be that team that's available. Or you're going to be bad and be able to draft Bryce Young or CJ Stroud. There's just so many good things about having that flexibility, that quarterback position. And even the Indianapolis Colts, who kind of botched this 43-way sideways, if Matt Ryan plays well for them this year, they're going to look like geniuses like, oh, well, they didn't lock themselves into Carson Wentz. They were able to move on from him very easily.

And then boom, there you go. Or even Washington, the dumbest franchise in the league, not named the Jaguars, Washington. If they have Carson Wentz for a year and then let's say they draft Malik Willis this year, Wentz plays okay, gets them to the playoffs, but then they've drafted Willis and he looks great and they could turn it over to him. They look like geniuses because they'll have a playoff appearance with Carson Wentz and then a team that looks good and can attract free agents, a young quarterback coming on the way. There's so many benefits to trying to go this direction, and I feel like this quarterback empowerment or teams figuring out

that they shouldn't pay certain guys, if you're the smart team who's ready for that, it can benefit you in one way or another. Let me ask you this. Have you cooled on the – I'm not saying that you've cooled on the, the possibility of the Vikings taking a quarterback. I think we both think it's still pretty good idea. Do you think it's less likely to happen after all you've seen and heard now come out of their mouth? Um, do you think that that possibility is like decreasing folks? Minnesota sports teams are in the playoffs. Yes, that's right. Playoffs,

Minnesota sports teams is happening. And for all your Minnesota sports inspired gear, go to sodastick.com. That's S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. They have hockey, basketball, all sorts of great designs on hoodies, on shirts, on hats, everything you need. Go there. Use the promo code Purple Insider for 15% off your purchase. Again, that is Sotastick, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com, 15% off with the promo code Purple Insider. Yeah, that's a good question because I don't know. I mean, one of the things about this is with Rick and Mike, we could get inside their head pretty easily.

Draft after draft after draft. Hundreds of press conferences. We can kind of figure out like, yeah, you guys need a wide receiver. So you're going to draft one. You guys are switching to a zone running scheme so you're gonna draft a center and there's like with quesia da fulmento we don't know and he could have been playing us this whole time of being you know competitive rebuild with no rebuild part until matt corral with the 20th pick that they've traded down for and they could still get a receiver in a corner in the second round, and they get a pick for next year

because they geniusly stole draft picks away from Pittsburgh who traded up for whoever other quarterback. Like that's, I think it's possible. I mean, I wouldn't give it super high odds, but I do think that it's within the realm of possibility because we just don't know what their long-term plan is when Kweisi Adafo-Mensah took the job. It might have been this. It might have been, look, we're going to sign free agents. We're going to compete this

year. As soon as they didn't get the offers they wanted for Cousins, we're going to try to make the playoffs, but I need to be able to draft a quarterback as well, whether that's first round or second round or trade down or however you're doing it so we could start the process of finding the next guy because Cousins is only under contract for one more year. Possible. Yeah, I'm just trying to think the last time a team sat a quarterback for two years and then they emerged in year three and were successful. It's not a common model anymore, it i mean again that goes back to the 90s that's like the rich gannon model it's not the the 2022 model so if the viking and i don't think it's great value either if you like risked burning through two years of a rookie deal after that eric eager stat that we read if in year three your rookie quarterback is just beginning i think you're missing a little a lot

of your window like you're cutting off 20 to 40 percent of that possible window that you could have them cheap and playing so i might be cooling on the idea too i just don't want the vikings to overlook someone like malik willis who might fall in their lap and then watch them trade back, give that pick away to Pittsburgh and then watch a legitimately good talent go out the door. I think that what's important is getting the right guy. Ultimately,

like forget the value that I'm talking about. If you can get the right guy, who's going to be a star and we know it's a crapshoot. It's a complete roll of the dice, whether they're going to be a star or not. That to me still feels like it's the utmost important thing to do is to find your successor whether it's this year or next year and i guess you just rely on crazy spidey sense to tell you whether he believes that that guy is this year or next year and they probably have to work ahead and kind of project who's going to be there

next year and i know there's you mentioned a couple of them there are prospects available but you know where are you going to be picking probably like 16 or so you know in the middle it's not a great spot to be in the draft so i i remain torn whether i think they should take a quarterback if available in the first round so there's a um there's a concept in chess called can i do it anyway so if you're if you have a plan and the other person tries to stop that plan you always should ask yourself can i do it anyway and i think of this in a little bit of like could you draft two quarterbacks anyway if the first one didn't work out? Taking two bites at that apple is better. Or can you do it anyway, as in, can you trade Kirk anyway?

And if you drafted, let's say Matt Corral. Like Willis, I think is going to go really high. So let's say that you trade down and Pittsburgh trades with you to get Kenny Pickett. I don't know. I'm just throwing this out there. And Matt Corral is taken with the 20th pick. And the Vikings get a second rounder this year and a first rounder next year. And you put Matt Corral behind Kirk Cousins for this year with the full knowledge of Kirk Cousins, that this is it for

him. This is his final contract. There are no more extensions to be had. Matt Corral is our future quarterback. End of story, Kirk. play out this year and then we'll talk after the season I think if you're Cousins and you could go to another team that would extend you or at least you have a chance at an extension that's attractive I mean I don't know if Cousins cares that he would not be wanted or not but you'd be saying to him, like whether you waive your no trade clause or not, you're not the starting quarterback after this year. So if you want to play hardball, we will sit you on the bench and play Macorale. And that's just going to be how it is. If that's what you want to do. Otherwise, how about accepting a trade to, I don't know, whatever other team needs a quarterback,

which I'm sure there will be five or 10 by the end of next year. Let's say Houston. I don't know whatever other team needs a quarterback um which I'm sure there will be five or ten by the end of next year let's say Houston I don't know let's say Houston would you go to Houston Kirk they've rebuilt their team we got a trade offer for you why don't you go down there you'll start because you're not starting here because Matt Corral is playing and I think that that is a very plausible scenario to say you're not our future quarterback we've already decided on someone else and there's no more money to be had from us so wave your no trade clause and then at least it gives him the power to say i don't want to go to houston they stink

uh okay well how about pittsburgh or wherever right whatever team needs a quarterback so i think you can do it anyway and then if you have Matt Corral for a year and you go, oh no, he's whatever Hackenberg, Christian Hackenberg, or he's Paxson Lynch. He's terrible. We can't possibly play him draft another one because nothing will ever be as valuable as that. And you'll have gotten the parachute of additional draft capital from whoever you traded down with. So ideal scenario with the quarterback situation, I think is that I think you can do it anyway. I'm really disappointed that in, in all of like the chess, all the many great chess theories that

there's not a fancier name for that concept, like the Kasparov theorem. Oh, there, yeah, there, there are many of those. Yeah. There are enough of those. I don't know if that's its official name. Yeah. I'd like to know the official name because that's, that's just not very compelling. It's kind of catchy, but it chess needs to be more dignified. I've been pondering this question that Kirk sort of raised in his ambiguous press conference by saying that I have to earn the right to retire a Viking. And I'm trying to think through the same question we've asked ourselves, you know, kind of before, like, how does Kirk stay on this team? And to this point he has,

he's found a way to cross that threshold and like remain the quarterback of this team. Well, what would he, what would he have to do to earn the right to retire a Viking? Like if he's got five years left, and I think he believes he does. He's always talked about how he wants, like he sees the quarterbacks that play till 40. I'm convinced that he wants to go that route. So let's just say five years for a round number. What would he have to do in the final two years of this deal to earn that right? And is it, I mean, cause first of all, you have to get to next year. So what do you do this year to get to next year?

I think you, you have to win a playoff game, right? There's no more of this 35 and 12 with big stats and no playoff appearance that can't fly a third consecutive year. Right? So it has to be, it has to be a meaningful playoff run to get to next year. You might still have a quarterback in the waiting. So then he would probably have to do it again the year, the year after that, and then sign an extension with Minnesota, which would probably be way too much money. Like I, it just, it's crazy to think like,

you know, how we keep thinking, all right, he hasn't done enough. It's over. And he it's just enough. It's just enough to hang on. What do you think the bar is to literally retire a Viking or, or it was not enough to get him traded somewhere for somebody else to decide to trade for him. So it wasn't enough for them to try to trade him, but he hadn't won enough. Uh, and that's where, when people point to statistics and say that wins don't matter, you're like, well, tell everyone in the NFL that like, because everyone knows that the quarterback play is the biggest determining factor for whether you win or not. And everyone also knows that quarterback rating doesn't tell you the entire story about a player. So, you know, I think the reason that offers

weren't higher is because the team hasn't won with him as the quarterback and it's pretty hard to buy into that. So anyway, to your, to your question, I, this team moved on from a quarterback that took them to the NFC championship in case Keenum. So is that, I mean, is that it? Like if Kirk takes them to an NFC championship and they lose there, and let's just say it's the same sort of thing. Like it's pretty decided loss there. I don't think that they get rid of him for 2023,

but I also don't think they give him a new contract extension, which is weird to say because he would have to be absolutely terrific to get to an NFC championship and have a great season. But there are other factors that start to come into play here. If you were to get to the NFC championship, you also did it with an old roster with lots of old players like, you know, your, um, your Jordan Hicks and your Zedarius Smith and Daniil Hunter and Eric Kendricks and

Harrison Smith and Adam Thielen. And there's a lot of old players here and Delvin Cook by his position is very old. And so you're still looking toward the future and saying, well, yeah, we did it this year and it was great. But how are we going to like reset this roster eventually, especially with Kirk's age? Because he might want to play five more years, but there are only a few quarterbacks ever in the history of the game

that were able to be good past age 35. I mean, go look it up. I did once. I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but it's very, very rare. What Aaron Rogers and Tom Brady and Peyton Manning have done. It's all, it's like goats only or journeyman only. So you're, you're Steve DeBerg. Think about this here's crazy uh 1998 chris chandler when he was playing for atlanta that man was ancient right we were like oh my god how old is chris chandler he was 32 at that time he was younger than kirk cousins is right now and i know that's a long time ago and guys take care of their bodies differently. Now, the point is just, it's actually hard. If I take out those few players, Favre, Manning, Rogers, if I take them out of the equation for you to think

of any middling quarterback who was great into their late thirties, maybe Rich Gannon is the one guy that comes to mind, but the, but for one year, it's very rare. And so I think that even if they go to the NFC championship game, unless Kirk is planning on retiring after 2023, I don't think they say, okay, here's, you know, it brings truck worth of money because they would still have to be thinking toward the future. Yeah. And, and again, this brings it all back to where we started. If Kirk cousins made it to the NFC championship game and was going into, I guess, a lame duck year, a contract year without a new deal, what kind of fuss would he make? Would he be vocal about it?

Would he go on podcasts and be angry? Would there be a holdout? That's the big question. How much power would he actually have? And would the team call his bluff and just say, you're going to hold out? OK, come on, Mr. Matt Corral. Let's see what you got. Right. And this is and this is the reasoning for me to draft a quarterback this year, even though I don't think they will do it. So let's do this because I had planned a couple of talk me out of topics.

But actually, one of them was talk me out of it being a good idea still to draft a quarterback after all that we've sort of gone through in the many scenarios but what is is there I mean is there a counterpoint to all this because it in my mind it all says do it anyway because age is a real thing the age of your roster your salary cap situation these are all real things that are factors beyond can quarterback X be better than Kirk Cousins? Like that's not the discussion. The discussion is so much more vast than that. And so I keep coming back to, I don't know if Sam Howell's in the second round, I would probably support them even taking him or trading down and taking one or taking Willis or like, there's so many different ideas that I would say I'm supporting,

but like, is there something I'm missing here? Like what is the argument against still drafting a quarterback this year? Yeah, I think that would be the first rebuild portion of the competitive rebuild that we've seen. Cause it's all been toward the competitive goal so far. And because they have leaned so far into that competitive goal, are you doing your team a

disservice if you use that capital for someone who's not going to contribute this year? That, that I think is the main crux of the issue. So if you take a quarterback, pass on Stingley, and you go into the season without really a viable backup corner, for instance, that could really hurt you this season. And a lot of people probably have convinced themselves within that organization that they are ready to compete this year and that they can win and that they've shuffled the deck enough that these new players and this new scheme are going to get them to the playoffs and that's it that's not absurd like it is possible they make the playoffs they have done a nice job of at least filling the holes that were left by the by the departures from last year um

now do i think that it's like a high percentage that they make the playoffs and make a run? No, I don't. But do you need to add that young piece to really bring this roster together? That would be the counterpoint. I think it's the only counterpoint is that are you kind of hedging your bet too much if you go that path? And I remember last year I was talking about how you really shouldn't draft players to help you in year one, and then Christian Derrissaw gets hurt right away and only plays about half the season. And of course, he's a rookie, so his play was about average or below average. And I expect that he has a high ceiling, but the whole deal is you don't draft for this year now there is a sideline to that which is accept a receiver you kind of can uh there are very few positions

that i think adapt really quickly uh receiver in recent history has just gotten better and better at doing this i think teams are smarter with how they use them i think they're better trained coming in and you could certainly draft a bus like Laquan Treadwell where the guy catches one pass for the entire season. But if you pick a receiver, that's probably somewhere in the middle between competitive and competitive rebuild or probably like at least like blends the, what do they call it? Venn diagram, like in the middle is receiver. One side like rebuild this quarterback competitive is, I guess, maybe a couple of different positions that they still need, but receivers is the bridge between both of those. So I guess if you're trying to talk me out of quarterback, you're saying, what about

a receiver? And then in 2023, they can draft a quarterback who comes in with Chris Alave and Adam Thielen at the end of his career still being pretty good and Justin Jefferson and Amir Smith-Marset developing and KJ Osborne and maybe Irv Smith Jr. signs a contract extension after this. And that's the circumstance that you could give the next quarterback that you're going to draft 2023 or disgruntled quarterback X comes in after you trade cousins. I don't know. That just happened in Atlanta where they traded away Matt Ryan and brought in disgruntled and ashamed quarterback. Uh, if that's a word shamed, I guess it's just shamed. But if I add D to it,

it kind of makes sense. Right. Uh, to Sean to Shane anyway. So, uh, I think, I think this is, this is the whole point is there's one quarterback that I would come on after the draft and really criticize them for not taking. And that's Malik Wills. The rest of them, if it's a player who can help them right away and for the future, then I probably won't, especially at wide receiver corner. I guess I would understand, but that's not someone who's going to help you a ton. I also think too,

I had this thought the other day, talk me out of this one, talk me out of like calling Odell Beckham and see if he wants to come hang out with Justin Jefferson, because if you're going to try to win, like try to win. And O'Connell knows the impact as well as anybody there. Right.

I think he would know how to handle the personality and Beckham and Jefferson are tight from what we've heard from Jefferson. There's that LSU connection. Obviously the Patrick Peterson LSU connection helps as well. Vikings are just turning into, you know, LSU, the NFL version. So I love it.

I mean, I love going after sort of these bigger names late in free agency. JC Tretter is still out there. Akeem Hicks. Akeem Hicks is there as well. We brought him up last week, I believe. Plus after the draft, you don't have to give away compensation picks,

which I discovered yesterday. So I've never actually looked up the rules for compensation picks because why the heck would I, but that might be why teams go completely dark in the couple of weeks before the draft. Yeah. I I'm really curious to see if they would play the, the Dalvin cook contract restructure card to create more money because

they could, that's still an option for them. Unless someone tells me otherwise, I think they can get, they actually get a lot of money from that. So they could do it. They could probably conjure up one year for Beckham off injury. And let's see, realistically, you're a torn ACL, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So realistically, he's not helping you until the second half of the year. But same thing with the Rams. He comes in second half of the year guy gets hurt well suddenly he's like your second most important receiver and that was gigantic for them so um i don't hate it it obviously you're obviously getting great value on an injured guy who's missing a lot of time you're not going to break the bank on that contract so i i'm in support and if if you stink, you could trade them. If you're, if you're one in

six, you could trade Beckham and get like a fourth round pick or something from somebody back and take advantage of that. And then maybe trade some other people as well. Okay. So before we wrap up here, let me ask you one question because you have to get something on the record before you go, which is who you think the Minnesota Vikings will draft on draft night. And then we'll tell you why you have to get that on record. See, I don't want to go by the book. I think Stingley is probably the easiest pick.

How about... Yeah, I don't like Jermaine Johnson. Yeah. George, the Greek freak, George Karlaftis. Okay. You're going to go edge rusher.

And here's why you have to put it on record because you are exiting purple insider with, uh, with, with glory to go work for the lockdown network. Um, after working with me closely for the last year, of which I have greatly, greatly enjoyed and appreciate. And the door is still open and we will still do this

from time to time, but it won't be like this where it's every single week and round tables and things like that because you are moving on to different pastures. So congratulations on your new position. And I appreciate everything that you have done for me and Purple Insiders and for all of our listeners and readers. Well, I appreciate that. I think I joined you 14 months ago to this day. It was February 15th of last year. And at the time, professional uncertainty for me, you were still building this thing and doing unbelievably, but still, you know, in the building process. So like both of us, kind of these lapsed radio guys teaming up to help build this and to see where it's come just in those 14 months. Unbelievable.

I mean, what a blast it's been. I'll be stretching some new, um, you know, professional muscles with locked on a little bit more, um, corporate, a little bit more about strategy and, and stuff like that, but I'm not disappearing either. Um, I'll, I'll probably be, you know, doing a little bit, uh, uh, podcasting and probably popping up doing, doing Vikings work as well from time to time. And I'll still occasionally come in with some tweets to serve the few followers that I still have. So not going completely off the map, but yeah, switching directions a little bit. And seriously grateful for these last 14 months. It's been really, really fun.

And these podcasts are always a highlight of my week and the guests we've had in the community. I mean, honestly, like we have those subscriber calls where we talk to some of the subscribers and the support that they have for you and the respect, you know, for what you've built is the same respect that I have as well. So I thank you for the employment and for the memories and, uh, we're, uh, we're still going to golf and we're still gonna, um, be buddies after this. So, um, people can don't, there's, we're not going to have any, uh, any bad blood. That's for sure. Well, this isn't a Baker Mayfield situation where you're going to go on another

podcast and say you were disrespected. Um, but no, I just wanted to mention a couple of things that stick out to me about this last, like you said, 14 months, we had Chris Carter on the show, which was really cool. And being able to talk with him, uh, and I maybe, you know, we'll try to get other guests who have played for the Vikings, but Chris Carter is the biggest guest we're going to have probably, unless we could somehow track down Moss, down Moss or maybe John Randall. But I think Chris Carter might be even bigger than him. Us in Chicago, walking around, trying to find a pizza place to go to and finding a random spot in the middle of nowhere after the Packers game, lighting up this team and Mike Zimmer, like I don't think I've ever done

before. All the times out TCO Performance Center, all the trips that we took and all the fun that we've had on this show. You know, like I said, it's not like you are disappearing forever. You will be the Friday Roundtable guests sometimes on this show from now on, but it won't be exactly the same. And so I've really appreciated

having one of my best friends here all the time helping me build this. It's been a great time. So, yes, we still will be out there playing golf. But you are moving on to something that is really beneficial to you. And I'm very happy for that. Can we talk about who's going to be filling in? Is that news yet or is that under wraps? Well, Paul Hodowanek is going to increase

his load he's not going to uh i didn't give him an offer uh that would make him leave wcco radio no he's actually doing really well there so i don't want him to to mess that up but he's going to be doing more podcasts and then we got something else in the works that i think is going to be pretty cool um to fill some of the space. So you will be missed, but also Paul has worked his way up from intern Paul to now being in the media as a reporter and getting more opportunities here. I'm really proud of that. So again, well,

thank you so much for everything that you have done to help build purple insider and create tons of great and fun shows over the last year. And, and still doing some draft stuff too. Not completely out of your hair yet. Yeah, yeah. Right, our draft guide that our subscribers get at purpleinsider.com, of course,

you're going to be working on as well. But this is kind of our last show. So you can work on that, work on your transition to locked on. And so we'll go from there. So great stuff, man. Really appreciate you. And I guess I got to sing, right? Like, it's so hard to say goodbye to fellow podcast hosts.