Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How many games do the Vikings have the better quarterback?

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

Matthew Coller and WCCO Radio's Paul Hodowanic kick off Quarterback Week by debating the quarterbacks that are equal or worse than Kirk Cousins and then talk about how many games the other options in 2018 would have won over the last four years if they had joined the Vikings, including Alex Smith, Lamar Jackson, Case Keenum and Teddy Bridgewater. Plus they discuss the best QB of Paul's lifetime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with WCCO Radio's Paul Hodowanek. Also, I should mention that you write columns for the website as well. So purpleinsider.com, you can go there and see those. And you're working on one for today as we're going to kick off quarterback week. A lot of discussion about quarterbacks around the NFL for this week as we kind of have different themes that we're going to be discussing throughout the month of june and then once we hit july folks it will be hardcore training camp previews and then into training camp and the madness ensues uh from there but first paul i think we need to discuss

our performance out on the links at chad graft's golf tournament. Now, my original plan was to bring the recording equipment out there, talk with you, Sam Ekstrom, Chad, for a little podcast action. But we were thrown right off the golf course. From the very minute we got there, the owner of the course said, you guys better be gone by 2.30, and I don't care what is going on. There's a bachelor party at this golf course so you need to get out and we i well started at like 9 and then it was maybe like 2 15 by the time we finished because in this scramble you had to argue about every shot so that's what took so long for us to play okay sure i would they they basically were just like you don't want to be

here for this bachelor party which was just a nice way of saying get out we need all the carts because we were taking them all but yeah man i was playing the angles trying to figure out which putt we wanted uphill downhill side hill so yeah that meant we had to take a couple of my shots maybe some of your not your shots i don't know um but each everyone pulled their weight it was a great time purple insider was sponsoring a whole uh fantastic time out there. I loved it. Yes, I was very, very proud to sponsor a whole. That was great.

And if you go to Chad Graff's Twitter, if you still want to donate to his cause, it was for the Children's Hospital. So very happy to do that and to support Chad. He ran a great event. We had a lot of fun, but it reminded me you and I on the course on the same team as podcasters were good, but as golf partners in, in competing in a real sport environment, oil and water, it was like Kirk cousins and Adam Thielen, 2018 only for 18 straight holes. It was like every putt you thinking, Oh, uh, I've got this better look at the putt than you do and everything else wanting

to use your golf ball but the funny part of it was that we shot a 68 together which we all thought was pretty good like i think yeah we maybe bogeyed one hole and the winner shot a 57 on this scramble we're looking at like the longest to drive somebody out there is a monster that drove it like 350 yards. So we did not even come close to winning, but I was proud of us. We all made birdie putts. We had a good time. And you're, and you're good, Paul. You played well.

I would just like to point out, I am meticulous. Yes. But I told you to start lining up your putts using the little marker to line up your putts. First putt you did that, you like drained a 20 footer. So I will take that as a win for my type of golf. I will take that as a win right now. This shows you how much I have just totally made it up on the golf course for my entire life. I never thought of that. Like there's a little line on the ball and I was just always like, I don't know what that does. And I mean, never, I just would stand over the ball and be like, all right, let me hit it toward the hole and see what happens.

It's kind of like how it wasn't that long ago that I ran across a YouTube video where they were talking about how to swing an iron. I was like, okay, well, that's completely different than what I've been doing for my entire life. They're like, you want to compress the ball. You don't want to pick it off the ground. I'm like, you don't. What? Are you serious?

So I have improved my game actually significantly since I started watching some videos and everything else, but I never thought of that lining up the little line. So you learn something every day anyway. Well, we had a really fun time. You and I will play again soon. Once it becomes not 101 degrees, but we have hot routes and quarterbacks to get to.

So let's fire it up. There's news in the nfl today and it's time to break it down in the only way we know how hot rock style with our spin on football headlines with a mix of frozen tundra neck roll and grass-stained jersey were you gonna say 100 degree hot routes is that what i was trying to say all right probably good you cut me off yeah probably that was cheesy uh all right so here's the first question we got five hot routes questions all regarding quarterbacks first one how many of these quarterbacks on the v schedule are either equal or better than Kirk Cousins? Jalen Hurts, Jared Goff, Jameis Winston, Tua, Carson Wentz, Mack Jones, Zach Wilson, Matt Ryan, Daniel Jones. How many of those? I don't know how many that is, but which guys do you think are equal or better

than Kirk Cousins? I think that's nine guys. If I counted right. Uh, none of them are better than Kirk Cousins. Uh, that is what I've come to. Um, I can see an argument for saying Matt Ryan is as good as Kirk Cousins, if you'd like to make that argument, but I think Kirk Cousins is the best quarterback of that entire list and until you kind of very plainly laid it out I mean in the NFL if you have the better quarterback you should win more times than not and so the Vikings schedule sets up favor favorably for their um who they're going to play at quarterback uh you're going to play twice against Jared Goff you're going to play against all those other teams as well I you can convince me otherwise but Kirk Cousins seems to be the best one playing the best football right now he hasn't had the better career as Matt Ryan but he's easily better than Zach Wilson Daniel Jones Jared Goff Carson Wentz, two of very, very inconsistent, would easily take Kirk Cousins

over him. Jalen Hurts, I would maybe take Jalen Hurts in his contract before I would take Kirk Cousins in his contract. But if we are just going off play on the field, Kirk Cousins is the best quarterback of this group. He's the most consistent quarterback of this group. Regularly a top 10 PFF quarterback these last few years not what you can say about any of these other guys i i think it's pretty clear kirk cousins is is the best quarterback of that group to me okay so that makes up 10 games out of the 17 games where we think that kirk cousins is decidedly the better quarterback now i agree however i think that a lot of these quarterbacks have the capability of playing in a single game better than Kirk Cousins. They have the possibility of outplaying him. So for example,

I don't think Daniel Jones has the possibility of outplaying Kirk Cousins that he's so far behind that I just can't see it. But now if you do it by that way, like, could you see it? Is it like a 45% chance or 40% chance? Jalen hurts. Of course, his scrambling ability evens the game there. Kirk cousins was high on the PFF grade. So was Jalen hurts last year. He was 10th by PFF overall grade because he scrambled successfully 50 times. I mean, that was the second most in the entire NFL other than Josh Allen for Jalen Hurts. So he's very good at running with the ball. Jared Goff has in an actual NFL game

outperformed Kirk Cousins. Jameis Winston is the ultimate all or nothing quarterback who could possibly do it. Tua is a little harder to see, but he has more weapons this year. Not so sold on that. Mac Jones, I think, is equal. I was going to say Mac Jones and Jalen Hurts are much closer to equal than they are way

behind because I think that Mac Jones going into year two, what he did in year one projects well for that. Zach Wilson, way, way behind, but could take a step forward. But as of right now, you would say pretty much Daniel Jones and Zach Wilson are the only ones that are so far behind Kirk that you can't see it. So a lot of these games are probably like a 60, 40 type swing for which quarterback will do what? I mean, Carson Wentz has had incredible games in his career. He had amazing games last year, but he also had horrific games last year

and you could almost look at it by percentage of chance that they play a really good game against the vikings if the vikings don't have a great defense might tip the scales a little bit there to where out of a total of nine you might say three or four. It looks more like we'll outperform cousins in these games. And then the games will come down to something else. Supporting casts are going to matter though, because even if Kirk is a better quarterback than Tua or Jalen Hurts, those supporting casts and overall teams are stronger football teams than the Minnesota Vikings, I think. Yeah. I mean, if the question was how many of these teams are they going to beat, I wouldn't pick them to beat the Eagles right now.

I wouldn't pick them to beat the Lions both games. I think they'll probably get one of them. I'm not sure I'm picking them to beat the Dolphins. I'm not sure I'm picking them to beat the Patriots. But what I do know is those games will come down more to the supporting cast than it will to exactly who the quarterback is. But for a lot of those teams, I think Kirk Cousins is clearly the better quarterback. Game to game, I think it could vary pretty drastically.

And we've seen that in Kirk Cousins' career. He's consistent season to season in the body of work that he has. But fans know that Kirk, just like any other quarterback, can throw up a clunker there pretty easily. When it all comes into form, it looks pretty much like an above-average quarterback, but he is going to flounder a couple games. Inside pressure is going to be too much, and he's just not going to be comfortable. He's not going to play a good game.

There's going to be a lot of tight coverage one game. He's just not going to play a good game. We can forecast how some of these things happen to Kirk. So, yeah, I don't think he's 100% going to play a good game. Like we can forecast how some of these things happen to Kirk. So yeah, I don't think he's a hundred percent going to be better than all these guys came in and game out. But if I were, if you were to hand me this list at the start of the season,

not considering contracts and just say, pick the quarterback that you want for this season. I think I'm taking Kirk cousins out of that group. And I'm not a big Kirk cousins defender, but I think if we're removing a lot of those variables, out of that group. And I'm not a big Kirk Cousins defender, but I think if we're removing a lot of those variables, he's easily the most talented. Outside of Matt Ryan, he's probably the most proven of those guys.

And he's definitely in a better spot in his career than Matt Ryan is in terms of his physical capabilities and where he's at this season. So, yeah, I think Kirk Cousins is obviously, this is obviously the conundrum that you face. And I'm sure you'll talk about it a lot during this quarterback week. It's a conundrum you face with Kirk cousins when he is an above average guy, but yeah, in 10 of the games, they should have a quarterback advantage. Yeah. Uh, but that's the thing, right? Is that in a static environment, if all things were equal and you compared him to these guys i think you're taking him over most if not all of them but if i need to win one game i don't know i mean do i take jalen hertz because of the mobility element of that you know do i take mac jones because he gets rid of

the ball quicker and doesn't take sacks in the same way that kirk cousins has throughout his career like maybe maybe do i take matt ryan because he's Maddie ice and because he has a history of taking a team to the Superbowl and winning an MVP. Even if he is older, do I take him because he's probably the more accomplished quarterback and I trust him a little more in a huge game. The other thing is too, that Kirk Cousins has quarterbacked some Viking losses to much worse quarterbacks during his time. I mean, including he had to come back from down 20 to Brandon Allen. He lost to Cooper Rush, lost to Matt Moore. And I know, look, it's a team game and everything else.

Harrison Butker had to make a long field goal. But it's not like a guarantee that if you go into a game and the other quarterback is worse, Baker Mayfield played one of the worst games that I've ever seen a quarterback play in person and the Vikings lost 14 to seven. So that inconsistency of cousins, the cousins coaster always opens the door for, even if you're playing a worse quarterback that you can have trouble, but that's what Kevin O'Connell is sort of here to do is to smooth that out and to keep cousins on the track, even if things aren't going exactly right. But if we went, if we did a different question in supporting casts, some of these guys definitely have better supporting cast than the Vikings, which, you know, kind of evens

that playing field. But I just thought that was because I'm writing about, you know, the quarterbacks that they face. One of my observations was, wow, there's a lot of quarterbacks here that I would take cousins before those quarterbacks that they're going to play this year. All right. Next question for you. Since Kirk cousins signed with the Vikings, they have 33 wins in 65 games, right? Of course they do. Uh, how many would they have had they in 2018 gone with case keenum teddy bridgewater alex smith lamar jackson or a 100 healthy sam bradford so go one by one tell me how many wins if those quarterbacks had started all the games for the vikings out of 65 yeah i'll go lowest to the highest amount. Uh, I think case Keenum wins them the least amount of games of this group. I put their record at like 24 and 41 in those 65 games,

which is averaging about six wins per season. I think you may not fall off the face of the earth with case Keenum, uh, as obviously they saw when they had a really good team. But the teams fell off in these subsequent years. Obviously, they'd have more cap space. But I think if you just plop down in the exact same roster coaching situation, Keenum's getting you five, six games a year, I think. Up that, Teddy Bridgewater, I had them at 28 games. So just one more game a year. They go right around seven and nine, seven and 10, six and 10,

eight and eight, that sort of realm with Teddy Bridgewater. Still, I think Kirk obviously would be better than them. Alex Smith, I have at 32 wins. I was trying to distinguish between him and Kirk Cousins. I think maybe they win one more game with Kirk, but I pretty much think they're dead even in terms of the games that you'd win with Alex Smith and the games that you'd win with Kirk Cousins. Assuming Alex Smith doesn't have a devastating career-ending injury, I think you've obviously seen Alex Smith be able to play well for teams that go to the playoffs with the Chiefs, with the 49ers in the past. I think he's a really solid quarterback. I could even hear the argument for him winning more games than they did with Kirk Cousins, but I think generally's a really solid quarterback. I could even hear the argument for him winning more games than they did with Kirk Cousins,

but I think generally he's really a facsimile of Kirk Cousins. Different styles of game, but I think the results end up in the same place a lot of the time. So I have Alex Smith just right there at about the same spot. Healthy Sam Bradford I had at 37 games, which is just like nine wins a season, nine, 10 wins a season. I think slightly better than what you got from Kirk. I think if Bradford is healthy, which is always the caveat, he was really, really good. And he was good for the Vikings when he was healthy and he just wasn't available too often. But Sam Bradford, former first overall pick with the exact same rosters coaching

situation I think he's able to thrive in those schemes that the Vikings have had in the past with those wide receivers that the Vikings have had in the past I think he gets them above the hump he doesn't make them a perennial contender by any stretch of the imagination but I think they make one the playoffs one of the years that they don't make it with Kirk. They make the playoffs three out of those four years, instead of just a couple of those years. And then finally, Lamar Jackson, I looked up currently with the Ravens, his record is 37 and 12. That's what he is with the Ravens. So he's won 37 games in 49 games as a starter. So now you're adding 16 more games. I put Lamar Jackson at 42, which is just over 10, 11 games a year. I think with the same exact situations, Lamar's the different one because

Teddy, Case, Smith could all run the schemes that the Vikings have ran and do pretty similar jobs, fulfill similar roles as Kirk Cousins. Lamar Jackson, in order for him to be successful, the offenses would have had to be completely tailored towards him, as the Ravens have done. That's obviously been a storyline. They wouldn't be successful if they just tried to make Lamar Jackson into some other type of quarterback, into a quarterback like Kirk Cousins or anyone else.

So you'd really have to tailor the system, and Mike Zimmer would have had to be open to that. And this, the, the offensive coordinators would have had to been open to that. Like that would have taken complete organizational buy-in. So I don't necessarily think that his ceiling is as high as it would be with the Ravens currently,

because I'm just not sure that would have happened at the rate that it did with the Ravens. But I think, yeah, he still gets you 10, 11 wins per season. So that's, instead of just picking a random game number, I kind of wanted to structure it by how many games are these guys who can win? So Case felt like five or six, Teddy's six or seven, Smith right

around that 500, Bradford gets you just above 500. And I think Lamar Jackson is the best out of those 10, 11 games a year with these current rosters. Go to SodaStick.com. That is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K, our loyal sponsor. Check out all of their great Minnesota-themed gear for your playoff run in hockey or for baseball season if you're headed out in the nice weather to a baseball game. That is S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K, SodaStick.com. Hats, t-shirts, hoodies if you need them for a cool evening in the summer. SodaStick.com has you covered. So I think that with Case and Teddy, in 2018 and 19, they end up with similar records.

Because those teams were really strong. And one of the issues, especially in 2018 was team chemistry, leadership, like the things that they were missing, but they had top defenses in those years. And even though like with Teddy Bridgewater, for example, like Teddy is a very conservative quarterback. He doesn't turn the ball over a whole lot, but when they had really good defenses that was a good thing which we'll talk about even more with Alex Smith that was a really good thing 2018 they turned the ball over a bunch and they were really inefficient with John D Filippo but also there was that drama and conflict between D Filippo and Zimmer that was problematic that I feel like Teddy Bridgewater would have stayed in the middle of uh and been sort of like

I mean think about it like there was drama between Mike Zimmer and Norv Turner and Teddy Bridgewater would have stayed in the middle of and been sort of like, I mean, think about it. Like there was drama between Mike Zimmer and Norv Turner and Teddy Bridgewater was that guy in between kept the locker room on point, that kind of thing where that was something that really hurt them, but there's a gap in talent. So it probably ends up around the same nine and seven, eight and eight kind of thing for the 2019 season. They won, I think one game against the winning team, which was Philadelphia that ended up nine and seven. They had a really easy schedule. They beat, you know, the heck out of the lions a couple of times they played the NFC East. I think so that they beat the giants. Maybe Washington was horrible that year. That was one that case actually started a game. They would have won that no matter what case would have won

it against themselves. Um, but I don't think they're winning more games, especially these last two years, probably quite a few less, maybe. 2020 was just a straight up bad football team. So you're talking about maybe like five wins, six wins for both of those guys in those two seasons. If they have a strong structure around them, they can keep you around 500 or a little bit more, especially with the defense. But I wouldn't say it's more. So I'll go with about 28 for Case and maybe 30 for Teddy. That might be giving Teddy a little too much credit, but he was seven and seven with the Broncos last year where they had a good defense and he played very safe football and you can

kind of win half your games that way. So I'll go with that. Now here's where it gets interesting. Alex Smith from 2011 to 2018 went 75, 35 and one 75, 35 and one for Alex Smith. And in the process also led the NFL once in quarterback rating that 2017 year. Now you may not think he's as good as Patrick Holmes and you would be correct, but this man knew how to win football games and he did it by not getting sacked, not turning the ball over. He got sacked some, not turning the ball over was his big thing. Not a lot of interceptions.

In fact, from 2011 on in his career, he never got to double digit interceptions. So playing it safe was very effective for Alex Smith. He had some good teams, some good coaching, but even in the down years, he still found ways to win. Kansas City 2014, he ends up with a winning record. Kansas City 2017 ends up with a winning record there. Those are not particularly strong teams, definitely not stronger than the Vikings were in 2018-2019. So I think 2018-2019, Alex Smith puts up 11 to 12 win seasons in those years. These last two years is probably about the same because I don't think he was a player that really raised the level, but if you had a good team, he was winning a lot of games. Think about this. Like cousins in his career has never had an 11 win

season. Alex Smith had four of them. I mean, you can't tell me like, Oh, there was this coach or it was that offensive line or this running game or whatever that's with different franchises, different rosters. And he was able to do that. So I don't think at all, Alex Smith was one of the best quarterbacks ever, but I also think he was the perfect quarterback for Mike Zimmer. Keep the train on the tracks, run play actions, hand the ball off and be an A plus leader. Like you saw, like this really stuck with me about Alex Smith. When Patrick Mahomes won the Superbowl, Alex Smith was one of the first people he thanked. that sort of speaks to who that guy is. So I think that Alex Smith probably wins like 38 games. I think he would have been several better in those years that they underachieved when they

actually had really good teams as opposed to these last two seasons. Lamar Jackson, i have in the same ballpark maybe 40 um i think lamar jackson with the 2018 or 2019 team if they had the right offensive coordinator of course because you can't really run like run the boots and stuff the same way with kubiak so assuming they would have had a different offensive coordinator he has never had great receiving weapons you give him the great receiving weapons in a run game i don't see how he's stoppable. I think he gets them in the playoffs the last two years. There's like a low seed, but those first two years, especially the year he won MVP went like 14 and two. I think they're winning like 13 games, 12 games in one of those years. So I'll give him closer to 40 and Sam Bradford, I think is about the same. Um, maybe, uh, maybe just a hair

better. Cause I think he's a little more talented. So maybe like 34, 35, but I wouldn't go crazy pushing Sam Bradford way above, um, Kirk cousins. So I that's, that's kind of where I have them. I think that, um, Alex Smith does not get his appreciation in the NFL because if you don't win a Super Bowl and if they replace you, by the way, when he's about the same age as Kirk is now, just throwing that out there, going into his age 34 season is when Kansas City moved on from their quarterback. But I think that if Alex Smith gets a little better luck in the playoffs and his defense doesn't blow like a 30 point lead to Kansas City or to

Indianapolis the one time, or if he gets past, you know, I think it was the New York Giants to get into the Super Bowl. You know, maybe you were talking about a different legacy for Alex Smith, but I think he probably deserves some more respect. So that's where I got him. Your reaction. Yeah, I, I get the Alex Smith piece. I, I. I think I'd push back slightly in that it would be that much better, just kind of like going through their stats. Alex Smith obviously didn't turn the ball over that much. When you look at turnover where they play percentage on PFF, he's always hovering right around kind of that 2% range

in terms of how often he's throwing turnover where he plays. But in the four seasons of the Vikings, Kirk Cousins has really lowered that percentage that he's had turnover where he plays, but in the four seasons, the Vikings, uh, Kirk cousins has really lowered that percentage that he's had on teams. It was 2.4, then 2.6, 2.8. So that's slightly higher than Alex Smith,

but Alex Smith was frequently not having many big time throws, which is the opposite. How many times are you making big throws for your team? And so Kirk cousins was amongst the top 10 in terms of the least amount of turnover where he plays last year. And he has had considerably more big time throws than Alex Smith. And I think Alex Smith worked really well for a team like the 2017 Kansas city chiefs who had a good team around him. That was by far his best season 28 touchdowns five interceptions 4,300 yards like that is the peak of what you want Alex Smith to be and if

that's the quarterback that the Vikings got that would be someone who's better than Kirk Cousins but he's also the guy that the next year he goes to Washington he has nine big time throws nine turnover really plays doesn't play very well at all. Not a great system. That's before he gets hurt, obviously, or 2018, not 2019. I'm sorry. He was out all of the 2019 season. But yeah, I think from that intangible, like Alex Smith leads you to be a winner, like perspective, I think there is something to that.

But I think from a quarterbacking perspective, I think Kirk Cousins, when the team around him wasn't that great, when the volume was higher, I think he could, it could be argued. I think that he eked out one or two more wins than Alex Smith could have. Um, but I think they're really close to me. They're about even, I don't think one's much different than the other. I just think Alex Smith with a really good team with a really good roster is probably better than he, he, what he does translates to more winning than what Kirk Cousins can do with a really good roster and a really good team around him. I'm just not so sure the teams that the Vikings have had these recent years classify as good teams and ones that Alex Smith would have been able to take advantage of

and kind of make winners. It feels like it probably would have been about what Cousins did with these teams because Cousins elevated in some games and he obviously dropped off in some games. I think you get a more steady line of play from Alex Smith than you do of Kirk Cousins. But I think the end results of a lot of these seasons end up relatively similar with Alex Smith. See, I think that the last two years, I would agree with that because I don't think Smith is a carry a team like Lamar Jackson uh and overcome a bad defense maybe did a little bit of it in his career but I wouldn't say yeah okay he's just gonna like carry you offensively and you're gonna just score like crazy 2018 and 2019 I think he would have I think he would have won more games and when I look at

so interception where where Kansas City ranked in the league from 2013 to 2017, first, first, first, seventh, second for fewest interceptions. I mean, that matters that you're just not turning the ball over with Alex Smith. And I understand the, I mean, here's giveaways offensively. Every single year, Alex Smith was with Kansas City. They were in the top 10 and and often in the top two or three when it came to giveaways and that's a big deal like that you hear that all the time like that's the statistic that connects a lot to winning is how much you turn the ball over so even if he wasn't the best when and especially didn't throw a ton of touchdowns and wasn't like

at the top of the league in yards per attempt all the time. I think that ability to hang onto the ball and still produce good offenses. When you look at their offensive points rank, they were sixth from 2013, sixth, 16th, ninth, 13th, and sixth. So very good offenses along the way. I think that the turnovers did put a lot of pressure in 2018 specifically on the Vikings defense, which brought them back down to earth from where they were in 2017 when Case Keenum didn't turn the ball over very often. So that year specifically, I think there's a big win difference. The other years, it's probably not crazy, and especially the last two. And that goes for Sam Bradford also. But, but I do think that if a guy wins 75 out of 110 or 111 games with different franchises, completely different rosters, I don't think it's just super random

that that happens. And I know that people hate the QB wins thing, but when there's this gigantic gap and you can't look at the rosters and say, oh, well, Cousins had nothing. I mean, look at Smith's wide receivers. I mean, did he ever have a great wide receiver during his entire time there? Let me look. Who was his top wide receiver in 2017 when he led the league in quarterback rating? Is Tyreek there at that point? I don't even remember. Okay, Tyreek is there.

And then he leads the league in quarterback rating when Tyreek is there. And before that, though, they didn't have a whole lot. I think, I mean, again, and we're not factoring in what their contract would be necessarily, but Alex Smith, if that was part of the discussion when he was with the Chiefs, it's $8 million, $5 million, $15 million, $18 million, $17 million. So that's much less than what Kirk Cousins was having. So if we added contracts to this and they were making what he was making, then I think that the, it shifts definitely in the favor of Alex Smith.

But it, if we're just doing it straight up and we're not considering contract, that's where I think it evens the playing field slightly. Okay. The last point I'll make on the Alex Smith thing is I think if you're comparing who was a better fit for Mike Zimmer, it's not even close. Yeah.

Alex Smith quarterbacked with Jim Harbaugh and succeeded. So it wasn't just Andy Reid, but it was also Jim Harbaugh and had very good offenses. So I'm not saying that Alex Smith belongs in the Hall of Fame or anything else. I just think that the way he plays would have lended himself perfectly to how Mike Zimmer wanted to play. And in those two seasons would have resulted in a little bit more. But it's a, it's a fun question. Play along at home. So here's the next question.

Who is the best quarterback of your lifetime that is not named Tom Brady or Peyton Manning? Yeah, this one was difficult. I think it probably makes sense the names i'd be mulling uh the aaron rogers is and patrick mahomes that's kind of the discussion i came down to uh for me it's aaron rogers is the best quarterback that i've seen witnessed uh in my lifetime we were talking about this on the golf course i don't have much memory of football pre like 2007 because I was eight in 2007. So sorry, I wasn't grinding the tape at five years old. That really counts as your lifetime, your lifetime watching football. Yeah. Yeah. So for me, that's Aaron Rodgers. And I grew up with Packer fans in the family,

which meant I watched a lot of Packers games when they were on or paid attention to them or they were just around. And so just consistently what he was able, what he has been able to do and longevity wise, what he has continued to be able to do despite getting older and still being an MVP level candidate like he has been. Just I mean, Patrick Mahomes is supremely, supremely talented and may vault him at some point, but the longevity that Rodgers has had over the course of his career and just being a Vikings fan growing up and then covering them and watching them, the scary things that he can do to them and the fear that he puts in a team when he's on the other side of the ball that he has done for so many years.

Aaron Rodgers, to me, is the best quarterback that I've ever seen outside of Brady and Manning and Mahomes very much may pass him at some point but longevity really factored into this conversation for me and for him how long he's been doing it and the different eras that he's done it and with the different head coaches when he doesn't have the greatest head coach of all time and he's dragging along Mike McCarthy with him and not, and not Andy Reed. I think that has to say something for him and the consistency and the different type of guys that he's elevated from James Jones to Jordy Nelson

to Devante Adams, to all the guys that he's been able to play with mesh with different styles of wide receiver that he's won with Donald driver, Greg Jennings, all those guys that puts Aaron Rogers in a different echelon for me than it does with Patrick Mahomes, but in five years that they might be dead even, but right now, Aaron Rogers is the best one I've ever seen. I mean, if you can make Jeff Janice look good, then you're pretty good. No, the fact that Rogers has had two different

peaks of his career and back-to-back MVPs. And that was after the first peak where he was sort of running away with the most talented quarterback in the NFL. I think of my lifetime, Rogers has a really good case for the best thrower of the football, the most accuracy, the most velocity, the strongest arm, even with Brett Favre in the universe. If you, if you factor in accuracy to it, then Rogers has better accuracy, better accuracy than our guy, Jeff George, better accuracy than

Dante Culpepper, all these guys who had huge arms, better accuracy than Josh Allen and can throw it just as hard as those guys. And you know, there is the, the playoff stuff that you would factor in, but he still has a super bowl they're winning 13 games all the time in recent years since matt lafleur took over and after a time where it looked like he was fading a little bit and then to come back like this he has a good case for the best quarterback of my lifetime uh but my lifetime goes back farther than yours does. And yeah, for me, it's Steve Young has a really good argument. Go look at Steve Young's statistics and how absolutely bat bleep crazy they are. And this was as the league was starting free agency. So not the same way as Joe Montana, who had the same team year

after year after year. So starting free agency at the beginning of his starting career. And like he led the league in quarterback rating 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, and 97. That was Steve Young. I mean, that's just absolutely nuts. Uh, how far ahead he was. He did not have the longevity because it took so long for him to become a starter. Imagine this happening today that Steve Young joined San Francisco in 1987 and did not become their full-time starter to play a whole season until 1992. I mean, that is a long time to sit, but maybe makes a good argument for sitting two-time MVP. I mean, offenses, I looked this up before we came on that during the nineties, the 49ers had the number one offense in the entire NFL. That's largely Steve Young and not Joe Montana, who would have been for the 80s.

So he's probably the best for me. And because he doesn't have those big yardage totals for his career and touchdown totals, you don't hear his name come up as often where it's like, oh, this quarterback is passing whoever on the all-time list. But I think eight years is a peak is long enough to say Dan Marino gets in this conversation. I saw enough of Joe Montana to say he would be there, but he's more of the 80s for me than what I saw with him in Kansas City. So I kind of push him a bit to the side. Ben Roethlisberger is in here somewhere i'm not sure exactly where or what to do with ben roethlisberger because i do think that he was an incredible quarterback and shifted that franchise

from being like oh i'll defense and run the ball to open it up throw it all the time launch it down the field to antonio brown and clearly a winning quarterback as well. Someone who you would want on that final drive, but I don't know that he's in the, quite the level of a Steve young or a Dan Marino. So that's kind of, kind of where I'm at there. I get to go back to the, the Elway too.

I mean, Elway people will call up his pro football reference page and look at his statistics. It's like not that sexy for what he did, but then you look at the offenses that he operated every year they were in the top five offenses because he was the whole team so he was kind of like a mahomes only with mostly mediocre teams and he was amazing um those are probably the ones that come to my mind first if you've already selected rogers and then of course

farv gets in the conversation as well i'm i am looking up some some steve young stats right now and they are bonkers nuts yep led touchdowns led in the league in touchdowns 92 93 94 and 98 and i was confused in 98 he has 36 touchdowns 12 interceptions they go 11 and 4 i'm trying to look at who won the mvp that year and i'm not going to get into a 1998 mvp discussion because i have no ability to do that but it was terrell davis the running back that won that i think uh what what are we now um 24 years from now i don't i'm not sure that that with the same seasons you're giving a running back uh the mvp award randall cunningham came in second in m in MVP voting that year. Steve Young was sixth.

Steve Young was lower than Marshall Falk, who ran for 1,300 yards. How are we putting Marshall Falk and Jamal Anderson ahead of Steve Young in an MVP discussion? It went Terrell Davis, Randall Cunningham, Randy Moss, Jamal Anderson, Marshall Falk, Steve Young. He didn't even make the top five in MVP voting. He led the league in touchdowns. He had 4,200 yards in 1998.

He had almost 500 rushing yards that season too, six rushing touchdowns that year too for Steve Young. So I'm reflexively getting mad about him, at least not being higher in the 1998 MVP rankings. So yes, Steve Young Young hell of a quarterback that's why you're on the show because you can get mad in 1998 uh MVP rankings but the thing about Terrell Davis now they were the best team in the league the Denver Broncos and he was the centerpiece of their offense nobody had run for 2,000 yards sinceic dickerson so it was this huge huge deal

that someone 2008 yards you know it barely corrected but okay i'm not disagreeing with you for which player was more valuable trust me steve young was way more valuable there's no doubt about that it's just that that's why it was is that they they won a lot of games running the football. And I'm sure that some of it was getting ahead with John Elway and running the heck out of the ball. But, you know, we know these things better now than we knew in 1998. Here's something crazy for you. When the original XFL started, because I was thinking about this the other night, I went to WWE SmackDown and Vince McMahon came out and addressed whatever problems he's having. I don't pay enough attention. I just wanted to see what it looked like in real life.

But I don't really know the ins and outs of that deal. But I was thinking of when Vince McMahon came out for the original XFL and said, this is the XFL. And I was remembering, and think about your perception of 1998 football, that the narrative Vince McMahon built for the XFL was that the NFL had gone soft. That was his narrative about 1998 football. So think about how different things are now. If 1998 football at that time was being called soft when it was absolutely insane, the way that they played football compared to now. So things change, Paul.

All right. I mean, fair enough. I'm just, I'm, I'm saying Steve young underrated 1998 season should have been higher. That's my hot take 24 years later. I,

I, I, I'm not going to get up. I'm not going to get in the thralls of Vikings fans who remember the Randall Cunningham season and which one was better. Maybe Terrell Davis stole Randall Cunningham's MVP that year. Because I think if I went back and looked at it, Terrell Davis got 40% of the vote. Cunningham got 32%. So it was a very contested year. Randall Cunningham almost got it. Yeah. I mean, you should probably be more angry for Cunningham considering they had the best offense in the league. And at that time it was like the best offense ever at that time. And so, you know, there's probably that too. And maybe Moss split some of the vote, which is not fair

because it's not like Chris Carter and Jake Reed didn't have great seasons too with Randall Cunningham. All the Moss votes went to Cunningham. He would have won that. Yeah. So Cunningham deserved that probably even more than Steve Young and San Francisco in the playoffs. Here's another sort of what if thing came close to beating Atlanta. And if they had beaten Atlanta, then they're playing the Vikings and it's not Atlanta and San Francisco. Wasn't quite the juggernaut as a team that they were in like 94. So maybe the Vikings have an easier time if San Francisco had won. So plenty of reasons to be upset about that 98 season. Okay.

We'll keep these other two quicker. These have been really fun discussions. If I told you that one quarterback who was horrendous last year would be in the MVP conversation this year. Say like Jared Goff going from the Rams with Jeff Fisher to the Rams with Sean McVay, and they have the number one offense. Who is that quarterback? It does not have to be a young guy. It could be someone who has been around and just had a horrific season and then was really good this year. Who do you think that would be? Yeah, I was trying to find someone who was like truly horrific, not just like below average, but very bad that could make this big jump. And the only name that really stuck out to me was Trevor Lawrence. Trevor Lawrence was the

number one guy for me, fifth worst PFF grade, third most interceptions in the league, just obviously had a horrible, horrible season for the Jaguars. And I think MVP is all about narrative. And so if they go from being this absolute train wreck to a team that's 10 and six and in the playoffs wins their division or something, which is a very winnable division, just in general, you don't, there's not a juggernaut in that division for them. Like it'd be hard to give the mvp to a wild card team but if the jaguars made some massive massive improvement it would have to be because of trevor lawrence and you would get the narrative spinning about what he was able to do after the horrible year and i think he's just set up outside a narrative i think he's set up to just have a

really really big bounce back season they got just competency in the coaching staff competency in the offensive skill positions with him regardless of if they overpaid they're going to have travis etn coming back james robinson like they have talent along the offensive side of the ball they've done a little bit to address the offensive line probably not as much as you'd like but he fits the mold as someone who was truly truly really really bad last season from a perspective of like this guy was supposed to be a generational guy then he threw 12 touchdowns and he had 17 interceptions and he had a completion percentage under 60 and he threw only for 3600 yards which is nothing in the NFL these days. So like everything that you like would look to in terms of like why he was bad,

he was bad in all those metrics. And so I think he fits the mold of someone who's going to have a bounce back season because of the situation. He's going to have a bounce back situation in the narrative. And that team, although maybe not great, is around a bunch of other bad teams in that division. Tennessee wants to take a step back, it seems, or is kind of conceding it's going to take a step back. Houston is still just a bleep show.

And the Colts could be good, but who knows? They collapsed last season. Matt Ryan, maybe he's good, maybe he's washed. I don't know. So Trevor Lawrence has the clearest path for me to be really good and to be in that MVP conversation heading into next year. Okay. I've got a few nominees. Since I said horrendous, Russell Wilson doesn't count, but he did not have a typical Russell

Wilson season. The finger injury seemed to really impact him when he returned for the Seahawks. So I think he'll be better this year, but I don't think he was horrendous. Now Tua is one that i would think of just because of the supporting cast jaylen waddle and tyree kill playing together i mean that just could be madness mike isicky you know they've improved their offensive line they have improved their coaching i think that brian floris was a good head coach but they had co-offensive coordinators. What? So Mike McDaniel

being there gives them that Shanahan type of thing. And if Tua, I'm not saying wins MVP, but if he's good and they win like 12 games because their roster has been stacked up from doing what now? Was it tanking that they did? I don't remember. I'll just have to have somebody go through the history with me, but I think they were tanking and somehow stocked a bunch of draft picks in cap space and somehow got a bunch of good players. I don't know how I'll have to check into that. But that's a possibility. Daniel Jones is a possibility only because of Brian Dable.

And that team is healthy, at least for right now. Last year, they were the most injured team in the league. So maybe there's something there again joe judge you it's same logic is if they had a horrific coach that matters uh to how the quarterback played so if the giants are your surprise team zach wilson was about the worst quarterback in the league that's another one i'd throw out there my low-key hot take one though and this would be the hottest of the hot takes, would be Baker Mayfield. That if Baker Mayfield ends up getting traded to Carolina, as we all expect, and Carolina puts a decent group around him,

and he plays really well in a very bad division overall except for Tampa Bay, and they go 12, 11, whatever, people are going to say, wow, Baker was the difference because look at how they played with Sam Darnold under the same circumstances. He doesn't have the stats of Aaron Rodgers, but he's the most valuable. Take him off that team and you've seen what they are.

And this is a guy who won 11 games just a couple of years ago on a team that had been very, very bad. So that would be the shocking, oh my gosh, what, Baker Mayfield, Carolina Panther, won 11 games? But I don't think it's insane since he's done it before. On one hand, I would say he seems like not a great person to the point where maybe that would siphon off

some votes for him. They just wouldn't want to vote for that guy. Well, Aaron Rodgers last season, so I'm not sure that's necessarily aaron rogers last season so i'm not sure that's necessarily a conversation and then also other people get to have the well look who the cleveland decided to go with instead of baker mayfield so you get some of the votes there so i see the narrative uh for him there uh it would just take a massive like some some crazy things to happen and i think he probably was the best he could have been in a situation with Kevin Stefanski running the show with Matt rule running the show. I have

no confidence that anyone can look good at any point, but we're going for hot takes. We're going for outrageous, potentially narrative flipping guys. And I like the, I like the effort there on that Baker Mayfield one. I respect that. That's the biggest swing. So if that happens, then we can go back to this and say semi called it. Anyway, so there is another question that I have. I'll just tease it for a future episode later on this week is which Vikings quarterback outside of Tarkington and Favre would you want for a final drive? So think about that in your brains and maybe we'll talk about it in an episode later on

this week. Paul, thanks so much for joining as always, and hope you guys enjoy this. We'll have more quarterback related content, including Will Parkinson is going to come on from turn on the jets to talk about Zach Wilson in year two and whether the jets can be that team that we're surprised when the Vikings face them. Oh my gosh, the jets are good. That happened to us last year with the Bengals. So we'll have that discussion as we continue to kind of work our way through the schedule

with other podcasters and writers who cover those teams. So thanks for your time, Paul, and we will talk to you all later.