Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - How much better would the Vikings have been with Kevin O'Connell instead of Mike Zimmer?

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom discuss an article in The Athletic about Mike Zimmer's frustrations over Kirk Cousins and then play a game with offensive free agent targets Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with Sam Ekstrom. I am just hours away from boarding a flight to go to the NFL Combine in Indianapolis, I think. There was once upon a time where I got to the airport, got on the plane, and then they had to de-ice the plane or something. Then the pilots had been on for too long, so I got off the plane, and the only rescheduled flight to Indianapolis was like the next afternoon, which would have meant missing the head coach talking, Mike Zimmer.

And so I just stayed in Minnesota. Every other year I've gone to the Combine, except for that one time that that happened. There was also a time where my station forgot to apply for a credential. So I could not go into the room where they do the press conferences, but was still able to participate in the hallway where they did the one-on-ones with Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman. But this time the flight should work and the credential has been approved. So we are good to go, Sam. That's fantastic. And you know, on this, on this this show we often commend you for well first of all

we make fun of you for as you take a sip of your diet dr pepper we make fun of you for that addiction but we also commend you for your sobriety and i imagine that being the only sober one nightlife at the combine has its benefits because then you're around all these people willing to talk and you're like okay let me take some notes yeah uh and uh sage rosenfels is going with uh me and that is the announcement if you didn't catch it on the last one i'd sort of tease that there's going to be something really cool that's what it is former vikings quarterback sage rosenfels is going to be doing several shows with me from the combine, and he will not be passing the sobriety test later on in the evening. But the crazy thing about Sage is that he knows

absolutely everyone. Sage played for a bunch of teams. He works with QB collective, which Sean McVay is involved with, and they train young quarterbacks. He does some training of young quarterbacks on the side. He does radio appearances and media stuff. And so there's so many people that when you walk around with Sage, come up to him and talk with him. And I don't think that they really think of Sage as a media personality. So the last time we were there together at the combine, he gathered so much information. It was just like, oh my gosh. But yeah, it. But, yeah, it is a little bit odd being the one person that does not party in Indianapolis because that is a thing that I think a lot of teams have actually cut down the number of people that they take there

because there was too much of that. There was too much of, like, people treating it as a vacation to Indianapolis, Indiana. And so now there's, like, smaller crews that are going. But it should be really fun. And there's a lot of buzz that you end up getting, a lot of people that you see that you don't see all the time. And really, I mean, I think,

and then we'll see how this goes. It's usually been the most illuminating that Mike Zimmer ever was. And so now with him not being there, will Kevin O'Connell be the same way? Because the atmosphere is usually, well, first of all, Zimmer had finally gotten a full night's sleep, which is not the case during the season. And so he was like in a decent mood.

You're scouting players. The guy's in his element talking football with everybody. He's seeing all his friends. And it always felt like he was very relaxed in talking with us. And we saw more of the person that he usually is, I think like, you know, around his family or something and not always just the like hardcore, uh, all football type of person. So that was interesting. And we'll see if Kevin O'Connell is kind of the same way. We'll see if Kwesi Adafomense is the same way, or if they're much more guarded, more guarded and much more sort of, we're not

going to really reveal a whole lot because there is give and take to losing an old school football coach. An old school football coach did not enjoy his interviews with us and yet was very candid. A lot of times I think that O'Connell and Kwezi Adafo-Mensa have a better sense for like the NFL world's magnitude and how everyone is watching and listening to every single quote. So I just that alone really has me interested in what's going to happen. Yeah, Zimmer got riled up so easily and then he would wear his emotions on his sleeve. sense that there's quite a balance to Kwesi Adolfo Mensah and Kevin O'Connell, where they're going to be smooth and they're going to make you feel like you're getting a good answer when you ask a question, but you might not get the answer. What I'm looking forward to, hopefully, is at least a little bit on the roster, because I think in both of their early media sessions, they had every

reason not to address roster things. They would say, well, just got here, just starting evaluations, can't wait to get to work. Hopefully you've done your work now. So heading into this, you could go any which way. You could ask about offensive line. You could ask about the running back situation, the safeties, the linebackers, like corners. There's a bunch of different positions where you could try to get some info aside from the obvious, which is the quarterback. And I would be willing to wager money that there will probably be Kirk Cousins questions asked, and there will probably be lukewarm answers given. So I guess we'll see if that continues.

But Matthew, kind of getting a couple weeks here from free agency, still no movement on the Cousins front or any quarterback front for that matter. So is this kind of, as you predicted, is everybody waiting for the market to get established? Everybody has the same idea. Well, we don't want to be first. We want to be second or third. I wonder if that's what's slowing things down. Well, you also at the combine have lots of other opportunities to talk with people. And remember that the Rams trade started with Matt Stafford and Sean McVay vacationing in the same

spot. You never know where these things are going to come from if trades are going to happen, but at the combine, there's a lot of talk that goes on between teams and it's not like people always find out. I mean, this is what I was thinking about the other day is when Jared Goff and Matt Stafford got traded, was there any buzz for that to happen right before? Were there any insider reports? Oh jared goff is going to get traded by the rams maybe some speculation that there was a possibility it could happen but i don't remember a bunch of people saying oh yeah no this is this is definitely going to happen uh i think teams are pretty good at being deliberate about what they want the reporters to know and what they don't want them to know and if there's a big trade that's percolating, I think it comes out of nowhere. Kirk Cousins

contract extension came out of nowhere. We were surprised on the first day of free agency, the Stefan Diggs trade dropped all of the sudden on us. And we didn't know what was happening. We only knew that Diggs was campaigning for it a little bit on Twitter and that there were some rumors of it, but then it just happened all of a sudden. It wasn't, oh, these two teams are negotiating a trade. It was just, boom, guys traded. And so I think that if Cousins gets traded, it will be much the same way. I did write down some questions on the old web address for Kwesi Adafo-Mensah and Kevin O'Connell, would you like me to ask you them? Yes, please.

Who am I? Am I Kwesi or am I Kevin or am I Sam? I'm answering as Sam. I haven't decided yet. Let's see. So what did I... Okay, here's what I got. How about this?

How about I'll just tell you who you are and then you answer the question. So for this one, why don't you be crazy for this one? Okay. Can you offer any insight into the quarterback situation? Whether it's, you know,

how you feel about Kirk cousins and a contract extension where you stand or even how you feel about the quarterback draft class. Well, I hope I can be as accurate as you were answering as kevin o'connell when i asked you nailed it yeah but um yeah you know as we've said we're very excited to coach kurt cousins and build this offense around his strengths we think he's a very good thrower of the football um as far as the draft goes you know we've got a very exciting young quarterback in Kellen Mond, who I think has a lot of good tools, strong arm, mobility that he showed a bit in the preseason last year. And we hope to unlock what he can do.

But this is, I think, a very good draft class of quarterbacks. We've got some strong arm guys, some mobile guys, smart guys, quick processors. And I think that there are four or five quarterbacks in this draft. They're going to make a team very happy. And we're doing our research on all of them. Okay. I like it. I like it. I was hoping that you would get to the point where you sort of vaguely compliment the draft class. And that is the follow, the natural follow up as well. A lot of the draft analysts quacey say that it is a weak draft class for quarterbacks do you agree with that you know i look at draft classes

of the past and i've seen patrick mahomes not be the first quarterback off the board i've seen lamar jackson not be the first quarterback off the board or deshaun watson i think that um analyzing quarterbacks is very difficult and it's very inexact science. And I know about science. I know about analytics, too. But let me tell you, but I will say that from what I've seen from from this class, I think that if there are indeed no quarterbacks taken in the top 10, I think that there's going to be a very competitive football team that's going to be eager to move up and take some of these guys. So I think that any reports that you're reading about this class not being very good, I think those are maybe a little off base.

Okay. All right. Well, so now if Kwesi says that reports that it's a weak quarterback draft class are off base. That's a headline. That's what you're always listening for is like, okay, what's a headline. What's a headline. I think your first answer was very, you know,

he starts talking about how Mond has a strong arm. Like, okay, well there's nothing here. Yeah. Well, and the antenna goes up too, because he,

if he's going to pick a quarterback from this class, he can't say it's a bad class. Right. He's got to say it's a good class. Yeah, that's exactly it. And maybe it also speaks to your answer, if Kweisi gives the same answer. It also speaks to maybe him understanding

the unpredictability of the draft. The thing you worry about with people who are into analytics and you have seen this fail in pro sports before is that they think they have all the answers. And one of the great things about analytics is it can tell you when you can't find the answers. And that's what a lot of the numbers have always said in the draft research is, are there edges to be gained? Yes. But you can't actually predict which players will be better than others. And if you have a stretch where you're really good, it'll probably be followed by a stretch where you're bad in the draft,

which had happened to the Vikings in the Rick Spielman era. So there are good decisions and bad decisions in the draft. Somebody tweeted out the list of defensive ends and defensive tackles that the Vikings picked from the fourth to the seventh round. Those are bad decisions right there. Those are ones that hurt their chances to have success probably. But most of the time it's just, you know, you have X number of chance and that's it. And I think analytics tell you that, but sometimes there are analytics people who think, oh, I'll just number it to death and I'll be better than the other teams because I have the numbers. And I don't know that that always works. Okay.

One more question for, I'll just continue with Kwesi, your Kwesi, would be how much different will this team look from right now to the end of the off season? Well, right now we're in the process of evaluating all of that. And as you know, we don't have the most generous salary cap situation. So we'll look at every position and analyze every player thoroughly. I like some of the young players we have on this roster. Cam Bynum is very exciting. I think DJ Wanham has a lot of potential. Cameron Dantzler. There are pieces on this roster that we believe can be contributors for us next year. How different will it look?

Certainly, we're going to inject a lot of talent in this draft, and we will be monitoring every free agency possibility. And our goal every month, every day, as the front office of this team, is to improve the roster and find ways to improve it. That might be in March in free agency. That might be in April in the draft. That might be in August just before the season. And you can be positive

that we're going to explore every avenue. I just want to say something. There's a reason we go to press conferences and gather the important things and then give them back to you in the form of podcasts and articles. Because if you had to watch them all and listen to them all yourselves, it would sound like that. And I am now apologizing for this mock press conference that you just gave because I think it's very accurate. And I do think it will be difficult to parse through

and start putting together puzzle pieces of what Kevin O'Connell and Kweisi Adafo-Mensah say toward what they're actually going to do, because they are much more crafty in using their words. I mean, Zimmer and Spielman are old football guys who kind of talked like old football guys, and neither one of them was any good at lying. Like by the time we had talked to them for many years, it was like, okay, when Spielman gives you a one word answer on whether he wants to trade Stefan digs or whether that's possible, he's probably lying to you because he never gave one word answers on anything. So if he did, then he was lying to you. And with Mike, he just would say whatever.

So, you know, it was a little easier. And I think that what you just laid out there is that it will be challenging. A few other things to discuss one pertaining to Mike Zimmer. Our friend, Chad graph wrote an article about how essentially if the Vikings stick with her cousins, it means they believe it was Mike Zimmer's fault. Okay. Here's a question for you. If Kevin with, with knowing nothing about Kevin O'Connell as a coach and just trying to project what we think he's going to be as a head coach, if he was in charge of the last four years of Minnesota Vikings football roster,

the same bad breaks, the same kickers, the same special teams coaches that were insane, the same, not Ryan Ficken, Marwin Maloof, who's just Marwin aloof, more like it. So how many games different do you think the Vikings would have been

over the last four seasons with Kevin O'Connell instead of Mike Zimmer? Well, I'll start by saying that my opinion has gotten even stronger and stronger in the following regard in the last few years. Quarterback means a lot more than coach. I think quarterback is probably an 80% contribution to kind of your ultimate success and coach and scheme is probably the extra 20. And Kyle Shanahan, brilliant offensive mind, wins with Jimmy Garoppolo.

Did he win with Nick Mullins? Did he win with Blaine Gabbert? Like there are clear and the Patriots when they drop off from Tom Brady with the best coach ever. And there's countless examples of that. The Bucks without Brady, but with Arians. All right. There was a year of Arians and Jameis. I'm not wrong about that.

Arians, yes, there was. Yeah, there was one year. Yeah, that was the 30 interception year. Where the Bucs were very, very average because their quarterback was very, very careless with the football. So you see where I'm going with that. It would be difficult, I think, to change Kirk Cousins' makeup. And I think we've seen from Kirk,

especially he's among the more, is this a word? Immalubable unmalubable. One of the two, he is an unmalubable. Say that again. No, I just said with less malleable,

with less malleability. Tiness. He's not going to change a whole lot, depending on like if his instructor, and Mike Zimmer was pretty clear with his instructions this year, Kirk, you can take more risks. And Kirk flat out said, nope, when the football's in my hand, I'm in control of the franchise. I wouldn't want to do that. And just threw it in Zimmer's face basically to the media. And that kind of falls in place with what Chad Graff wrote

about how Zimmer was airing his grievances and having a Festivus celebration around Kirk Cousins with his colleagues at TCO Performance Center. And I know you'll have the stat handy, Matthew, because you always do. Vikings quarterback play was pretty decent with Mike Zimmer. Part of that because of the conservative nature that he approached things with um and the offenses that he crafted that were run heavy and play action friendly and he got the most out of quarterbacks generally no those those

were not super bowl winning formulas but you know they kind of fell into what the vikings became which was a middle of the road in the hunt team. And do you have that number handy? I would love to hear what the. Yeah. Okay. All right. So since 2015, the Minnesota Vikings as a franchise.

So all the quarterbacks, Teddy, Sam Bradford, Case Keenum, Kirk Cousins, and Sean Mannion, to Sean Mannion games. They have the fourth highest quarterback rating of any franchise in the NFL since 2015. Now, if you heard that stat and you didn't know some of the things that we know about Zimmer, that he didn't get along with cousins, that he wanted to run the ball more than he should have wanted to run the ball. You would be like, wow, that guy did that without an elite quarterback. The guys that are ahead of them were quarterbacked the franchises, Drew Brees, Russell Wilson, and Patrick Mahomes. And fifth is green Bay and sixth is new England. So they are in the same category in terms of quarterback rating as Breeze, Wilson, Mahomes, Rogers and Brady. And all of those teams have had a year where they didn't have a great quarterback. But the Vikings did, too, with Case Keenum, who has had no success after he played for the Vikings.

So, you know, the point that I think you're getting toward is just that it's really hard to say that it would be massively different, even if they were a little more savvy in terms of not running on second down. But how many plays is that over a year and so forth? If they had thrown to Diggs more, if they had thrown to Jefferson more, would it have been better? Yeah, but it's hard to be a lot better than they actually were because they had good offensive coordinators. And I don't think that I, my thing is I don't think that Mike Zimmer mis-evaluated anyone. Find me a player that he badly mis-evaluated that he thought was really terrible and went somewhere else and turned out to be great. Like there are, I mean,

very few, like you have to get really nitpicky with this, that he played Breland over Dantzler, who dancer, who was really bad in training camp, by the way, like, okay,

he should have played Dantzler is Dantzler insanely better than Breland. Probably not. I mean, you, you really have to get deep in the weeds to find any mis-evaluations. I don't think anything Mike Zimmer thought or said about Kirk Cousins was wrong. And I think he went so far out of his way to get the most out of Cousins, to try to form everything in a plexiglass cocoon to make it work. So he was only having to do the things that he was good at because he had a full

year of watching them lean into cousins as a quarterback and they didn't have very good results. So I have a tough time thinking that the Zimmer era with cousins is hugely different, especially since I don't think that Ed Donatel is doing much better with the defense than Mike Zimmer did that. That was a lot of personnel. And I don't know that Ed Donatel is doing much better with the defense than Mike Zimmer did, that that was a lot of personnel. And I don't know that Kevin O'Connell is doing way better than Gary Kubiak and Kevin Stefanski. It's probably percentage points better. It might be a win or two. We also don't know how well Kevin O'Connell handles in-game management because we know

that Sean McVay actually is not great at it. So yeah, I tend to think that the point of the exercise is just, if you think that you can do all of this stuff again and have different results, I'm not sure how you prove that. I'm not sure how you prove that because cousins played better in Minnesota than he did in Washington. And he played in terms of his statistics about at the height of what his talent is. And I never blamed Zimmer for any of that. I blamed him for lots of other stuff and I blamed Rick Spielman for lots of other stuff, but not that. Yeah. And I would say too, that's why letting Cousins deal expire

and keeping him one year is the maximum commitment you should make to him because then you'll know for sure you'll know if kevin o'connell has the magic elixir all right you've got one year to figure it out do you want to commit at least two more and then realize after one year uh-oh there is no magic elixir this who he is. We're not going to be able to get the most out of him. And to say that Kevin O'Connell has good intentions when he says, well, we're going to build the system around Kirk's strengths. Mike Zimmer said that a million times over and over again. That's why, in fact, I think they had the offense they had when they kind of got Kubiak involved and crafted it to Kirk's strengths.

And he insisted that they continue the scheme, you know, even after Gary Kubiak retired because they wanted to cater to Kirk's strengths. There's quotes about it every year. So, and also too, I mean, Zimmer didn't have a lot to do with Kirk because of just his lack of involvement on the offensive side of the ball, but it was more about the scheme that he promoted and the, the offensive coordinators that he, he brought up and sort of had influence over, um, those schemes were very Kirk centric. And I, I guess the only way things change would be if they, if they view differently,

what Kirk's strengths are on this regime, do they say, well, Kirk, we think you can be just a gunslinger. We think you can make all these deeper throws. I don't even know what they would really change. But if they go back to more of a 2018 style, more shotgun or something, and then he somehow thrives out of that, that would be the only, I guess, sort of string to pull that would be the only like i guess sort of uh string to pull that would be different from what they've been doing here's a here's another wild stat for you because i think that the immediate assumption is that oh okay if you

bring in kevin o'connell you're pushing the ball downfield more often kirk cousins threw more passes of 20 or more yards than matt stafford did and had more success in doing it. That wasn't really the problem. I mean, he's always been good at throwing the ball down the field when the throws are there. It really comes down to the exact criticism that Mike Zimmer has in Chad Graff's piece, which is sourced like behind the scenes type of stuff, but that he just doesn't really make players better than they are because there's, there's no ability to take it to a different level with his physical stature and his arm strength and so forth there. He, at the combine, he ran a four, nine, three, and he's got to be slower than that. Now. I mean, most of the defensive ends in the league run what, like four or five?

I mean, the guys who are chasing after Kirk are just so much more athletic than he is. There's no running away. And I saw that Kevin Cole of PFF, who was on the show recently, just tweeted out that recently in recent years in studying the combine, athleticism has been more connected to success with quarterbacks than ever, which shouldn't surprise anyone. Like what you kind of have here is a relic who doesn't have the capability to take it to another level when things break down and that is necessary to win. And how my thing that I keep coming back to is how would Kevin O'Connell not know this

after coaching him? Like he has to know this particular shortcoming about Cousins. And how would he decide that after seeing Stafford and his physical capabilities, no, I want to go with this, someone who is way less physically gifted because I'm going to do what? Throw it more often on second down? I mean, I think throwing our often on second down

is good. I don't think that that means like 10 more wins over four years. I think it maybe means like one, uh, you know, maybe treating players better. What's that? How many wins is that worth? Players are a little happier. I don't know. Players were fine in 2017 when they won games with Zimmer. So I don't know. Like, I think that that was bad to have the players feel like it was a culture of fear or that they were unhappy with their coach. But when you try to quantify, like, what does that mean

in terms of actual wins? I don't know. I mean, maybe one, maybe two over the last four years. Does it get you any farther than you got? And also just real quick, talk about playing to a quarterback strengths. That was Gary Kubiak's whole thing.

How many endless articles do we write about playing to quarterback strengths with Gary Kubiak, Jake Plummer, Brian Greasy, Steve Burrell line back in the day was very briefly with Denver. I talked to him about this and he went through the whole thing in this article about how Kubiak does this. It's like, I think Zimmer did what he could to push Kirk as hard as he could. I don't think Rick Spielman helped them with guards or offensive line, but now we're starting,

but then you have to get down the, all right, so he needs this, this, this, this, this, and this. Now he needs better offensive lineman. He needs to throw on second down. He needs a system that works perfectly for him. He's going to need more motion. You know, I mean, now we're on the list of, wait, these are a lot of things that you need different and it's a lot of money you're spending for this person. And that's why I can never get to how O'Connell and Kweisi Adafo-Mensa could come up with a formula that makes all of that come together

and work. I feel like it's pretty important that Kevin O'Connell was there for the golf to Stafford Stafford transition because they gave golf everything high play action rate. Um, they, they were cutting edge with motion. You know, they built that whole thing around sort of like, what do we do to give a quarterback who's maybe not the best, every advantage, heavy into play action, right? We got a big offensive line. And that team was, you know, kind of lucky to be in the playoff mix in 2020. They did make the playoffs, but they were not a Super Bowl contender.

And so to oversee that switch in LA feels like, I mean, the lesson can be learned. It was learned and realized. This can be what you upgrade to. So for that reason, it's kind of the same thing we talked about with Ryan Poles when we were evaluating him. He oversaw the switch from Smith to Mahomes. And the most successful franchises often have that moment in their franchises trajectory where they have to make that tough decision. And there's a handful of teams recently that have made it and have prospered. I have confirmed by the way, that off camera sessions with, uh, Kweisi Adafo-Mensa and

Kevin O'Connell are happening in Indy. So I wasn't a hundred percent sure, uh, but we just got information that that is going to happen. So nice. Well, anyway, speaking of all of this, there is a mock draft that has now connected the Minnesota Vikings to a quarterback.

Sam at a pro football focus, Steve Palazzolo, another friend of the show did his mock draft today. They have a PFF, a different person do a mock each Monday. And here is what Steve Palazzolo wrote about taking Malik Willis at number 12 for the Vikings. He said with a quarterback class filled with question marks,

I'm looking for teams who can approach the position with patience and a long-term mindset. The Vikings have a new regime and quarterback Kirk cousins under contract for one more year, making this a good spot for Willis to develop. He has an outstanding arm plus rushing ability and an offense that can be crafted to take advantage of both of his mitigating accuracy concerns. Sorry, that's written funny, but anyway, I won't blame Steve. I'll blame myself for reading it poorly, but the point just being that the style of offense can sort of cover up some of Willis's shortcomings yeah I mean is it too simple to say that Willis early on could kind of be like like Lamar early

on where the Ravens won games with Lamar as a rookie and he wasn't doing anything with his arm I mean he was just using his athleticism to help grind out wins. And I think they lost in the first round that year. And then year two was the big Lamar year. And that's probably the trajectory you would hope for with Willis from the sounds of it. He needs a lot of refinement when it comes to throwing the football at like different speeds or different arcs, because he's kind of got a fastball and nothing else. He doesn't have a change up, doesn't have a slider, but he's got a huge rocket arm. So there you've got maybe a little bit of Josh Allen comparison. Can he rein in the rocket arm to become as accurate as Allen

with that type of mobility? I mean, we've, we've both seen the highlights. The guy is unbelievable. It's, it's obvious that you could win, you could will yourself to win a football game with no real kind of passing game plan and just rely on him to freelance. And you could probably do pretty well. Now that would, that would make, you know, a coaching staff pull their hair out, but it'd be really fun to watch. Yeah. I mean, even kind of worst case scenario, it turns out to be like a Jalen hurts type of thing where the throwing is not perfect. Or even in Jalen hurts his case, it's just really all over the place, but the running ability is legit worth a lot. And guess what? I got another number for you. This is, it should have been a game of what does that stat mean? Because last year, Jalen Hurts

was in terms of expected points, added 28 points above, uh, what you would expect in terms of just his running. Okay. He was number two in the league, Josh Allen, number one, Lamar Jackson, number three, surprisingly, Patrick Mahomes. I think Patrick Mahomes is smart about when he runs. Kirk Cousins was zero 25th in the league tied with Ben Roethlisberger, Mac Jones, Jimmy Garoppolo, Davis Mills, Jared Goff, uh, actually Jared Goff, Matt Ryan, and Dak Prescott. Dak Prescott's lack of running must've been to the cat, uh, the calf injury. Cause he was the worst runner in the league, but the point being that it gets, it's not worth as much as being a great passer. Of course not.

Like the number one passer, Tom Brady, is worth 110 expected points above average. So of course it's not worth that. But it does even the playing field a little bit if you have somebody who, even if they are not refined, can come in and run around when things go wrong, which Malik Willis certainly can. I'm not married to the idea of it go wrong which Malik Willis certainly can I'm not like married to the idea of it has to be Malik Willis we're not going to see Matt Corral throw I believe which is unfortunate I also wanted to see how big Matt Corral is his college list him at 6'2 his original listing I think was 6'1 I don't know I was kind of curious subtract three inches from all of those

don't they always aren't they always ridiculously high a lot of times they are and that's know I was kind of curious subtract three inches from all of those don't they always aren't they always ridiculously high a lot of times they are and that's what I was kind of curious about is like is he really because he doesn't look that big and I know that that doesn't have to be a concern but you know I mean I guess to some extent I was just curious about seeing him so we're not going to see him do his workout but there you have it I mean it's the first one that I've seen of connecting the Vikings to drafting a quarterback and we'll see if there's more of that, uh, after combine buzz, uh, there was something else I wanted to ask you. And then we have a free agency game. Cause you wrote about free agents. Uh, what do you make

of Kyler Murray's agents putting out a ridiculously stupidly typed, uh, letter that i only read people quoting because i couldn't actually read without my retinas burning if you're gonna put out a statement put it out so people can read it okay on twitter but more or less the man is saying pay me my money do you think that all of this is leading to kyler mur getting paid or Kyler Murray being traded? Because I think if there's one guy in the league who would actually just walk away from football, it might be Kyler Murray. I've never believed that for anybody else. There was some Russell Wilson rumor back in the day. Kyler Murray, I think it might be possible that if he doesn't get paid, he's just going to go do something else. Oh, and he could go to another, a league that has everything together in major league baseball

and is stable and is for sure going to have a season. Why wouldn't he? Right. Yeah. I'm not saying that's likely. I'm saying that if there was one guy in the world who would just be like, if you're not going to pay me, I quit. It might be Kyler Murray. He gives off that vibe. Yeah. Murray's had that vibe ever since that bizarre Dan Patrick interview before he decided what sport he was going to play. Um, I'll be honest with you for the exact reason you laid out. I did not read the statement because I'm on tweet deck, which is even more compact and everything's even smaller on tweet deck. I could not read the font and my vision's not like that farsighted. And I still

couldn't read it. Now I just brought it up on, on the big, like the big Twitter, normal twitter.com. I'm not going to read all the way through. This is like war and peace, but you're saying that within this thousand word statement, he demands a new contract or what? Well, what is it? What are the bullet points I need to know? Let's just say that's the vibe. The vibe is there's been a bunch of buzz about like, does Kyler Murray want to play for Arizona? Is he a good leader? All this other type of stuff. And he has put out a few things that have basically said he wants to stay in

Arizona. And it sounds like from that thing, this long drawn out letter that he wants to stay in Arizona. And it sounds like from that thing, this long drawn out letter that he wants to stay in Arizona, which means pay me that that's, I don't think you put it out. Otherwise that he wants to get his contract now, as he goes into his fourth year, not wait till the end and play through the fifth year option, which I think is very reasonable of Kyler Murray. But I think it's not the easiest decision in the world to pay Kyler Murray $40 million a year. I don't think it's the easiest. I think he's a really good quarterback, but man, we've seen how high the bar is. I just told you that the Vikings had the fourth highest quarterback rating since 2015.

And, you know, in most of those years, they didn't even make the playoffs. Like, it's you got to have really, really, really good quarterback play to justify paying someone that much money. And I think we have to be consistent in the way that we talk about this. Cliff Kingsbury's got his issues. But as we've established, that's not everything. The quarterback still has the ball in his hands, and the sample size of Kyler Murray being really good isn't that big. It's kind of a few games in the middle of 2020, and then the first 12 games or so of 2021, and then things kind of got bad. So I still think he's really, really talented. I think his arm strength is unbelievable and his playmaking is unbelievable.

It's kind of what you want physically from the quarterback position. Now the attitude stuff that, you know, that could be more problematic, especially after he gets paid because you know that's when you kind of see the unfiltered people so i'd probably still make the move if i'm most organizations who don't have a quarterback like if i if i'm wondering who's my quarterback gonna be we don't know we don't have anyone in the wings i think i'm doing it um but there is probably a proceed with caution sign asterisk attached to that i can't believe they released this statement i'm looking at like i can't even i i brought it up bigger on twitter i still can't even read the print it's unreal there's bold there's it's all in capitals capital it's all in capital letters who's gonna read that uh i'd rather read cam newton's

instagram than read this, but yeah, the Kyla Marie situation is an interesting one because if you're like the Miami dolphins and you have the most cap space in the league, do you just throw a lot of stuff at that and think we've already got a good team and this guy's good. And we're in a division that has one really good team, but the other teams are kind of meh. Can we really do something here? We need to compete with the AFC that has a lot of great quarterbacks and we can't really do it with Tua. And I think Murray has limitations to his game. I don't think that he's a great pure passer. I think that he's a great downfield thrower because he has an incredible arm and I think he's a great downfield thrower because he has an incredible

arm and I think he's a great runner, but it's a lot of boom or bust. It's a bit of, it's like Russell Wilson, but almost a dumbed down version, or maybe it's, you know, with Russell Wilson, he, I think is a hall of fame quarterback, but there are even limitations on him. And you know, who was good at sort of figuring those out was mike zimmer and taking advantage of them and you know i think that there's like maybe cliff kingsbury instead of putting murray in the shotgun every play and not really having a running game and just saying throw it a run at every play like that's something that josh allen might be able to do and patrick mahomes but i'm not sure it's quite kyler Murray, which means that I'm not quite sure it's worth 40 million. You get down that, but if you're a team that already has that cap space

and you're in your winning window, I mean, you make that trade. The problem is if you're Arizona, if you screw it up, everyone's fired. If you trade Kyler Murray and he goes to Miami and they win the division and they go to the Superbowl with Kyler Murray, you're fired. You're just like, it doesn't matter who you draft or who you get back or whatever. Like you, it would have to be a really, really,

really great trade. I have a tough time seeing it happen for him to actually leave, but it's things are getting hot there. Okay. Let's get to our game, which is you wrote a piece, which has not been published as our recording this, but as everyone's listening it probably will have been on the website about the top targets for the vikings for free agency on

the offensive side of the football and i have not seen the list so i want to go position by position and i'm skipping running backs if you included a bunch of running backs then you're fired running backs okay i thought so i'm gonna go position by position try to guess which guys you put on your list okay so all right uh with uh let me let me give you some more parameters so family food style i i put three free agent quarterbacks to start us off okay all right so i am going to say that you included marcus mariotta ding uh ryan fitzpatrick ding oh would you go trubisky no you couldn't have gone trubisky uh let's see would you go winston ding all three with no strikes okay so a next position all right um starting center i put two names okay starting center and let me give you some some context the class is loaded in free agency

six of the top 18 from last season on pff are all available i'm gonna guess that you went Ben Jones. Nailed it. Tennessee. Ben Jones, 10-year vet, super consistent. Okay. I've hit four in a row here. All right, let's see. Because I'm using Over the Caps free agent tracker. And I will say that you went with Brian Allen from the Rams. Unbelievable. Five in a row.

Five for five. This is a Joe DiMaggio hitting streak right now. I just thought like I'm looking through and there's a lot of good cases. Ryan Jensen's an unbelievable player from the Bucks. Bradley Bozeman. It's a little different system, you know, than they run. And I thought, okay, we got to go Rams connection because I'm trying to, I'm trying to think like a Sam.

All right. So what's our next position? Okay. All right. I've got three right guard options and it's another loaded like class. There's 10 of the top 34 are available. So there's a lot, a lot to choose from. Uh, let's see. I will go Austin Corbett. Ding. Correct. Yes. Another Rams guy. Okay. Now it gets, now it gets a little tricky. Now it gets a little dicey. How about James Daniels of the bears? Wow.

You got that one. Oh, dude. All right. So you said there were three there. Yeah. There's one more. Um,

okay. I don't want to, yeah, I don't want to say anything to, to qualify it. This is hard. this is hard this is not okay so i think that means you have alex kappa who's from the buccaneers is that right so no i don't it's not the hitting streaks over but he was he was like the last one cut

imagine if they hope like if they opened up all the cap space they needed okay brandon sheriff that yeah brandon sheriff it's only happening, if cousins and Hunter get traded, I think. Um, but he's easily, easily the top prize. Well, when you said that you had to qualify it, I thought you meant Alex Kappa because, uh, their right guard just retired, uh, Allie Marpet. And so he's probably going to stay a Kappa with the bucks. Um, that was the only reason I said it, but okay. What a streak. So I assume wide receivers is what you have here. Yeah.

I do have some backup tight end options. If you would like to hazard, I would not, I would not. I'm glad that you have them, but I'm not going to, the names are not bad, but I will,

I will spoil it. So OJ Howard, he's coming off two years where he was usurped by gronk probably needs a bridge contract o'connell's gonna want some weapons um robert tunyon off an acl might want a bridge contract free agent okay yep and max williams local connection local guy you gotta have a guy see if he can recapture that that that magic um all right i guess i could i could have guessed those i thought you were going to go like deep down the rabbit hole of like blocking third tight ends all right yeah that wouldn't have been fun how many receivers wide receiver

give me another weapon i've got three options now this is much harder because there are so many people who are receivers that i am sort of guessing in the dark here. Yeah. How about Christian Kirk? No, I didn't go with Kirk and I could have, I could have gone with so many, so many other names. I did not choose him. Not go Christian Kirk. Um, let's see. I'm guessing that you don't want to go insanely expensive here. So how about, so that, that sort of, um, takes away someone like Devante Adams. What about Mike Williams? I thought he was a little pricey too. Um, so I didn't go with him, but I mean, certainly again, good receiver, good receiver.

You know, I feel like I was, I'm like October Kirk to start this and December Kirk now. Like hot and cold. Yeah, you've got two strikes. Family feud. The other team is whispering, preparing their answers to steal. Still got one more strike. Okay. All right.

Let me be real deliberate here then. So I'm trying to think how far down this list you would have gone. Were you aware that Tajay Sharp played 48% of snaps for the Falcons last year? I was not until this moment. Uh, how about Keelan Cole? Ding. Very good. Very good.

Yeah. Well, yep. Get got the McCardell connection. He was awful with the jets, but who wasn't? And, um, they tried to use him outside too much he's more of a slot guy maybe adam humphries oh i'm sorry okay give me the other two um let me spoil them for you so i use the mccardell connection a couple times dj charke um oh okay yeah coming off an ankle injury so his market might be a little slower he was one of the top deep threat guys in the last two years.

13th in deep targets two years ago. Third in deep targets, I should say three years ago. Third in deep targets two years ago. Got hurt last year. But he's got a 1,000-yard season on his resume, so I think he's a good option. Knows McCardell. And then

for a little veteran flavor, Sammy Watkins always produces like requisite of a third wide receiver. Like it. I think those are very good picks. Sammy Watkins was once one of the top picks in the draft and never quite lived up to that, but that doesn't mean he hasn't been good. And in the biggest moment in the Superbowl against Richard Sherman, Sammy Watkins roasted Sherman off the line of scrimmage and made a big play for Kansas city. This is one of the things the Vikings have been missing is that third guy. Who's really reliable. I think if KJ Osborne's your fourth guy, you feel really good about that, but I don't think they should look at it and say, Nope, that position's all set. We're totally fine. And that is one area I must say, I really respect the Rams. They have never said, Oh, that's fine. They've always said,

give me one more receiver. Deshaun Jackson. It didn't work out. Oh, well, Odell Beckham two, two at, well, they drafted. It didn't work out. We'll draft another one this year. I'm sure with whatever draft capital they have left. So, okay, well, good stuff. Uh, we will talk again soon. The next time you've good folks hear us, it will be from the combine. Probably the first episode will be with Sage and that's going to be really interesting. I mean, Sage has such great experience in the NFL and training quarterbacks as well. So I want them to talk about everything, like what quarterbacks go through at the combine. He once went through it.

It actually helped his draft stock at the combine, how the combines changed, how you avail evaluate quarterbacks. Now, I mean, we did kind of a pre-draft breakdown with him last year. That was really good. So I'm looking forward to this. Uh,

and Sam, you'll be calling some hockey games back in Minnesota, but we will talk. Roll Tom's. Thanks a lot, Matthew. All right. We'll catch y'all later.

Football.