Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Is Aaron Rodgers really done in Green Bay? Which free agents should the Vikings bring back?

Episode Date: February 20, 2023

Matthew Coller and Paul Hodowanic discuss a report from Bob McGinn that the Packers are done with Aaron Rodgers. Do we think that's the case? How does it impact the Vikings' decision making? Will Rodgers' legacy be hurt by the way his career has ended in Green Bay? Plus we go through the top Vikings free agents and make the case for and against keeping or letting them walk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar and Paul Hodowanek. Now we have to start the show with Paul's announcement. We're not going to wait until all the way at the end. If you follow me or Paul on social media, then you have seen that this is Paul's last week because he has gotten a job at PGtour.com as a writer there, of which, Paul, I am very, very proud of your development as a Purple Insider, your writing, your podcasting, going from intern Paul to professional Paul,

now to PGA Paul is what you are. A perfect spot, your favorite sport, golf, and now you get to cover it on a daily basis and take a big step in your career. So congratulations, and this will not be easy for me now. Every Sunday that comes along, knowing that we've gone live for so many podcasts here, reacted to so many games,

and we will reflect a little later before the show is over. But just to start us off, congratulations on your next career step, sir. Well, thank you. Yes, chance to cover a really a dream job for me. I mean, my favorite sports, probably one, two, golf and football, pretty exchangeable in whichever way you line it up. So the opportunity to do that was just something I couldn't really pass up. So very, very excited, very sad to not do this podcast every once in a while. I've had people asking if I'll just disappear. I think I'll pop on.

You do enough fans only just by yourself to welcome on a guest. If you ever say you're too booked up, I'll know you're lying because I listened to all the fans only. I know that you could take on a guest every once in a while. So I'm sure I'll pop on at different points throughout the season, just like other guests will. But yes, just not our normal every Sunday in a rhythm like it would normally

be. Yeah, you will certainly always be welcome here, but it's my hope that you'll be too busy rising the ranks of the greatest PGA Tour writers, which I have no doubt that you will. So just before we get into it, the main topic, of course, what's going to happen with Aaron Rodgers. It's just been an honor for me to see your development. And I can't thank you enough for all your contributions, really from day one of Purple Insider, like literally day one of Purple Insider, when I lost my job at 1500. And then I was deciding what to do, started Purple Insider. And the way you ended up as intern, Paul was just sending me an email asking if I needed help. And the answer was yes, lots of help. So there's just so many contributions. But the biggest thing is

I've gotten a lot of messages from people that have said they're going to miss the pod with you on it. They're going to miss your writing. And I think that that just speaks to your work. So very, very happy for you. And what better way to have your last regular podcast be about Aaron Rodgers? from Bob McGinn on our buddy Tyler Dunn's website, golong.com, golongtd.com, about just Aaron Rodgers' future. And he reports that the Green Bay Packers are done with Aaron Rodgers.

I guess the good place to start would be, do we believe that the Green Bay Packers are actually dead, completely done, no coming back for Aaron Rodgers, or is the door open? And then what is next for Green Bay? Yeah, I think they'd like to be done with Aaron Rodgers. I think that's probably my guess. I think all of his antics that we've seen kind of really sprout up

over the last couple years, I think the seeds have always been there, but it's certainly gotten more vocal in the last couple of years. All those things are a lot easier to deal with when he's back-to-back MVPs and leading 13 win seasons and number one seeds. It's, you start to wonder, Hey, do I want to deal with this when you go eight and nine? And so I think that's where the Packers are at. And they're wondering how much longer Rogers can continue to play as he like did maybe two or

three years ago or even at last year's level where he wasn't great but he was certainly still a very solid quarterback that was capable of winning you games at times and honestly capable of losing you games at times I think we saw last year which was maybe a new new development for Aaron Rodgers so I think from a Packers perspective in an ideal world they'd be done with him I think from a Packers perspective, in an ideal world, they'd be done with him. I think they'd trade him. They'd get some good draft assets for him because, again, there's always that chance he regains that MVP form, especially with a team that has maybe some more established wide receivers and some just better pieces around him. If he can find that team, whether that's the Jets or the Raiders or something like that,

those are two teams that have some weapons that could maybe entice him or a good defense in the Jets' case to kind of help him along. So I think from the Packers' perspective, they want it to happen. Now, I don't also think it's a situation where it's so bad they have to get rid of him at all costs. I don't think if he's the quarterback next year, it's just everything went terribly wrong for them. So I think it could kind of go either way. I don't think this is,

we just can't let him be in this locker room moving forward. But I think that's ideally what they would want to do. They want to get a chance to see Jordan Love. They want to see what Matt LaFer can do without Aaron Rodgers. And they just want to forge a post Aaron Rodgers future. Because even if he did stay, how many more years does he have? One, two, maybe? Like it's kind of

a similar situation to where the Vikings are at if you're thinking maybe they keep cousins but at some point he's going to get too old to play this position do you want just any semblance of a future and they drafted Jordan Love to be that piece and so if they don't use him at all during his rookie contract that is you blew a first round pick there's no other way to describe it so I think ideally they're they are moving him but I don't think it's like their, their connection is something has just gone terribly wrong where they can't welcome him back next year. I think they would just like to avoid the distraction, like to turn a new leaf. And I think that's probably where Rogers is in his head too. Well, and they also have to look at it as what is the likelihood that we can win the

Superbowl with Aaron Rogers next year. And then compare that to say their 2020 or 2021 teams, what they have on the roster right now, how they would have to work around his contract and how close that they could really get. Plus his performance because the MVP performance is probably never coming back, especially if he keeps doing weird things to his body

like crazy cleanses and things like that. If he's on this journey to seek out, I don't know, some sort of higher power or whatever, I don't know if that's exactly how he's doing the right things for your body in the NFL that way. Normally everything has to be dedicated to being the peak of yourself. Think about Tom Brady's obsession with keeping his body at a hundred percent and being able to play at a very high level really until last year.

And I'm not sure that that's Rogers. Also, the thing that I would be unhappy with if I was the Packers is the last couple of off seasons, he's just held them hostage. And if you're the Packers, you want to know what you can do in free agency, what you're going to have as far as draft assets and how you can go forward as opposed to sitting there and just wondering and wondering what's Rogers going to want. And then if you don't draft the way he wants, or you don't sign the players that he wants, is he just going to not show up to OTAs, not show up to minicamp, be unhappy, and then be in some ways, not everything he says is like this.

There is insight in those Pat McAfee interviews, but every single week, it seems to be something new coming out with Aaron Rodgers out of those Pat McAfee interviews that embarrasses him and embarrasses the franchise because he's maybe a little too candid in those interviews and it makes headlines all the time. It becomes a distraction, which as you mentioned, if he's playing at an MVP level and has Devontae Adams still there and he's throwing it all over the yard and they have an elite offense and they have everything on their roster set to compete for a Super Bowl, well, you know what? You can deal with a couple of interviews that make headlines. But when you don't have those things and you need kind of every percentage point,

you need every OTA practice, you need every minicamp practice, that's not what Rodgers has given them the last couple of years. And I think that if you are going to continue to have him as your quarterback, how would he convince you as the Packers that he's fully dedicated to this? Because he hasn't really shown that. And I'm not saying that if he had gone to a single OTA practice that they would have won a lot more games than they did last year because they were a flawed team and their defense was not as good as expected and they did not have the receivers, but is it a little better considering how young those receivers were and also if you're

Brian Gutekunst I think what you want is to actually be able to be your own man as a general manager as opposed to feeling like you have to answer with everything to this quarterback which again is totally fine if he's playing at his peak but is not fine if he is all of a sudden the 11th best quarterback the 10th best quarterback. And again, the price is at the top, top, top of the market for Aaron Rodgers. So I think there's a lot of reasons why the Green Bay Packers would be ready to move on. And the other part is that you just want to find out about Jordan Love. I mean, if you end up, okay, so maybe you pick up his fifth year option,

you would have one more year, but then he's expensive at that point. I mean, if you move on from Rodgers, sure, there's going to be a cap implications. I'm sure it's not made the easiest in the world to move on from him, but having the cap space from him eventually and having Jordan Love get a chance to step in and at least show you, do you have something here? Okay, it's probably not going to be the next Aaron Rodgers, but he's been able to develop for several years. He's probably a lot better than he was when he first got here. But some guys, as we saw from the XFL with Paxton Lynch being benched in his first game,

some guys who are first round picks just never have it at all. So which is it with Jordan Love in this next year if they move on from Rodgers there aren't very high expectations and there's room for Jordan Love to figure out who he's going to be as an NFL quarterback because if Rodgers comes back then the only version of Jordan Love you get is one on a fifth year option and he might not even sign a long-term extension with you if he's good, considering how long you had to make him sit there and wait for year after year for Aaron Rodgers. So I think that there's a lot of things that come together that would be all good reasons for him to move on.

And I guess the next natural question is just how that impacts the rest of the NFC North. And the answer might be not really in compared to last year because they weren't a great team last year. And I would not expect them to be a great team right away with Jordan Love. I think if he's good, then you're still talking about an average or a little bit better, maybe a nine and eight type of team because they just don't have a stacked roster at this point that can compete with say like the lions whose roster is only getting better and they have money to spend but i guess how do you see that paul yeah i i think generally i mean you're seeing like the lions should be a better again kind of improving

progressing the bears should be a little bit better so the packers are going down but i also think rogers was i think 25th in the league and EPA per play per quarterback. And so that's not just a Rogers stat. That's a whole offense stat, but what it does show you is the offense wasn't very good with Rogers in there. And so are you getting that big of a drop-off from Jordan love? I know it kind of sounds insane to say you're going from Rogers to Jordan love, but the Packers offense just by and large was not a good unit last year. And you can point the blame at all the different spots other than Rogers. And then there's a lot of truth. I think if you were to do all those different things,

but we also saw Rogers just not play winning football in a lot of different areas in terms of what types of throws he's throwing at certain spots. Why is he just chucking it down the field when he doesn't need to be chucking it down the field? Why can't you just take the eight yards here, eight yards there. There were just all these little warning signs. And so I think Jordan love Aaron Rogers. I don't know if it really should impact the Vikings at all in how they're

looking this year. I think there's a tendency to say, man, this thing is wide open, but within a year we saw the lions rise from kind of incompetency to a really solid unit. Could they take another jump? Maybe. Could they step back? Maybe. But I think we also saw the Vikings, like they were, what, were they four and two in their division basically this year? Just minus that last kind of Bears game that didn't really even matter. So maybe you're saying three and two, they could have split that pretty evenly. And so what got them into the playoffs into a 13 win regular season wasn't really necessarily how they did against the division. It was how they did against everyone else and in their one score games. And so for me, I don't see Rogers leaving as okay, green arrow for the Vikings to keep contending. I think they, the Lions probably pose a bigger threat than

the Packers do even with Aaron Rodgers next year, to me, based on the cap space they have, the players that they have on the Lions already. So I'm not making any big judgments about the Vikings in terms of what big moves they should make or not make with Rodgers. I think that should be completely ancillary to their decision-making. They should be making it off their roster alone into the NFC North at large. I think it just kind of widens kind of the possibilities. I think if Rogers leaves, I don't really see Green Bay in there, but then it becomes Vikings, Lions, Bears. And you're just kind of, to me,

that seems like there's going to be some team kind of limping out of the NFC North to maybe get waxed in the playoffs. I think we saw everything go right for the Vikings last year in terms of how their division played out around them. The Bears were dreadful. The Packers were bad and had a down year. The Lions were kind of in a lot of games, but still not great at that point last year. And you lost in the first round of the playoffs. That is still possible when you reach the playoffs. So everything could be wide open, but if you yourself are not a good team, it doesn't really matter.

And so I think the Vikings to judge any type of opening their window, closing their window based off what other teams are doing, I think is just, you know, a fool's errand. They got to be focused on their team. And if they are able to build a roster that feels competitive, it'll feel competitive.

You know, if Rogers is there or if he's not there, I really, I don't think much should change for the Vikings. Yeah, I completely agree because even if Rodgers came back, what would we project the Packers? Maybe a game better, but I would have to look really closely at what their schedule is supposed to look like next year. But I assume they're playing a lot of similar teams to the Vikings, maybe except just with the third place schedule.

And so if that's the case, maybe it's a little easier than the Vikings and they end up with nine or 10 wins for the Packers. If Rodgers returns and say Christian Watson is really good and he's on the same page a little bit more with his wide receivers and they add some players. But that to me is not that different than what the best outcome for the Packers would be if Jordan Love is there. You just don't know what Jordan Love can do, but he's been with this team and with this coach for such a long time. He should be able to command the offense when he steps in, if there's anything there, and then they can add some other parts around him. So maybe you project it conservatively as like an eight-win team with him and a 10-win team with Rodgers, just trying to kind of ballpark that

in some way. Well, that definitely doesn't change what the Vikings think they should do. And I think that no matter what direction the Vikings take, save for trading Kirk Cousins today and signing, say like Jacoby Brissett and drafting someone Tanner McKee, I don't know, like then I would project the Vikings to have a really tough year if they were bringing in an Andy Dalton or Jacoby Brissett. But assuming that Kirk Cousins is the quarterback for at least the year 2023, then you're going to compete almost no matter what, because you're going to have Cousins, Derrissaw and Jefferson still on rookie contracts or affordable. If Jefferson signs an extension, then they'll

both still be affordable. They'll probably do a lot of the same things and try to make some future plays in the draft. So if all that happens, you're still talking about the Vikings competing for that top spot. Or even if they were to move on from lots of people, if they move on from Thielen and Kendricks. And I mean, a lot of these guys, Delvin Cook, were not the best contributors last year to this team. Why would it be massively different? Only the schedule would be the thing that would hold them back, which I think is a factor, but I was still subtracting like three wins anyway, just based on the schedule. So I think that unless they really, really shocked us by trading Kirk Cousins, which is

defensible and it is probably on the table as being a discussion, and especially when they have the sit down with Cousins and his agent and talk about what they want for the future. So I'm not saying that's not going to happen, just that pie chart of outcomes, that's a pretty low percentage, which means almost anything they do otherwise, they're competing with the Detroit Lions, the Chicago Bears, and the Green Bay Packers. And I think what would be probably a pretty close race of non-contenders for next year. And this is, again, trying to lay out a lot of things that we don't really know yet, but it's only to say that I completely agree with you that if Rod Rogers says, trade me to the Vegas

Raiders, see you guys later. At least I didn't do it just like Brett Favre. Well, that shouldn't make the Vikings be like all in. It's time to go full Rams because they're just not a couple of moves away. And also I was looking at the free agent list and I had a question about that. But the free agent list has a lot of players that played a ton of snaps for them last year that they have to replace without a whole lot of cap space. So it's not really as simple, even for this Viking roster is saying, oh, well just make one big move or make one big signing and move all this cap space around. And then you are ready to dominate

the North. They're not in that spot anyway. They really are in the competitive rebuild spot more likely than not. So they shouldn't even look at what the Packers are doing. Let me ask you this last sort of Aaron Rodgers-y related question before we get to some Viking stuff. And then I want you to share some of your Purple Insider memories. But Aaron Rodgers legacy. You know, I think that these things are kind of your let's yell at each other for 30 seconds on television type of topics. But the way that it's ended with him is probably as bad as it ended with Favre, even though I'm sure he didn't want to be. If this indeed is it, just a kind of an ugly season. He was clearly unhappy, the organization not happy with him

losing out to the Lions at home to miss the playoffs. It's a pretty bad way to go for Aaron Rodgers if this is it. But I think that if there's any discussion of, oh, well, you know, his legacy is going to be so far behind Favre or his legacy is not one of the top quarterbacks to ever play and so forth. I think that that sort of prisoner of the moment, complete foolishness, because Aaron Rodgers at his peak and Vikings fans could speak to this as well as anybody is truly one of the great quarterbacks to ever play in the NFL. And it will always be a little bit marred by his personality

and especially the kind of going off the deep end at the end of his career and doing a lot of weird stuff. But as far as like in the long run and in the future, I don't think anyone ever really remembers that. They remember MVPs. They remember a Superbowl champion. They remember 120 quarterback ratings and some of the most unstoppable quarterback play of all time. And they'll also remember the celebration you could hear from a state over when Aaron Rodgers was gone. So I think if there's anything you can ask, ask your enemies how they felt about you and how thrilled they are that you're done. But I think that we're probably going to hear if he's traded about how like, oh, his reputation and his legacy and everything else. To me, he's one of the five to 10 best quarterbacks to ever put on a helmet.

And that is what it is, no matter what happens past this. Yeah, I think we see that in a lot of sports, kind of the way it ends for some of the great ones is they try to kind of hold on even when they you know they want to continue to be great and maybe they stay a little bit longer than they should like Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady aren't comparable like for the best quarterback ever in terms of career stats and everything like that like obviously it's Brady but like no one's going to remember this last Tampa Bay year even really the two years they're going to remember him winning a Super Bowll in Tampa Bay. After all the years in new England, you think about some of the great athletes of all time. It's very, very similar. It's not quite how they finish. It's, it's the full body of work. And I

think even towards the end of Rogers's career, as we've gotten up to this point, like Vikings fans were scared shitless when the Packers might've been able to get into the playoffs at the end of this year, just based on what Rogers could do and what he's been able to do throughout his entire career. I think that speaks enough about him. And like, if you just go back to when he first got in the league and kind of started playing,

which I think was 2008, they went six wins his first year, but then 11, 10, 15, 11, eight, 12,

10, 10, seven, six, 13, 13, 13, eight,

like 10, 10 plus win seasons in like 14 years or something like that. That is incredible. Only one Super Bowl to show for it kind of stings, I'm sure, if you're a Packers fan. And once you get to two Super Bowls, you kind of jump another echelon. And that's something Rodgers never quite got to, but just his all-around accolades and the way he plays and the way he performs. I don't think any of that's going to be marred and so i think we always kind of a prisoner of the moments in these in these final kind of couple years when they start to kind of go they start

to just their play deteriorates uh but i don't think at really at any point that's going to affect his broader football legacy i think there's always going to be a segment of the population especially if you're a vikings fan that you don't like him or now just after his last couple of years of being very, very divisive on issues outside of sports. I think there's going to be a small segment that remembers him for that. But in terms of when they're writing history books, they're not going to put Roger's vaccine status in those. They're going to talk about all his accolades and show his highlight real plays. So I think this is certainly not the way you want his career to end if you're a

Rodgers guy or if you're Rodgers himself in terms of how it's going, but I don't think it overall affects his legacy much. Yeah, I think that probably more so is just not getting that second Super Bowl. And how much blame you put on him is probably up to the beholder. There's certainly playoff losses that you could point to him. There's also a lot of bad luck, like he wasn't out there to recover an onside kick. And maybe Green Bay ends up winning that Super Bowl that Seattle went on to. So there's a lot of those seasons that were really close. And I would compare that in a lot of ways to Drew Brees, where the numbers are astounding and his performance was great. And every year you could pencil them in except for

that short window. And there's been a few years with Rodgers where it is down as it is for most quarterbacks not named Brady but almost every single year it was 12 wins 11 wins 13 wins giving you a chance as you went into the playoffs to win a Super Bowl I do think that is a step behind the Breeze Rogers tier of say the Brady Manning tier which is like the goats of the goats that That's only your Joe Montana and those guys. And then right behind that is the next level. And I would also put Favre in that next level as well. And Mahomes is probably already putting his name in the conversation for the Brady and the Manning where there's almost nothing that can break the guy no matter what in a season where

we did see that there's some failability to those greatest quarterbacks like Rogers or like Drew Brees. Like they can be gots. They do have some weaknesses to their game, unlike the other guys, but no one will be happier if he goes somewhere else than Vikings fans, just like they once were with Brett Favre. So I guess maybe beware a little bit. But yeah, I think that there's like a top, top tier that's only the number one through five quarterbacks ever. If you want to go like way back, like Otto Graham or, you know, I don't know, maybe you put like Roger Staubach there, Johnny Unitas, like those guys. And then just under that would be the Rogers tier.

So if there's any debate about that, I don't, I don't know why there would be, but I think that it's funny if from a Viking perspective to see Packers fans who talk about the disappointment of Rogers time there, even though you went into the playoffs every year thinking, you know, you should win the Superbowl and just, you know, did not come out for, for a number of reasons. So let's talk a little bit more about the Vikings future in general. And something that is going to come up really soon here is their meetings at the NFL combine with free agents. And as I was going through the free agent list and not that I didn't know this before, but just a significant number of snaps. That's what really stuck out to me. And I want to go just like rapid fire through some of these guys and get your take, Paul,

on who's staying and who's going. So let's start out. I just want like back and forth, like a couple of quick comments about each guy. But we'll just go through the list based on snap count. Delvin Tomlinson is the biggest free agent that they have and I think could demand the most money from them. Also has $7.5 million in dead cap if he does not sign an extension. the biggest free agent that they have, and I think could demand the most money from them also has 7.5 million in dead cap. If he does not sign an extension, it gets spread out. If he does,

what do you think happens with Delvin Tomlinson? Yeah, it's a hard one because this free agency will be really interesting just because it's a lot of free agents that this regime didn't bring in. So it's, how do you feel about a Delvin Tomlinson who was here before you got here? And inarguably played really well for you this year and would want would want to be on the field he dealt with some injury issues that i'm sure they're considering that my gut would say no he's not back um just because of kind of the salary cap situation they're in the general positional value of the position and role that dalvin tomlinson plays more as a run stuffer he improved as a pass rusher. I think this year,

at least it seemed just from watching him that he was more impactful there, but just in terms of where you're going to spend your money, especially if you're cap stricken interior defensive lineman is just not normally where you'd go for those things. The only thing kind of holding me back is that dead cap number, because it's already kind of 7 million right now. He's already going to count for that on the books. And let's just say he gets 10 or 12 million in free agency. I'm not exactly sure what his number is. It's probably kind of that low teens kind of up, you know, right in

that double digit range. Like you're only adding like $6 million against the cap to sign Dalvin Tomlinson. So that's where it becomes kind of interesting. Like, would they do that because they already have a bit of a sunk cost in his dead cap? I'm still going to say they let him walk just based on what he could get, what I kind of alluded to earlier, just the positional value of him not being here with the previous regime, still only playing like 50% of the snaps this year with his injury concerns and maybe liking a Kyrie's Tonga, liking some of the guys off the scrap heap they were able to find in that middle ground.

I think that's a place they can save. So I would say just my gut would say Dalvin Tomlinson is not on this team. I wouldn't be surprised at all. If they make room, it's just, it's this kind of, I don't know, chessboard where there's all these different pieces they could move.

And if Dalvin Tomlinson is back, then that just severely reduces who else could come back. Like they're not gonna be able to keep all these guys. So Dalvin just seems like one of those salary slots that could open up to maybe keep some guys at bigger kind of positions of need or positions of value. Yeah, the benefit being if you sign them to an extension, you don't have to eat the 7.5 right away.

You do have to eat it eventually, but it just gets spread out over the years is kind of how that works. I know there've been a lot of questions about that. And I had to double and triple check with Brad Spielberger of PFF to make sure that I understood it correctly, how that works. So that, that is how it goes. And from that perspective, I mean, that helps you in the immediate is being able to limit that as opposed to basically paying for a whole starter when there's no one there,

just like they did for Anthony Barr last year, where it was just a dead whole starter when there's no one there, just like they did for Anthony Barr last year, where it was just a dead cap space and there's nothing you can do about it. At the same time, putting myself in Delvin Tomlinson's shoes, why would you sign now unless you love Mall of America? And I love Mall of America and a lot of other things about Minnesota, not particularly the weather that is happening right now and is expected to happen, which is a horrible storm, but he's, uh, you know, I don't know, a big guy, maybe he likes the cold and doesn't want to play in Florida or I don't know, whatever it is, but realistically, how can they give him the biggest offer is really the question there because there are teams like Chicago and a number of other teams that need defensive linemen that have a great

argument for overspending on someone like Tomlinson, who's one of the most consistent players in the NFL year after year after year, you know exactly what you're getting from him. And if you're the Vikings and you have so much limited opportunity to spend, are you giving $14 million a year to a guy who is good, but not great. And as you mentioned, his pass rushing was effective for creating pressure, but he's never going to give you like seven to 10 sacks. He's, he's never going to give you like elite play as an interior pass rusher. So, and, and also the other thing is too, that even, even though he was good and graded well, and I have a lot of respect for him just as a, as a guy and his consistency and everything else, and his very high intelligence,

as far as impact players, like blowing up plays, creating splash plays. There's just not a lot of it in his game. And they already have Harrison Phillips to have not a lot of that in his game. So I think that Delvin Tomlinson moves on. Are we in agreement that Patrick Peterson would be best off championship chasing somewhere else rather than trying to play man-to-man and zero coverage blitzes with Brian Flores? Yeah, he's certainly not a scheme fit. You'd think off right off the top, maybe eight years ago, Patrick Peterson would have been great for this scheme. Now he played the most zone of his career last year and had kind of a career renaissance that doesn't really feel like a formula where he'd come back.

I think the only reason you bring him back is just so many unproven players. He is kind of a, seem to be a leader in that locker room and based on what Brad Spielberger of PFF did project with all these contracts, which he's really good at doing this year in and year out, it was a year for $5 million. And so he said he likes Minnesota. I guess I won't, we'll, we'll see how much he does. Um, but I, I think certainly he could get

that contract from several other spots that maybe are in more defensive friendly areas. So from a Vikings perspective, I think I'd be open to him coming back. If that is indeed kind of the contract you're looking at just as a stopgap there as you try to figure out if Andrew Booth can be healthy and a Caleb Evans can be healthy and you have question marks already with Louis seen way back in the secondary just you're they're then talking about so many different question marks and not saying Peterson entering his what year 34 season isn't a question mark a massive question mark but he's certainly kind of a stable guy at least that you saw there last year so I think from a Vikings perspective they may want to bring him back.

But if we're just talking in reality of teams he could go to, there's a lot of teams that play a lot of zone these days, and a lot of them are contending. I think Peterson could go to one of those teams pretty easily. So this one will be interesting, but I think he also is departing. I also think that you need to know just as a front office when you've gotten the most out of somebody. This is something that you need to know just as a front office, when you've gotten the most out of somebody, this is something that the Vikings have been just generally bad at

over the last few years. Like when you've gotten every ounce out of something and it's time to move on. And that's not to say Patrick Peterson couldn't in a different system, continue to do what he did last year, but that was one of the better seasons statistically of his entire career. And that's just hard to repeat as you get into this age. And I think that he is in phenomenal shape. He's had no injuries almost really throughout his entire career, and he still has some quickness to him. But if you say, all right, we're going to blitz 40% of the time, and you need to hang on for dear life, especially against some of the quarterbacks they're playing against. And this has to be considered too, that even though opposing quarterbacks played well

against the Vikings, it helped for one player, for Patrick Peterson, probably to not necessarily have to go up against Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, and so forth. So I think that it just makes the most sense for Patrick Peterson to look for a championship contender and for the Vikings to look for younger players that they could take shots on at that position. But because if they think that it's just a stop gap, fill a couple of spots away from having a good defense, I think they're going to make a big mistake there. And Peterson would be part of that. I'd rather have you fail with a Caleb Evans than succeed with Patrick Peterson because the bigger picture, at least you know whether you have a guy there or not. All it's done in recent years for them

to sign people has just taken away opportunities to find out if other guys could potentially play or for other spots to be filled by long shots. And I know he hasn't turned out to be a great player, but one thing that Brian Flores did was brought in Shaq Lawson to Miami. And it was only for a year and they may have given him a little too much money, but he was a good contributor for them. And if that had really worked out, it would have been like, you just found a pass rusher for kind of nothing. And that's what you're looking for in the Vikings position, in my mind, to spend. If you're spending $5 million on a player, spend it on someone who's 26 and has shown upside at the cornerback position that maybe will fit better in your scheme. Maybe look for someone like Cam Dantzler, who is more of a man corner that was put in

a zone scheme and it didn't really work out. How about Garrett Bradbury? Now, I think there is a good argument for Garrett Bradbury returning really based on just the center market is not that great. There's a handful of guys. They'll probably get paid decently. Maybe there's someone who fits better for a past scheme, but Garrett Bradbury improved this year in past protection, not to the point where he could slow down Dexter Lawrence in the playoffs. And there is that back issue that I think should worry you a little bit considering how long he was out for. But I also look at that position and wonder about like, who's filling that spot if it isn't him, because usually you have to pay for it. So unless you have a free agent in mind,

you're not going to draft somebody in the first round. That's going to be a center to fill that spot. Even if it's the guy from Minnesota, who's really good, that would just be a waste of assets. So I look at it as there's probably a good case for and against Garrett Bradbury coming back. Yeah, I think he comes back. He's expressed interest in wanting to come back. I think this is one of those times where you look across the market and you say, how much better are we doing? And for how much more money are we having to spend on that upgrade? I just don't think there isn't some center out there that just fits perfectly, feels like is just the best option here. And also, if you are trying to think of guys that can be starters for several years, Bradbury's 28. He's on the younger end of the market that's out there for centers.

So he hasn't quite improved at the rate that you've looked at. But if we were in, if we had some 35 year old retiring center and you were trying to look at, okay, which center am I going to go with? I mean, am I going to do a 31 year old Austin Blythe or am I going to maybe go to Garrett Bradbury who's 28 and who's had some down seasons, but it's been a solid run blocker. Like if you didn't have all the baggage of being a Vikings fan who drafted Garrett Bradbury in the first round and expected him to be this Jeff Saturday Matt Burke center who was just an like an all-world player for a really really long time which is what he was built out to be as a first round pick that's what first

round centers often the expectations just get put on you because you're not supposed to get drafted that high unless you are that guy I think there's so much baggage that comes with just knowing his history but if you were x team looking for a center looking for maybe a younger guy that you could plug in for a while Bradbury seems like he'd fit the mold and he wants to be here he's familiar with the scheme he's familiar with cousins he's familiar with all the other offensive linemen I think even if you're not a great offensive line if you have continuity that's better than not having continuity, like just playing with those guys, knowing when certain guys might get beat, just having a good feel for it. I think it's not a great option to just running it back with the same continuity and just hoping for some internal development between those five guys, that's probably your best option.

And so I think if you're looking around the market, Bradbury just makes a lot of sense from all those different perspectives. And so he seems like one that makes a lot of sense to come back and you're just hoping for him to improve late in his career, which, which may or may not happen, but it's just not a market, the center market where you're finding all these really, really good options out there. Yeah, I guess the way that I would look at it is one problem is that someone else might overpay, that he was a first round pick. And it has been proven that if you were a former first round pick, you get paid more even with the same production as guys who weren't.

It's just like teams have their old scouting reports and they have their first impressions. And so there might be somebody who says, great, we let the Vikings develop him for four years. Now we get him at the prime of his career, which could be true, or it might not be true depending on the medical issue. And that's one thing that we can't know that the Vikings know internally is just what is his back like? How much did he have to push to come back? Will it be fixed? A back injury for a center really does concern you, especially undersized because you're talking about like having to anchor and having to bend your back all the time. That would be concerning to me. The other thing is too, as far as paying

guys is it is not a premium position. It's really actually the least premium position in the league as far as what the team pays out outside of running back, which is the least or the specialist. Yeah. Punter would be below center as well, which makes you think that if you have an amazing center, somebody who's an absolute freak show, just runs the team that you should pay him and nobody else, because there might be other guys who can do it around the league. So I think that there is an argument for it. And I think that they like Garrett Bradbury a lot, but this has to be a penny pinching type of situation for the Vikings. This off season, the only deal you could really do with him, I think would be like a four or five year contract where you just say like, you're our guy for a long period of time. And if they do that

and there's back issues or he regresses from where he was this year, which was pretty good, but also may have been based on teams attacking, say, you know, the right guard and so forth. You know, I, I guess I just wonder if like, that's the best way to spend your money when over a bigger sample, we, it wasn't great play from Garrett Bradbury. I think he was always very good in the run game. He was always very good in the screen game, but beyond that, he was not one of the better players at his position. So that, that one, I think will be tricky for them. Um, but I mean, I don't know.

I think he's a guy that they would want back because they like him a lot. But maybe the economics, similarly to Delvin Tomlinson, just don't work. And this is where I'm talking about. Think about Tomlinson, Peterson, Bradbury. That's like 600 snaps, 1,000 snaps, 1,000 snaps that they have to replace without really any cap space if Garrett Bradbury goes. But if they sign any of them, that's a lot of cap space spent to guys that maybe aren't completely necessary.

Yeah, and all of these kind of circle back to the question that we're not quite certain yet is which direction is this organization going to go with this team? How much do they want to push forward? Because that changes this calculus. I do agree just on the surface in a vacuum, like signing Garrett Bradbury, a center to a long-term extension who had some injury issues,

like that's a lot of question marks to raise, but then you start thinking about kind of all the different free agents the Vikings have. And if they're still trying to contend and okay, does that mean they go out and draft a center? And it's pretty well known that centers in their first and second year in the league aren't great. They, it takes them a long time to kind of get used to that position. Like it always just kind of, kind of comes down to the push pull. So when I think about could Bradbury be on this team, it's very much under the perspective of how I assume this Vikings team is going to move forward, which is still trying at least in some ways to contend immediately. And if I'm trying to think about how they're going to do that, they probably are going to want continuity along the offensive line. And so it may go

against some of the traditional roster building kind of rules that you'd set out for. But I just, I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of this team and what they may or may be thinking and what they may or may not want to do. And if we're going to let all these guys go, you're going to pay one or two of these people. And so is Bradbury the best of their free agents? No, I would say just off raw player ability, like Dalvin Tomlinson's a better player. Zedaria Smith is a better player. There's several other of these players. It's just not always going to work out to we're going to re-sign the best guys all the time.

It's going to come down to fit. It's going to come down to what the rest of the market's out there and how confident a team feels like they can replace that player. So I think Bradbury is a big, really an interesting factor for them there. Uh, because if they get rid of him, do they go to the base, do the bargain bin? Do they try to draft one of them with one of their first couple of picks to get another guy in there? Like, it's very interesting if it's not Bradbury, then where they go, uh, especially if they keep cousins and are trying to have a modicum of success next year. Because I think regardless, if they get rid of Bradbury because they don't want to pay him,

they're not going to get a better guy in there. And they're probably not going to draft one up high just based on the amount of picks they have up high, the positional value of that, and Kwesi's background like that just doesn't strike me as where they go. And so at that point, if you're trying to have success, but you're doing all these things to kind of hurt what your eventual player at the center position is going to be, then I just don't quite get it. So I certainly think if they were going to rebuild, this is another position you kind of punt on and you say, let's get younger, let's clear out the books, let's see what happens. But I think if I'm just a guessing man, they're probably going to do some combo of that in between and Bradbury feels like one of those pieces where they can convince themselves long-term

and short-term he's the best option there. Yeah, I could definitely see that, that that's the way it goes. That would not be the way I would go. I think I would just roll the dice on maybe a competition at that position with a couple of guys that maybe had been developed from other teams as draft picks and see what you could pull off. I mean, Mason Cole played the whole season and was okay for Pittsburgh this year at almost no money, like a very cheap deal. So I think maybe you look for that, but the downside is that if that blows up, center is a position that it's very hard to be great at, but if you're really, really bad at it, I think we've seen the impact of that before,

especially with Kirk Cousins at quarterback. So that is a really interesting one. Now, let me run through a couple other ones just real quick. I think we're on the same page that Irv Smith Jr. will not be coming back. You agree with that? Yeah. Shannon Sullivan, absolutely not. Nick Mullins is totally fine if he returns. Duke Shelley to me is totally fine if he returns but how about this one this could be somewhat controversial Greg Joseph do you think Greg Joseph is back uh yes I I guess I mean I don't I don't I have no idea to how to understand whether they bring a kicker back or not I think it really just feels like a crapshoot with the kicker position. Like most of the time here, you just are hoping that guy works out.

I think, I don't know if there's going to be like a bustling market where you need to go out and get your guy to the point where you could roll with Greg Joseph into the preseason. And if he sucks, you just go get a guy off some team's practice squad, like the Colts did with McLaughlin from the Vikings. Or just like, I think there's many, many options for you just go get a guy off some team's practice squad like the Colts did with McLaughlin from the Vikings or just like I think there's many many options for you to go to so maybe they just let Joseph walk and they sign someone cheaper but based on his performance I don't think he's going to cost that much so I think it's a coin flip either way I'm not I'm not going to get upset whether he comes back or not I think certainly a segment of Vikings fans were mad at him at different points throughout this season fairly and justly based on how many extra points he was missing and his struggles from 50 plus.

But I don't think he's going to demand any sort of big time contract. So I think it's entirely possible he comes back and there's I'm sure there's going to be some modicum of competition, whether it's Greg Joseph or any other player that they bring in there. So I think Joseph can be one of those guys. Sure. But I don't have big insight on whether the kicker will be back. What do you, what do you say? And nobody does. That's the thing about kickers is that no one understands them. No one can predict them. If Greg Joseph was the best kicker in the NFL or the worst next year, I wouldn't be surprised either way, because that is the life of kickers that Justin Tucker and Daniel Carlson, of all people, are the only real consistent kickers in the NFL. And aside from that, everybody else is just

guessing for the most part. Even Harrison Butker for a minute there was like the guy, and then he lines up in the Super Bowl and you're pretty nervous because he misses them now. Joseph is a fine kicker. He's a proven kicker. If they bring him back and bring in some competition, that's okay with me. I do worry just a little bit about him with some of the ups and downs of just the mental part of it. Like, is he, you know, like rock solid when it comes to some of those extra points, he seemed to get the yips a little bit, but he got it back together as a lot of those guys do. So I look at it as Greg Joseph is a totally fine kicker. And if you leave all of your games down to your kicker, that's your problem. That's on you.

That's not on the kicker. Don't blame the kicker if you left it down to a final kick for him all the time. All right. So before we wrap up the show, Paul, with you leaving Purple Insider for literally the green pastures of the PGA Tour. And that almost sounds like I'm making fun of you, like going on a golf trip. But if people just tuned in, you're actually leaving to join the PGA Tour, to play against Tiger Woods. No, to write for their website, to cover the PGA Tour as a journalist. So again, very, very happy for you. But what I need to know is your favorite, most memorable Purple Insider slash covering the Vikings moments.

All right. I stuck to mostly Purple Insider moments here. I think we can start with this season. I think the Colts and the Bills games, as any Vikings fan is going to remember them forever. I'm going to remember talking about them forever and trying to figure out what I was going to say after that game. As that game progresses, I remember tweeting out about the Colts game, like just about turning it off. I think my TV went down for a few minutes and I was like, not even mad about this TV going down here in the second quarter. And then they start storming back. insanely insanely memorable moments in that Colts game in the Bills game and just this season at large this season that felt like was

just meant to be for so many weeks of the year I go down to the Miami game they probably shouldn't have won that game I after that game I'm asking you how they get away with this and that becomes a theme of this show just how they continually continually seem to get away with this in one score victory after one score victory like this is going to be the pinnacle of that just this season. And then kind of more of a deep cut. I think it was the, it was a 2021 draft. We were doing a live stream for WCCO.

I think at the time for WCCO radio, we were live streamed on Twitter and we, we were doing a day to live stream. You and Sam had live stream day one, I think if I remember correctly. Seen them trade back and pick Derrissaw, which has turned out to be a fantastic move. Would you rather have Elijah Vera Tucker or Christian Derrissaw right now? A massive, massive W for the Vikings at that point. But we're going into day two.

We have an inkling maybe they'll look at quarterback. We're thinking that's a possibility. They have all these third-round picks picks could they be trading into the second round and we're thinking we'll be live streamed for just a little bit like it's not going to be that long and we live stream i think we were we it was like four or five hours of like me you i think henry lake popped on for a little bit maybe chad hartman popped on for a moment for but for 85 90 it was us as just everyone but the vikings were making picks in the second round and then to start the third round just waiting forever and finally they pick kellen mon and they pick chas surratt and they pick

wyatt davis i was going back to read some of the stuff we said we were very excited about the wyatt davis pick that did not turn out to be correct. We weren't as hyped up about the Chaz Surratt pick, which I think certainly paid off there. And then the Kellen Mond thing, we were just intrigued about what that would mean. But that was maybe one of my favorite Purple Insider moments, is we were just kind of filibustering our way through four hours, just begging the Vikings to pick. I don't know if they traded back a couple times or they just weren't moving up. We assumed maybe they'd use like their four second round picks to move up and draft someone. And they just weren't. So we were talking about second round

picks. We kind of knew about, maybe didn't know about like, just, uh, that was a time that I very, very much, uh, enjoyed, uh, doing with you. Yeah, that was, that was epic for sure. And I remember specifically from that draft that we had been talking for so long and you had been looking at like the Twitter and I didn't have Twitter up. I was just talking and watching the picks on like the ESPN TV feed. So you would be ahead of me sometimes. And I remember you said like oh they drafted oso digazua from uh ucla and i was like the vikings picked him that's a great pick they need interior and i went on this like long analysis of the pick and you're like no i meant dallas picked him i was like oh well say great pick dallas same go great pick dallas yeah and he plays for them so they

so nailed it did not nail the Wyatt Davis pick no I mean definitely always draft night reactions versus what turned out to be reality is is an interesting thing to go back and look at but Wyatt Davis I gave it an A plus I was like great pick third round the guy kind of dropped in the draft and like maybe he could start totally totally wrong didn't last two years on the team. So that's what I remember from that night, other than just going through a bunch of diet, Dr. Pepper and being completely exhausted at the end. I definitely agree with like the number of times

that I walked in this year to the press box and dialed up our, you know, connection here. And just even before going on, we're looking at shaking our heads. Yeah, I don't know. I don't, I don't know how they did it. I don't know how they're going to keep doing it. Uh, that's for sure. So a lot of, a lot of really great times. And then I would also say that, uh, you trying to react to me completely losing it about the draft analysts being wrong about the quarterbacks last year would be another part is

just like, okay, Paul, you just stand there for a while. I'm just going to go off and then we'll see where this goes. But no, I mean, all of these super interesting things that have happened and fun and entertaining and sometimes, you know, not so much for Vikings fans, but reacting to a coaching search and the Harbaugh thing, and then, you know, doing the much for Vikings fans, but reacting to a coaching search and the Harbaugh thing. And then, you know, doing the pod, the minute that they hired Kevin O'Connell and stuff like that, a lot of significant things have happened, especially. I remember the Kirk extension, the Kirk extension was coming last year. That was an immediate podcast that we were very confused about, very impromptu, just like what is happening here? We were

flummoxed by a trade clause. That was, that was a memorable moment, I think too. Yeah, certainly the emergency pods just in general, always fun with the amount of energy that went into those. So I will miss doing those with you, Paul, but I'm very, very happy. And just the amount of times that we could hang and play golf and do stuff like that. So it's been a really good time. And I really appreciate all the effort that you've put into this and what gets you a job like you've gotten, which as you said, is kind of a dream job is effort, consistency, passion, how much you care about this. It's not just talent that you have, but the amount of heart that you put into something that

was just, just my thing and you made it yours. So I can't thank you enough for that. And let me end with this, with this final question here, Paul, which is, I mean, I guess you can answer whatever way you want here though.

Like the future of the Vikings, as you kind of slide out the back door and head on to play golf, screw around with, I don't know who's still on the tour. I was going to say Phil Mickelson, but wrong to don't say that. No wrong thing to say. But at least you're not a live golf guy. So that was perfect. That probably came up in the interview, but just as far as like, when are they going to win 13 games again? Put it that way. Like, is that, do you see that happening soon? Like as you leave in a position where they're kind of at a crossroads like when when are they going to be great again

i'd hope to say soon because i grew up here i grew up as a fan all my friends family are fans but i was just looking back in the pro football reference i think they've won 13 games three times since 1998 that's once every eight years. And the Vikings have been one of the more like kind of stable franchises during that time. They haven't had a franchise quarterback, but they haven't gone into the doldrums for years and years on end. Like it's very, very difficult to win 13 games. I think if you expand that out to 12 games, because there's obviously an extra game this year, so that helps their chances. It has only happened four times in the last 25 years it's just so hard to have a season like they just had and so you hope when you have those seasons you capitalize on it and the Vikings just didn't

capitalize on it and so until they have a Mahomes who has not won or has not lost I think has won more than like 10 or 11 games every single season since he's been in the league or an Aaron Rodgers who's won 10 plus games 10 out of 14 years I can tell you have one of those guys I don't care what your roster looks like I don't really care like you know if it's Kirk Cousins or any other quarterback unless you have one of those guys I just can't be comfortable saying yeah in two years you'll probably get it again so I would say the next time the Vikings win 13 games Kirk Cousins isn't on this roster and it's and it's a new. And that could mean four years because you draft your right guy and you're just off and running again.

Cause if you find that guy, you're immediately into stardom or you could draft that guy and he might not be great. And then you got to draft another guy and another guy. And so it could be eight, 10 years again. So just based off history, I'll say eight years, they win, uh win 13 games again. 2030 is the next time that they win 13 games. Now that doesn't mean you can't have successful seasons before that, but it is truly a hard thing to do to win 13 games in a year. And so many different things have to go right for you. The Rogers teams, I think have only done it four times in the last 11 years. So you can be really,

really good with a really good quarterback and you still might not have those seasons. So I'm hopeful for the Vikings. They have Justin Jefferson. They have Christian Derrissaw. Those are two amazing, amazing pieces to build around. There's still a lot left for them to do. So I think they're competitive again in the next two to three years in the playoffs again, but to really, really, really reach a pinnacle where they could be winning 13 games in a Superbowl contender, That's going to take some time and a lot of retooling for a defense and probably retooling in an offensive sense around those other two guys. So I think it's going to take a little while. I completely agree with everything you just said.

And you never know, I guess, with what I was, what I would add because this year I did not think it was going to be 13 wins. And I think every time they've done it, 12 or 13 wins, nobody saw it coming going into that season. And then all of a sudden, uh, Lewis brings up in the comments section, I should have mentioned Rory, like Rory's the best. He's a great golfer. Seems like a cool dude. He's been sort of at the leading the charge for the PGA tour. So, uh, that sort of shows you what I know about the PGA tour. So you won't have me on your podcast to talk about what's going on there. But PGATour.com is where you're going to be doing your writing in a little bit.

You're going to take some time off first, and then you'll be joining that operation, which will be really cool. But getting to cover somebody like Rory, the way Tiger's playing now, he's still going to be there. So that will be phenomenal for you. And again, just can't thank you enough. So a great final show for you, Paul. And you left people saying maybe in the next five years, possibly something good could happen for you, which is the most Vikings commentary that maybe I've ever heard. So thank you so much for all of your contributions,

Paul, and we'll get together soon for golf, but not for podcasting. So take care, buddy.