Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Is there pressure on the Vikings' brass in this draft?

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

Matthew Coller answers questions from Vikings fans, including how much pressure the Vikings' brass is facing during this draft because of the 2022 class's struggles and how ownership should be viewed by fans as the team tries to escape the middle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and this is another fans only episode and so far as I can tell from perusing the internet, searching desperately for rumors, we don't really have any for today. There's no hot mocks, no crazy trade potential, no Lamar Jackson progress, except for, for some reason, the Baltimore Ravens PR trying to shut down all questions from their media to John Harbaugh about Lamar Jackson as they were doing their pre-draft availability. I don't understand why you do a pre-draft availability if you're not going to answer any questions about where they stand with Lamar Jackson. But what were they going to say anyway, as far as where that thing stands?

I don't think any of us really know. But again, we haven't had exactly no randos emerge trying to negotiate for Lamar Jackson. So a very quiet day in the NFL. Some might say too quiet. So I wanted to apologize, by the way, as we get into these fan questions for purpleinsider.com. The website is down at the moment. I could tell you that it's being revamped and will look even more beautiful and magical, but that's not what happened. Actually, it just exploded into a million pieces. And now we're putting the pieces back together with the company that built it. So they're helping me out. Should be back up pretty soon. So check on that if you're looking to send a question. But for now, just shoot it to me at Twitter at Matthew Collar is the best place

to send me any of your fans only questions. And by the way, if you, this is a little promo here. If you sign up for the newsletter, you can get the purple insider draft guide, which I am grinding on now, 50 players that the Vikings could draft a couple of draft essays. A source tells me Paul Hoda, Wannick might contribute to this one as well with an essay.

So we're working on a lot of cool stuff for that. And if you want to get in on that, purpleinsider.substack, S-U-B-S-T-A-C-K, purpleinsider.substack.com. You'll get every article of mine sent directly to you. You get the draft guide. You get the Friday mailbag, which is exclusive just for people who sign up for the newsletter. So there's a lot of cool stuff in there. If you want to go check that out, purpleinsider.substack.com. All right. Let us now then get into your questions and some of the stuff that's recently popped up also is going to show up in the questions that folks have as well. So even though we don't have a sexy rumor to get to, there's a lot of interesting things going on. Question comes from

Pete. He says, Hi, Matthew. It's the token Brit here. Still enjoying the offseason and pre-draft content. So thank you. Pete, you're not the only one. We've got a handful of Brits and people abroad who listen. So I thank everyone outside of the States who takes the time. Question for fans only. Kwasi did not get the best grades for many people for last year's draft and offseason dealings with player contracts. So this year's moves so far are not exciting people. How much pressure does this put on him for this year's draft to really nail the picks,

especially given the number of picks that he has to work with, which of course is very, very few? Yeah, no, that's a great, it's a great question. How much pressure is on a GM whose team just won 13 games? We have to remember that the first impression of Kevin O'Connell and Kweisi Adafo-Mensah to the outside world is they're winning 13 games. They've flipped the culture around. They're getting high marks on the NFL PA study and everything seems like it's in a pretty good spot for the organization as a whole. At the same time, that's a little bit of a house of cards because of how quickly things change in the NFL. Because if you go from 13 wins to eight wins, no matter if all of us knew this was going to be a transition year for the Vikings, if you somehow finished third in the division or

something behind, I don't know, the Packers or Bears and Lions, it's going to get scrutinized for sure. In the outside world, if you go 8-9, they're going to say, look, that team fell off the side of the earth from 13 wins to 8 wins. They're going to point to the one score games. They're going to say it was never legit to begin with. And then all of a sudden the pressure ramps up. That is the reality of the game. And with last year, where Kweisi AdafomentaMensa put a bit of a target on his back was the trade down. So if this year he had acquired Jamison Williams in the draft, or I'm sorry, last year with their draft pick, just took Jamison Williams and Williams was not really ready to make

any sort of impact coming off the ACL. We all would have just given a mulligan and said, okay, no problem that you got this receiver. He's going to replace Adam Thielen. Off we go. We all knew that that was kind of a pick for the future and not for right now. So let's see what Jamison Williams has.

But when you trade so far down with a division opponent and the safety that you bought into as your 32nd pick couldn't beat out Cam Bynum for a starting job, Cam Bynum, who is just the guy. And then your second round pick has all these red flags and he gets hurt just like his past said he would. And then your second round guard is one of the worst in the entire NFL. And you get almost nothing out of a draft class right away. It does point to what was that process? Like all of these things could have been questioned in the process and not just, Oh,

the draft is random. And it is, but you drafted a non-premium position in safety, a non-premium position in guard, a cornerback who it sounds like was off some other team's draft boards because of his injury history. And yes, I have said that injuries can be pretty random. But when a guy is really slender and constantly hurt in college, I mean, you do have to worry about that, right? When you're picking him in the second round. Now that doesn't mean

that draft is going to implode in the long run because all of these things could change in an instant. And so that will also determine this of how we feel about the decisions that they made in last year's draft. If Lewis Seen starts and he's good, if Andrew Booth Jr. stays healthy and he works out, if Ed Ingram improves, if Brian Asamoah takes over the job and is the next Eric Kendricks, you could see some of these picks working out.

I don't think that that is decided yet. But is there pressure to figure out, well, to hit on this year's draft? Of course there is, because you're still working within the constraints of the salary cap, and you're going to be working within those constraints next year as well. And when you call it a competitive rebuild, you assume part of that is young players. And they cut basically an entire draft class last year from 2021. And then last year's draft class doesn't net you a lot. If you get that two years in a row, you're going to be in quite the pickle in 2024 with Kirk Cousins' big dead cap hit, if that's still a thing that exists at that time.

And so now what? Right. At the same time, I think that the goodwill and plus we all have to wait on the quarterback situation because how the quarterback situation ends up playing out for the Vikings will ultimately determine how much pressure is on Kweisi Adafl-Mensa. Say that they draft Will Levis. I don't know. Just let's say. Or Hendon Hooker. Everybody's favorite's now Hendon Hooker. So let's say they draft Hendon Hooker. And Kirk Cousins plays out the year. They win nine games, make or miss the playoffs. I don't know. But they're not going anywhere deep. Nine wins. And now Hendon Hooker is the future at quarterback. Well, you've got some leeway there, right?

You've got at least two more years for everybody to figure out what that quarterback that you drafted is going to be. Then you get more cap space down the road to build around that guy. And so I think that there would be pressure in the perception of Kweisi Adafo-Mensah from the fan base.

But as far as a timeline for him specifically, I think with the quarterback situation, he's got more time if they're going to draft one. Now, if they come back and extend Kirk Cousins out of nowhere and surprise us, that's much different. Then you have to win. Then you really have to win. Then if you go from 13 to eight and eight again after extending him, then you're talking about real pressure to hit on these draft picks because the only way you're going to succeed with Cousins is with a phenomenal or several phenomenal drafts in a row, similar to the way the Vikings built up to the 2017 team, which was based on crushing that 2015 draft. And, you know, a couple before that, getting Anthony

Barr, for example, was a big part of that as well. So yeah, I think it's complicated. It's complicated how much pressure is on him. But I can say this, if they do some strange stuff, if the trade downs are way too far, if the positions are non-premium, if they do some strange stuff, if the trade downs are way too far, if the positions are non-premium, if they draft a running back in the third or something, as opposed to one of the premium positions that they badly need, I do think we're all going to say, so what's going on here? What is going on here with the way that they're building the team? Then, you know, I, yeah, I mean,

I think that that will be a big question. So I'm very curious to see how we look at him as the general manager, just one day after this draft. And then on opening day, depending on who the quarterback is, do we know who it's going to be for the future? There's so much still to happen for us to really pass judgment even on this offseason or him. But I think where the roster is at, the amount of old players that they're losing, how badly they need a refresh of young players at a lot of positions, that does cause a lot of pressure. And knowing that immediately next year, you are not just going to get this windfall of cash when it comes to spending on free agents.

So yeah, I do think that the pressure is very high on Kweisi Adafo Mensah, but I don't think it's nail this draft or you're fired. It's more of you really need this to set up for the future to support whatever you do at quarterback or you need to find the quarterback for this year and have that plan laid out to take the pressure off okay this question comes from gary in fact this is another person living in the uk uh says been a fan of the vikings the nfl living the UK. Your pod and guests have been a great resource for me. That's great to hear, Gary. Appreciate that. Recently on this side of the pond, there has been massive growth in NFL popularity. You see people wearing NFL merch all

the time. All the major news outlets cover it to some degree. Do NFL teams regularly send scouts to Europe? If not, do you think that's something that could happen in the not too distant future with London looking to have a franchise by 2025? Can you see it happening? Secondly, what would the response be from you guys in the States if London and or other European cities had a franchise in the NFL? Yeah.

Okay. A few questions there. I don't believe that NFL teams send scouts overseas looking for players. Now I could be wrong and they might have some connections over there to certain teams or, you know, the teams send video or whatever to the NFL, but probably not. I don't think there's a whole lot of attention there. So if you have the next Moritz Bollringer, please let us all know.

Wasn't that the story that the highlights had come out kind of via YouTube of Moritz Bollringer and that's why the Vikings ended up drafting him. But I do think that that will probably have to change in the next 20 years as kids are growing up now with so much access to the NFL, wanting to play football over in Europe, American football, and maybe some of your better athletes start to take that up as their sport and it becomes more of their thing and they draw attention. That's very possible that that could happen. I mean, if you look at the NBA, where there was that sudden growth of European players

and players coming over to the NBA and at first and here's how it's gone in all sports. So here's how I would look at it. At first, there's always a lot of skepticism. I mean, even when Ichiro Suzuki came into Major League Baseball, it was like, oh, can this guy who's playing inferior competition still compete with the NFL players and so forth? And of course, each row blew their socks off right away. And now we have Shohei Otani and many, many other players.

And the same goes for the NBA. Oh, you know, the European players are soft and Dirk Nowitzki, you know, everything else is he's not going to make it because he saw. And then, you know, of course, Dirk becomes an NBA champion. It might follow the same path, but just not a right away, maybe not for another 15 to 20 years where there starts to be players who are just maybe kids now that are picking it up from a very early age and developing their skills early on. I could see that. But as far as I know, and maybe there is a European scout or something for some teams,

but as far as I know, I don't think that's where any of their focus is. I think it's entirely on college football. And if there are players who are looking to get the attention of the NFL, and there has been a few over the years, players who came from different places to Division I colleges. So if they're

going to make it, they're going to have to come from there to Division I college, and that's where the NFL will ultimately scout them. Now, how would people feel over here if there was a European division which has been talked about? I think there will be a lot of hesitation for it. I do. I don't know that it's something that American football fans want or care about at all. When you look at how the league is right now, the stability of it, the success of it, a lot of people would say, why? Why would we need to send teams over there? Why would we need to water down the competition when there's already not 32 good quarterbacks in the NFL? And I do think there is a threshold for watering down the product. And maybe we've seen it a little bit in the NHL where they can't

find goalies anymore in the NHL. And some teams are just giving up seven goals a night. It feels like that's a little hyperbolic, but it's a lot. Some of these bad goalies are giving up because there's not 34 good goalies in the world. There's probably like 20. And in the NFL, there's more like 15 good quarterbacks. So if you have 36 teams, how is this going to work at the same time? That's progress. That's life. I mean, the NFL is always going to look to make more money. They went to 17 games. I pushed back on it. I thought 16 was perfect. I didn't need it. Last year, I sat in Chicago

watching Nathan Peterman and Tim Boyle chuck it around against the Vikings. And I really thought I didn't need it. But the NFL understands, like you said, the more it's growing, the more that they see dollar signs and opportunities to make more money. But, you know, if you're over here in America, I don't see where it hurts you at all. I mean, it's not going to hurt you. If there's more more football, more teams to follow, more players, more storylines, it's not going to hurt you. If there's more, more football, more teams to follow, more players, more storylines, it's not going to hurt you. Can they get players to sign with those teams? Would they have to pay them more? Like there's a lot of complicated things to try to work your way through. Do they just play within their division all the time and then

have like a two week road trip? Like how does this all work is a really good question of how they would actually make it work. But I think that there would be hesitation, a lot of hesitation, more likely than not from American fans. But that just might be a sign of progress. And look for you and for your friends and all the people who are growing up loving the NFL,

it would probably be awesome, right? If they created in a handful of cities, NFL teams over there with star players, star quarterbacks, people could get drafted over there, number one picks, things like that to have teams of their own. Yeah, that would be great. And, you know, NFL Europe happened a while back. It seemed like it was a little bit

lukewarm on how people adapted to it. But we have so much more access to things than we did before. Like when you have the women's championship tournament getting almost 10 million viewers. One of the reasons is because it's so much easier to find out who Caitlin Clark is. Like there's always been these great women's basketball players, but now everybody can see them on social media and say, I want to watch that. I feel like it's the same thing with the NFL in Europe, where you might've heard of it. You might have seen it at whatever time that it's on, but now you have access to a 24 seven. You can go back and watch any game, all those things. And it makes

sense that there would be growth. So I don't know. I guess I would be kind of 50-50 on it, not because I don't want you to have teams, but more because I think about the number of teams that we're talking about in the league. That might just be where it's all going. And if it does, my guess is it'll probably really, really work for you. So thanks again for listening. This one comes from Hunter. What are the chances the Vikings move up just a few spots to get a player they really like that falls? For example, say Jackson Smith Najigba falls to 19 or 20. I think the chances are rather low of them trading up for anybody except for a quarterback.

So Jackson Smith Najigba, I think, is probably the best wide receiver in this class. And I like the Ohio State receivers. I mean, if we're talking about who's good at recruiting certain positions, a lot of times this college produces this or that. Like Wisconsin produces offensive linemen or Georgia defensive linemen. Maybe those reputations are a little unfair. At the same time, there's no denying the number of great wide receivers that Ohio State seems

to get its hands on. So Jackson Smith Najigbo was demanding a lot of attention, even when they had Chris Alave and Garrett Wilson. That's amazing. I think that he's a really good prospect that just didn't have a chance to show what he could do and gets the whole slot thing. Oh, well, he's a slot receiver, but we heard that about Justin Jefferson. So I'm very, very dismissive when I hear someone is just a slot and less slot that is S L is slot slot receiver. Um, but you know, unless it's somebody like Josh downs, who's five foot eight, you know, if someone is really tiny, then yes, they probably are only

an inside wide receiver, but that's not Smith Najigba. If he's one pick away, maybe you swap this pick for that pick later in the draft to move up that one spot. As long as the cost isn't that high, they could certainly do that. Otherwise, if they had to go up any significant amount to get someone like that, they probably would just want to wait until the next one. And, you know, if you compare, I think there are differing opinions that some people think that Quinton Johnston is the best receiver. Some people think that itinton Johnston is the best receiver. Some people think that it's Jordan Addison. And when there's no real clear cut, this is the guy. These are the two guys

at the very top. And then there's everybody else. And, you know, we can't forget Zay Flowers as well. Then I think you'd rather wait. You'd rather just say, all right, why we can't afford to give up any more draft capital. We have to just wait and hope that the next guy is there. And if not move on to the next thing. So unless it's a pick or two picks that you really need to move up and get that guy, or you feel like the other receivers you're using receivers. So I'm using receivers, but it could be anything. It could be pass rushers, corners, whatever. You know, maybe if you feel like they're flying off the board and there's a team that's guaranteed to take some position, you know, all these things, they happen in the NFL draft.

So there's always those possibilities. But I think if you're giving away any significant capital in a situation where you basically don't have any, then if you're, you know, robbing from the future to pay for now, it better be to go up and get Anthony Richardson or to go up and get Will Levis and not to take a wide receiver, especially with receiver history recently where Justin Jefferson's the fifth wide receiver taken. We just really don't know. I mean, it seems like we can pick out who the top guys are in the first couple rounds,

and this is true for a lot of positions, are not very good at telling which ones are going to be the best players. And that receiver position has really been, excuse me, really been robust in the second round and even into the third round with some stars in recent years might be better to wait if it's almost any other position. Corners has been pretty random as the Vikings have found out outside of the top top. But even, you know, a guy like Jeff Okuda has not turned out very well. So, you know, I think that it's probably better if they're taking anything else to trade down and try to get numerous picks that they can use on a couple different positions.

Second rounders are usually good. I mean, when we look at the Vikings second round history, it's not bad. You get a Delvin Cook in the second round, a Brian O'Neill in the second round. And I still think Irv Smith Jr. could have become a good player at some point in the second round. So, you know, there's going to be a ton of options on Kweisi Adafomensis-Platon. And sort of the theme of the offseason is they've got a bunch of different stuff they can do. When are they going to do it already? Soon? A couple weeks with the draft. Maybe some other stuff will happen before then. All right, here is one from Marcus.

Says, hi, Matthew. I'm a bit confused. When you were talking about Lamar Jackson, you argue against saying he's always injured and say it's not a good argument since football players, and especially quarterbacks, simply get hurt. I totally agree with that.

In a recent episode with Jonathan, you used the opposite argument to criticize the 49ers, potentially moving on from Trey Lance and pushing all the chips to the middle of the Purdy table. So I guess this brings me to my question, is injury prone a real trait that players can have and can it be predicted? So the answer is yes and no. The reason why I look at Lamar Jackson as not being a player I would put as injury prone is because, well, one, he's 26 years old and he's never had a catastrophic injury. He's been banged up the last two years. And as you mentioned, half the league was banged up as quarterbacks. So he's been banged up the last two years, but never before that. Never really in college and all the way through his first years in the NFL.

And his injuries were kind of random and not things that should be expected to be long-term hindrances. So this is a very much case-by-case basis, right? The way Lamar Jackson plays certainly does put him in the crossfire sometimes, but also it keeps him from the crossfire sometimes because he can run away from people. So it's always a give and take when it comes to that. I guess when I talk about it with Lamar Jackson, I would say not that I don't think he's ever going to get injured. He probably will get banged up at times.

It's more of, I wouldn't let the fear of a potential injury with him, where it seems like it's not a nagging, constant, guy's always on the injured list, and it was just a couple of bad breaks, and he's in the middle of his prime and still young. I wouldn't look at that and say, oh man, well, he could get hurt. Because in that case, you could say anybody could get hurt. A lot of quarterbacks who don't have any injury history got banged up this year. That's just life for you. With Brock Purdy, one thing is that he's one of the smallest quarterbacks in the NFL. So this does matter, I think.

And this is why I'm saying case by case basis, because when you're talking about really small quarterbacks, I have to think that that could make a difference in the NFL. Brock Purdy is six foot and two hundred and twelve pounds. That is in the eighth percentile and 19th percentile of quarterbacks, according to mock draftable. So he's very, very small. And you do worry about a guy that's taken some hits already had the hip injury, had the arm injury. That's another thing too, is the arm injury could make a difference in the future, right? Uh, how he recovers from that. Is he even able to come back right away? What if you have a setback like dealing with a current injury that has a six month recovery time? That's different from, well,

okay. Lamar got hurt last year and it seems like maybe he could have played in that playoff game, but we're not really sure how risky that would have been. So you can kind of see the case by case element to it. And I would say 100% that you look at someone's past history, and I'll give you two good examples for the Vikings, Andrew Booth Jr. and Marcus Davenport. It doesn't mean that they're going to get hurt. But when you have a serious injury history in the past, yes, that's worth bringing up. So I was really addressing kind of both guys' specific situations. And if you're San Francisco and you're dealing with a quarterback who's small and who got, you know, bounced around a little bit last year and then had this very significant injury, I don't know that it's the right time to just be bailing.

And if you are bailing, I've got more questions like, wait, you've got this injured quarterback and you'd rather have Sam Darnold than Trey Lance. Okay. If they're trading them, I'm not sure that I really want to do that because then that's pretty aggressive of the 49ers to just move on. Like that must mean that they really didn't like what they saw over the first couple of years. That's why I think that they will just wait another year with Trey Lance. And that makes so much more sense. I hope that kind of clarifies that, that with someone like Marcus Davenport, when they sign him, we talk about like, yes, this could be a very good sign signing for them and it could

have a high ceiling, but the guy has been banged up a lot. And if that continues, and if those injuries start to pile up, age matters to Marcus Davenport, still in his mid twenties. So mid to late, like 27. So we're not willing to say, all right, well, the guy's, you know, injury prone. If he was 31 and he had all those injuries, then 32. Yeah, we would probably say stay away. That injury history is too much, very much case by case, but specifically on Lamar, I don't think that that should send you running away based on what he has. And yes, quarterbacks do get hurt. Quarterbacks without any injury history before, sometimes somebody falls on their leg. There was the one time that Tom Brady got a new rule

created because someone fell on his leg and then Matt Castle had to play and won 11 games. And then they debated on ESPN if Matt Castle should be the quarterback and they should trade away Tom Brady. Anyway. So yeah, it's a hard thing. It's a really hard thing because I don't like to ever call players injury prone because it's just such a tough label to put on them when maybe it was bad luck early in their career and they could just have better luck later on. all right next question comes from at that nerd chris on twitter uh genuine genuinely curious tom bellicero releasing the statement that delvin cook has played hurt for the past few seasons is that creative pr to boost the trade value are they actually contemplating keeping him? My gut leans toward the former, but curious to hear your thoughts. Yeah, I think that based on the other tea leaves, we can figure this one out of like who would want the world to know that Delvin Cook is feeling good. Like, for example, if the Vikings were going to keep him, then what difference would it make? Unless his agent just wanted to wanted you to know that his shoulder was doing fine.

But again, like what difference does that make to you? You don't make any decisions with him, right? So like what, what, what was it? I mean, he's not trying to help your fantasy team, but it would be out there most likely to let other teams know that they're safe to trade for him because his shoulder is doing better and he's been playing. And maybe that's kind of an, Hey, look, you know, if you thought he wasn't as good last year, he's still him. It's just that the shoulder was an issue. Now it's fixed. You're getting the better version of Delvin Cook. So you should definitely send us a second round draft pick or something, whatever they're asking. I don't know. I think it leans much more that way, especially because of Alexander Madison. If Alexander Madison hadn't resigned, then I would be sitting here thinking Delvin Cook was going to return. But Alexander Madison came back and he came back fast. That has to mean something, right? If you're Alexander Madison and you've maxed out at 100 carries a year

and been fairly successful doing so, you want a chance, right? Madison's a bright guy. He's got to know that running backs peter out pretty quickly. You're not having a 10, 15-year career as a running back. He's got to know that running backs Peter out pretty quickly. You're not having a 10, 15 year career as a running back. This is your shot. I think he's 25, 26. These are your years, man. I just can't imagine unless he was only focused on guaranteed money and this was the most that anyone would give him. But otherwise, I can't imagine signing so quickly back to the Vikings. And then also there was the report that the Vikings looked into David Montgomery,

which also indicates Montgomery is more of a 1A or 1B type of running back. That would also indicate to me, yeah, all right, they're planning on moving on from Delvin Cook. It's just about finding a suitor. And there is a fairly big difference in the cap hit. I think it's like two million, which doesn't sound big. But when you have less than two million in space, it is kind of big. So, you know, they're looking to trade him away. And there's that gap in the cap space. If you trade him, you get something back.

You get a little more cap space that's favorable. And there's no pressure to do it right this minute. They can wait. They can wait till after the draft if they want. You don't have to do it today in terms of trading away Delvin Cook because there's no pressure. I mean, they don't play games for a long time. And yes, you do have to sign your draft class, but you don't really have to sign them until

training camp. You can go the summer. They could practice on a waiver or whatever. I forget the exact process to work it out. But many times guys have not signed their initial rookie contracts until they get to training camp and even some a few days into training camp before they get it all worked out. So the Vikings may feel way less pressure than we do as we're talking about,

what are you going to do? Are you going to make this move? Where's this going? And they might be sitting there saying, we are totally fine with waiting until a team runs out of running back options and decides that they need Delvin Cook. Or here's this NFL Network report and their ownervin Cook or here's, you know, this NFL Network report and their owner makes a call and says, you know what we really need in Arizona or Tampa Bay

or whatever. I don't know. We need this running back so that they can wait if they're going to do it. But I mean, confidence meter would only lean 60 percent toward that because they might just restructure his deal, which I believe they can do and still create a good amount of cap space just for doing that. So I could, I could like everything else. I feel like it's hard to give definitive guesses on some of these things because we just don't know. But if I was reading the tea leaves, I would say that was a bat signal to other teams. Okay. His shoulder's good folks. You could start calling us now because that would be a holdup. I know people have asked about passing a physical. I haven't heard that specific part of it as much as I've heard just that teams would be concerned. I mean, just asking people, Hey, like how would you deal with an

injury when it comes to a trade? Any team that, like, how would you deal with an injury when it comes to a trade? Any team that's trading for a player that's got an injury is going to want a lot of proof and evidence that it's looking good and they're not going to get a lemming when they make that trade. So, all right. Next question here, this from Thomas. Well, I get all the upside of Lamar Jackson's ability. Do you think the Vikings or any other team are disinclined to sign Lamar due to the fact that he does not have an agent? I think the fact that he doesn't have an agent is one of the reasons he doesn't have offers in his hands right now, if not the biggest reason. But I think, well, no, the biggest reason is that the owners don't want to give him all the guaranteed money.

But if he had an agent, the agent would say, dude, take a ton of guaranteed money and work out the deal with the team to have more flexibility and you will be fine in your life. I promise you that's what an agent would likely do is they would meet in the middle with the teams. So they want guaranteed, all guaranteed. The team wants less. You meet in the middle. Everybody's happy.

That's what an agent is going to do. So I don't think it's just the fact that he doesn't have one that has made this not work out. It's more of if he did, that person would look for a middle ground as opposed to really digging their heels in, which is what Lamar Jackson seems to be doing right now. And the other point that I think is a good one is just that agents, you know, they wield a lot of power in this game because, well, one, I mean, they're connected to the media, so they can kind of shape the narrative in the way that they want, which is harder for Lamar when he's just tweeting his way through it.

I mean, an agent is going to work a little more subtly, I think, to put the pressure on the owners and the teams to start making those offers. But also they would have direct lines to a lot of the ownership. So they could go over the head of general managers to the owners and say, let's sit down, let's work this out, let's figure it out. And then Lamar Jackson would take what his agent got for him as opposed to trying to do it himself. So it does seem to be a major roadblock. I don't think teams are saying we won't negotiate with anyone who doesn't have an agent because Richard Sherman didn't. Bobby Wagner doesn't.

There are players who are trying to represent themselves and some have done OK. But this is a very, very lofty number and lofty goal that Lamar Jackson has set. That's extremely hard to work out if you don't have an agent. And I mean, I think that he's deserving of all the money in the world because quarterbacks are the reason this whole thing works, but he's setting the bar pretty darn high trying to go for the fully guaranteed thing. It makes it really difficult, uh, by not really negotiating and instead saying, this is my price, take it or leave it. But we'll see. I mean,

it might end up playing out where somebody blinks and Lamar Jackson ends up with all the money that he was going for. And he can laugh in the faces of people who said he should have got an agent. But that's also becoming part of this. And that's where it becomes another layer. That's why it's so interesting to talk about, honestly, is that's another layer is that, you know, you're also talking about a guy who is now making it his sort of goal to beat the owners and to prove them wrong. And that's why, again, it's better to have an agent, somebody who's kind of unbiased, just working toward the best solution for everyone, as opposed to like now it's Lamar versus the owners. You know what I mean? So it plays into it for sure. Let's see this one from Brandon trying to

work my way through as many as I can here from Brandon. Let's see. What do you make of this report that the Vikings wanted to sign David Montgomery so perplexing why we would want to pay another running back that kind of money? It sounds like they didn't want to pay him as much money or he'd be a Viking. Yeah, no, I don't think it's a bad idea to sign a veteran to a reasonable deal. I didn't see what he got exactly. Let me take a look at this. Because, you know, I think that with the running back thing, it's not that you never want to sign them. It's that you want to make sure you sign them to a reasonable contract.

It's not that you never want to draft them. It's that you don't want to draft them too high to where when you pick them, they're immediately the highest paid player at their position, right? So this deal for David Montgomery is three years, years 18 million his cap hit for this year is only 2.8 and then it goes up to 6.8 next year for a guy who's been a very good running back in the league and is 26 i don't see anything wrong with that deal anything super inefficient for that deal like think about what you get for other positions at a $6 million cap hit being the height of this thing. I guess it could, well, he's got, they're doing some void years. They

are kind of all in. So they're, they're voiding, they're voiding out there, but he does have a $7 million cap hit in 2025. So it's his prime years and it's not that expensive. And think about what you get as far as wide receivers. Maybe we can look this up real quick. Um, if you've all, if you've all got nothing to do, you can all sort of, uh, talk amongst yourselves while I look this up, but I'm curious about what receivers would have had cap hits of like six or $7 million. And of course, that's not to say that they're worth the same, but just out of curiosity. Let's see. Okay. So you have like your Kendrick Bourne's of the world, your Zay Jones, who actually played quite well last year, Paris Campbell, Juju Smith Schuster. So some pretty replaceable wide receivers.ief raymond is more in the four million dollar range there's not a lot of wide receivers who have cap hits that are actually in

that ballpark because most of them are higher than 10 million so i guess that makes the point a little bit that if you sign david montgomery to a deal that's going to be two million and then seven million that's not bad i mean that's like the latavius million and then $7 million, that's not bad. I mean, that's like the Latavius Murray type of deal. That would have worked out, I think, for the Vikings to have a veteran, then split time with Alexander Madison. You're not spending too much money. That's okay.

That's a good approach. And then play Ty Chandler and see who wins. I don't mind that at all. What I think is not a good approach is paying $14 million on the cap for that running all. What I think is not a good approach is paying 14 million on the cap for that running back. Then you're talking double what David Montgomery is going to be getting. That would be way too much. So yeah, didn't hate that idea. I don't think it's never, ever, ever spend a single dollar at that position. It's more of just manage it in a reasonable way where you're not

giving a huge deal that's going to hurt you down the road, which eventually, you know, this one will with Delvin Cook. He didn't play as well last year. And then, you know, he's going to take on dead cap no matter what they do to him, trade, cut, whatever. So that's what you're trying to avoid is making sure that you're never really hurting yourself with that position because it is so easy to replace. Good question. Let's see. Can we get in two more? Two more. Here's what I got. I got two left, so we're going to go for it, folks. Let's see. From Seth, seeing how the Vikings have

signed, let's see, so few players signed to 2024 and so few picks in 2023 couldn't there be an option if they acquired either a first round quarterback or lamar jackson and trade kirk cousins to san francisco for more quantity of picks with all the thirds that san francisco has accumulated uh in comparison to a first or second etc and i'm a kirk cousins. Oh, I see what you mean. Like trying to get in as opposed to trying to shop cousins for a first rounder. You try to get like a bunch of picks from San Francisco. Yeah, I think that's I mean, San Francisco, it does make sense as far as a potential trade target just because of the Shananahan but also their timeline they're in a situation where it's all in to win they have a great roster they're going to go for it and

they've got some questions like we talked about with brock purdy at their quarterback position so you know yeah i mean it's a natural type of fit i don't think that kurt cousins is getting traded for a first or second anyway, especially if the Vikings made the play for Lamar Jackson or if they draft a quarterback, but you never really know. Cause I don't want to say that for sure. Sam Bradford got traded here for a first round pick. Uh, but do I think that it's something they would do only if Jackson is here. If they draft a quarterback, I just can't see it. I mean, if they drafted Levis or Richardson or hooker, like all those guys, you have to, or I, we haven't mentioned Tanner McKee in a while, but I guess we'll throw him

out there. All those guys, they're going to need that year to sit behind Kirk cousins, or it's the most favorable to have that year to sit behind Kirk Cousins or it's the most favorable to have that year sitting behind Kirk Cousins I think I would rather have that year of them developing rather than being thrown into the wolves as opposed to two third round draft picks I guess I think I think that right yeah I think that's Yeah. I would rather have a quarterback sit for a year because it has such a good rate of success in working than I would. And I know it doesn't happen that often, but I think it's the best way to draft and develop a quarterback than I would a couple of mid round picks. that high if the Vikings have made it super clear they're moving on that other teams aren't going to jump to say oh my gosh this is the biggest thing in the world we need is Kirk Cousins when San Francisco seems to be locking themselves into Brock Purdy so a very fluid situation yeah uh would it make sense I mean if you got Lam, yes, of course you have to trade Kirk

Cousins at that point. But again, you're still not getting the draft capital if you do that. I, you know, it's funny because I thought that question was kind of going in a different direction. Like, shouldn't they be trying to tear things down and get more draft capital, which I thought is what they were going to do this offseason. And they haven't. And I guess, you know, Kirk Cousins plays a part in that as well. How much he would be actually worth if you're trying to trade him is also another question.

But after the draft, who gets left out of the party when it comes to quarterbacks could also play into whether they end up making a move there or not. I don't suspect that they will. I actually, I mean, at this moment, I don't think that they're going to have a chance to draft one of the top quarterbacks. And I think we're probably just going through next year with Kirk Cousins on the final year of his deal, but anything remains on the table and possible at the moment. All right, last one. This is from Denton. Is it possible that the improvement of Garrett Bradbury is not real and that he only benefited from the poor play of the guards on either side of him? If the

guards improved, is he back to being one of the worst centers in the league? First part of that is for sure, context matters a lot. And who is going after you, how teams are game planning, how they're lining up, all those things, they matter a ton. And I guarantee teams were looking at the way Ed Ingram was playing last year and saying, we are going to game plan to go after that guy. I still thought from eye test wise, when I looked back at the tape that it matched up with the PFF grade. And I saw earlier in the season, Garrett Bradbury doing better than he was before when he was getting one-on-one opportunities or, you know, situations that you try to avoid with him with one-on-ones, but it was a lot more of him helping than him needing help as, as being the guy that was

attacked. And a lot of the success that opposing teams seem to have was running games where you're doing, you know, stunts, twists and things that were attacking the guards because both of them had so many problems with it, not attacking so much Garrett Bradbury. Could that mean that if both of those guys improved that Bradbury's grade would go down? Yes, but I think that is a home run for you. I mean, I think that's a great situation. Yes, it could mean that his grade goes down and teams start attacking him more. It is easier to help a center, in my opinion, who's struggling at pass blocking than it is to help two guards who are two of the worst in the league in terms of giving out pressure.

If both of those guys improved, you would take it. They have been so bad at the guard position for so long that you can cover up. This is just the way I've kind of always looked at offensive line. You can cover up one, but you can't cover up two on the offensive line. Talk about that weak link system. But if one guy is struggling, they can do things schematically to give that guy a hand the best they can. When it comes to two guys on the both guards who are having problems, then there's just

not enough shifting protections, giving double teams, giving chips and all that. There's just not enough of it to go around. You can really only help one. And then when they had Christian Derrissaw out for even a little bit or Brian O'Neill out for even a little bit, then it was really every man for himself. However, let me just say this. If they signed Bradbury to the deal to bring him back, and it's not a bad deal at all. I think it was a very solid deal for the Vikings. But if they sign him to bring him back and then those numbers sink, we're all going to go, come on, guys. Most of his history was having trouble with this. But that, you know, you talk about the guards, whether the right guard improves is a big factor going forward. And I just don't mean for next season. I mean, all of going forward,

the next several seasons. If you drafted a guard way higher than everybody expected him to go, and then he's leading the league in sacks allowed and leading the league in pressures allowed, like that's not good. That's not a good look. If you draft, you know, it's funny about just perception, but also kind of the truth of the matter is if you draft a quarterback, if you draft a receiver, if you draft an edge rusher, these hugely paid positions, if they don't work out, we can always go back and go, well, look, heck, you know, the Jets drafted

Sam Darnold. What would you have done? Right? Like the guy was a great prospect and he just didn't work out. And Laquan Treadwell, I've always argued that if you go back and look, you can say now, oh, he was slow, but go watch him play in college. The guy was dominant. And a lot of the draft analysts thought Laquan Treadwell is going to go around this range. It's a key position. It's a lot harder to criticize those picks than it is a overdrafted guard. So this is going to be a big year for them. How it affects Garrett Bradbury is a great question. It's hard to say definitively without seeing how other teams would attack. But I think smart on your part to think about the context of things like PFF grades, pressures,

and so forth. The teams knowing that Christian Derrissaw is really good probably helps Christian Derrissaw actually, because they're saying we're not going to beat him very often. So we've got to go after these other guys. And then there's so much pressure. That's the NFL for you. So yeah, the interior of the line still remains a big question for now and for the future. So, all right. Great, great stuff, everybody. You know, we'll see what kind of movement we continue to get, but we will have fun on the way as we count down farther, further, whichever it is to the NFL draft. So appreciate all of you listening. Great stuff coming up in the next couple of days. We're going to look at cornerbacks with the data with intern Haley.

We're going to talk with Bart Winkler about the NFC North. He's a talk host in Green Bay. So that'll be fun too. Lots of stuff, lots of stuff to stay entertained while we wait for things to happen. Thanks everybody.