Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - It's finally draft week

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

Matthew Coller answers Viking fans questions, from whether CJ Stroud could suddenly be the QB to drop to talking us into a mid-round QB to whether we will finally know the offseason direction soon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider and oh my gracious friends, we have made it all the way to draft week, and we've got some fun things coming up leading up to the NFL draft, and I have made a decision that because you folks are loyal, friendly, joyous, you're filled with intrigue about the NFL draft, that I am going to do a YouTube live NFL draft show on the Purple Insider YouTube account. And if you don't have a chance to listen to that live, I will make sure I post it on the podcast feed for all of you to listen to as well for the reaction to whatever it is the Vikings do if they do anything at all so for night one I'm going to do that probably night two I'll go out to TCO Performance Center and we will go from there

on to the draft so I wanted to get in all of your final fans only questions. I did not want to go through the rest of this week and leave anybody out to dry without getting their fans only questions answered. So if you want to go to purpleinsider.com, that's where you can leave messages for the fans only. I probably won't get to another fans only episode though. So you might want to hang on to those until after the draft, but trust me, there will be many, many more fans only episodes after that. But I wanted to make sure that I didn't just leave a bunch hanging out. Same with kind of the start of free agency,

the playoff game, like let's get another one of these episodes in so everybody can have their questions answered. So let's begin. We will start with Todd. Says, fans only, what do you make of all the buzz that CJ Stroud may be falling? Legit or people getting bored and running out of things to talk about? If he fell to 10, would you trade up to get him if you were Kwesi Adafl-Mensa?

Yeah, I mean, I do think that bored is part of it or maybe someone is trying to take a last-ditch effort to get him to fall because they like him and want to draft him. But I don't know if that's it either. And I know I've got some other questions about the cognition test, where his number was leaked and he didn't do very well or something. And that just sounds very shady to me. I don't know. I mean, maybe it's true, but I'll talk more about that test because I've read up

on it a little bit to be able to speak to what it might mean for some of the quarterbacks that are coming out. But I can say this with CJ Stroud. I think that if you go back to watch the last football game this gentleman play cj stroud it was really good it was really really really good and i think that teams mostly have their draft boards finished after the end of the college football season and then they get little adjustments when it comes to the combine. Hey, this guy's got a medical issue. Going to have to red flag that. Or hey, this guy has way, way worse numbers in some key areas than we thought. So we're going to probably move him around and shuffle. And I'm sure that when it comes to some players that are debatable,

they get together in groups, they watch the tape back, they talk about it more. But in terms of your scouting reports, usually by the end of a season, I mean, most of it should be pretty well the hay in the barn. And if we go back to that, CJ Stroud put together an incredible season with great numbers and went up against the Georgia team that is unbelievably good on defense and played as well at the quarterback position as anyone has played against them. And he did it with good receivers, but he didn't do it with, you know, Garrett Wilson and Chris Alave. It wasn't a lot of wide open wide receivers running around he had to make plays he had to do off schedule stuff

he had to make throws and then he goes to the nfl combine and puts on an absolute clinic of how to throw a football which by the way everybody always talks about what's the top thing that they want they want an accurate passer this man as far as throwing the football, technically speaking, is as good as anyone that you're ever going to see go to the combine. Just put on a laser show. He has marvelous throwing accuracy. I mean, Joe Burrow-esque in his throwing accuracy, in his throwing technique, in his anticipation. And look, I don't know if he's going to be a good quarterback, but here's what I know is that when I see a quote that says he went to college X, so there's never good quarterbacks from college X, I immediately dismiss it. Let's go back to LSU. Let's talk about LSU quarterbacks. Jamarcus Russell, Rohan Davey was Matt Moore, a college quarterback at LSU. They've had lots of

quarterbacks there. They didn't make it. Well, I guess you don't want to draft any of those guys. Oh, wait, Joe Burrow is there. He's a great prospect. You're going to pick them. Helmet scouting is just complete nonsense. There's the same thing happened with Aaron Rogers, where it was like what Kyle Bowler andff tedford's system that people thought that he just pumped up quarterback statistics so at kale so they didn't want to pick aaron rogers that was part of it maybe he said weird stuff in interviews i don't know he does that now but if that was the reason that is something that we should have advanced well beyond as an NFL is just looking at, oh, well, you know, this quarterback or that quarterback from Ohio State didn't work out.

These are different human beings with different skill sets. C.J. Stroud is different from Justin Fields, who is different from Dwayne Haskins, who is different from Cardell Jones. I don't know why this would be a hard thing to figure out. So yes, I do think that it's sort of that if you're familiar with the term in politics of the October surprise, where when we're going down the stretch of a presidential election, there's always some big, crazy story that, you know, they try to swing the election at the end. And you know what? In elections, maybe it works. I don't know that it works unless it's a gas mask bong. I mean,

I think that most of the time, if someone's not taken as high as we expect, then it has to do with something about their performance, their weaknesses in their performance. And I'll give an example of that would be Malik Willis. A lot of us looked at Malik Willis and I shouldn't say us. I am not one of those draft mock people who scouts things. I mean, I, uh, tend to gather my information from the trustworthy people who I believe in as much as you can put it that way. But the, uh the mock draft Illuminati believed that Malik Willis was going to go high because he has a rocket arm and because he runs real fast. And there wasn't a whole lot of thought process past that.

That was a mistake because they believed in those two things, superseding anything else about Malik Willis' play. Like the fact that he took lots of sacks. He spent forever in the pocket. He didn't seem to understand where to throw the football, the processing. And it turns out that all that stuff was super important to the NFL. And that's why he was not taken as high as a lot of people expected. But he was not anywhere near the prospect that cj stroud is so i think we

can talk out of both sides of our mouth and say anything is possible here it is possible that cj stroud is shockingly the quarterback that drops and not the number two overall pick maybe we are overrating this year's draft class because last year's draft class was so horrendous. None of these guys is perfect. None of them is the next Peyton Manning or Andrew Luck. That is true. But I have a really, really tough time looking at what he did in college and saying, yeah, all these teams that need quarterbacks, they're just going to pass.

I mean, I just have a really, really tough time thinking that considering how well he performed the, the throwing ability that he has. I mean, yeah, every single one of these quarterbacks are going to have to be taught NFL offenses and there might be some rough times early on. And I know that there's a lot of talk about Bryce young. And I know that there's a lot of talk about Bryce Young. I think he's better than these other prospects by a nose. He's very, very smart. And, you know, he's really creative, but he doesn't quite have the beast arm. Like there's there's arguments that you can make for every single one of them dropping. But I think that this is more along the lines of just some nonsense coming out at the last

minute and trying to make this a thing. And if you are a person who studies Vegas and tries to get your draft information from Vegas, they are not a reliable source. Vegas does not know where people are being drafted. This has been proven year after year. Vegas thought Mac Jones was going super high. It shuffled all over the place in the lead up to the draft. When it came to that draft class, they had no idea. And a lot of people

who are gamblers will tell you that they make a lot of money with the draft because they realize that, and there are some sports books that don't even do the draft because they know that they're not going to do very well in doing it. So to answer your question, it is a product of the draft taking too freaking long to get here. That's one of it. And maybe some people putting some stuff out there with intent to help C.J. Stroud drop, to put a little bit of maybe a question in the minds of teams that might draft him. But a prospect to that level, someone who could be your franchise quarterback, someone who represents themselves extremely well, who handled the loss to Michigan very, very well.

He played good in that game, and the defense was a joke. And he handled it like a pro, like a tough loss, putting it on himself, things like that. I've just been impressed with how he's played under some of the biggest circumstances. And if the NFL lets something like this get in their head, I don't know. But the second part of your question, so I apologize. I mean, if you offer me the opportunity to rant about draft season going on too long, I'm going to do it. So I apologize for that. But

the second part is if the guy got past the 10th pick, do you make the phone call and see if you could trade up to get them? Of course you do. Because this quarterback, this guy who drops has worked out many times in the NFL. So when there's a player, somebody like Lamar Jackson, I still think Teddy Bridgewater would have worked out for the Minnesota Vikings had he not gotten injured long-term, but there's been many more historically who have fallen. Aaron Rodgers is the most prime example that you can come up with, but they haven't been that top pick and they still end up being tremendous quarterbacks. So I would make that bet on C.J.

Stroud for sure if he got there. And, you know, we might be surprised. I tend to feel like we want that these top three are good enough to the point where they're just going to get taken toward the top. And I mean, Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud, Anthony Richardson, and there won't be much discussion except for and I actually wouldn't be totally shocked if Will Levis gets taken high either, because he has been considered by a lot of people as a top 10 pick. We're not talking about someone who's mocked at 27. That's more of like the Hendon Hooker thing, where I think the wideness of the potential outcomes increases when we go down the board a little bit for the mock community. So with Malik Willis is a good example of you go back and look at the

mock draft database. There was a lot of varying opinions. It wasn't like everybody thought he was going to go number two. More so, a lot of people thought he was going to go like in the 20s to Pittsburgh or something like that. But there was some skepticism on him. There has not been until this moment skepticism on CJ Stroud. There shouldn't be. But if the Vikings get that opportunity, then take that swing because he is a really good NFL starting quarterback prospect. Okay, there you go. Right off right off the bat. First question, a long opening rant. So we'll get going. This is, this is not one by the way, where I'm trying to keep them short. I'm going to give you the full answer to these questions. We got a draft coming up. Let's go. So on to Alex,

Alex says, a lot of people are saying that the Vikings could draft a quarterback this year, but to me, it makes the most sense to draft one in 2024. They don't have much draft capital to move up in 2023. And I don't want to see a year or two of the rookie scale quarterback alongside Kirk Cousins, $28.5 million cap hit. So here goes nothing. I'd like you to rate my plan and then tell me why it's a good or bad idea. Trade Delvin Cook, Zedaria Smith, and Daniil Hunter for 2024 draft picks trade down into the middle of the second round and try to get a 2024 first my goal in this scenario is to head into the 2024 draft with a bit of a weakened team that has a chance to move up and take either

caleb williams or drake may i think the front office has shown enough with 13 win season to have a reset year while not fully tanking and enough ammunition headed into 2024 to realistically move up into the top two or three to take an elite quarterback prospect. Yeah, I mean, I like your plan, Alex. to get a quarterback this year, your options most likely are taking Hendon Hooker, having to trade three first to move up or trade for Trey Lance. I guess those are all the options at the moment. And if your way of going about it is look, stack up draft capital for the future. So you can have either, you know, a party next year at draft time where you're drafting a bunch of players because you've signed some other quarterback with Kirk Cousins gone. I mean, that's, I guess, possible or traded for another one that's possible. Or you are using draft capital to move up as much as you need to, to get a quarterback prospect. And it doesn't

have to be Caleb Williams or Drake May. I mean, those are the two names that we're pretty sure about right now are going to be top draft picks. But, you know, at the same time, like there are other guys that you might be able to move up and get like last year at this time, we had never heard the name Anthony Richardson. And then Anthony Richardson comes out in the first week against Utah and does insane things with a football and all of a sudden puts his name on the map. That happens every year. How about Spencer Rattler in the second half of last season, starting to show signs of the potential that he was always talked about as having.

So if he goes another year, matures as a quarterback plays really well is he a top 10 draft pick so it's not just about those two it's about having enough ammunition as you said to be able to move up and do that now if they truly believe in one of these quarterbacks if kevin o'connell called you alex and he said, hey, Alex, look, I feel you on 2024, but Hendon Hooker is the smartest quarterback I've ever been around. And I want no one more than Hendon Hooker in this entire world. Then I would say, and I think you would too. Okay, Kevin, go for it.

Pick your guy, get behind your guy, and let's go toward the future. But your point about that dead cap hit with Kirk Cousins cannot be ignored. And this is something that, you know, Alex Lewis, Alex, Alec Lewis, and I were talking about the other day is just we're talking about this, this dead cap hit and how you want to take full advantage of when you have that rookie quarterback contract situation you want to be able to in the second year because developing them for a year is fine but in the second year in the third year to be able to go completely crazy with free agency to stack up the roster as much as you can and to forego one of those years because of the dead cap for Kirk Cousins,

you know, that isn't favorable because you really create a real window for yourself from start to kind of finish when they would get paid. And even a team like Philadelphia here has created that window. Now they've messed around with the salary cap so you can stretch it out a little bit farther, but still, eventually, Jalen Hurts, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Patrick Mahomes is already very expensive. They're all going to cost a lot.

And then the squeeze happens. It gets a lot more difficult. So if you throw one of those years in the ocean because the quarterback position is already 28 million, i do think that makes things harder i wouldn't say it's the number one and only reason that i would pass on quarterback this year because if they decide to pick someone then i'm going to be behind it because then we know the path but if they do set themselves up to know what they're going to do in the next draft, pick a quarterback, then you want to have the draft capital that makes it flexible enough for you.

Now, how much you can actually get, that is a little bit debatable. Can you actually get multiple draft picks for Zedarius Smith and Del. Well, the whole league kind of sits here and says, we'll wait this one out. But Daniil Hunter, if you're able to get a next year's first, next year's second, that's significant capital to be able to move up. So I like what you're thinking. I like the logic. It's way less exciting than drafting a quarterback this week. But I do think that it tracks as a good idea if the quarterback who drops, who's going

to be available in the Vikings pick, is not somebody that they're all in on. All right. Our next question here comes from Paul. We do not know who the Vikings starting quarterback will be for the 2024 season. What are the odds that we will go through the full 2023 season with this status? To me, this is the biggest question of the off season, since I have no idea what they're going to do. I have to put it at 50-50. Yeah, I mean, I think that there are decent chances that we go through the entire season and still have no idea who the future

quarterback is going to be, you know what it would remind me of is kind of like what happened with the Vegas Raiders. Now the Raiders worked out a contract extension with Derek Carr, but I think everybody knew at the time of the extension, because we have more details than we used to of these contracts. Thanks to our buddy, fitzgerald at over the cap.com who does an unbelievable job of informing all of us and has literally changed the way that we talk about the nfl because we know these things now because if adam schefter or one of the nfl network guys had put out derrick carr's after 2021, we would have had no idea that that thing was actually

set up for the Raiders to move on from Derek Carr. But since it was, it became very evident that, if they're not great, then Derek Carr is probably gone. Now, it was not as clear as it feels right now with the Vikings and Kirk Cousins at this moment, it feels pretty definitive about where this train is headed, that there is an end date on Kirk Cousins as a Viking, but just to kind of stick with the Derek Carr example, I mean, they didn't know where they were going to go with quarterback position after Derek Carr probably didn't know even when Derek Carr was missing those last couple of games and sitting out so he didn't get hurt or maybe it was just was it the last game last couple games so he couldn't get hurt and then that would you know

may you know complicate things with his contract or whatever else but I'm not sure that they were sure who their next quarterback was going to be and even Jimmy Garoppolo might be a very short term solution for them. There's still a team that could draft a quarterback. So this does happen where teams go into a season or go into the following offseason with no idea and just wait until they find out what presents itself. And there is a little bit of a, would you like a Hendon hooker or what I have behind door number two? And, uh, you know, door number two could be a veteran quarterback that comes available. Shockingly door number two could be the 13th overall pick

because you went eight and nine. I don't know if that's, does that get you 13 and Hey, you can trade up it to the seventh pick to draft a quarterback. It might be, you get left out entirely, which does happen. I mean, look around the league at some of the quarterbacks. There have been times where teams definitely, and gosh, Washington is one of them for years where they needed to draft one. And they should have in the Justin Herbert and to for years where they needed to draft one and they should have in the Justin Herbert and to a draft where they pick Chase Young. That was just Washington being Washington. But I mean, there are teams that have been left out of the party because they weren't able to make that move and had to kick it down down the road. And they end up with more of a

Gino Smith, somebody that's kind of just filling that spot. And that would be like Seattle last year. Seattle couldn't draft quarterback because there wasn't really one available. So they had to wait. Now that doesn't seem as possible with the draft class for next year, but that is the risk you take. So if you pick what's behind door number two, as opposed to Hendon Hooker, then you do take the risks that what's behind door number two as opposed to Hendon Hooker then you do take the risks that what's behind door number two is not all that great or not your ideal scenario like you're all

envisioning trading up for Drake May or Caleb Williams but maybe it's not that maybe there's enough teams in the top that once again you know you're having trouble trading up to get that draft pick quarterback, or maybe you do have to sign a mid tier. I don't love that at all. I don't want that outcome. And that's the risk you take. But I also think that it's got the upside of getting a top prospect as well, or we could be totally shocked. And I know when I say this, I don't have anyone in mind that I think is going to leave their team suddenly, shockingly. And I know when I say this, I don't have anyone in mind that I think is going to leave their team suddenly, shockingly. But I didn't think that when, you know, Matt Stafford got traded either, even when that season came to an end, I didn't think Detroit was actually going to trade Matthew Stafford. And it happened. And, you know, Tom Brady, remember when we had no

idea where Tom Brady was going to sign. And then I think if you were really in tune with the Tampa Bay Bucs, you understood it. But it was still like, what? Tom Brady as a Tampa Bay Bucs? Is this a joke? And like, if there's any king of this, it's probably the Minnesota Vikings historically, right? With Randall Cunningham, Jeff George, the quarterbacks, Case Keenum,

that have shown up here and have put together good performances when maybe they were left behind by some other team. That could happen. And that's what you don't really want to be the case. But that's the only problem with not picking one now. But yeah, I mean, I think that the odds are, I mean, you put it at 50, 50, I would put it at better than 50, 50. I would probably

put it at about 75% that we're playing games that we're talking about. Okay. Kansas city is coming to us bank stadium to play the Vikings on opening day. I don't know that that's just making it up. Schedule will come out eventually, and then we'll have fun with that as well. But okay, here comes Kansas city and my homes. They're going to kick off the 2023 season. And the talking point for most of the game is that they didn't sign cousin to an extension and boy, that's going to come up a lot on the broadcast. That's going to come up as much as Adam Thiemann being from Minnesota, probably. Right. But yeah, I mean, I think that it's a very good chance that they're playing those games

and it's going to come up throughout the season of like, is there any progress on an extension or what's going on? If they're winning, then that will come up quite a bit. Do you guys want to extend Kirk because it's going on? I mean, if they're winning, then that will come up quite a bit. Do you guys want to extend Kirk because it's going really well? Or could it be, I mean, if it doesn't start very well, like it didn't in 2020,

then there's a scenario when we're talking about, would you trade him at some point? There are so many things that could happen with this situation. If you told me that six weeks from now, Kirk Cousins was traded after June 1st, I wouldn't think you were completely insane. If you told me Trey Lance was the quarterback next year, I would not think you were totally

insane. If you told me it was hooker, if you told me it was somebody in the future, if it was the top draft pick for next year, if they actually started one in five and then took the whole thing apart like this could go in so many different ways but i think that of all the ways i'm not putting a quarterback being picked at number 23 that that high i guess that's where i would put it uh but they might even shock us and trade up. They might. I don't know. I mean, there's just so much. But yeah, I mean, and how awkward is that?

That could make for a really strange season. If you're going through the entire year with Kirk Cousins not under contract, knowing that the team does not have an answer, but also decided that they didn't want you to be their answer for long term, a little bit of a little bit of a weird situation, or it could all be resolved in five days. This is why we like football, even though they haven't played a game for several months. All right. This from Dan. What consensus top 10 pick not named Jalen Carter is most likely to be out of the league

in five years due to being a total bust. Wow. Aggressive. Now out of the league is very unlikely when it comes to top 10 draft picks, because even if you are a total bust, somebody else will always take a chance on you. And I can try to pull this up quickly and see if there's a good example of this, but like you almost never see in that top 10, somebody don't, somebody not getting a second chance with another team where they like pick the guy up and see what happens. I mean, even the biggest busts will end up coming to somebody else's team, get another shot, get a second contract, even if it's like a one-year deal. I mean, Laquan Treadwell is still

bouncing around the NFL in some way or another. Think about, I mean, what a bust, I mean, someone like Marcus Mariota was and became a backup quarterback. I'm trying to look back through. Okay. Kevin White continued to get teams to put him on their roster. That is the best example I can give you. There's few busts that I can ever remember in my life as much as Kevin White, as far as he was talked up the bears seventh overall pick in 2015. And yet you would still see from now and then Kevin White, uh, you know, getting another chance with whatever team. Greg Robinson was a huge bust. He got another chance. He was the second overall pick in 2014. So if you're saying maybe let's let's do it this way. Who's the most likely player

to not get a second contract from their team or not have a fifth year option because we know someone will take a flyer if they get cut. And I think the answer, I mean, I'm not really sure. Now, I guess I would say, so I ran a quick draft sim here just to see who the PFF simulator thinks is going to be in the top 10. And I mean, Jalen Carter is, of course, course you know an answer just because of the things that have gone on off the field so I think if you're saying that you know Jalen Carter notwithstanding because he does have some serious red flags there it's got to be the corner uh you know we've seen these some of these corners get taken high and some turn out to be amazing like you know sauce gardner is amazing but i think that's a position where it's very very hard to figure out even when the guy is really athletically gifted and christian gonzalez did not have unbelievable numbers so

he's the guy that goes in the top 10 here and i'm not saying he won't be good or if the vikings pick him it's bad but he didn't have unbelievable numbers at Oregon, kind of betting on a skill set all coming together and going from there. But if you think about someone like Jeff Okuda, who just got traded away when he was in college, he was a nightmare for opposing offenses. I would have bet anything that Jeff Okuda was going to be a great corner in the NFL franchise corner. And he just wasn't because it's so hard to know whether someone is just a freak athletically.

And that's why they're dominating that position. Or if the other teams just don't throw at them or what it might be. Some luck with interceptions, a really good combine. So corners to me are always one of the most risky positions to take that high. And also, I mean, if Will Levis goes up there, then yeah, Will Levis is probably going to be my pick. I've also been really interested, and I don't mean to just name everyone who's getting that buzz. I've been really interested in the Tyree Wilson buzz because, you know, I'm not saying that he's going to be bad again. I really don't know,

but he's the one that kind of came out of nowhere ish for me. And sometimes when that happens, you raise an eyebrow. Now people really like his skillset and everything else, but anytime I hear, well, they're betting on the skillset. Um, you know, you start to think, OK, well, is that something that's going to work out? But now I've named like a bunch of people. And yeah, it's hard to say like anybody. It could happen to anybody. But maybe if Lucas Van Ness goes that high, I kind of just don't really see it. But go back to look at some of the reports when J.J JJ Watt was picked. And that's a good example where people thought, well, is he a tweener or is it, you know, whatever. And he ends up being a superstar.

So I never want to say that just because I didn't necessarily see the guy play and get blown away by him, that he's going to be a bust. But if you're asking, I'll just take the cornerback first. And then the pass rushers that i'm not sure i really believe in after that uh i i do believe in will anderson and i think if he drops because of his 40 time or he isn't twitchy enough or something i don't know like sometimes we just really really overthink these things but i guess i would do that i would go with the projectable pass rusher and the corner as the most likely not to get

their second contracts. But usually if it even goes halfway decent, they will get other shots. This question from Nick. I know you have a strong opinion on mid-round quarterback being a bad move, but I wanted to try my best at playing. Talk me into the Vikings are not in a position to get a top quarterback. There are a lot of reasons to get a top quarterback there are a lot of reasons to doubt levis and hooker if you take a guy in the first round he is your 2024 guy with

no wiggle room which i mostly agree with yeah uh mid-round picks are like lottery picks at best so is the whole draft why not gamble on the most important position if you take a mid-round quarterback nothing is stopping you from taking another first rounder next year. And if you hit on a starting caliber quarterback, it is a gold mine. And even if you hit on a backup quarterback, it is a good value. Trial run a quarterback, a trial run developing a quarterback behind the scenes, an opportunity to refine the process before next season. I understand all of these. And I think that you've done a great job at trying to talk me into your, like, if that was your task, if you were playing the game on the show, you would have done the best you can do, but I'm not convinced because yes, you're saying, oh, okay, look, all draft picks are lottery picks or lottery tickets. And even if you draft one in the first round, it's a lottery ticket. But let's talk about actual odds here.

Because if we're talking about you take a quarterback in the first round, what are the odds the guy is a Hall of Famer? Maybe one in 20. What are the odds that the guy is really good? Maybe one in 10. What's the odds that the guy is at least good enough to win on a rookie contract? One in two, one in two and a half. Pretty high, right? Like when you go back and look at a lot of these quarterbacks who are picked, maybe it's one in three that has a chance to at least be really good on a rookie quarterback contract.

That's pretty common. So that's in the first round. You moved out to the second round and already you've lost 90% of all those things. Like you have to reduce them by 90% instead of one in three that they're good on the rookie deal. It's probably one in 12 automatically. Jalen Hurts was that guy. Jimmy Garoppolo is that guy, but there's not too many, even for second round draft picks

that they end up, you know, hitting and turning into quarterbacks. You can build around and build a Superbowl team. You move that to the third round. It goes down to like 5%. It's almost nothing, almost no chance that if, if a guy gets to the third round or the fourth round of the draft, that they're going to become Dak Prescott. And I've probably mentioned it too many times on the show, but when Dak Prescott is the only guy between Russell Wilson and present to be picked in the third, fourth, or fifth round to become a real starter, I mean, that's just not very good. That is a true lottery ticket. Now, how many receivers have been picked in the third round and how often

do they work out? Is it 5% of the time? No, it's a lot more than that. How many, you know, I don't know, corners, how many offensive linemen, how many tight ends, how many? I would guarantee that in the third and fourth rounds. How about running backs, which the Vikings could take in a fourth round pick and potentially get a starter? Those odds are so much higher. So if you're telling me that, and again, you did a great job attempting it, and I wouldn't be surprised if they agree with you. I wouldn't be surprised if they said, yeah, you know what? We don't love

any of those guys. And Hendon hooker actually got to the third round because this could happen. And they took him there or it was Jake Hainer or it was Clayton tune, or it was some other guy that after they pick them, they tell us he's going to be the next Brock Purdy. That is altogether possible that they do that. I think the backup quarterback thing is not, maybe not that convincing, but the flexibility parts and Hey, if you hit on the lottery ticket, it's worth its weight in gold. I get all that. It's just that why does the lottery make so much money for the state?'s because you know almost everyone loses and the same thing goes for you know the mid-round quarterback so i am personally not for it it's

very hard to talk me into it based on the history but if they do it i guess i'll kind of shrug and say okay i get it maybe you heard what Nick had to say and you were bought in, but I'm still just look, when you look at the mid-round quarterbacks, is it very convincing that any of them will become franchise quarterbacks? And that's a key part of this too. If you're going to pick somebody, if you're going to spend

even fairly significant draft capital, just make it the next guy. Don't just be the Kellen Mond. Kellen Mond was the ultimate half measure, a classic, like see ownership. We drafted a quarterback. We think we can develop. We're going to compare him to Teddy Bridgewater in the press conferences. We really like him, but it was never a serious, serious attempt to find the next franchise quarterback. That's what, that's what you should be looking for. Ser serious attempt to find the next franchise quarterback. That's what, that's what you should be looking for. Serious attempts to find the next franchise quarterback.

And then you can draft late round quarterbacks to be backups because that is, you know, it does have his value. All right. This from at run by you on Twitter. Do you know if anyone has ever tried this? Let's say that the team wanted to trade Kirk and get a draft pick in this draft. Well, that's already kind of off the table. Sorry. Let's see. Could they trade? Let's say Blake Prohl.

Oh, I see. Okay. Okay. All right. Sorry. I shouldn't, I shouldn't have jumped the gun here. Let me just read the whole thing. I apologize.

Run by you. You're being very clever here. Okay. Let's say the team wanted to kirk and get a draft pick in this draft could they trade let's say blake prole to the 49ers for a second round draft pick before the draft then trade kirk to the 49ers after june 1st for a 2024 seventh round pick i get that it would require a lot of trust between the teams because kirk is obviously worth way more than a seventh round pick and if they had to if they had to back out a second for pearl is obviously terrible uh but just a random thought that i had what i think

would happen is that it would get rejected by the league because every trade needs to be approved by the league. And I don't know if there's publicly been trades that get rejected. But remember a couple of years ago, and this is funny to think about where the NBA has gone since then, that I think it was David Stern rejected a Chris Paul to the Lakers trade because it was just going to be too ridiculous. I think that that was the case. I don't remember all the particulars of that deal, but I think they felt like it would just be competitively absurd to allow some kind of halfway bogus trade to go through, or they didn't feel like the compensation was legit. Like what you're talking about is what you would throw

someone out of a fantasy league for doing if they were trying to circumvent the rules. And I think what this would be is essentially a cap circumvention that I don't know that the NFL would let this happen. If the Vikings were trading with the 49ers and getting a second round pick for Blake Proll or any player that's at the bottom of their roster, all the flares would go up. Plus, everyone would find out, like all the national reporters and things like that. They would find out that this was the first leg of a Kirk to San Francisco trade. And I think that it would just be shut down on the spot. But there is maybe an argument for testing and seeing what Roger Goodell would do. But I like your cleverness.

I like what you're doing there. But I also think I don't believe that they would ever let that happen. However, if the Vikings were to trade Kirk Cousins for 2024 draft capital or for Trey Lance and 2024 draft capital, however it would work, it's not a bad thing to get those future draft picks. We were talking about them before about trading up and maybe taking your future quarterback. But even if they were trading Kirk Cousins because they felt like they had their future quarterback in, say, Trey Lance, well, if Trey Lance works out, you can always get a receiver in the first round or whatever. Fill this roster up through the draft if that's something that you're doing. Or if Trey Lance didn't work out, you can still use the 2024 draft capital to get another quarterback.

So trading for 2024 draft picks is just not fun at all. No one's excited about that because it takes so long to get them. Go, if they trade Daniil Hunter. Oh, great. Next year's draft picks. Super fun. But eventually it will be next year. I assume unless an asteroid hits

the earth or whatever. But, uh, aside from that, that would be if the wolves come back from three, Oh, then, then we know it's over. There's never going to be a 2024. The earth ends, but assuming that doesn't happen, it'll come around eventually and be really good for you. So don't fear the 2024 draft picks coming your way in some of these things. This from TJ, would love to hear you talk about the significance of the S2 cognition test and how it projects success or failure in the NFL. Yes, something that, okay, so there's varying opinions on this because some people who have taken a very close look at it would tell you that the percentage somebody ends up with is not really the bottom line of the cognition test.

That what it does is it gives somebody, you know, I guess one of the ways that it was described is showing a bunch of different shapes and asking the person if one of them was different and why it was different. And so maybe it gives you an idea of how their vision is or something like that. I don't know the entire test. I've just heard it talked about and written about. And that was an example that was used. But I think what it's supposed to mean from what I have gathered from writers and for people who have tweeted about it that are in the know and reading a few articles is it really tells you about how someone's brain works more than it's meant to tell you, yes, this is a test

that tells you how smart the guy is or how he's going to process information on the NFL field. It's more of to be able to tell, and this is just my, again, my understanding, I have not taken this test, but to be able to tell how this person might need to learn, what might be some of their strengths or weaknesses when it comes to processing information. I don't think it says if you didn't get whatever percentage, you're a bust. That's not it. It came up with the Brock Purdy thing because that's all this test needed to become public was one big hit. And I guess he's a hit. I mean, he's played half a third of a season, but I guess he's a hit, you know, seventh round draft pick. You get something out of, okay, sure.

He's more of a hit than almost any other seventh round draft pick. But the point just being that it made a bunch of waves that he did really well on this. But my understanding is that it's not just, did you do well? It's more of all the information that your team gathers about you and i think if it came down to it are you good or not based on this test that players wouldn't take it and agents wouldn't tell players to take it because they'd be saying well if you get a bad grade then teams are not going to or a bad percentage they're not going to draft you so if cj stroud got a different score than jake hainer that doesn't mean jake hainer is a way better nfl prospect it might mean that hey well there could be something

there with the way you know jake hainer processes information that could make him intriguing as a draft pick but you know none of these tests are really going to tell you what someone's going to do once they're in that environment what's they're going to do against nfl competition that we got to have common sense here we just have to we watched cj shroud play football we watched it we saw it he played against great teams and was really good, let's not ever let that supersede anything. But also when you see those numbers out there and also the inventors were on a PFF podcast and they said that there is some numbers that aren't even real that have been floated around because not every team has it. So I don't know. I think for us, it's really hard to say what to

do with that. And we should probably not do anything with it when we hear about some of these results being leaked out there. I think that teams are always looking for an edge. But the other thing is, too, they're still bad at this. They're still bad at this. The league blew it on the two Super Bowl quarterbacks. Mitch Trubisky went ahead of Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts dropped down the board. It's just still such an inexact science. But I think when someone gets in the building as a quarterback, they might understand better how to game plan, how to teach this person what they need to improve or strengths or work around and weaknesses better.

And I think that's why everybody seems to love this cognition test so much, because it isn't a wonder lick. Your guy is smart or not. And by the way, you know, Ryan Fitzpatrick was the best ever on the wonder lick. And, you know, an NFL quarterback out of the seventh round, but it was still not a superstar, some secret megastar. So there's never any test that's going to tell you flat out success, failure. I think it's interesting, but that's really all I can say is that, you know, maybe it

might give them an idea of how to work with that quarterback that they pick. All right. Last question. Last question. It's been very ranty on this podcast today. And it's draft week. It should be like, bring out your hottest steaks. All right, last question, last question. It's been very ranty on this podcast today. And it's draft week. It should be.

Like, bring out your hottest steaks. All right, final fans-only question before we actually hit the NFL draft. It's crazy time, folks. Okay, this one comes from ConnorRM511. He says, I feel as though Kwesi's moves haven't indicated a team direction so far. Do you think we'll have a better idea after the draft or still be confused? Yeah. I mean, if they draft a

quarterback, then we will have a very clear idea of where this is going and how that impacts the Neil Hunter, Zedaria Smith and Delvin cook. I'm not really sure, but I don't think it really changes anything because if you're signing, say, Daniel Hunter to a contract extension, then you're doing that one way or another. You're doing that regardless of whether you draft a quarterback, right? That's a decision that I think is not impacted necessarily by drafting a quarterback. You either want to pay that much for Daniel Hunter and you're signing him to a long-term deal or you're not. And you're probably not keeping Delvin cook either way. If you draft a quarterback or not, then it's probably Alexander Madison and Ty Chandler season. Zedaria Smith is just an odd situation on its own. And I don't really know how to figure out

what that means because if they can't trade him to anybody, will they just straight up release him? Or will they say, Zedarius, you're under contract, you have to play for us. And I don't think that the overall team direction hinges on that decision necessarily. If the Vikings draft a wide receiver, a corner and a pass rusher or whatever in some order there, will we still be super clear on where this all is going? Not really. As far as the whole roster goes, I think it will tell us, though, that they want to win this year, but they also are not locking themselves into Kirk Cousins long term and that they

were willing to make some sacrifices, but not a ton of sacrifices for the future in order to do that. That would be kind of how I would view the overall team direction. Maybe they could have avoided some of those sacrifices, some of the void years, the way that the restructure works for Kirk Cousins, but it was really hard to do to get under the cap. I mean, the restructure of Cousins gave us a pretty good idea of the overall direction on itself. It's just that when they stopped halfway

from tearing the whole thing down, that's where I got confused, and probably you did too. Like, wait, I thought that you were going to move on from all these older players. Why did you stop? And why did you stop in the middle and then start adding void years to Marcus Davenport? And it's not insignificant. It's like a decent amount of

money that goes to Marcus Davenport. If he leaves in free agency, the same with Byron Murphy, it's a decent amount of money. If after year two, he leaves in free agency. So is that like a win now ish kind of thing? Or did you just really want those guys in the building and were willing to tack those void years on? And initially those weren't in the contracts and then they, it came out later that they were in the deal. So was that something happened in between? Like, yeah, there's some confusion here. And I agree with you, Connor, that it will get clearer, but i don't think it's getting clearer just on draft night unless it's a quarterback if it's not then we still have

things to do although in the coming days we could see trades that make it more clear the the daniel hunter decision will still kind of hang over this franchise. But yeah, I think that we're still, no matter what happens, unless they just suddenly pivot and start, you know, making cap space like crazy to sign guys or something, then we'll know like, okay, I guess they think they're all in on this year

and they're willing to sacrifice a lot to be all in on this year. Or, you know, if they release somebody and move on from guys, then obviously they view themselves in transition. So yeah, I don't think on draft night, we will get all of the answers. It might be more of the slow burn, or if it's Hendon hooker at 23, then we pretty much have all the answers that, yeah,

they're going to try to win this year, but they also know where they're going in the future. So great questions, as always super smart stuff from you guys, all draft season long, all of the fans only questions have been so fun to answer. And after the draft, I'm going to open it up for more of those. But we got some great guests coming up. We'll do the final mock with Chris Trapasso. We've got some other, we'll just call them, you know, surprise guests for you guys to look forward, leading us up to draft night. And then a live draft show on YouTube night two, we'll get reaction from out of TCO performance

center and Haley intern Haley. And I will be doing a post Saturday show where she gives you who the Haley's heroes of the day will be for them. So thanks everybody for listening as always. And we will talk to you guys soon. Draft week football. you