Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles breaks down how the Chiefs and 49ers reached the Super Bowl

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

Former Minnesota Vikings offensive lineman Jeremiah Sirles joins Matthew Coller to talk about why Kansas City is so difficult to beat, snark about the Chiefs drafting Patrick Mahomes and discuss the Lions long-term prospects Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by PrizePix. Go to prizepix.com and use the code PURPLE for a first deposit match up to $100. prizepix.com, code PURPLE. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, along with former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Searles. Jeremiah, we have a Super Bowl matchup. Your thoughts? You excited? Oh yeah, I am. I'm not excited that Kansas City's in it, but I am excited that there's going to be a Super Bowl matchup. Your thoughts? You excited? Oh, yeah, I am. I'm not excited that Kansas City's in it, but I am excited that there's going to be a Super Bowl. What a great weekend of football.

Like, I know the Ravens game wasn't, it didn't live up to what I thought it was going to be, but the Lions-Niners game was everything you can hope for as far as an entertainment aspect of you know which is what we are we're entertainers right Roman gladiators are you're not entertained type of thing but really enjoyed this week's football I think the Super Bowl is gonna be really good but we just you can't bet against my homes man it's it's getting old and tiresome for me to be like maybe this is it maybe this is where they fall and then him to just go out there and just dice people apart like

it's nothing and i mean to watch him and say he's going to be one of the greatest of all time you almost have to be like no he might be the greatest of all time right people are already saying aaron donald's wearing his golden jacket already while still playing well you might as well put one on my homes too yeah gotten to be a little frustrating um because i like when teams that have not been there or great quarterbacks whose narrative has been that they can't get there like Lamar Jackson. And so I was thinking, man, if Lamar makes it, it will kind of solidify and he's going to be likely the MVP of the league. So it's not like anyone doesn't think Lamar Jackson is great, but sort of solidify who he is in the league as

a quarterback that is upper, upper echelon franchise quarterback. They gave him all the money last year after all that nonsense with his business partner calling about trades and all the crazy stuff that kind of went down. And so I thought it would have been cool if he made it, but he honestly didn't play well enough. And we also have to talk about Steve Spagnuolo as well and the defense that Kansas City has put together. It's like not fair for them with Patrick Mahomes, who I believe has been sacked one time in three games. Look at the teams that he's beat, the players that he's beat,

the offenses that they've gone against and outmatched. And then you have their defense as well, Chris Jones playing dominant football. And I think a really important note for the Vikings to take uh as they watch this the secondary of the Kansas City Chiefs is phenomenal I don't think you could go deep in the playoffs without a really good secondary yeah that's a great point you know and when you pair that secondary with a guy who can get to the passer consistently no matter where you line him up, at end, at nose, at three technique, consistently getting pushed.

You pair those things together, it goes back to why was the Legion of Boone so good in Seattle? Cam Chancellor, oh gosh, I'm blanking on Richard Sherman, and then you pair that with Michael Bennett and Bruce Irvin in their prime of pass rushing. It just makes a great all-around combination. And then on offense it

really doesn't matter who's around you as long as 15th throw in the football he's proven that time and time again and then what a time for Kelsey to realize oh yeah I am Travis Kelsey it's probably time for me to start doing Travis Kelsey things again that I haven't done all year let's just do it when we get to the playoffs it's just kind of an unfair matchup for the rest of the league at this point and you're watching it unfold in front of your eyes, and you still sometimes can't believe he does the things he does. But just incredible. But I want to go back and talk about the Spaggs thing,

because that plan he put together, first of all, I think he rattled Munkin, the offensive coordinator for the Ravens, early. He went and sold out early on, hey, stop the run. Stop the run, stop the run, stop the run stop the run stop the run stop the run and three yard run eight yard run and also it's like you end the game and Baltimore's going we rushed the ball 11 times the number one rushing offense in the league rushed the ball 11 times three of which were done to Gus Edwards our leading carrier like it just didn't make sense and to ask Lamar to throw that many times, put him in bad positions,

Spaggs had off to him. What a performance by that Kansas City defense. I also think that the pressure really got to some people, and we saw panic throughout this playoffs with certain teams. We saw panic in Dallas when they got down 7-0 and then lost their minds and were yelling at each other on the sideline, and then the rest of it went from there and we saw the pressure and panic get to baltimore and i think that you know when there's the outside stuff of can this guy really win or is this team really good enough to

get over the hump and the pressure of being the number one team versus kansas city which somehow took an underdog the approach to this it was like well we're no one thinks we're gonna do it kind of thing we've been plus they've been there so many times before they go into the game completely calm and you could see the ravens panicking early and that is a rex ryan called it the worst game plan he's ever seen on tv and of course you know you don't get you don't get on tv unless you're like rex ryan you're over the, but it is one of the worst game plans you're ever going to see from a team that is rooted in its run game and everything plays off it to all of a sudden saying, no, we've got to drop back a hundred times.

And despite having good weapons, it's not like they have great weapons. And then of course, say flowers, my dude do not reach the ball out and i couldn't believe this thing popped up again with a fumble turning into a touchback uh in the playoffs but the ravens were the best team in the nfl in my opinion all year long and then they lost their minds and if you do that against kansas city i mean how many times did this happen against tom brady where a team should have won car Carolina should have won. They kick it out of bounds on a kickoff. Atlanta's up 28 to three.

We just would see teams. It was like, they'd look over there and you got that Dave Chappelle show aura, like with, with the Prince episode. It's like, that's what they were seeing. And to your point about Travis Kelsey, I think more than anything, just healthy. He hurt himself early in the season against the Vikings. He dragged his leg around all year but now he's at close to 100 and the guy is just terrific i it's if i'm san francisco i'm

probably unhappy to see patrick mahomes i think i'm like oh man you know i much would have rather seen baltimore show up here yeah even with baltimore kicking their teeth in earlier in the year i'd rather face the Ravens than to face Patrick Mahomes with the way he's playing football right now they hit stride at the perfect moment they they weathered the storm of injuries they weathered the storm of guys dropping balls and trying to just figure out the formula that worked for them and that is a part of what makes Mahomes so great is it went from years of when he first got in the league of just airing it out deep shots right Tyreek Hill over the top, big explosive plays.

All right, we got to contain that. Okay, let's make him throw underneath. And then he struggled to realize that. Now he can do both. You just allowed him the defensive quarters in the league by taking away one thing educated him how to do something else. And that drive that he was orchestrating, the second drive of the game that just went straight down

the field dink and dunk take what the defense gives you don't press don't force anything checking into the right place seeing the blitzes knowing where to throw that was as demoralizing as a drive that I've seen in the NFL this year you saw the Ravens come off the sideline a defense that has been dominant right non you don't run on these dudes Michael Pierce is in there eating up everybody Patrick Queen real Quan Smith or running through gaps you saw them come off the sideline and sit on the bench like what the hell just happened like is that gonna be all game and it sure as crap was like they just went up and down the field just time after time and you just couldn't get a beat on them and they had the the Ravens on their heels over and over again. So, yeah, if I'm San Fran, I'm going, man, what do we do to get to this dude?

We have to get him on the ground. But hats off to that offensive line to Kansas City as well. You know, Al Grady comes in playing against Matabuki, who's one of the top two, if not three, defensive tackles in the league. He has one big play, one big sack. He gets him on the ground one time. Other than that, Mahomes was doing Mahomes things all game so it's gonna be a great matchup I'm super excited to see the blueprint that San Fran tries to take away from Mahomes and then just to

watch how Mahomes adjusts in real time and if Purdy can play like he did in the second half we're in for a heck of a game let's give uh Valdez Scantling credit for catching the ball in the play always does that man he always has one unreal ball in the play. He always does that, man. He always has one unreal catch in the playoffs. We're like, Oh, there he is again. Well, you just signed yourself another extension, I guess, my friend. That's all it's like. And it was much harder than half of his drops for this year where he kind of

had to like contort his body and turn around. But, you know, I, I always used to think with Brady and the Patriots, which are now really the only recent comp for what kansas city is doing is that brady would just make so few mistakes that they would just wait till the other team made theirs and that's kind of what mahomes has done during this playoffs and he's turned it on when he's needed to but he hasn't taken any sacks he hasn't taken any shots that he didn't need to or scrambled and thrown the ball into crazy positions to turn into interceptions it's like when you have all the

scrambling stuff but none of none of the mistakes and you could be patient and operate your offense the way it's designed by andy reed i mean it's just terrifying and then turn it up whenever you want it was a 16 play drive what you're talking about. But then at any given moment, if the other team starts to get impatient, he can hit you over the top with a big shot. And I don't know that there's really a good answer to that. There isn't, right? There's no – you almost have to just hope he makes a mistake, which he did earlier in the year, right?

There's a few picks where you're like, that's not what I'm used to seeing. And he's eliminated those errors. And I don't know if it's him getting more comfortable I mean Rasheed Rice turning into a number one receiver that is a go-to guy for him that really didn't emerge until Tony went down and then Valdez Scantley was kind of not catching so he was going away from him Kelsey gets hurt and he just developed in front of our eyes and that's a testament to Andy Reid and that entire offensive coaching staff of getting a young player in there, developing him throughout the year and allowing him to come into his own in real time. Right. That's a that's a whole nother thing that no one really saw coming from that guy as being like, are you a true number one on this team?

Probably not. And also it's like, well, yeah, yes, you are. I mean, the screenplay that gets called back is one of the plays that no one talks about. Unreal run by that guy. Unreal call, first of all. And and then just an unreal run by them to be able to execute that you know a lot is talked about Mahomes greatness right we have talked about the six six years starting six AFC championships four Super Bowls but someone brought a stat up to me today that was like this is the true greatness if you think about it Mahomes is now the third all-time most winning quarterback in the playoffs behind only Brady and Joe Montana. That's it, right? And he's only two games away from Joe Montana, right?

Joe Montana is 16. Mahomes has 14. He's 28 years old. He's 28. You're like, yeah, 35 for Brady. That's a pretty wild number when you really think about it. He played until he was 45. But, I mean, you look at some of the other guys on this list.

He passes Manning, Young, Elwayway bradshaw roethlisberger far i mean to do what he's done at such a young age that for me is the stat that really just epitomizes his greatness before we talk about the other side in the nfc i am obligated to mention that they had a quarterback who was pretty good and had them competitive and decided to draft Patrick Mahomes. Just throwing that out there. Hey, also, I looked up just out of curiosity because last night when I was doing the live stream, people were pointing out Bo Nix's weaknesses. And just for the record, I'm not saying Bo Nix will become Patrick Mahomes, but just to show you like draft analysis and how we just pick apart and pick apart and pick apart,

we are talking about already at his age the most successful quarterback of all time, Patrick Mahomes. So I pulled up on NFL.com all of his weaknesses from draft season. Just so as you're watching and going, oh, well, this guy doesn't do this or he doesn't do that or he's not whatever enough. This is Patrick Mahomes' weaknesses in 2017 come out in the draft. Can be inconsistent in his approach. Needs to play inside the offense and show more discipline. Too eager to go big game hunting.

Ravenous appetite for explosive plays can bring unwanted trouble. I have a ravenous appetite. A ravenous appetite. Yeah, for tacos is what I have for. Willingness to default to playground style appears to limit his ability to get in a consistent rhythm. Needs to improve anticipatory reads

and learn to take what the defense gives him. Decision-making can go from good to bad in a moment's notice. Operates from a narrow base. You never want to have a narrow base. If you have a narrow base, never want to have a narrow base if you have a narrow base then you are undraftable allows his upper body and arm to race ahead of his feet that was patrick mahomes and what they said about him at the draft that's that quarterback sounds awful um so good thing you didn't pay attention he's turned every single one of those into a strength

right like everyone now applauds him for his create ability, right? His ability to create outside the pocket, also known as background high school, like recess football, right? Is that, I mean, and then it's like, well, narrow base, but his arm doesn't need a base. He can throw it flat footed if he wants to on a rope for 60 yards. We were watching the plays we were breaking it down today on the one where he scrambles forever and then throws it to kelsey

he is engulfed by four defenders facing to his left and just like shot puts it to his right to kelsey it's unbelievable right all that stuff is yeah it's not what you're looking for when you talk about a sound quarterback but if he makes plays who cares who cares like if it can translate and if you can look at and go can that translate to the nfl right can the background stuff translate in 2017 we all probably said probably not right we're the pockets there's rhythm but in today's nfl creating is half the battle because those DBs, good luck chasing those receivers without giving just a tiny tug for a flag or anything. If you can create, it's a huge strength anymore. It's not really looked at as a negative.

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boop, boop on your phone. That was me getting the app to try it out. I know, great sound effects there. Test Drive, U.S. Cellular's award-winning network for 30 days. U.S. Cellular, built for us. Terms apply. Awards based on open signal, independent data. Visit uscellular.com for details. So with Patrick Mahomes, when he was coming out in the draft, I really liked him. Now, this is not to say that I get them right, because I definitely get them wrong sometimes. But the reason was the stuff he was getting criticized for right there and this is not wrong like that is how he played it was a ridiculous absurd stupid offense he was in in college and he just ran around and made plays but as we watch brock purdy on the san francisco side and mahomes there's something that i have always leaned toward which is the ability to make the defense wrong when they're

right and not too long ago i was watching uh and and your dad's a Bronco fan, right? He would appreciate this. There was an NFL film, this hour-long special, talking about all the great comebacks of John Elway's career. And his career wasn't even over yet when they made it, to show you how many times he did it. And in every single one of these legendary comebacks, the drive, the drive,

the drive to all these amazing plays, there's always one play where John Elway has to scramble where he's the, the defense has done something, right. He's under pressure and he's got to go outside of the structure and make a play. And I can't help think even watching Brock Purdy run for 20 yards, a couple of times to destroy the Lions as they melted down, that this is what's really missing with the Vikings at their quarterback position.

It's not that Kirk Cousins can't throw. My gosh, he's a great thrower of the football. It's that he can't make the defense wrong when they're right. And even in comparison to Brock Purdy, is he a better thrower than Brock Purdy? Of course he is. I don't even think it's close. But yet Purdy has this ability to be scrambling around a little bit and make something happen when it's not there. And you're probably never going to get Mahomes out of this if you're the Vikings in the draft. But can you get somebody who can at least do that part, though? Yeah.

And even look at Jared Goff. Fourth and two, you roll him out. He's got one option, right? Itff fourth and two you roll him out he's got one option right it's fourth and two he scrambles he's rolling he ain't making it three yards before getting hawked down by one of those dbs if that is brock purdy if that is patrick mahomes josh allen even joe burrow just enough mobility in this league is dangerous right you don't have to be lamar jackson you don't have to be camar Jackson. You don't have to be Cam Newton. You don't even have to be Josh Allen. Just enough mobility to keep the defense honest and coverage is all you need. And that's why you're seeing the transition away from the Kirk Cousins, the Jared Goffs, the Tom Brady's, the Peyton Manning's like those guys don't exist anymore

because the game in college doesn't exist like that anymore. Right. And so college always catches up or the NFL always seems to catch up to college based off of like the athletic profile of certain positions because they eventually feed their way into the NFL. Everyone always kind of looks at college. Like they started the RPO in college. Right. The NFL is like, Oh,

RPO, we turn our nose up to the RPO. How dare you? But then you start getting all these players that participated in an RPO system and run it really well. Then the NFL then adapts back down, and now you're seeing the RPO then, right? The spread. We got the spread in college.

Remember when Oregon did it for the first time? No one's mind. Boom, what's happening? Dennis Dixon, wow. And then all of a sudden the NFL's like, well, maybe we should do that. And you're seeing that trend with the quarterback position as well. You're seeing these guys come in the league that don't have the crazy pocket timing arm talent like a Peyton Manning or Tom Brady or those Eli Manning but what they can do is create

and deliver accurate balls on the run that's what the quarterbacks are doing in the league that they're in the college that's going to come into the league and that's what's going to drive the quarterback position for the next decade so does that mean the vikings should trade up for jayden daniels is that what you're saying i would gladly i would be very happy if the vikings traded up for jayden daniels because you can't win a lot if you don't play you got to try and i saw a tweet came out the other day and i don't know if you retweet or someone the vikings have never taken a quarterback in the first round ever right they're one of few teams no that's not right what was they not quite that's not true in the top outside the

top 10 outside the top 10 that's what it was yeah sorry i was outside the top 10 the vikings never taken a quarterback right so inside the top 10 they've never taken a quarterback brain cts all over the place inside the top 10 they need to try they need to try they they've never taken a quarterback. My brain, CTs all over the place. Inside the top 10, they need to try. They need to try. They've actually never had a quarterback. Like, they've just played tight ends. I butchered that take so bad. That was a total, I apologize for traction.

I butchered that take awfully. I think everyone understands. Everyone understands. Just draft a quarterback. If there is one hesitation for me on Michael Penix, as much as I really, really love his arm, it is this thing, because I think that the high end of Michael Penix is probably Jared Goff, which is a pocket quarterback who is a little erratic sometimes with the football, but man, can he heave it super fast, but can he escape and run and make a play?

Against Michigan, he was so overwhelmed that was really part of the issue is that he could not escape he could not make a play where we've seen it from bo nicks off schedule stuff and jayden daniels and of course you know caleb williams is the elite of the elite with this we've seen it enough with drake may like you're right and the weird thing about this is it feels like a bit of a new phenomenon and yet there's always quarterbacks through history who did this one of my favorites growing up was steve mcnair like steve mcnair is an ultimate playmaking quarterback and i i just i think that brady rivers although rothasberger was like this too but brady rivers and manning kind of made us think like oh yeah the pocket is the way to do it it just turned out that those guys were actually better than everybody

else at doing it and uh playmaking is still very very good so on the other side uh detroit uh i know that some vikings fans have told me i'll never root for detroit they're in our division and i congratulate you on that i guess but I thought it would have been very cool to see Detroit go to a Super Bowl. They fought for so long. They are in the brotherhood of calamity, which includes the Vikings, includes the Bills, Detroit, Cleveland, all these teams that never make it. San Diego until they do something. I mean, to see them fall apart like that was very dramatic, incredibly memorable, frustrating to watch the dialogue on the internet and on television following it up,

but an all-time memorable game. Yeah, that game really, the highs and the lows of it, I wanted the Lions to win for all the reasons you said, too. I love Dan Campbell. I love the way they play the game. I love the way their offense is set up and they have two really good tackles. So anytime a team has really good tackles, I always seem to root for them too. And I love watching Penny Sewell play. So the more I get to watch him play, the more I get excited and I really want them to go, but it really all comes down into my opinion. It's two plays, right? Two plays the interception there that should have been

interception that if it's a spear it spears him right between the eyes and he's laying there in the turf and then the fumble by jameer gibbs and from there detroit was reeling like detroit was reeling and i personally am from the thought of i understand dan campbell's aggressive nature i understand going for the first fourth down and being true to who you are. That second fourth down where you have the chance to kick the field goal and tie it, I felt like that could have been a moment to bring the momentum and bring everything back to the status quo, right? You rode the wave, you rode the high energy, the low, everything,

but now you've gotten it back to the status quo, let's play ball. And that for me is the hard part I'm struggling with. I I go back and forth I someone actually texted me like are you having an internal debate with yourself as we're discussing this because I was like going back and forth to the fence of stay true to who you are it's what got you here or you should level everything out and keep going but he stayed true to who he was and I don't fault him for it but man what a what a decision to have to make and hopefully it's not a career defining decision which it very well could come out to be. So more numbers came out on this as we went along because very smart people started to analyze it.

And one of the things that's worth noting is that Dan Campbell's aggressive approach was worth more in terms of win probability added throughout the season, his decision making than anybody else who was coaching on Sunday, which I think says a lot about that approach. And there's a reason why more coaches go for it than they ever have, because it adds up over time. And in the Kansas City and Baltimore game, Kansas City was out there going for it on fourth downs, but they converted them, so no one talked about it.

And it didn't result in the very next drive a guy having a ball bounce off his face mask and turn into a 50-yard gain like we usually re-engineer the after like knowing the results and say well now my opinion is that they should have done this or that where if he completes a two-yard pass and the guy catches it then we would have never remembered it uh they might have gone on to do anything. They might've fumbled the next ball. They might've kicked the field goal anyway. We don't even know.

The one late in the game is harder. Cause I thought, I thought like, okay, well, it's probably a coin flip for this one. The whole three score thing is relevant, but it's also midway through the third. And you're playing a top offense in the league with a bad defense. So it's not like the game was over if you make that field goal. But the kicker is horrible. Like what I didn't even realize even right after, after people showed the math of like when this guy kicks it over 45 yards,

he's a disaster. I think that he only played like four games for them. He had been cut by other teams. I mean, you are not rolling out. And I saw Tom Brady was like, they should have taken the points. But Tom, for you, it was taking the points. You had the goat kicker. You had Adam Vinatieri, this guy who never missed and had nerves of steel. And this kicker wasn't even good kicking indoors. And I was reminded of week three, 2022, where Dan Campbell decided to kick a field goal to go, to go up on the Vikings,

trying to go up by 10, I think, or something like that, or trying to go up by seven, whatever it was late in the game, his kicker was bad. The guy missed the Vikings, get the ball, go score a touchdown and win the game. And guess what? Everybody said it for the game should have gone for it. Right? So that's kind of how this always ends up working. But in my mind, it was what we were talking about with Baltimore. They freaked out. It's like they felt the, Oh, now something's about to go bad. Cause we had, we had a disaster and then let it all come apart.

And I don't know whose fault it wasn't the handoff kind of going to assume it was the rookie running back. But that to me was the like, Oh my gosh, they are melting type of moment. And it's just, I like to pick apart all the things that caused it, but it's so much more than a failed fourth down. Yeah. No, the game in itself has so many more like intricacies than that. And it's really easy to highlight the thing.

But the thing I will say about both San Francisco and Kansas city that stood out to me, they were in control of their emotions the entire game. They did not allow their emotions to affect the outcome of the game. And I can't say the same for Detroit and the Ravens, especially the Ravens, right? Because when you get into these conference championship games, the margin is razor thin. I mean, razor thin.

One penalty, one turnover is going to make the entire difference in the game. You're talking about an elite of elite teams, right? This isn't going against a team that's not going to make the playoffs or has a rookie quarterback that can't make the plays. These are the best of the best. These are usually the best football games of the year and when you talk about two critical errors of a dropped interception and a fumble and then you go on the other side of a critical taunting penalty with zay flowers and then another fumble those are the differences and so much of those are emotion driven right emotion driven has nothing to do with the x's and o's it's execution and execution can run amok when you let your emotions control you and i think both the teams that lost on conference conference championship weekend were not in control of their emotions at all they were right in the waves i don't know i had a offensive line coach that used to use the term be a thermostat not a thermometer right be the thermostat be steady and the teams that won were they stayed the course they understood hey there's going to be highs and lows but we don't

change the teams that lost i felt rode that wave a little bit too much and ultimately came out on the L. When it comes to Detroit, we all assumed that one of the biggest uphill climbs they would face this offseason was that they were going to lose their offensive coordinator, Ben Johnson, who has been terrific. Just a few minutes ago, as we're recording this, it comes out that Ben Johnson is returning to Detroit. So after the game the game you talk about respecting dan campbell i respect that the guy just says whatever he wants to say like whatever

is in dan campbell's big old tight end heart is coming out and after the game he says we might never be back and that is true and uh you live this of like hey you got there to philadelphia with a chance and didn't pull it off. And then everyone had the Vikings as the Super Bowl winners the next year. And, of course, they lost the rotational offensive lineman and they just could not overcome that. They melted down. Yep. Yep. And Mr. Third down, Jerry's right. And they just couldn't couldn't get back. Those were the only two reasons it happened. And but that's a great point,

though, because the Vikings have played a divisional weekend one time since then. But with Detroit, Ben Johnson coming back, they have everybody back, cap space, top 100 draft picks. I see no way that this team is disappearing. It feels more like this team has just started. I tend to agree with you on the just starting piece the part that will be hard is when you have so many young players that ride the emotion of their coach right that ride the emotional highs of their coach because that's how he's ingrained into them for them to the rookies especially that just came off the hardest year of their life from last January to this point.

Now at the end of the next January has been 20 or has been 13 months of just craziness. And now you look at them, you take an entire month off their off season, say see in April, like the ability to bounce back from something like that is really hard to do, especially even some of the veterans that are getting older. Like to lose this time in your offseason is a tough thing to do and to bring them back in April and be like, all right, rack them up again, boys. Here we go. It's a learning thing that takes just time to learn.

So that will be curious to me how they start next year, right? Do they bring the energy that they carried the last half of this year into it? Or are they a slow start team again trying to re-find and reinvigorate that emotion that they all banded together and went to but the talent on this team is just too good for me to think that they're going to fail again like i can see this being a 10 11 win team again next year but i don't see this team all of a sudden being like oh they went 500 like there's just too much talent the question then does arise what do you do with jared goff right he's got one more year left on his deal

they drafted hendon hooker last year to probably supersede him eventually right so those type of questions come in but with the cap space and everything that's involved i i really don't see this team not being back at least as a playoff and a division title fighting with the packers the vikings the bears whoever it may be there's no way they just fall off the map with the amount of talent they have on this team yeah i think with uh jared goff what you do is you open the f them picks window so uh kansas city was built around patrick mahomes after they lost you know tyree kill and whatever by draft picks uh trent mcduffie and like they've just pacheco they've just drafted a bunch of you mentioned rice a bunch of really good players. And that's how they've been able to manage the expensive contract of Patrick Mahomes.

The same thing goes for Detroit and what they have right now. And I think the way you structure a Jared Goff contract extension is to go all in on this window. You probably have three or four years. And then you're looking around with your cap space going, any disgruntled megastars that we could trade for? Hey, free agents, come play for man Campbell. Let's go. And I think these teams, they see how that team gels around their coach. They see that they're on the cusp.

And then the rich get richer with free agents and things like that. So I think that they can pry the window open for a couple more years now three years from now it will get very difficult the cap you're gonna have to pay a lot of guys and we'll run into probably a vikings thing where once they paid everyone you couldn't fill out those smaller parts of the roster uh but i think they're going to be here for a while especially with their uh coordinator coming back um but it is really noticeable how these teams were built and a lot of it is drafting and then a lot of it is understanding the moment understanding where you are kansas city understanding like we don't have to do the f them picks thing we don't have to go trade

for everybody because we can draft them and pat will make them great and and i think i think that's just i think it's really it's really smart it's a really smart approach or san francisco knowing that they have the roster to compete for a championship and being like is it wise to trade for christian mcafree maybe not but we're doing it anyway is it wise to trade up to try to get trey lance probably, but we're doing it anyway because we've got this caliber of a team. So fascinating to kind of pick that stuff apart. Now, when it comes to the Vikings, we are in a situation where they have to decide in the coming weeks, because now we're getting close, buddy, what their timeline is going to be. And I'm writing an article about this, and I'm very curious to get your opinion.

How they should view their timeline as you watched all this playoffs and just, to me, waving giant flags that say, do not run it back. Do not run it back because you're not going to compete with these types of teams and how complete their rosters are. But how would you lay out when they can create a window for themselves and how they should get there?

Yeah, it starts this year. It starts in the combine is kind of the launching off point, right? Because that's when free agency starts. Free agency, it's not technically legal, but whatever. It starts at the combine. Everyone knows it, right? You start talking about what the structure of your team looks like. You start looking at the rookies that you want to start adding to your team. And so you need to go into the combine as a front office with a strategy of who stays, who goes, and what's the price for the

guys that we're not going to budge on, right? And you go into it with that strategy. And with that being the number one conversation that we're going to have from here right and you go into it with that strategy and with that being the number one conversation that we're going to have from here until the draft of the quarterback position and so let's say they decide to move on from kirk cousins if he doesn't accept x number right he's in one of those categories if you decide that and he says i'm not taking that number then your window starts next year right your window then begins with a rookie quarterback that you have to draft and say okay the window starts right here in year one who do we need to get rid of that's gonna hurt that's gonna hurt us it's gonna hurt the fans it's gonna hurt the city but who do we need to try and capitalize from the bigger picture of us as a as a team with some draft picks with some cap

space with some guy getting older right right? Who are those guys? And so that starts coming into free agency in March. And then once you go, you start going all in on your free agents that you think are middle-of-the-road guys that are going to be contributors but not the top-end guys because you don't want to pay them all right now. Get your cap back under control over the next 365 days and then really enter into that championship window a year and a half from now, right? A year and a half from now, right?

A year and a half from now, right? So you're going through the entire next season. You go into the draft next year. Either the quarterback's your guy or he's not. You have to pay Jefferson or you don't. You've traded Dino Hunter or you haven't. Harrison Smith's a Viking or he's not. Like all these things play in.

And I truly think that the championship window with a young quarterback, if that's the route you go, starts a year and a half from now now let's go the other direction kirk cousin says i will take x amount of dollars i want to be here i want to be apart from this that changes the strategy as much as the championship window starts right then because if you sign kirk cousins back there is no other option there is no other option it's nfc championship or bust or else that sign makes no sense so you then have to decide we have to draft really well and what we pick and strategically pick those guys that are going to be contributors in the top three rounds specifically and then we might have to overpay with the cap room that we do have to keep some of the core guys around or

else everything falls apart from underneath us so i tend to lean towards option one but a lot of it is the linchpin of kurt cousinsousins back yes, back no. We had the ridiculous report of $45 million a year, which makes absolutely no sense for either one of those scenarios. So it's such a conundrum to be in because I guarantee you they watch these games, they saw the Lions, they saw the Packers, they see the draft capital the Bears have, and we're kind of stuck in the middle almost nowhere, no man's land at this exact moment until we start making those critical decisions as a front office. Folks, Lucy is upping the nicotine pouch game with breakers, pouches packing a little something extra inside. What are Lucy breakers?

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with PrizePix this year. Just go to prizepicks.com slash purple. Use the code purple for a first deposit match up to $100. And let me tell you how it works. If you haven't heard us talk about it enough yet, or you haven't tried it yet, very simple. There are yardage totals on prize picks. You either pick more or less and boom. Each week has been a roller coaster ride of fun. And the best part is that when I have a bad week, I didn't lose much. It doesn't cost much to play. You can turn $10 into $250 very easily.

And if things go sideways for you, you're not out a whole heck of a lot of money. That is prizepicks.com slash purple. Just more or less on yardage totals. And you are in prizepix.com slash purple, the code purple for a first deposit match up to $100. That is the hardest part because when the Kweisi D'Affa Mensah and Kevin O'Connell took over, you're never running a race where everyone starts at the same spot. And where they were was ahead, but they weren't going to be ahead for long. And I don't know how to make this a horse racing comparison,

but somebody was about to inject steroids into the horses behind them in the form of tanking, which is exactly what happened with the Lions and what has been happening with Chicago as they're on their way once they make these draft picks. And then, of course, you probably didn't realize that Jordan Love was going to be this good, but you better realize it now, right? So all of a sudden, all three teams in their builds have shot by you. And now you're looking around going, wait, if we add Kirk Cousins, does that give us enough juice to catch up to the real fast horses who have done the tanking steroid? Or are you going

to have to let yourself go back even a little bit more in order to have a chance to eventually catch up to them, as you said, looking into 2025? And one of the issues that I have with talking about signing free agents and well, they could mess with the cap and add free agents around Kirk cousins and rebuild this or that is that there are 31 other teams who want these free agents. And there are probably 10 to 12 teams that feel like they're in a Superbowl window who can offer whatever amount some of them can offer way more than you can offer by their salary cap versus yours if you bring back an expensive quarterback. And some can just offer a much better chance at winning.

So you think about Joe Tooney. Everybody was like, the Vikings should get Joe Tooney. Hell yeah, you should have got Joe Tooney. But you couldn't offer him as much money as Kansas City at the time. You couldn't offer him Kansas City. And this is the problem. You can't offer somebody San Francisco. Now you can't offer somebody Detroit. You can't offer somebody, hey, come join a team that was just in the playoffs. Green Bay is a good example. They could create enough cap space to sign somebody and they could say, hey, look at where we're at with our quarterback. And of course,

players consider this. Do I have a chance to go potentially win? Hell yeah, I want to do that. And who does that surround around? The quarterback. And that Vikings team, they don't have a lot of money to offer me and don't have a quarterback who has any resume to say that they're going to be able to get there. And you expect you're going to sign a bunch of free agents and totally rebuild your team.

So I find that to be a very dubious approach if they were to do it i think the only way to do it is to try to drop back a little bit in the race and be i think a very interesting team next year with a rookie quarterback i was going to ask you i made a list of quarterbacks that they could acquire uh that and we don't have to go through every single one of them but i can read you some of the list and you can tell me what you think uh that they could acquire and um like as a bridge like as a bridge quarterback yes okay yes to be to be paired with a draft pick got it all right so let me go through them so i did include kyler murray on this list i don't think that's happening but you know just he wouldn't be paired with a rookie, but it's still floating in the air.

Why don't you just give me a quick reaction to each one? Mack Jones. Hate it. Yeah. Hate it. I can't. I don't think he fits KOC's system. I think he's a poor man's Kirk Cousins.

And I don't think his personality type is built to be a guy paired with another guy, which could actually make it very hard for him to stay in the league. Because if you think that you're like the guy, they will not want you. Yeah. Baker Mayfield. Don't hate it. I don't hate Baker Mayfield. I think his time in the league, I think the way he's gone team to team to team

has humbled him a lot. I think he had great success this year. He deserves to get paid, but he left enough question marks this year as well to know that maybe you're not the long-term solution, but you can come in and win us a lot of football games. You can be competitive. You can be a good leader. I feel like all that's gone. I don't hate the idea of having him in purple next year paired with a young guy to learn and teach because he's also been through so much. He can put a lot of wisdom on some of those young players. I like it.

He was already paired with Kyle Trask this year. So it's not something he hasn't been through. And I don't think you have to pay him the same. He can get the ball to open receivers. As we saw with Mike Evans having a tremendous year this year, if you want to stay competitive and rebuild, then Baker Mayfield, I think, is your guy with less commitment. And he's just way the heck younger than Kirk Cousins.

And how different is he really? He's more reckless with the football. He's got a stronger arm. But how different is he really? They went 9-8 with a decent team. How about Gardner Minshew? I think he is the definition of a game manager and we I don't want to get into this what Cam said but like when I think when I look at Gardner Minshew I don't see

him being a guy that can come in and take command of an entire room take command of an offense which you have to do I think he's a great backup he's a guy you want in your room that can go out there and perform well but when you talk about paying a guy to come in and be the guy initially i need a little more leadership i need a little more moxie i need a little bit more of being the dude than what i see from gardner minshu now i really like the idea of having him as the backup for the guy so if you drafted bo nix like bring in gardner minshu as the backup he's not a good quarterback though like that's see i don't know when the definition of game manager just meant you're not Cam Newton. Like, okay, well, I mean, if you, if you don't run a four or five and are six foot four and 220

pounds, you're a game manager. Like, I don't know a guy who's in the MVP running it in the super bowl as a quarterback who makes plays with his legs is not a game manager but i guess brock purdy was indeed not drafted first overall i mean that's the only if you didn't know where he was drafted no one told you you'd be like wow that guy's a franchise quarterback so anyway uh russell wilson no hard out he's old i mean you can say what you want about the way denver treated him but i still remember when he first got to denver and it was he wanted his own office and he wanted his own this, and he wanted like a little bit of entitlement. He's earned that, right? He did great in Seattle, but it's a, what are you done for me lately league? You don't change who you are overnight, regardless of what it comes from. I think that's too much of a headache. And he's starting to reach that, that balance of power

that I talk about a lot of on-field performance, off-the-field nonsense, regardless if it's good or bad. His on-field performance has gone this way, and his off-field non-fence has started to peak, and he's starting to get to that kind of even mark. You don't want those guys because they bring a little bit more circus than it's worth. Well, you should talk. You expected when you came over to the studio for it to be, quote, big enough for you. That was the total diva behavior.

So, I mean, I just I don't think an older quarterback makes any more sense than Kirk Cousins would. Like, what's the difference? The only difference is that because of this weird offsetting language thing, you could pay Russell Wilson basically nothing. And Denver would have to pay him which would be hilarious so if they did that i'd be like okay well my big gripe is that the quarterback is too expensive so i i think russell's too russell is too proud to do that though right to to have a my average per year is six million russell's not gonna have his name next to that he just won't like not many quarterbacks i know that are going to say well the other team's footing the bill because i sucked over there

so let them pay it and you guys just pay me peanuts so i can stick it to them i don't think many quarterbacks dnas are wired like that yeah i mean to quote uh both kirk cousins and rayquan it's what the dollars represent that's uh it's not the money it's what the dollars represent. That's it's not the money. It's what the dollars represent. Oh man. Okay. So we, we agree. I don't think Russell Wilson's a great fit also for it's a pocket quarterback type of

system. And I don't know that that's exactly what you're looking for with, with Russell Wilson, Ryan Tannehill. I like Ryan Tannehill. I think he brings enough mobility to the position he's shown that he can push the ball down the field to aj brown and those type of guys when he had them but the biggest thing the question mark and why i i hedge a little bit with ryan is he's always been around a phenomenal run game always right he's never not had derrick henry he's never not

had these dudes when he's been the starter of being like man I can just hand it off when things get into trouble some and then I'll just play action deep shot complete opposite philosophies of what KOC is going to bring it's going to be can he develop into that at this point in his career or as he is who he is which I don't think meshes well with what KOC wants to do right with Ryan Tannehill and, it would be paired with whomever, but he's a guy who you throw the ball 450 times a year and you average nine yards at attempt on play actions. Not you throw 680 times a year and are the centerpiece of the whole offense. Although Derek Henry's a free agent, so you could just bring him with him. No, that's not a good idea for this team. Not at all. Not at all. I'll run down the list of the rest of them, and you tell me if you like any of them. Marcus Mariota, Tyrod Taylor, Jacoby Brissett, Carson Wentz, Sam Darnold.

Anybody there? Maybe Jacoby Brissett. I think maybe Jacoby Brissett. He's proven to be capable. He also understands his role really well. I think he's going to understand that this is what I'm here for. I'm here to compete, right? I want a chance to compete and be the starter,

but I also understand if you draft a guy in the first round, I'm not going to raise a stink and be a cancer, and I'm not going to shun that dude because he got brought in and I didn't. That's probably the one name that jumps off the list to me there. Mariota's washed. Mariota's washed. I also question how much Mariota even really likes this whole thing. I think he's much more comfortable as the backup who might play twice a year than he is if you had to play him a lot.

And I also am not sure that I want him in the room with the rookie. Jacoby Brissett strikes me as a great person, like just somebody that you would be a plus. That dude is working with my rookie every day. And if we got to play him, he can go in and play. But not like a Ryan Fitzpatrick type of guy who you'd really want paired. But Sam Darnold was like mildly interesting to me because I think it would be hilarious uh watching him throw the ball down the field like if nick like it's like a supercharged nick mullins he'll still throw interceptions like crazy but his arm is is way better so it might be kind of fun uh and if you really like stats spinning if you really like stats spinning and this is total stats spinning in sam darnold's last seven games stop it

since 2021 after he uh was bad or whatever uh he has a 91 quarterback rating like not terrible his last seven games seven i think sam still believes in his heart of hearts that he's the guy right and you were drafted second overall right first overall where was he at uh third maybe third you're drafted top five right you don't you don't lose that of i was the guy so i still should be the guy regardless of what you have i think it's just in his DNA. Another one similar to the Mariota. Do you want him in that room with that young guy versus you, you compare that to a Baker Mayfield who's been through so much and found a way back to success,

right? Some of these quarterbacks that you're talking about have never found their way back to success since they went into the gutter, right? They've always kind of just come back in the preseason, had a good enough preseason. And then you never hear from them again. If you're going to bring a guy like Tannehill,

who may be able to bring himself back from the gutter, still hasn't proven that he can't. But like Darnold, Mariota, some of those other guys that you mentioned have never brought themselves back out from the gutter and consistently put a string of six to eight games of performance together. Yeah, I think there's also a part of even like you you say bring back from the gutter or just you were never supposed to really be anything to begin with and you found a way to force your way into nfl locker rooms because you're a good

dude who understands the game who had you know just has just enough skill to stick around. And we're not talking even about like a Nick Mullins, but Brissett is more talented than him, but really not a guy who you would have bet on having a long career. And it sounded just to me like from what I read from Sam Howell and from Washington, that he really worked with Sam Howell really well. Of course, Sam Howell doesn't have enough talent to be a starter either. But as far as dealing with like the trials and tribulations of a young starting quarterback uh sound like he'd

be a great guy to have so you kind of have like this range of possibilities of a baker mayfield can win you 10 games next season potentially uh paired with this offense but you also have kind of the traditional backup that you want working with your starting quarterback. So there's lots of ways the Vikings could go, including potentially bringing back Kirk. So we will see. We will see. What is your initial feeling? And we'll talk before the Super Bowl to really do like a big old preview.

Just your initial feeling on who you're thinking right now will win the super bowl gut reaction haven't really studied a ton on like what i think the matchup's gonna look like i'm i can't keep betting against patrick mahomes i can't i can't like right now if you ask me if the game was tomorrow i'm saying 15 is finding a way to win the super bowl again it's just i've bet against the last two games I was like Josh Allen's finally got his chance this is it he's gonna do it Lamar Jackson's finally gonna get over that hump he's gonna do it and he's proved me wrong two times in a row now and in amazingly glorious blazing fashion I can't bet against the kid again at this moment well maybe uh although I guess it would break some

sort of uh copyright rules. I was going to say for next week's show, we could just have the bed of music, all Taylor Swift, all the way through the podcast. We almost made it without mentioning her. You almost made it, Matt. Look, you got to get it in the algorithm. Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift. YouTube, hear me. Taylor Swift.

Yeah, NFL. That's all we talked about. $331 million dollars brought in no wonder she was the front page of sports center at espn when they won i was like you know there's 52 other guys on that team that worked really freaking hard to get here too but i get it money talks it's what the dollars represent i also that's it's so that's so ball i can't believe kirk said something that baller right right but uh what i guess what what I would say about Taylor Swift is that maybe people weren't prepared for what true worldwide fame is with Taylor Swift.

And I also saw this, that somebody did the math on how often she's actually been shown on television, and it was 0.46% of the airtime. So, you know, we can just, as I think Kenny Stills said on Twitter, just close your eyes. They're going to show her. Just close your eyes. You got to plug your ears, too, if it's Romo. Can I just, I don't like to trash broadcasters because I just don't care

enough. I care about the football. I usually kind of turn it down. But, like we did we prepare at all for this game or just like kind of arrive at the stadium on game day i mean i don't know the best was that's game well i mean i mean there's a lot of time left but you know it's like dude you literally just called game with 12 minutes left of the fourth he's like oh yeah that's it that's game it's like oh yeah might as well turn it off now tony hud's game is over i ask you and i i know we we usually wrap up here but i i do have

one more question or i was trying to wrap up and just saying taylor swift's name over and over and over again but you know the the idea that she was going to be a distraction for that team i just never bought it because football players date celebrities like i don't know like she's a crazy level of celebrity you know it's a little different but i remember dennis rodman dating madonna and they won a championship and dennis rodman is like the biggest distraction of any person ever and it's like i don't know they got jordan i don't think any of this really matters it's not a distraction until it becomes a problem right because distractions distractions are when you're asking the team about what happened. Is this affecting, like, if they're just dating, it's, they're just dating the distractions on the outside. If it were to blow up into a huge

mega thing, and now you're asking the left guard, Hey, is Travis Kelsey's head in it? Because Taylor Swift wrote a song about him. Then it becomes a distraction. Like it's a distraction on the outside because it's so visible internally in that locker room. It's like, yeah, Travis is Dayton Taylor Swift. Pretty freaking cool.

Maybe my wife will get to meet her, right? Like that's kind of as far as it goes, as far as in the locker room, it's not a true distraction. Think locker room distractions can be like, if your coach is lying to you and everyone's frustrated or, you know what the quarterback said at the podium

blaming his teammates or just jealousies within like this guy is playing instead of that guy and so forth um those types of things can be distractions maybe maybe off the field type of stuff like if someone's getting in trouble and then getting suspended and then you're looking at that guy going what the hell but the the biggest distraction is when someone's just selfish i think like when someone is really like self selfish they're not playing their technique they're not doing their job they're just trying to get their stats they're not blocking as a wide receiver like these types of things can become i think much more of a distraction than super rich and super popular football player dates super rich and super popular

lady like i don't know i just yeah i don't know it's it's not a true distraction if any i mean both of them have made buku bucks off of it so i promise you they're not distracted yeah how can we get um someone super famous to be around us we We're both married, so we can't date any of them. But like their podcast had so much success. And I want that for us to talk about serendipity. Like the brothers are like, hey, let's start a podcast. And then let's meet in the Super Bowl together. Right.

And have our mom on. And then, hey, you should go date Taylor Swift. Like, it's just been from the inception of that podcast it's been nothing but the favor just dropped upon them well we're catching up we'll find a way we'll get the steroid tanking horses maybe maybe we need the steroid tanking horses to get us back to the front that's right we need like post malone to come on or something that's that's What we need all right anyway well we'll Continue to talk next week preview The Super Bowl and so forth and

Carry on with whatever news comes up related To the Vikings oh one I'm sorry one final thing congratulations To CJ Hamm he is going to The Pro Bowl because Kyle use check Is in the Super Bowl and Just I really appreciated How they got creative and used

him in a different way but kept him in a role and i thought that was smart from the coaching staff and there is no more likable player nobody puts in more work than cj ham to be here so good for him yeah and he's one of the few left that i played with he's like it's one of the few remaining that are still there so So, so happy for him. I remember when he came in as a, as a rookie and the O-line loved him. Everyone loved the way he ran and to see the way he's carved a career out for himself has been fantastic. Okay. Now that's it for us. Goodbye. Goodbye. See you later football.