Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles breaks down how the Vikings will move on after Riley Reiff

Episode Date: March 11, 2021

Matthew Coller and former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Sirles dive deep in the Vikings' decision to release Riley Reiff. What is the best option to replace him? How does Brian O'Neill's contract play into it? Is drafting a LT going to solve the problems right away? What's the deal with Ezra Cleveland? How would Jeremiah handle free agency and the draft if he was the GM and had zero chance of being fired? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and as always, we're presented by Scout Logistics and by Symbol, your stock market for sports. Jeremiah Searles, we've added a new sponsor to the show. I love it. I'm in on it. And look, when offensive line things are happening, you have to come out of hibernation in the offseason to give some takes.

What is up, man? Dude, things are going well here. I'm waiting for my wife to pop any day now with baby girl. We're hoping it's going to rain here in Nebraska. So when the barometric pressure just pushes her on out because the wife is about done being pregnant. But we're hanging out here in Lincoln, just kind of cruising around enjoying the nice weather and watching the madness about to begin, which is NFL free agency.

I didn't really need the visual necessarily of that, but that's okay. Do you have a name picked out yet? We do, we do. So it's going to be Aylan, Aylan James Searles. That's beautiful. That's a nice name. Because I was having a discussion on the,

I got to the golf course, believe it or not the other day in minnesota in early march i was thrilled and having a discussion with uh who i was playing with about baby names and uh one of my friends is a little bit close to the baby coming out and they don't have a name yet so anyway that's just that's my wife's biggest fear because i didn't decide on it she had this one picked for a while and she was like the baby's gonna be named without or born without a name i was like yeah we'll get to it we'll i promise well it'll have a name before it's born uh yeah i and my question was do you want to look at it first to make sure it matches up but no that's no can't do it uh anyway uh well congratulations on that i'm excited for you let's talk about riley reef no longer a minnesota viking he had a terrific year last year

and there are some people who are saying some this is my least favorite thing is to say people are saying but they really are about riley reef now what because you're removing a left tackle who is decent and you have more musical chairs and how is this possible to have more musical chairs than you already have had the last few years in the offensive line so even if this makes sense to create the cap space one hole pops up to fill another one and we're still in that point where year to year there will just never ever ever in the history of this team be continuity on the offensive line i mean yeah he's been the longest tendered viking on that offensive line i mean he showed up the same the second year i was there i think 2017 was his maybe yeah 17 was his

first year there so i mean he had a long run and what people forget is he already took a pay cut at the beginning of last year and he where they basically were like pay cut or i'm cutting you and they tried to trade or they tried to trade him didn't work and so he took the pay cut but then he balled out this year and i think that if you're really if you're riley reef you're looking at the the free agent market and you're like dude i'm the last one left standing after trent williams right like and i played well this year but it does put the vikings in a bad spot now because we talked about it for what 12 weeks during the season of so is Ezra Cleveland the left tackle or is he the right guard well I think now it's going to be Ezra Cleveland's probably getting moved out to left tackle

or they're going to move Brent or O'Neal over there but I don't know if you can pay O'Neal or as I've been saying forever draft a left tackle early and you got to plug and play and hope he makes it. But again, there's a lot of what ifs and all those statements I just said. Well, let's talk about each one of them. And, you know, Courtney and I touched on it a little bit in our emergency podcast, but we don't have professional eyeballs on offensive linemen like you do. So let's talk about how each one of these things works Ezra Cleveland played right guard last season and all of us went huh okay well that is certainly a place that he's allowed to play but you drafted him as your left tackle does the fact that they played him at guard say anything

to you about what they think of what he can be. And just from what you saw on tape, how does that translate from playing right guard to potentially moving all the way over to left tackle? I mean, it's a huge, it's a whole different ballgame. I mean, I think I remember Jeff Schwartz or maybe Kyle Long, someone asked him about it on Twitter one time, like, what's it like playing right and left? It's like, we ever tried to wipe your ass with your left hand

if you're right-handed? Like, it's kind of like that. And so you're thinking, okay? It's kind of like that. And so you're thinking, okay, they drafted this guy in the second round to play left tackle. He played left tackle in college. It's not like he's never played it before. But playing that in the NFL is a whole different ballgame. It's different types of athletes on the outside, different kind of animals you're dealing with out there.

And to say, okay, we're going to plug you in at guard on the other side, on the opposite side, and then next year you're going to go play tackle for us. It doesn't make a ton of sense to me because if you're athletic enough to play tackle, you should at least be the swing tackle. And again, the only reason I can see them saying, okay, we're putting him out there is they were just trying to mix and match their best five, which as we saw this year, you couldn't really tell who was the best five. So I think they were just trying to see who was out there

and what they could do. And he didn't look amazing at right guard. At times he was serviceable. At times he was atrocious. But you wanted to see more stability just in his technique and his fundamentals versus, hey, he's getting beat off a bad technique. Whether it's guard or tackle, you have to have good technique. Now the timing things change some strength things change but overall I don't think he looked ready to start

at left tackle from the the small sample size or a decent sample size we saw this year so asking him to take over for Riley Reif who's a solidified pro bowler first round draft pick played a ton of years in this league played well last year I think he gave up one sack or zero sacks we talked about at the end of the year and you're asking a guy to move out there i don't see that ending well unless he takes a huge jump this offseason physically that's one of the things i was thinking about is that we didn't get any sort of sample size to be able to see any of ezra cleveland at left tackle and maybe small samples we can get fooled on whether someone can do a job or not. They certainly have had that happen on the defensive line with some of the players who filled in like Armond Watts. Oh, he's going to be fine. Like, nope, that no,

he's not. I'll admit I got fooled a little bit on that one too, because he had such a good week 17, but that can happen. Everyone wanted Ezra Cleveland to play left tackle week 17 is like, you know what? We better not because he's going to play well against a Lions team that doesn't matter. And then we're all going to say he's fine and ready to go. So if that is not the option, they could play him at right tackle and just kind of say, well, you've got things going on that side. So why don't we just bump you over there and let's slide Brian O'Neill all the way to the other side. If I recall, this was not an

idea that you particularly loved when we were talking about it way back at the beginning of the season. O'Neill is a great athlete and is a very, very good right tackle. I'm with you that I think it's better if he stays there, but explain. The reason, okay, so it's better to have a really, really good right tackle than a, okay, he's pretty good at left tackle. And I'm not saying that O'Neal will be bad at left tackle by any means. And there might even be some selfish piece of O'Neal that's like, you know what, bump me over to left tackle. There's a lot more money to be made over there.

I mean, you saw it with Orlando Brown from the Ravens. Ronnie Stanley gets hurt. He bumps over, plays really well left tackle. Now he's like, trade me. I want to play left tackle and make more money. So there is a piece to it that maybe O'Neal's saying, I'll take the challenge. I'll rise up to it. But if I'm him also, you can make a lot of money being a top tier right tackle in this league too. I mean, you look at guys like Lane Johnson or Conklin, right? I mean, those guys are making good money at right tackle. And if you know,

you're really good at it, asking someone to switch over to the other side isn't necessarily the greatest thing now they might have to do it out of necessity because they might draft someone and hope that they can do it but I mean you have a guy who's a proven player that can play in this league at a high level you just ask him to move over but you're asking him to move over and he's going to ask for more money which as today 182.5 million dollar cap isn't necessarily something you can afford to do. So you almost have to say, Hey, O'Neill, I know you're really good. We need you to play left. We need you to not ask for more money and just say yes. And O'Neill has every right to be like, no. So it's a really sticky situation, but if I'm Brian, I would rather stay at right tackle,

play really well, and then go get paid paid it's remarkable how often they're asking these questions lately of players hey can you take a restructure hey don't you just want to sign a really nice extension riley reef and not make like 18 bills for somebody who's desperate for a left tackle um i if i'm in brian o'neill's shoes here's what i want to know where are you going to play me long-term before I sign anything? If you tell me left tackle, then you got to pay that left tackle price now and not see me there first, because we don't even know if that's a thing that he is capable of. And that's why it makes more sense to me to leave him at right tackle where he's solidified as good.

The other part too is like, he's good, but he's not unbelievable. So if someone was unbelievable at right tackle, you could say, all right, I think my odds are pretty good. I can move him over there and he'll still be if it was Jason Peters or something. I feel pretty good about that. This is not Jason Peters. This is a guy that was, I think, maybe like 28th out of 70 tackles in the NFL by PFF. Like, good. Like, you want him to stay there and be good at football. But changing things, I'm not sure, is the best option.

So let's say that's not the option. We're not moving Cleveland and we're not moving O'Neal. Now what? Now we go to the draft? I mean, I don't necessarily. I'm not super well-versed in the left tackles that are going to be free agents this year but there aren't any williams riley reef right trent williams riley reef can't afford trent real trent williams riley reef already basically let the door

hit him on the way out and so you have to go to the draft now and i think that the problem being is you and i have talked about so many times is there's a lot of people in each room that are going, hey, we need an early draft pick. O-line, D-line, corners, receivers, like every room is screaming, we need an early draft pick. But if you don't have a left tackle and you have one of the highest paid quarterbacks in the league, it doesn't matter. You have to try and go. Maybe that means you trade up. Maybe that means you've got to find ways to get up there and take one of these because I do think there's some pretty good left tackles in this draft as I watch the Senior Bowl and as I'm following some of these combines

that are going on or the pro days now. There are some really solid offensive linemen coming out in this draft, but I think that there is such a need for offensive linemen all around the league that a lot of the good ones that are day one early starters are going to get picked off the board really quickly. i don't know how the vikings do it but they'd have to try and sneak into an earlier round earlier to try and find one of these guys yeah there is an argument to trade down try to get back into the second round but you're right about there's just more holes than there are things to fill the holes and this doesn't help that very much because if you were looking at

trent williams okay well no he's out of your ballpark though like if he was a possibility you'd say well this is this is good you can improve you could bring in someone else it's like kelvin beacham isn't going to do it no offense to kelvin he's i'm sure he's fine but he's not an upgrade from and the same with rashad hill you played with a shot hill he's fine, but he's not an upgrade. And the same with Rashad Hill. You played with Rashad Hill. He's an awesome guy, and he's, I think, good enough to start in the NFL. But is that away, or you are forced to try to spend it somewhere else where you can sort of make up the difference. And this is the next place I want to go. Guard in the free agent market. Have you heard that Vikings fans are interested in guards?

I'm not sure if this has become clear at all online or anywhere where Vikings fans gather. What is your, how do you pick out a guard? Tell me how you pick one out that is going to be good enough to just get the job done because they don't know. So I want to know how, how do you tell, you know, if I'm, if I'm evaluating a guard, if I'm looking at a guard, the biggest thing is number a, number one is what's he like in the run game is what kind of player. And what I mean by that is, is he he a mauler is he a phone booth guy is he a zone guy is he a speed guy and you have to match that and so if I'm if I'm sitting there and I'm

looking at the Vikings and I'm going okay we need someone that fits our scheme we need someone that is super stout in the pass game big body stands them at the line and in the run game we need a guy that can run we need a guy that can get out and move in that zone style scheme we don't run a ton of power we don't run a ton of downhill double teams like we need a guy that can run get up on the linebackers fast reach these guys but also i think that they've learned that this guy needs to be taller than six foot because lately we love these like six foot tall guards even when i was there we had the ninja turtle squad and danny isadora nick easton and uh pat f line we literally called them the ninja turtles they were all six foot and again there's nothing nothing against those guys love all those guys but you're learning

and you're seeing a bigger body guard so i would look for a guard that's a speed guy that is stout in the past game but can also get out and run because that's the style of offense that they want to run there so this is where it's tough because of course if you want that gotta pay for it joe joe tooney is um gonna be expensive because he's the only really good upper echelon guard that is on the market and now kevin zeitler is out there too but zeitler's coming off a year where it wasn't quite the same as he was in his prime. He's getting into his 30s. So then you take the Alex Boone risk of getting a player older. I know.

I mean, it happened, Alex. I'm sorry. It happened. It happened. So now you're looking at guys where you're trying to go almost the sort of Joe Berger route where you spot somebody that is off their first contract and you hope that they're ascending or they've been a journeyman or something like that. And the two names that came to mind for me were Chris Reed, who you might not even know because yeah, he just started last year for the first time for Carolina. He's your Joe Berger undrafted

actually went to Mankato. So some people listening might know. And hey, a thousand they're batting a thousand on Mankato player. Yeah, this is true. So but he just started for the first time last year. And then there's like Austin Blythe and Forrest Lamp. But the thing about these guys is if their teams aren't signing them after their first contracts, that gives you a little bit of pause. I like Blythe. I actually do like Blythe. I've watched him play. I've played fortnight with him a few times actually. But I actually really like him because he can play a lot of positions. He's played guard. He's played center. And I mean, maybe that's just me,

but I'm a big cross train guy. I think it's really important when you can play a lot of positions, but he's a guy that's played a lot of football. And if you look at the Ram scheme where he's coming from, he fits our scheme a little bit, that zone read. They're not a big downhill power run team either, so he fits that scheme. But again, where he struggled was in the pass game.

He really struggled when it was one-on-one. Now, I will say this. The confidence level of the interior guys on the LA Rams is probably really low after a training camp against aaron donald for 31 days that's true i i'm telling you i thoroughly believe you block that guy 31 days you're like i suck like i'm just awful i'm banging the table again i'm getting all worked up but uh i think that he's a guy that i would if out of the names you just named i think blythe is a guy that could be that guy that comes in and pushes a starter or pushes to become a starter because he has the, the, what we all love in the NFL,

the experience, right. He's been there. It's sort of a weird backhanded compliment to be like, yeah, he gives up a lot of pressures in pass protection. So I think he'd be a fit right up our alley, but he really, I mean, he's got the size that they look for or lack thereof and he did have one year where he was graded above average and past pearl but that was their best years in offense and you know here's what i think and i want you to give me my or give me your opinion on this how offensive linemen impact each other because and just even the circumstance in general including the quarterback we've talked about that a bit with Kirk but I feel like what Garrett Bradbury has dealt with here with just this merry-go-round of guards some of whom can't play at all and

you know the situation that they've put some of these players and I just don't think is ideal and when you see someone like a Blythe, you think, well, if you could just be a professional and just be like professional starter level and do the job, this might actually help everyone else. Like I think that the offensive linemen impact each other. Absolutely. You're right on point with that. I mean, we all work as a unit. As an offensive lineman, you're only you're right on point with that. I mean, we all work as a unit, as an offensive lineman,

you're only as good as the weakest link. Right. And I know it's kind of an age old saying, or people kind of roll their eyes at it, but it's very true. I mean, if you're working a combo block with a guy and you are completely different tiers of types of players, you're going to get there faster. He's going to get there slower and it's just going to look a mess, right? Where you have, uh, we talked about it. If you could just get an average offensive line from left to right

and every single person is just average, not above average, not excellent, and just not awful or bad, just average, they'll be better than most offensive lines in the NFL because they don't have that glaring problem. The problem with the Vikings has always been there's been that one glaring spot or that one Winnebago that you just can't look away from and that's been the guard spot which then sometimes trickles into the Garrett Bradbury world of you're in the middle stuck between I mean you're in a middle of a poop

sandwich right and you got to deal with it and you got to try and make it the best that you can and I think sometimes that gives him a really raw deal because I do think he's really talented he has his own struggles but it's really hard to look at him and evaluate him and his body of work now on two years with the rotating guards in front of him how much is he trying to make up for this guy or how much is he trying to overcompensate to help this guy or this guy I mean versus just let him develop and do his thing on his own so it really trickles down the other thing you got to think about is if they're looking to fill a left guard spot, do you bring in more of a veteran guy that has a lot of starts?

If you do plan on moving Ezra Cleveland out there as a first time starter at left tackle, or if you're going to bring a rookie in like that's something they're going to look at too, is what is the age of this guy we're bringing in to help be a leader on the offensive line. Now that Riley reef is gone, a four year captain. I mean, a guy that has done a ton for this offensive line. Now that Riley Reif is gone, a four-year captain,

I mean, a guy that has done a ton for this offensive line, and now you're looking across the board and you're going, Brian O'Neill's our veteran, right? And that's a weird thing to say. I mean, he is the veteran of that offensive line when you really look at it now and you're like, man, we need to get some more veterans in this room to lead, especially if we're going to go young. And this is a little bit of the thing with circling back to drafting a left tackle,

where, look, Andrew Thomas was the top tackle taken off the board. And for the first half of the season, awful. He wasn't better than T.J. Clemmings was with the Vikings. I mean, he really, really struggled, started to get it together a little toward the end of the season. And then the Giants talked about how they were teaching him all new technique from what he had done at Georgia, which, wow, right? I mean, sometimes the jump is bigger for some people than it is for others. And he might still be really good eventually.

But for year one, he was not. And this is a big picture free agency question for you, Jeremiah, is like, what are you trying to accomplish here? Like, what are you trying to accomplish here like where what are you trying to be for 2021 with the players you sign i'll give you what i i think they should be i think that well i i think they should be the house of hey come here we've got a spot for you you'll definitely play on a one-year contract and try to make the playoffs because you're still paying kirk a bunch of money and you got a rising offensive superstar in Justin Jefferson.

So there's no reason to say let's just play the extreme long game and tank and get rid of everybody or something like that. Try to find those guys who just need a chance and they're good and they're not going to be super expensive and try to compete. But from your sort of big picture view, how are you feeling about that? So I think it really, a lot of it depends on who is, Oh gosh, I'm throwing the microphone.

I think a lot of it is depending on who's making those decisions, right? Why is my fricking thing not working? Sorry, boys. So for me, I think that if I'm doing it, Jeremiah Searle's GM hat on, I'm looking at from build competition like the Buffalo Bills did. Now, I say that because I was part of that competition, but they just said, literally, we're bringing in a bunch of guys who have started a lot of games, none of which are necessarily household names. And we're just going to let everyone compete and the best man might win.

And then you're not afraid to cut guys after camp that you tell this to right i mean so many times guys are afraid but every nfl player has an ego and that ego might fall on the lines of like i want to be better than the next person so you find a bunch of fighters right and it's not necessarily what they all do on the field personality fits can be a big thing too as far as are we bringing in the right kind of guys to compete for this not the kind of guys that are come in here and compete and if they don't win it then they're just going to be cancers right you can't have those type of guys so i think that bringing in the right type of guys on the defensive line and the offensive line is where i would start as as gm like okay we're going to start and recover competition there and then you start

looking at the other pieces and saying okay where do we just need one guy versus i think offense defensive line you need three or four guys each to come in and compete right and then you look at the corners okay we need a couple guys here and then you look okay we're good decent at wide receiver that's not like a number one a spot right i think that you just grade all your rooms and any room that's an f or a D you just pour into. And if I'm looking at the Vikings, O-line, D-line, corners, and probably my F and D spots. I mean, I think that that's fair. And I would say, OK, we pour most of our resources into that.

And then we kind of see where we're left after that. And then we go find some other guys that are lower on our total pool. So big picture version is get a bunch of dudes, get a bunch of dudes, right? Bunch of dudes, because guess what? The dudes that you drafted that you had get all sorts of opportunities last year. They just didn't prove that they could cut it. I mean, some of them are younger, of course, Cameron Dantzler, Jeff Gladney, and you're going to want to give them a few years to develop and not judge them based on their first year I mean if you judge Rhodes and Wayans in the first year and Alexander those guys would have been out too so you want to give those guys time but you know Jalen Holmes players like that they've sort of shown you that they're not really going to be a long-term part of this thing when you get zero sacks and you play like 700

snaps probably not going to happen if you're supposed to be a pass rusher. Usually that's kind of the job. You know, and Steven Weatherly, I think Steven Weatherly is the guy you bring back, right? Like you just, you bring back someone like Weatherly and then do it five more times at five different positions of find that guy who costs 2 million bucks, who's going to compete his butt off for a spot and try to keep his career going in the NFL, but you also know he can play. Yeah, I think that's a big thing. That's a big, the balance right there, you nailed it,

is the competing for not just a job, but competing for your career. I think there's definitely somebody said, when you can tell you're on the back end of your career, there is a little bit to you that you're like, I need to step it up a little bit if I want to go out and keep and go out the way i want to go out i want to fight i want to compete i want to play well before i hang it up on my own term so you find a bunch of guys like that now the question is how much money can you afford in those guys without the certainty

of it right i mean you have a little bit of certainty in steven weatherly because you've had actual eyes on him for a long extended period of time now you go out and you start finding some of these other guys like blythe or i mean a guy like nick martin for the texans who just got released like they're on the back ends of their career possibly but you don't understand like what's their work ethic like like how much do they care how much do they really it? And that's sometimes that's going to be hard for them to make too. But again, bring in a bunch of dudes, make a culture of competition and fight to the death, right? I mean, that's essentially what it comes down to.

Fight to the death for 53 spots and then try and throw out there with the best you have, knowing that you just don't have the cap space to go make the moves you might really want to. Let me present another GM Jeremiah Searle scenario for you. Let's say that instead of being in the way that they have it which is where mike zimmer and rick spielman feel a lot of pressure for this year because we've been talking through the lens of you you have to be good in 2021 you

want to go from seven and nine to eleven and five or ten and six like that should be your aim for this season is to add three four more wins on especially with you know kirk getting what he's getting and so forth let's say though that you had complete immunity as general manager we will not we cannot fire you for the next five years what are you doing differently than what we just laid out of trying to fill spots um i'm moving the quarterback one way shape shape, or form. If I know I have full immunity for five years and I'm not going to get ran out of Minneapolis, I'm moving the quarterback, freeing up the cap space.

I'm then finding a way to draft a young quarterback or I'm selling the farm to get to Sean Watson and moving on from there. Because again, you can't win in this league without an all-star quarterback not saying before you guys freak out I mean not saying that Kirk Cousins is not a good quarterback but I'm saying if you look at the all-star quarterbacks in this league they're young and they can move unless your name's Tom Brady but there's a difference in those young

quarterbacks so I think that I'm I'm getting Deshaun Watson into Minneapolis I'm moving Kirk Cousins and I'm turning this into a zone read football team with Dalvin Cook and Deshaun Watson and the shotgun spread spread them out defensive wise I'm looking at what I got and I'm finding a way to keep Harrison Smith Anthony Barr and Eric Kendricks as those three guys and I'm finding a way to keep Michael Pierce because I think even though we didn't get to see him last year he's going to play a huge role in why this defense's revivance is going to be coming in next year and then i'm building around them and i'm drafting two pass rushers in the next two drafts early and probably spending first round picks on the drafts on on pass rushers on that side of the ball and then I'm going to get offensive linemen from all over the league.

I'm not going to draft any super early, but I'm getting them like we just said, bringing a bunch of guys in that have 10 starts, 20 starts, 15 starts, and letting them compete and building competition and drafting and making a really good room right there to really just build that offensive line camaraderie. And then I'm going to leave guys in the spots that I bring them into,

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All of their apparel is screen printed here in Minnesota on super soft, super comfy shirts and hoodies. You will love it. That is SodaStick, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. Original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. Code Purple Insider for free shipping. An observation about offensive linemen the top guys often become the top guys because that's how the league works like if you're drafted at the top in your orlando pace you probably have a better chance to hall of fame than everybody else after that though it just seems like a complete cluster of who knows there are sixth rounders who become

superstars there are first rounders who become awful they're just it's all over the map when it comes to that which speaks to your point of throw a bunch of darts and you know what happens all the time some guys like 28 and then the light goes on and all of a sudden he's got the right situation or he realizes how he was supposed to be playing this whole time, or he decides to finally take it seriously and work with an online coach or whatever it is happens all the time, or just understands how pass rushing works and can slow it down at that sort of age. It's amazing for that position. Now your point about the quarterback. So then that question leads to the next one. Cause that the Desha wants the thing probably not happening but you know what but you know what could happen you get to 14th on the board you look at that old

board and you go huh that's weird only zach wilson and trevor lawrence have been drafted now what do we do we do need this this this this this that and the other thing but you've got immunity so do you draft trey lance do you draft justin fields do you draft uh mac jones at 14 if that's the case if you have full immunity and you do not have to win in 2021 in order to keep your job yes the answer is yes the answer is if you have full immunity and you can just say yeah okay i need to grab a generational type quarterback talent which who knows again like you said offensive lineman happens all the time

with quarterbacks too not as often usually the top two your quarterbacks stay pretty top tier but I think that if just those two are going off the board I'm probably going with Justin Fields based off of again the way he can move in the pocket, the way he can deliver the deep ball, and I think that he would fit well in the scheme as to which the Vikings run. Now, I don't necessarily like the idea of giving a Mac Jones-type player because the more I watch the NFL the last few years, the more I feel like you have to get away from the prototypical

quarterback I just feel like it's a dying breed and I don't know if that's because of the pass rushers becoming more insane or the blitz schemes getting quicker or corners getting but I just you don't see very many guys I mean Philip Rivers is out of the league now Ben Roethlisberger is about to be out of the league Drew Brees about to be out of the league like Tom Brady really is last man standing in that kind of regime now. And I just think that if you can look at that in that 14, you're going, hey, future, right? We're looking five years down the road. Kirk ain't going to be here in three, four years, most likely, unless we somehow win a Super Bowl with him or something. But Justin Fields could be that building block

into which we start over again and we move our way up. Yeah, I think that you can stand on two grounds safely at the same time and say that if, you know, just based on who the quarterback is and how he plays football, that you could win with Kirk Cousins. But we're seeing it right here. This ties us back into why we're talking is Riley Reif is you can't afford Riley Reif because you're paying a quarterback. I mean, yeah, COVID too, but he might've been gone anyway, even if the salary cap went up because you just can't afford these players. And as much as people, you know, learned the cap guy's name and they, you know, tweeted about him when they were restructuring deals and all these things, those things run their course

and you eventually aren't able to use those anymore. Oh, we'll just restructure everyone. Yeah, when you're a 13 and three team, when you're a seven and nine team, that guy wants to leave and hit free agency. That's just the reality of this thing. And with Cousins, the way his contract is set up, it's about to become fully guaranteed for 2022.

But even if you draft someone, then you can plan on trading him next year. And here's what we learned this year. There's always people trying to trade for quarterbacks. If someone traded for Carson Wentz after that thing, there's always people who will trade for quarterbacks. So it's funny because you can like Kirk, you can have a Kirk jersey, you can study his statistics for all the great things he does and appreciate him and his personality and all those things. And still say, yeah, you know, with the contract and the way it works out, it would be a better idea to draft someone. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And you look around the league and what is the recipe for winning a Super Bowl or getting deep in the playoffs?

It's rookie quarterbacks on contract right I mean you got or excuse me quarterbacks on rookie contracts because you can build around them with so much more which is why you see teams be able to turn around so quickly when they draft a quarterback I mean look at the Jacksonville Jaguars they're going to be able to draft Trevor Lawrence and still have a ton of cap room and they're going to I guarantee you they're going to be close to eight and eight next year if not a cap room. And they're going to, I guarantee they're going to be close to eight and eight next year, if not a little bit better because they're going to have the money to go in and pour into those positions that they need. And it's crazy, but I mean, it's the NFL, the money talks, right? You're able to get through it. And when you look

at it, the teams now, I mean, Cowboys, I don't think Cowboys are gonna be very good for a long time because they're not going to be able to pay anybody else besides Dak Prescott and I worry about what's gonna happen with the Buffalo Bills when they have to do the same thing and pay Josh Allen and it's a trickle-down effect these guys are insane talents they deserve that money but it's gonna be really hard to keep your guys that made you so good around you when you get paid like that something I was thinking about wanting to play a little game with you here I like games so you uh you're an nfl player you've had teams call you call your agent say hey we want that searles guy we want to show up in buffalo we're gonna show him uh he knows he doesn't know anything about pizza but he knows his wings so let's bring him to buffalo bring him to carolina

so you've had that happen to you i want to know from you how the recruiting process would go if you were a big time free agent in this year's market and you were looking at all the nfl teams and they were calling you hey man we want to swing guard or tackle jeremiah searles how would you decide where you wanted to go and if the answer is just money say is money a factor yes money a factor depending where i'm at in my career money is the biggest factor okay that is the biggest factor depending where you're at in your career money's the biggest factor as you get older in your career winning a championship becomes the biggest factor now i will say if you're in that first contract swing type position like you're not a solidified starter you're not a guy that started 20 plus games then you're looking at where am I

gonna play and like what position now if money all equal right you're looking around like okay I'm probably gonna play for say it's a million bucks right and I can go to all these all these teams won't offer a million dollars to come play well where's my best opportunity to play for say it's a million bucks right and i can go to all these all these teams want to offer a million dollars to come play well where's my best opportunity to play and get on the field and play early and then go make my big money right where can i go bring the cash register and that's where as we've been talking you can get the guys that want to come to minnesota and compete for those jobs especially on the offensive line, we have two guard spots that are wide open. Hey, we have a left tackle spot that is wide open.

Yeah, we might draft someone. Yeah, we might draft someone, but guess what? He's a rookie. We have no idea, right? You can come in here and be a starter or you might be a backup, but who knows? You might start. And that's a really alluring draw to a lot of guys that are going

into their second contracts that haven't quite made it onto the field enough to sign the big money. Again, veteran minimum, come in for a couple million bucks, and you come in and you say, hey, you could be our starter, right? And those words ring true to so many guys of, man, I could be a starter in the NFL. I mean, the main reason I went to Carolina, I had multiple other teams that I could have went to, but there was a vacancy at left guard. They had gotten rid. Andrew Norwell left and went to Jacksonville Jaguars, and they needed a left guard.

And there was three of us that were all competing for it. And I love that. I mean, I was like, there's an actual vacancy. So if you're the Vikings, you tell all these guys, hey, there's a vacancy now because we got rid of one of our offensive linemen that was a starter last year. And that can draw you some talented guys that might take a little bit less money, but know they have a shot at a legit starter. Hey, everyone, I want to tell you about our friends at Scout Logistics. And I really do

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That's exactly along the lines as I was thinking of Minnesota is not in any way, shape or form a destination for anybody who's the upper echelon of free agent. Not right now. They were a couple of years ago that you could have a Sheldon Richardson say, hey, let me stop on by and then I'll get more money later. And he did. Good for you, Sheldon. But, you know, not now. That's not where you're at now. You're at much more of guys of a certain type of ilk who are competing for those spots. And if you find two gems in that list of guys who needed a better situation, or they're a good fit with your offensive line coach or whatever it might be, I mean, then you've hit the jackpot and that's like the Joe Berger or the Nick Easton. Like you kind of hit the jackpot with those guys. Even if they didn't go to the

hall of fame, they played really well for you on a team that went to an NFC championship. That's what you're looking for. Now, pretend that you are the guy. You're Trent Williams now. So you're a little faster than you were. You're way faster. A little bit better at football than I was. Yeah. A little bit, yeah. I think we're safe in saying that.

But how are you deciding? I'm deciding where I'm going to win a football championship world championship it's very simple i've made a ton of money trent trent williams has made buku amounts of money right now there's a saying of like you still want respect like you still want to get paid to respect your talent you're not gonna be like yeah i'll come play for veteran minimum like no, no, you still want to get paid. But at the same time, you're going to weigh options of where am I going to come in? And my biggest thing, too, is like you have all the chips. Hey, what's your offensive line coach like? Let me meet him.

Let me see if I can groove with him or if I can get along with him. Well, what are some of the guys in the room? Let me talk to some of the guys in your room. And that's where you kind of go. But the biggest thing is you're looking at where can I go and win? Because, you know, you probably got one or two really good years left before you hang on, kind of like Jason Peters, where he'd just kind of hang on, hang on.

His play diminishes, kept getting hurt, really struggling. I think Trent Williams has one or two really good years of football left in him. And so you're looking at a place to go and win a Super Bowl. It's really that simple. Okay, bonus question. What is the difference between you and Trent Williams? I mean, I'm making fun of, like, fast, but you're great on Peloton. But, I mean, really, like, from an offensive lineman skill perspective,

from a guy who's in the NFL and who can start versus a guy who could go to the Hall of Fame. Yeah, I mean, Trent Williams, you look at him, he has the strength of one of the strongest guys in the league there's no doubt the way he plays but he also has the speed to go with it and when you get that kind of combo in an offensive lineman it's deadly when you have a guy that he as a defensive lineman you're not going okay is this guy gonna run around me and reach me like that or is he gonna run through right through my teeth and then when he drops back in a pass set you're going this dude hits me with his hands it's over wham he hits you from because he's got seven feet long arms right i mean and his just ability natural athleticism to being that big is not normal

i mean there's nothing about him that you look at him and go yeah that's normal it's like no this dude's 350 pounds and is one of the fastest guys on the team i have a buddy who played with uh him in washington back in 2014 or 2015 early on in our careers that said he beat deshaun jackson in a 10 yard spread like and i kind of laughed at him like no and he's like i swear to god he goes within 10 yards. He was faster than Deshaun Jackson. And that's just because he's so explosive. And so when you think about that and it's hard to watch on Sunday sometimes and see the nuances of what's really going on inside.

But when you turn on Trent Williams tape, it looks like he's gliding across the glass, the grass, like, like a gazelle at 350 pounds. And that's just, he's so good at doing stuff like that and i could list three or four guys that are like that right i mean you talk about tyron armstead down in new orleans you talk about tyron smith back in his he's fallen off a little bit but like two three years ago when he was in the absolute prime of when he's doing things and then you start looking some young cats like i mean there's certain guys in the league that you just look and go physically they've got it they've just got it and that's what you're talking about the league that you just look and go physically. They've got it. They've just got it.

And that's what you're talking about. The guys that get drafted early or the guys that come into the league super early. Like, yeah, they're probably there's a reason they're getting picked in the top three. Right. Those are generational type talents and offensive line. There are also guys, and I sort of took this away from listening to Joe Thomas's podcast, a bunch who just see the matrix like they just process things so quickly and you have no idea how, because he was breaking down some sort of blitz that he saw where you're like,

I don't know how you figured that out. I mean, that, that happens so quickly. And if you get, and he was talking about a technique that he used in run blocking, so he wouldn't get ankle injuries. And he was like, well, if a guy has fallen from this angle and i'm running this way that i'm lifting up my foot i'm like this level of detail that some players can even just perform with their body is on a completely different non-human level yeah the body control of the big guys sometimes i mean i'm not gonna sit here and pretend like i had great body control like i was just like i gotta reach this guy if someone falls on me someone falls on me but some of these guys are just so aware of their body and have such amazing body control at 300 plus pounds that it's really cool for me I love watching

extremely athletic offensive linemen I got like Wyatt Teller from Cleveland comes to mind I can remember being in Buffalo him as a rookie and watching him in the weight room squat 550 pounds on a Tuesday after playing 60 snaps and being like, oh, okay. And you're just like, he's special. And then once he put it all together with Callahan, this year one of the greatest offensive line coaches in the NFL, he was an all-pro, right? So it really just sometimes takes two or three pieces to click

for these super athletic guys to make them that all-pro level because Wyatt was a fourth- fourth round pick played average at buffalo when he was a rookie that he gets trade all sudden he's all pro like that happens a lot when it's sometimes a matter of circumstances for like that second tier of greatness for these players to make on the offensive line versus the first tier of just they just got it and they're just better than everyone else on the field and vikings fans are saying why can't we have either either one of those before before we wrap up here's what i want to know it could be one it could be multiple

free agent presently who you can't wait to find out where they go free agent is i'm going to say is eric wilson um for the vikings i think that again that's a little bit more selfish of me because i know eric and i'm curious to see what kind of money he's going to demand and what he's going to get out of that regard. And then I also saw that the Saints cut Emmanuel Sanders, and I think that that's going to be a playmaking wide receiver that's going to go somewhere and make a big difference next year too. What do you think Eric Wilson gets? What's your guess?

I'm going to guess he gets five probably five five to six a year would be my guess i mean he played a bunch of snaps and he can play mike and will i don't actually know if again it'll depend on the scheme fit but i think he's a true four down four three i don't necessarily know if he fits in a three four system but i mean he's played a lot of football and he's got a lot of statistics. And I know defensive guys get paid a lot based on statistics, which is weird. It's not as much like overall play as much as production, kind of like moneyball-esque. And so he does have some really good statistics in interceptions

and sacks and TFLs. So I think he's going to go somewhere and get paid probably five or six a year would be my guess. I think if you're a team that has a really good nose tackle, that he would be great for you. If you're allowing guards and centers to reach him, that's probably not great for you as we saw last year, but playmaking is something that you can't just replace. And it's something that he has naturally. If I'm a team that is looking for a few more interceptions, a couple of sacks, I mean, he's your guy and what a, what a find for the Vikings.

This is the thing. They need more of those. There haven't been as many recently, but he, I mean, goes from a special teamer to a player who's capable of starting and making plays in the NFL. So kind of a great story for him because he was probably like a $600,000 guy

they brought in. Yeah, absolutely. He was phenomenal for them. I mean, to fill the shoes of Anthony Barr or Eric Kendricks, when both those guys get out and not have there be a drastic drop off. I mean, yes, there was a drop off of talent because those two guys are incredible, but he was able to step in and maintain the status quo, so to speak, like you lost some of the flash of those two guys, but that's really what you want. Again, he was good was good he was good and that's what you're looking for at all positions is a guy that's good can come in and get better and again he's young he's only going to continue to get better in his

career you are welcome to drop by anytime during the off season you are not obligated but the doors of this uh stream yard stream are always wide open for you jeremiah and uh also i'd love to grind some tape with you on some rookie tackles that now all of a sudden are very interesting so we'll get into that when we get fully into draft season so thanks for your time man we will do this again absolutely appreciate you guys