Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles is done with Vikings competitive rebuild, wants to draft QB now

Episode Date: January 12, 2024

Former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Sirles joins Matthew Coller to give his perspective on the quarterback decision and discuss the weekend of playoff games Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and it's on the road Tuesday morning, Left Guard. Nowhere close to Tuesday, but we are bringing you the show anyway. Former Minnesota Viking, Jeremiah Searles. Where are you? What are you doing? What's going on? How are you? I'm fantastic, thank you. I am currently in Orlando, Florida for the Hula Bowl, which is one of the top three all-star games for the college players coming through here. So I have a couple of clients down here. I've been down here since Monday.

Left my wife at home in Nebraska with eight inches of snow with 10 more on the way tomorrow. So she's super thrilled with me, but it's been good. It's been a great week. Our clients are doing good things. They got some upgrades, got some combine invites coming in. So things are rocking and rolling in the agent world i feel always a little bit guilty when there is a storm somewhere else and it's not happening to me so when i lived in buffalo i lived in a place called kenmore which is not in south buffalo that gets killed all the time that's where orchard park is ish. And it's just, so you'd be like getting four inches of snow and the rest of Buffalo that's

getting shown on the national news has 10 feet. You're like, well, you know, you've got friends who are sending you messages. Are you okay? Are you guys? Well,

yeah, we don't really live where the lake happens. So, and the same thing is sort of this right now, where I'm seeing Kansas City is this cold. Shouldn't it be us? Shouldn't we be this cold? But you were at least present for a game in the playoffs

that was a little chilly, which the Kansas City Chiefs are going to deal with this week. And it looks like Buffalo is going to be pretty nasty weather as well. It kind of hits me in the feels a little bit when Buffalo and Kansas City are playing in the playoffs and horrible weather yeah for sure you know it's one of those I'm looking at that Kansas City game going this has got 2015 vibes do a TCF bank at the time stadium frozen field everyone's miserable I think the game ended like 10 to 9 like it's just definitely got those type of vibes going on to it and playoff football this is sometimes you're like maybe maybe home field advantage isn't really home field advantage when this type of stuff happens yeah i know i had this

idea one time if the nfl was going to go to 18 games to have the season split in two so we never had to play the super Bowl in February or the playoffs into late January and have them impacted by weather but uh I Roger Goodell wasn't listening and didn't care so this is how we're gonna do it and to tell you the truth since I will be home watching it in my house I'm fine with it everybody else can be outside in zero degree weather and so forth it should be a very fun week which we're going to get to, but no surprise where we should start here is the Vikings had a press conference at the end of the year to talk about, oh, I don't know, all things quarterback, unsurprisingly. And if you go through Kweisi Adafomense's quotes, Jeremiah, there's a lot of hedging after saying that he absolutely

intends to have Kirk Cousins back. I don't want to put you in a weird agent situation because Mike McCartney has more money than you do. But from Kirk's perspective, though, you being a player and having this experience, how weird is it that you have a kind of pseudo deadline for this? Because they can't do it after free agency, otherwise the $28 million would kick in. So he has to kind of feel out what the interest would be. And the Vikings kind of have exclusive rights to him. But if he really wants to test the market, he has to basically completely say no to the vikings it's an awkward situation i think for everybody yeah it's a very strange situation to

be in because there are certain rules put into place of you know tampering and a guy that is under contract you know versus like when isn't he under contract and you know a lot of the a lot of what's going to happen is going to start at the combine, you know, all of the free agency talks. And, you know, this year at the combine, it's just like that's kind of the unofficial starting time of like feeling your way out of like, do I like you? Do you like me? Like, how much do we like each other? Oh, we're way off or whatever it might be. But it is just kind of this awkward where you look around and it's really important. I think the onus right now is on the Vikings.

And I think the Vikings, for the first time in Kirk Cousins' entire career there, maybe have a tiny little bit of leverage against Kirk. And it's little. I'm not talking like they have the hammer to push against him, but they have a little bit of leverage to push against Kirk in asking him, do you want to come back? Right. And then you, you put the onus on him, but the Vikings are just kind of sitting there going, do we want him back? Is he willing to come back? And they're going to be able to ones that press Kirk a little

bit more than Kirk pressing them. And it's going to be, it's going to be fascinating to play out because I think Kirk even kind of cryptically came out and said like, Oh, I don't know. I love it here. Like maybe I'll take less money, right? Like, there's this, like, hedging on both sides, but ultimately we won't truly know until numbers start getting actually thrown around about what this may look like for Kirk coming back. But the biggest thing that I think about for Kirk is, is he going to be healthy?

Like, the Achilles injury, I think people have started downplaying the Achilles injury since Aaron Rodgers. Like, well, he was going to be back in December. He's going to be fine. Like, that's a massive surgery. It's a big deal. And my biggest fear is that Kirk's not going to even be what he was last year when he was playing his best ball because he's coming back off her. But as an agent, you're you're kind of sitting in purgatory right now, just trying to try to figure out, like, is my guy healthy?

If he is, we want him here. Do we not? What do you want to do? What do you want to do? What do you want to do? Like, you have so many voices inputting. There's going to be no clear answer here for at least a month, in my opinion. Just a suggestion.

You know how they call it the legal tampering window, which is basically when everyone already has the contracts worked out and Adam Schefter is allowed to tweet them? Maybe just open that at the beginning of the combine and say anything that happens in Indy, which applies to a lot of other things. If you've walked around past midnight there, what happens in Indy stays there, but they should leave that to the conversations as well. The tampering stuff, it's just silly when these agents, no, no,

we were only meeting about my guys under contract. And I said, would you like 63 guaranteed coconuts maybe in bunches of eight do you feel me let me just scratch my achilles seems fine you know so we don't need to do that that nonsense but you know i i do think from kirk's perspective he has to get their number and decide is this going to work for me because i don't think they're going to negotiate past their number which is another layer to this so even if they want him and he wants them the way that quesadilla fomenta has negotiated so far has pretty much been adam deal and you want to come back this is what it costs and we saw what a massive pay cut Harrison Smith took last year, but it was,

this is the number you could come back on that number or not come back on that number. We'll go either way. But the other dynamic too is, and you are just at a college situation, you're, you know, the senior bowl is coming up and so forth. There's quarterbacks. There's other quarterbacks in this draft that you talk about that leverage the Vikings have. They can look at Kirk and say, we know that you're really good, but also these prospects are really good as well.

And maybe you're not the only person under the sun who could throw the ball to Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison. Yeah, absolutely. This quarterback class is very, very good. And, you know, we put ourselves in position to maybe there's a quarterback still there when we pick in the first, and maybe we have position to move up and get the guy we want. And that'll become clear as the process goes on here. You know, the top quarterbacks are always going to be the top but there's guys that rise and fall all the time into that like early top 10 to the 20 range like through the process whether it becomes out like oh there's character issues or hey maybe there's more medical issues

that pop up as we dive deeper and we get into the combine and pull them apart and put them back together again mentally and physically and see who breaks who doesn't and I'm at the point now where I've watched enough rookie quarterbacks in the league right now that I think the get you can get a rookie quarterback and still have immediate success like it's not a guarantee and it never there's nothing in the draft that's ever guaranteed but I look at what the Vikings have and we I'm so tired of talking about competitive rebuilds like get a get a guy and go with it, right? Like, even if you bring Kirk back, I don't think Kirk wants to come back

if he straight up gets told we're drafting quarterback in the first round. Because who's the favorite person on everybody's roster? The backup quarterback, no matter what, right? Even if Kirk does come back and he has his Kirk rollercoaster that we know Kirk likes to ride, and he has two or three down games what's going to be the fan base screaming we want the kid we want the kid you

drafted the kid we want the kid i don't think kirk's in a point of his career he wants to deal with that right i think i think kirk in order to sign back here yes the numbers have got to be like there but i think kirk's gonna be like you're not drafting quarterback in the first right you're not drafting quarterback in the first right and k not drafting quarterback in the first right and chaos needs to be like i mean we will take the best player available right i think that's going to be a huge factor too because he's not about that competition life he's too old for that and i don't blame him no one blames him but i think that's going to be a huge factor too because you never want to be in this position again as weird as to say you don't want to be picking top 10 that's not why you play the game you don't play the game to be in this position again, as weird as it is to say, you don't want to be picking top 10. That's not why you play the game.

You don't play the game to be in a position to pick a franchise quarterback. That's not what you do. And so we find ourselves in this position here where it's kind of an interesting position. We have a talented roster. We have young players. We got a quarterback hurt. We felt like didn't finish the season well. So here we are sitting at the 10th or 11th.

I think it's the 11th pick, right? Was it the 11th? Yes, I was close. The 11th pick in right? Was it the 11th? Yes, I was close. The 11th pick in the draft. Let's hope we're not here again, but let's take advantage of why we all are here and maybe reach and get ourselves a quarterback. There's a lot of dynamics here too.

And one of them is that the Vikings have told Kirk Cousins through the media, we love you, we love you, we love you. And I imagine Kevin Oconnell has shared privately that the it's a real relationship that's been built over the last two years that i don't think is fraudulent or fake in any way i think that they care a lot about each other at the same time if you're kirk you're going now why is it that i am a free agent what was it that happened was there any way i couldn't have oh Oh yeah. If you guys had bought into me fully last year. So I do think of this from his perspective of saying you guys,

you know, tried to kind of hold my feet to the fire last year. I called your bluff and I'll do it again if I have to. And I think that what he's going to find Mike McCartney, his agent, when he goes to the combine is that there's a number of teams that are looking for answers that aren't really in a position with their ownership or whatever else with the roster to draft a quarterback. And there are a lot of examples of young quarterbacks coming in and having success. I'll give you one that's fairly recent. It wasn't the rookie year for Jalen Hurts, but Jalen Hurts took over Philadelphia after they moved on from Carson Wentz because he was okay but not great and expensive.

And they went 9-8, and they made the playoffs, and they lost in the playoffs, but they had a successful year. And by the next season, there they were in the Super Bowl. That's an ideal situation. I don't want to use Brock Purdy necessarily because it's a little unfair being a seventh-round pick because I'm not going to suggest you Purdy necessarily because it's a little unfair being a seventh round pick because I'm not going to suggest you could just draft anybody and that'll work. However, you look at the roster, you look at the offense, you look at the coach, like we can

find a lot of these situations. Even Lamar Jackson, as raw as he was, came in with the Ravens and used his athleticism and found ways to win games and was there in the playoffs. Like there are a lot of examples of rookie quarterbacks not just falling flat on their face. Now, if Urban Meyer is coaching your team and you have completely tanked, certainly that that is the case. But this team did not completely tank. And even with backup quarterbacks, they lost in Denver by a point. They lost against Detroit the first time by six.

They lost the second time by 10. Cincinnati was in overtime. Even with their backup quarterback in, they were still very competitive and very close. And if the Vikings had a starting quarterback that was a rookie and went 7-10 and had the same exact season, you'd be like, all right, this thing is going in the right direction, and then you spend the money and so forth.

But there is another part of this that I wanted to tie in with KOC and Kweisi Adafomensa. What if Kevin O'Connell does not want to part with Cousins and tells the ownership, look, I mean, I need this guy. I can't waste my time with a rookie. A rookie can't handle my offense. I need Kirk. And Kweisi Adafo-Mensah pulls out his abacus, slides a few things and says, ah, see, six seasons, one playoff win, ownership. We have to trade up with three firsts for Jaden

Daniels. How do you think a team inside would deal with a general manager and coach wanting different things with a quarterback situation? I wrestle with this conundrum a lot because you hear about it a lot, like the rift that gets created between coach and GM. And for the first two years here, I feel like Kwesi and KOC have coexisted very well. I feel like they've done a nice job of coming to agreements, having open conversations,

and not, I mean, Kwesi very well can wield the, I am the GM. I make the decision. Like, you work technically under me, right? Owner, GM, head coach. Like, that is the pecking order. And I feel like he's done a nice job

not wielding that over KOC's head a lot but i think at the end of the day it will be he who is judged by who he brings back on his roster it's not the coaches it's not the coach the coach is judged by wins and losses on how he gets guys ready to play how the roster is built is fully judged on who you draft who you bring back who you sign extend cut etc i think he would look at koc and unless he can make the argument of why he should be paid over the number that quasi's willing to give to him right hey i'm not saying you can't bring him back but this is what you can bring him back for and if chaos he's like well we need to bring him back for this unless he can make a fully justifiable justifiable reason reason and make it make sense,

I think Queensland can stand on his world and be like, nope, this is my plan. This is what we're doing. And I don't think the team will necessarily feel that fraction unless it becomes public. Unless it becomes like the Spielman-Zimmer where it's like, I don't think they speak to each other or like have each other's phone numbers and they both know better than that and players play coaches coach gms fill a roster nick you all have your role i don't think there'd be a lot of bad blood there i think that

you get the coach you you're not just going to tank because you have a rookie coach or rookie qb in there right you're still coaching for your life your coaching career i think it would still be okay i think there'd be some animosity in the beginning and maybe a little bit of feathers rustled between the two of them for a while, but I think they have a good enough working relationship they'd be able to work past it. Well, that would all depend on how the rookie worked out. And by the way, just for clarity's sake, I am not reporting that this is an issue. No. This was, just to be clear to anyone, I'm not saying this is something I've heard or whatever. I think that this is an issue no this was just just to be clear to anyone i'm not saying this is something

i've heard or whatever i think that this plan has been hatched for a long time of getting to this point deciding on a number so forth and i believe that's what happened last year is that they had a number for kirk and a length and a structure and he didn't agree to it and that exact same thing will happen again he'll either agree or he won't, and then they'll move forward. And I think they've already decided on that. And then they have to go and figure everything else out. But here, here's how I would approach it. If there were differing opinions, if I was Casey, I would say, look, I understand you love Kirk and I understand you love him throwing accurate passes as opposed to wild ass interceptions. However, you pick the quarterback.

You can't have Caleb Williams and you can't have Drake May because those guys are gone and there ain't enough draft capital in the world. We're not trading Justin Jefferson for a top pick. However, we do have the draft capital to trade up with the number five pick or four pick for Jaden Daniels. And we could also take Bo Nix, Michael Pennix. I'll say it. J.J. McCarthy.arthy no i'll say it don't even say it i don't want to hear it out of your dirty mouth hey he completed 10 passes in that championship game all right all 10

and then the guys ran after the catch and that was how it worked. So anyway, but I would say we've got about four options here and you pick the guy and I'll make it happen. You go to the senior bowl, which he will, you go to their pro days, which he will. I know this, that he's going to be, he loves scouting the quarterbacks. Even when they're not taking one, you go to the combine, you sit in those rooms, you interview them, you put them through the version of the Gruden camp and you decide which guy you want at the end of the day. So we're on the same page. I'll take whatever guy you like, because you're the one that's going to be managing him.

I'll put aside whatever numbers, although what's nice about this draft class is there's no guy who doesn't have great numbers like even jj mccarthy has good analytics i just but don't believe in the you know some of the other stuff but like every one of them bo nicks has great numbers penix has great numbers daniels was the heisman that that's how i would approach it and i feel like that's splitting the difference if kirk won't meet their number yeah and but the problem then comes back to what if what if KFC goes I don't want any of them I don't want any of them like that that then becomes the problem where I don't think I don't know if there's gonna be another good quarterback class like this coming for a long time like these top tier quarterback classes come once every decade maybe where you're talking about a

legit four or five guys that could be difference makers right like it's always like goff and wentz right or it was stroud or richardson or bryce young and richardson right like you always have two or three but to have five of these dudes standing right there at the top of the draft that all could be considered difference makers you have to take advantage of it because like i said earlier in the show you don't want to find yourself in this position again you don't you want to be in picking 21st or you want to be picking 25th like that's where you want to be picking in the first round so i think the issue then becomes if he's just convinced himself that kirk is the only way right and i don't know if he necessarily has i mean he

loves kirk obviously there's no secret to that but i think he's smart enough guy and what i mean koc to look around the league and see guys like cj stroud and what they're doing and see guys like anthony richardson was young in his career and what he's doing and seeing that if i can get a guy in here and mold him we could have gold on our hands and it also might be a little bit of a pride thing too for koca of like i can do this i can i can make my quarterback i can pick the guy like if that's the way it goes i can pick the guy and i can coach him up i'm a good enough coach i did that with dobbs for a game like it ran into his limitations but if i can have a guy from when he gets here in april to when we step foot on there in September and for years and years on, I can do this.

I think that's the approach that I would take if I was crazy to be like, show me you can do this, KOC. Prove it to me, right? He's a player. We all have that little bit of ego like we will not fail. Failing is not an option. Like, I think that's the approach that I would take. Like, pick a guy. Prove to me that you can create a star.

Do it. And then he goes, all right, I'm going to do it. And then as long as it's not JJ McCarthy, I'm all in. Folks, if you've been listening to the show, then you know how much fun we have been having with PrizePix this year. Just go to prizepix.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

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and we've already covered so many angles of this, but there will be much more, and we'll try to be creative. I've already created a wheel to spin for which quarterback to talk about. So, yeah, we'll get to that eventually. It'll be like, let's spin the wheel, and tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, okay. It landed on Baker Mayfield. He's a free agent. Let's talk about him.

We'll get there at some point. tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, okay, it landed on Baker Mayfield. He's a free agent. Let's talk about him. We'll get there at some point. But from the ownership perspective, let's say you're getting the presentations, because my guess is the way that it goes is Kweisi Adafomensa puts together a couple of PowerPoints. This is the we sign Kirk PowerPoint. This is the we draft a rookie PowerPoint. This is the we panic PowerPoint. And if you're the Wilfs and you are receiving these PowerPoints, they come along with different timelines. And I know that they want to

be good all the time and never want to take a step back. Although there's seven and 10. So I'm not sure that it would be a huge step back if your rookie came in and was okay. And you competed in every game, like if they had the same season but i mean if i'm looking at it as if i accept your kirk proposal you boys better be in the nfc championship next year if i accept your rookie proposal then we're doing this all together and part of it in my mind would have to be how much do we want to do this all together because with z and Spielman it was such a miserable atmosphere to have them around at the end not all the time but at the end

maybe most of the time but not especially at the end it was really bad between those two and that is just not the case here I mean even with the assistant coaches the NFL players voted two of their assistant coaches Brian Flores and Matt Daniels, two of the best to work with. You've built coaching staffs. You've built culture. You've put players in leadership positions. You're cultivating something here that I'm not like you win or get the hell out, or at least that's how I would feel to them and i don't think that they should be in that spot but at the same time if they make that bet and then go seven and ten again what am i supposed to do like just carry on okay you guys made the worst bet on the wrong horse and we fumbled a bunch of times and now what i just sort of say that's okay we've seen from atlanta a very reasonable owner and arthur blank who is mostly patient just be like no no i'm just taking this we're done right so i don't know how would you view it from the very very top i think from the very very top you just have to be very willing to you nailed it with the timeline where what is their timeline like are they ready for a new blood the other issue when you talk about the very very top what's their bottom line fill the seats right that's that ultimately is fill the seats

make sure us bank stadium is full every sunday and i think they are very well aware that the kirk decision whichever way it goes is going to fracture the fan base in one way or the other like i i can't get on twitter without seeing kirk believers and kirk haters going to war with each other and i'm not in minnesota and i'm not living every day. And so I don't know if maybe I'm off base with this, but I feel like it is very much two camps. Like there's no one really in the middle. It is like without Kirk, this franchise is going to go into the Carolina Panthers, right? We're done. We're over with. We will never be relevant again. And then there's the other side of like, I'm tired of Kirk. I know what he is. I'm ready for new blood. And there's really not this middle ground i'm tired of kirk i know what he is i'm ready for new blood and

there's really not this middle ground and i think the owners have to pick a side the owners have to pick a side of like what fan base am i going to get behind and find a way to loop the other fan base back in with us eventually right how do i get the rest of the seats filled and the money continuing to pour in and from a broader perspective i think that it's moving on from Kirk. I think they look at it from how do we continue to keep excitement and new things going and new jersey sales and all that. It's bringing in a big name as a rookie and rallying behind him and pushing everything forward. Now, there is risk that comes with that. But I think from an ownership level, that's the power point that I pick because you pick Kirk, you're just pushing a fan base further and further

to the brink of breaking, and you're pushing a fan base of getting bored. Getting bored with, am I going to go to Sunday again and watch even a 10-win team? This team's ready to gather. With Kirk, you have to go, like you said, NFC Championship or bust, man. That's it. But you get a new quarterback in there you're buying yourself years of fandom excitement and people being excited to come and see the new face and maybe he's a but or maybe he's not a bus because maybe he's a boom and you run with it all the way and you have success early like the texans and you're playing a home playoff

game with a rookie quarterback and all those things that for me is the more exciting option as an owner than putting my chips on the table and saying, let's bet that this 36 year old coming off an Achilles can get us to the NFC championship without fracturing the fan base. You know, from my perspective, I will admit that there is selection bias here because if people are fans of the show, then they're willing to hear critiques of the quarterback and maybe be open to moving on. So I am dealing with feedback from people who already like this show, which means that they don't mind hearing about that. But I just get the sense, even from being in the building, that you talk about board, you talk about a malaise. It was exciting to have a new coach. It was exciting to have a bunch of crazy wins that they had.

But this year, even early in the season, there was kind of a, I remember Justin Herbert had the ball, they were driving and the Vikings are 0-2 and they're playing Los Angeles. It's the end of the half. And Justin Herbert doesn't even have to go like silent count. He's not freaking out. He's communicating with his linemen because it just wasn't that loud in there. And I think the Vikings were down in the game and people were like, ah, we're going to lose already.

It was like, guys, like, shouldn't you be yelling and trying to distract Justin Herbert that building? Even Aaron Rodgers mentioned this a couple years ago. And I don't agree with some of the things Aaron Rodgers says, but when it comes to football, he knows what he's talking about. So he said that he didn't feel like us bank stadium had the same juice and it has felt that way every time the team kind of gets down a little there isn't like when you guys did in 2017 there was this belief it doesn't matter like although not

that you were down much but that building was crazy the whole year every game this something special's happening here that hasn't been there in a while and i wonder if they feel that too because i know i do there were times i walked out of there with my head ringing and it's been a while since that's really happened and i just feel like if you're talking about bringing in a fresh new thing it's kind of like they already pushed the new coach button to get to get excitement can they really say well we finished seven and ten so we're doing mostly the same thing and yes his achilles did pop but that'll be fine like no there's no problem here that is his plant foot to throw the ball and he needs a really strong base to throw the football

hard but i'm sure it'll be fine you know what i mean like i don't know this there's all kind of roads lead back to it's just hard for me to ever make this work in my head. But I wanted to ask you this, who on the roster should be happy that everyone's talking about the quarterback situation? Like who, who on the Vikings is sort of like, you just, you guys focus on that. Don't talk about me. Don't talk about what happened over here. Just make sure you keep talking about that quarterback situation. Who would that be? The defense. The defense going, we kind of had an epic collapse here at the end, friends. Everyone around us was like, we all didn't do so hot here towards the end of the season. Let's remember us in the middle of the season. But if I'm the defense, I'm like, keep talking about that quarterback

because we don't want the eyes on us. We don't want the deflector. The gaze of Sauron does not need to all of a sudden come focus hard on the defensive side of the football, and especially on the defensive line. To Neil Hunter, Davenport was a disaster, which you and I kind of called early on with, like, dude, this dude's been hurt.

Maybe he can stay healthy. Maybe he can't. But we paid him, what, $ dude's been hurt. Like maybe he can stay healthy. Maybe he can, but we paid him what? $13 million this year to play like three games. Like, so there's some decisions on the defensive side of the ball too, that you, if I'm crazy, I don't even want to be talking about it. I'd rather talk about the quarterback than try and talk about some of the defensive issues that we have to come up with. I don't know.

What do you think? I think that's right. And I also, it came to my mind how differently we might be thinking about this team had the defense carried on. I mean, by the third quarter of Cincinnati, I was going, I can't believe this. This is incredible. Look at this defense. Unbelievable.

And then after that, oh my Lord, it just went totally off the deep end and they gave up 120 points in the last four games that would be about the worst defense in the nfl for the last quarter of the season and also all of those games except for green bay of course you got stomped in that game but three out of those four games are this close and you only needed one more win to get into the playoffs and we kind of blamed nick mullins while he threw those interceptions and that is true that he threw those interceptions. But would we look at this differently if they made the playoffs with Nick Mullins because they got a stop every once in a while against Detroit or a stop in the fourth quarter or in overtime or picked off Jake Browning or something?

Would we be saying, man, you made the playoffs with Dobbs and Mullins. What are we even talking about bringing back cousins for that part of it is being largely ignored. But the explanation I think is very simple there, which is why it's not being talked about a lot, which is if you put so much on the defense week after week after week, and then you lose DJ Wanham, you lose byron murphy and your backups are whom uh that's going to happen and plus you played good teams but that's also kind of the point about this roster where it's like you lost two players and then you were just garbage like that's not good and crazy said that like we're trying to be so good that we can advance through adversity

and they did not with that side of the football. Yeah, that's a great point. You know, the depth on the defensive side of the football all year was just this razor-thin margin between really good or just awful. And we got lucky that a lot of guys stayed healthy in key positions. I mean, Daniil Hunter playing every game this year was huge. You know, Ivan Pace finding a middle linebacker that is an undrafted free agent, that doesn't happen, right? That's a Brock Purdy type situation. Like, wow, that was a great thing to fall into our lap. But building depth on the defensive side of the ball is going to be extremely important. And when you're talking about the quarterback, like it kind of glazes over

it also, let me back up. When you're talking about the quarterback like it kind of glazes over it also let me back up when you're talking about the quarterback especially in the kirk cousin situation of the cap hit that he will take it then affects what can i do on this side of the football right because you can draft a rookie quarterback at the 11th overall pick or trade up and be certain to still be good because you can spend money in free agency on the other positions if you extend kirk you're now bankrolling on the other side of i need my draft picks later in the draft to be big contributors on this side of the football or whatever it might be and that's a whole nother side of this that we'll dive into i'm sure more

and more as it goes is just the capital that it takes to bring quarterback back when you have other glaring positions of need that you need to go buy in March you can draft and hope they're ready to go but you need positions that you can buy in March established players in the league to come in and contribute and be every down starters especially on the defensive side of the ball well here's my concern with trying to build that side of the ball is if you look at, say, the Los Angeles Rams, who just added Matthew Stafford and then profit, if you go back through their drafts before they traded all the picks, they had a lot of really good draft picks who turned out to be huge players for them.

Even an elite wide receiver with a third round draft pick is incredible. And then they did it again. But I mean, just how they built that team from the Aaron Donald pick forward, there were all these guys that you could just circle. Well, that guy's a starter. That guy's a starter. That guy was a starter. It's part of the reason they were able to afford to do that and go all in on that one year. You can do this also. I remember when the Jim Harbaugh thing was coming up here and I went through the drafts before Harbaugh took over. Cause it was like, Harbaugh, turn that team around. They were bad before. And there were all these players they had drafted the couple of years

before who just were about to hit their primes. And then they did under Harbaugh, not to say he's not a great coach. He is a great coach great coach but circumstance he was sort of clever and taking that job at that point if we go through Vikings drafts of the last five years you will find some amazing players but will you find the foundational pieces here so they hit on Metellus now as a development player 2022 doesn't have much to offer like what like what are they going to build on there what players are stepping into the limelight that's going to make up the difference and I just don't see enough of that to have right now to be able to say okay it's all in place just pop that quarterback back in there which then means desperate GM taking desperate measures like, oh, I don't know, signing Dean Lowry. Those are sort of desperate type of, oh, we need something

and someone and let's hope this works out because we don't have any cap space. And that's what you end up with. Yeah. When you don't have young players to develop and hope that they take the next step in their game, you have to open the checkbook. That's the only way it works. That's the way the NFL works. If you don't draft well and develop well internally, you pay for it. And that's a risk-reward factor of do we get guys that we believe in that sometimes you pay the big guy in his second contract and the dude hits the gear down button,

and I got paid, man, here here i am or a guy gets hurt and you pay a guy a bunch of money then he gets hurt and then you're sitting there going man we needed that guy so badly and now he's hurt because he's in year six or whatever it may be it's a conundrum to be in it's something i think we anticipated being in um based off of looking at the history of we haven't done a great job of internally developing our draft picks to becoming stars and there's a lot of factors that go into that a new coaching change right like you have guys drafted four years ago they're going to contract you that weren't part of this regime now they weren't part of this class they weren't part

of the selection process this scheme whatever it may be pick a pick a thing you know multiple defensive coordinators. You bring free agents in under one coordinator, and then it's another coordinator. All that stuff plays into factors of when you're building a roster, which is why when you talk about how do we build this into being a championship roster, you can't say, well, okay, Kirk Cousins, NFC Championship or bust, and have Blind Flores standing in the back of the room going, but what about me? I need help too, guys.

And they're like, well, too bad. We spent all our money on Kirk. It doesn't work that way. And so when you look at it big picture-wise, you zoom out 1,000 miles and you look down at the team, you're going, we can't afford to go all in on a quarterback because there's too many glaring holes everywhere else, especially on the defensive side of the football.

And that has to play a factor into this. It can't just be about what Kirk is about and what does he do for this team. You have to look at it. And this is where if KOC comes to Kwesi and says, Kirk's my guy, Kwesi has to go, I can't just worry about you. I have to worry about Brian Flores

and this defensive line and these linebackers. And is Harrison Smith going to be around? Is he not like there's so much more on his plate? And that's why he's the GM. And he has to be able to have the balls to stand up and say, sorry, but this is where we're at. And if he can do that, then I have a lot of respect for him. And I think that that he's shown that he's willing to put, like you said, the line in the sand with some of these players. And that's what's going to ultimately come down to because he's going to have to open his checkbook to fix the defensive side of the football.

That is quite the position to be in for Kweisi Adafomensa being pulled in a lot of different directions. When he took over and talked about collaboration, I wrote a column that basically said bleep collaboration. Do it your way, pal. And everybody works for you. So take advantage of your scouts' talents and your analytics people's talents and everything else.

But at the end of the day, you push the buttons, not somebody else. And as long as, I guess, the Wilfs allow him to do that. So we'll see. We'll see. Because like we're talking about, this will determine the entire direction of the franchise. This one decision

for years to come. Are you slowly building? Are you adding pieces? Are you creating cap space? Are you making a Khalil Mack trade at some point because you have the cap space? Or are you going all in, sacrificing the future cap and draft capital, whatever,

to try to make sure you win with Kirk Cousins? And if you don't, suffer the consequences. So fascinating stuff that we will be talking about for a while but we have playoffs not that we're covering which i'm used to but uh here we are uh what is your favorite game of the weekend how about we uh start that start it that way oh that's you know a lot of good ones there's a lot of good ones. There's a lot of good ones, man. My favorite game of the weekend is going to have to be Detroit and L.A. It has to be. I mean, the idea that Matthew Stafford is coming back to the house

that he built to try and reign all over the Detroit Lions' magical season is incredible. And when you look at that matchup on paper, too, you're like, man, I don't know who to give the nod to. Because on one hand detroit is so physical on offense and running the football with david montgomery and jameer gibbs and goff can get the ball to amon ron shay brown and then you flip it on the other side and go i think these receivers are going to cook the dbs of the detroit lions right and so it's like man is this a shootout

is this a time of possession game like you just have no idea how it's going to look. But I cannot wait to sit down and watch that football game. I think it's going to be an incredible game. The atmosphere is going to be bananas in Detroit. Like, that's by far pinned. Don't bother me. Phone's turning off. I'm watching this football game. I think that it's a very bad matchup for the Lions,

even if they're the better team and even if they have the home field advantage, Aaron Donald versus Jared golf, who can't really move or throw on the run almost ever, but a really good offensive coordinator, great offensive mind on the other side that, that you couldn't have written that one any better. And that's because the NFL is rigged. No, stop it. For me, it is Packers-Cowboys. And I'll tell you why. Because, first of all, I grew up watching John Madden and Pat Summerall. And can you, I mean, Favre, Aikman, Michael Irvin, Reggie White.

Like, let's go. This is just fantastic. People hate the Cowboys. I understand why you hate the Cowboys. But every Madden and Summerall game was down there in Dallas. It was just like how many San Francisco, Green Bay, they're coming in there. And the way that the Packers have played recently is not reflective of a team that was 9-8. The second half of the season, they are more like an 11- or 12-win type of football team,

and their quarterback is playing like it. They also have the best defensive player in the world on dallas's team and it's just it's just a great battle and then you have mike mccarthy versus old team which again rigged and uh mccarthy just cannot find his way out of these playoff games at the end to manage them so that one has so much juice uh for me i love that game yeah i mean and honestly i mean there's part of me that feels like mccarthy's coaching for his life like if mccarthy can't win this game no one cares what a magical season they had and how great it was like bill belichick's knocking buddy the reapers at the door right like if this doesn't work out for you like i think this can be a tremendous football game, too,

because the Packers match up well with them, in my opinion. Like, I think the Packers match up well defensively and offensively. I give the nod of the Dallas defense at Dallas. I think if this was in Green Bay, totally different story. But Dallas at home has been lights out. That's really the biggest factor for me in this game is the home field advantage for the Cowboys. Definitely.

And they have a receiver on Dallas who somehow goes under the radar. It's mind-blowing because with Michael Irv and Des Bryant, they were always the center of attention. Somehow C.D. Lamb is not talked about right there with Justin Jefferson and Tyreek Hill for the best receiver in the league. Oh, he is. He is that good. And that's going to be, in my mind, a problem for the Green Bay Packers, who, let's not forget, really struggled as far as pass defense. So anything else you want to say

about the playoffs before off we go? Or are you going to make your Super Bowl prediction? I'll just say this. Sorry, Dolph fun year it was a fun year friends but that offense that you like to run when it is minus 15 outside not really gonna cut it here friends and isaiah pacheco runs like a crackhead and that's the way he's gonna go and it's gonna be a lot of that and everyone's like well miami's got a great run game they have a great explosive run game they are not the grind it out put it between the hashes and go and cold weather deer. I just think this is a tough draw for Miami.

It's a tough out for them. But I think Kansas City is going to win just strictly out the fact that no one's going to want to score points in that game. No one's going to want to catch the ball in that game. That's going to be 2015 10-9 type of football because of Mother Nature. And it just sucks because dolphins had a good year and would have been fun to see them at full strength do their thing but it's just that's not what we're going to see an arrowhead on saturday night some of us refuses to not get

peacock i guess because that's also really stupid well i already have peacock because i like to watch the show beyond belief you ever seen it i like i have peacocks i like to watch the show Beyond Belief. You ever seen it? I have peacocks. I like to watch The Office. So I'm right there with you. Watch the show Beyond Belief. It's insane. It was a real show from the 90s that is so silly, ridiculous, where they tell stories and recreate them that are supposed to be mysterious. And some of them are true and some of them are not. The true stories are absolutely not true, or at least not the right depiction the the guy the host is the guy from star trek jonathan freaks and he has all these like weird riddles and stuff it's hysterical and absurd and

you can't believe it got made so that i already had for and wrestling i also watch wrestling from time to time so i already have peacock it'll. If you don't, it's like six bucks. So you'll be all right. But don't take away from your Purple Insider subscription to buy it. So I will make one. But my one last prediction

is just that the Eagles-Buccaneers game is going to actually be amazing because both teams aren't very good. And it'll be fun as hell. I think it's going to be ridiculous and absurd. And I can't wait for that one because both teams are

getting destroyed in the next round. But for this round, we will have fun with it. So that's my prediction. Anyway, will you be back in Nebraska? Will you be traveling? Where will you be? I'll be in Minneapolis. Actually, I'll be in Minneapolis next week, training the O-linemen up at the gym

we have up there with old Mr. Alex Boone. So I'll be in Minneapolis next week. Then I'll be dallas for frisco for the next one i'll be in frisco so i'm on the road the next few weeks uh wheeling and dealing so i promise it may not be on tuesday but we'll get something on the books i promise okay perfect thanks so much for your time jeremiah and everybody for watching slash listening and enjoy the postseason of football