Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jeremiah Sirles talks about what he loved and hated from the 2023 NFL season

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

Matthew Coller and former Vikings offensive lineman Jeremiah Sirles talk about what they loved and hated about the Vikings 2023 season and how the NFL turned out this year and then talk each other into the Vikings direction working... somehow. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. It is a Tuesday morning left guard on a Wednesday. Why not? What a perfect way to wrap up the season with former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Searles. And for this episode, we are taking our two foundational bits of the show and combining them. We are going to talk each other into stuff and we are going to love to see it and hate to see it retrospective on the 2023 NFL season.

And Jeremiah, I think we should start it out with some love to see it, hate to see it for the 2023 Vikings. And then we can get into some other stuff that happened this year. And then we'll project it forward to the off season. So what is at the top of your list? We'll start with the positive side for love to see it from the 2023 Vikings. Yeah. The love to see it for me to no surprise is we found our franchise left tackle. That's the one he's the guy, right? I watched the Superbowl and I watch Trenton Williams just be poetry in motion

time and time again. And then I watch across the league and watch really through the whole playoffs, and almost every playoff team has a marquee left tackle besides the Kansas City Chiefs. And they find a way to go in, and that's a huge component in winning. We nailed that draft pick. We got to find a way to keep him home. I love the way he plays the game,

and he's a guy that we cannot let out of the building but I love to see Brian O'Neill coming back off the injury and looking great not a huge problem like with some question marks off the Achilles coming into the season white back into form Christian Derrissaw on the other side being who he is really really happy and really excited for the future of the tackle position for the Vikings. It is a twisted irony that the Vikings had good pass blocking in a year where Kirk Cousins got hurt year after year after year of this man being beaten down because no one can block and he survives and then gets hurt. Anyway, that's a Vikings history for you. For me, love to see it is on the defensive side and I'm going to kind of pool a

couple of things. I will put into my love to see it pool, Brian Flores and all the creativity and ability to identify talent that he brought to the picture and he will continue going forward. He didn't get any opportunities head coaching wise. I can't say I'm shocked considering the circumstances, but that is a huge win for the Vikings organization. And for him to identify someone like Josh Metellus, who went from a special teamer who we weren't even sure going into 2022 was going to be on the 53-man roster to, I turned on NFL Network and saw Josh Metellus, and they're having a breakdown film. The world recognizing how good Josh Metellus is, how talented, how intelligent that guy is, a physical player, playmaker. Very cool to see the emergence of a guy like that.

I would also add Cam Bynum to this list, another player we were kind of, I don't know, can he play or not? Had a very good breakout season. And I would say the best story of the 2023 season, Ivan Pace Jr., not just good, a borderline star level performance for them in 2023 after being undrafted. I don't know that I've ever seen anything quite like that. Usually UDFAs, it's year three and you're're like, oh, wow, this guy developed. He's got his chance for Pace Jr. right away.

Biggest love to see it. All these guys will go forward with the Vikings defense. And I think we didn't know any of them going into the season that they were going to be there. Yeah, that's a great point. And, you know, one thing I've noticed, there's been more UDFAs kind of on a broad spectrum from the NFL that have contributed early and played because,

and a lot of this is my agent side coming out here, the classes have gotten so big because of the extra COVID years, right? A normal draft class is usually around 700, right? 700 draft eligible seniors. The last few years since everyone got the COVID, it's been closer to a thousand, right? So there's guys that are, should be drafted year in and year out should be draft picks, whether it's late in day three or early day three, that kind of just fall through the cracks and fall in and no one really knows why. And then all of a sudden they make teams. I think of Kobe Turner from the Rams, right? Undrafted guy up for defensive rookie of the year as an undrafted free agent right those type of guys are falling down draft boards and there's two more years left of this nonsense thank

god and then it's going to be over but that's a great piece on and that was a huge win for the scouting department for the vikings right in a place that sometimes gets criticized and for rightfully so for some times of the scouting of the players to bring in huge win for those guys and those scouts that's found him identified him as a big udfa target if he fell from the draft and brought him in so great piece by evan he's gonna be at the signal caller there at the with the departure of eric kendricks that was a big piece that needed to be filled and they found their guy there which is great so interesting too that the price tag on undrafted free agents has shot up and maybe as an agent you

appreciate that but i remember when they signed a guy named cory robertson who obviously didn't make it out of camp for like fifty thousand dollars and we were like whoa okay i'll everybody keep an eye on this guy and i think ivan pace jr got five times that to come to the minnesota vikings and clearly uh they identified that talent and were able to bring him in. But I don't think anybody would have expected that he would have been as good as he was right away. So that's another guy who's a piece for a long time. Now, as far as hate to see it goes, there's the obvious. I hated to see Kirk Cousins tear his Achilles and send the season spiraling.

But let me throw this out. That makes it kind of even worse is we just don't have an answer. Still, what I hate to see is that we went into 2023 saying by the end of this year, we're going to have answers. Is Kirk here or not? What are they going to do in the next draft? Where is this franchise stand in the bigger picture of an NFC North that could be very powerful by the end of the year and now is, and we're still sitting here talking about whether they're going to bring back Kirk Cousins. How is it possible? How is it possible? We still somehow don't have that answer and we will soon within a month, almost exactly a month, but to come out of it with a seven win season doesn't get you to the top of

the draft doesn't say that either that you're right on the cusp doesn't say you could clearly get rid of Kirk or you should clearly bring him back and we just spin around in circles again that's kind of how it feels coming out of this yeah we definitely ended the season with more questions than answers and that's a hard thing to do. And the harder piece of it is we don't really know who this team is. Right. We can't plug and say this team was Kirk Cousins away from being an 11 win season.

Right. Were they how they started the year? Like, I don't know. Maybe they were going to get it turned around. Maybe if everyone played like they did, or was Cousins kind of a galvanizing point when like, Hey, rally behind our guys and Dobbs coming in winning two games like there was just so much around the horn but yeah obviously that's the easiest hate to see it of kirk cousins leaving

and now the giant question marks that loom around his contract do we bring him back do we let him walk how much is he worth yada yada yada like that's just going to be a distraction luckily for only another month and then it will settle itself and we'll be able to move on from the saga saga the cousin saga but i never thought that mike zimmer would have a job before we knew if kurt cousins was going to be back in minnesota purple or not i thought definitely we'd understand the other one first but to each their own mine is a bit more of a forecasting possible hate to see it okay possible hate to see it the vikings do not sign back to neil hunter and we could have traded him for picks that is a if we don't sign if we do sign him back okay i can live with it and i can understand that that was always the plan

if for whatever reason he walks he goes somewhere else someone someone else pays him a mega deal, and we could have traded him and developed picks for the future. That will be a big hate to see it for me come a month from now if that is how that all unfolds because you and I sat here debating back and forth. Do we keep him? Do we let him go? What's the idea? Are we rebuilding? Are we making a run? If he walks, we lost out on a major chance to grab some picks and rebuild with some young talent.

Sometimes there used to be a show it was called next edition or something like that and it had the guy from friday night lights in it the guy who played the coach gary chandler if i'm getting all these details wrong don't worry about it but this show, he used to get tomorrow's newspaper today. And when you said before the 49ers game, Hey, they should trade Daniel Hunter now, because if they don't, they're going to beat the 49ers and then decide that they're contenders. And then they're going to come short of the playoffs. It was like, did Jeremiah get tomorrow's newspaper today? And some, at some points through the season, it sort of felt like that, that we knew where this train was headed. And I remember even after Dobbs Mania, the first game, being like,

if this doesn't last, this is worse. And then we thought it was going to for a second. And of course, as backup quarterbacks do, it did not. But having that pivot point right there to where if you lose the rest of the way, how is that different than what happened? It's two games different. It's a little bit of fun in Atlanta and a little bit of fun against the new Orleans saints. And then the whole rest of the season went exactly how we would have dialed it up. If we got tomorrow's newspaper today, the minute that kirk cousins

tore his achilles and then at this moment i don't even think we're having the bring back kirk discussion if we're talking about this team drafting in the top five we're talking about trading up for drake may trading up for jayden daniels and being right on the doorstep of them making a huge play at quarterback and instead we we're having this like, well, at 11, do you do McCarthy? Do you do Nick's right? And it's sort of like, I know I just say McCarthy on purpose to watch your eyes pop out of your head. It seems like his momentum is gaining, but who knows? It just, that is to me, one of the biggest hate to see it's because this franchise has existed in the middle for so long and it was

like here it is if the football gods came down popped an achilles and said here you go vikings this is your shot to draft at the top and take your quarterback and they were like no no let us go get a journeyman backup who has two magical games and then we never hear from him again and and he won the slime award thing from Nickelodeon. So that was really sad when that was still at his locker at the end of the year and he wasn't playing anymore. But I mean, what you just said, I think, is the biggest regret slash hate to see it from the entire Viking season.

Yeah, it's just one of those things where we're going to look back and go, man, what if? That's the worst place to live in the world is the what if world of, man, what if this would have looked like that and build for the future and have draft capital to trade up if we really wanted to? Because that's the other piece of it. I think we have eight picks, right? So we have eight picks and we need all eight, right?

I don't think that we're in a place as an organization that we can package together some mid-round picks to move up and then not afford to have a third, fourth, fifth, or next year's third, or next year's second. We are in a spot as an organization where we need young talent to come in and contribute. And the best way to do that is through the draft, right? You can get lucky with the Ivan paces and identify guys later in the draft that can come in and hopefully be contributors.

But you look across the league all across rounds one through three dudes that are contributing on super bowl level teams and finding ways to go so i'm gonna kick myself if we let him walk and he goes and gets to make a contract with the jaguars when we probably could have got at least a second round pick for him throw out a couple quick more hate to see it's they won seven games there's more hate to see it than love to see it unfortunately uh one is tj hawkinson when he got hurt how he got hurt this is an injury that's going to take him into next season he was one of the heroes of the year through the middle of the season when kirk went uh down and then he

ends up with a great year and that trade ends up working out and he's not old and you're feeling really good about putting him, you know, plugging him back in. And then now he gets an injury. Now you're set back for the start of next season. It's going to take a while to get back to a hundred percent. That's a major hate to see it as well. And my biggest, maybe other than the broad, cause we never know how it's going to work out. Dante Culpepper was the 11th pick. Maybe it'll all settle itself and be fine. But maybe like from a broad perspective of hate to see it, everything regarding Justin Jefferson, like he gets hurt during the season. And then because he is up for a contract, as is the case for the collective bargaining agreement. Now he gets to be a diva. Now he gets to be greedy. Now he accidentally says break the bank so everybody falls in love with

that now everybody wants to trade him because they don't understand how contracts are structured that he's not going to immediately have a 35 million dollar cap hit and and just like my mind every day explodes when i get five emails or dms a day trying to explain to me why you should give away one of the best players on earth. And I just like, I hate to see all of that. It's totally unnecessary. And you know, San Francisco has players who get paid money and made the super bowl. It's incredible, but just everything involved with that and contracts and potential holdouts and calling people divas. It just drives me insane hate to see all of it yeah i couldn't agree with you more i hate to see that because it's such a complicated

web when you start getting into extensions and when does the cap hit and how can you spread that cap hit out amongst the team every great team has superstars that get paid that's just how it goes and when you have the superstar, you have to pay him the money. Like there's no, oh, well, he should just love us. He should just love it here and just want to be here. It doesn't work like that. I played this game. I played this game. I beat the crap out of my body for a long time. We play this game to make money. Don't make any mistake about it. We love this game and we are blessed to play this game. But at the end of the day, we are doing it to make money

to set ourselves up for the rest of our life. And if you're good, and we have a kind of a running agency joke where Zach and I will look at each other and be like, man, that guy got paid that? Ah, should have been better in college. Right? Like when you get drafted high, and it's like, oh, should have been better in the NFL with those guys that get paid.

You play well, you get paid. That's the way it goes. Jefferson has performed well to the best of his ability to be the best. He deserves to be paid the best. He's not a diva. He's not asking for something he hasn't already deserved. It's one thing when one guy, we'd be having a different conversation about Alexander Madison, which is one of my hates to see.

It's saying, I want to break the bank. Totally different conversation than the best doing it. I agree. I hate with all of that. I'll come in with another quick hate to see it. The Alexander Madison experiment failing in flames, right? Moving on from Dalvin cook,

which I do think was the right move. I do agree with that was probably time to let him walk with what his cap hit was going to be letting him walk, letting him go moving on, but putting all your chips in on Alexander Madison and it not working out was a huge hate to see it for this Vikings offense because our run game was abysmal all year Ty Chandler should have gotten more opportunities he was a bright spot at the end I'm still not convinced he can be the guy for 16 18 games going forward we'll see but that was a really tough thing to see is just the complete overall lack of running game starting

with the running back position yeah I agree and I madison earned that uh over his career showed that he could be a starter and it just didn't work out whether it was scheme or fit or pressure that he put on himself which i wondered about throughout the year it seemed like he was just trying too hard and being impatient uh but also when not that i'm saying ezra cle Cleveland was like the great left tack or great, great left guard of the NFL, but you replaced him with a guy who really can't run block at all. And so it, there was always a weakness as well. And I think Ty Chandler could make up for some of that with his quickness,

but I don't think Alexander Madison could. And he took a lot of abuse. I mean, the fantasy football community can be very fun or very insane. And I thought that was not deserved for the person that he is and the careers had so far to get beaten down like that by fantasy football people was pretty tough to watch throughout the season. I'll give you a little bit of a projected going forward. Hope I don't have to hate to see it. Is conflict between the general manager and the head coach for the direction of this team.

Because one thing I've wondered about since the end of the season, is the head coach going to want his old quarterback, who he feels like he can coach him up and knows the offense, and is the GM going to say, well, he was quoted once as saying, you need a great quarterback to win not a good quarterback and that has played out many times i i would hate to see it if there ends up being some sort of head-butting schism this is the potential to split a front office and head coach away from each other with this type of decision if they can't get on the same page

so i will hate to see it if that ends up happening yeah and we've we've seen that movie before right we've seen that movie before in very recent history like it wasn't like oh many moons ago no this was it never goes well it never goes well when you the nfl is so hard to win and when you're fractured at the top it sprinkles down to players, people picking sides, the whole bit. Any distraction like that makes it tough to win, so I agree with you. That would be awful. I hope it doesn't happen. I feel like KOC and Kweisi have done a nice job weathering certain storms

that come together and being a united front that goes there, but no one's knowing what's standing behind those closed doors, and the combine will be a little more revealing as things go on, but I agree with you. I really hope that doesn't happen. Folks, have you ever heard of test driving a phone network? I did not make this up. It is an actual thing. And U.S. Cellular is letting you test drive their network for free for 30 days. You can try out U.S. Cellular wherever you have that spotty service, like on your commute to work, that one spot in your house where your service dips. Test drive U.S. Cellular at your kid's school on parent-teacher night. Okay, maybe still pay attention, but by all means, make sure you test it.

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Yeah, I'm very interested to see how they both talk to us like the the message i'm sure is going to be thought out before they arrive there but what did they come up with that they want to tell us about this and what are they willing to kind of pull back the curtain on a little bit um you know from kevin o'connell's perspective i would think he would want to pick his own quarterback i mean usually there's that sort of saying is you begin your tenure as a head coach when you pick your quarterback. But at the same time, I think also the guy really believes in his scheme and thinks all I need is a guy to just stand in there and throw it to somebody. And you know, what's funny about that is that I feel like a lot of Hills have been died on with quarterbacks like that. Just execute my scheme, just execute my scheme. And here's Kyle Shanahan still without a Super

Bowl because somebody else who doesn't need the scheme to work made a play. And it's like, that's, that's football, man. That's like football history is some guy who's really good trying to execute a scheme versus John Elway running around and making a play and winning a Superbowl. So I guess the exception is Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, but not too many of those. So how about the bigger picture, the national football league? I'll throw you out a quick one. I hated to see Aaron Rogers get hurt. Obviously Aaron Rogers is not my kind of guy, but I wanted to see how it was going to work. Like Robert Sala didn't deserve that. I think he's a good coach. And if it went down in flames on the field, that would have been like fun to watch.

If it had been really exciting and into the playoffs, that would have been entertaining to watch. But instead we just see this jerk on TV running his yap again over and over all season. I would have much rather just watched him play football than tell me what Facebook says. So I just, I hated that whole thing. That was the biggest hate to see it of the year for me. Sticking with the quarterback, my biggest hate to see it is we didn't get to see Joe Burrow at all this year. Like, we really got to see maybe a half of what Joe Burrow really was I mean coming into training

camp I believe I picked the Bengals to win the Super Bowl on this show at the beginning of the year along with many of the other scribes and pundits out there in the world but to see him get hurt immediately in training camp fight back through that to start the beginning of the year be a statue back there defenses smelling blood in the water and just trying to murder him because they knew he couldn't move. Finally gets a little bit mobility back, gets the bangles back on the right track and then bang the wrist. Like he is, everything is advertised when you put them up there with the Mahomes and

the Allens and the Bradys and the, all the greats He's right there, but he kind of got forgotten about this year because he got hurt. And you want to talk contracts, this was kind of the year before his big contract started to get kicked in. So hate that we didn't get to see Joe Burrow this year. He's super fun to watch. Another one of those dudes that you just love him. It's hard to watch him and hate him.

He handles himself the right way. He says the right things. He's got that moxie on the field. Hate the fact that we didn't get to see prime Joe Burrow this year. As far as love to see it goes, I feel like the football gods handed out a little bit of justice throughout this year. And one of them was Daniel Snyder,

no longer owning the Washington commanders who I hope go back to Washington football team, because I thought that was pretty cool, or anything that's not Commanders. Just forget that ever happened. That was Daniel Snyder's idea. It was almost like he tanked the name. Like, fine, if you're going to make me change my name, I'm going to change it to the worst thing in the world.

Blank slate that. Blank slate that. Yes, yes. So best of luck to the new ownership that is just not a war crime and uh i thought that was good also i'm gonna say this and you might call me salty just from growing up in buffalo and so forth but bill belichick is a great coach an all-time great coach i can't take away his rings nor would i try but boy is he different without tom brady ain't he ain't he just a little bit there just a little bit this little bit and i

think brady revealed in some documentary he's doing of that uh he couldn't wait to run away from what belichick had become there to get to tampa bay weird how all that works a little bit of uh a little bit of the curtain being pulled back on the reality of the nfl it's the quarterback it's not the coach and it was never more on display than that oh belichick's a genius he gets rid of receivers and brings in nobodies oh yeah how's that work with mac jones and bailey zappy my guy i love to see it yeah that's that's your buffalo that's your buffalo native in there you just you can't repress that hatred that you've had of just watching tom brady march up and down orchard park every single year time and time again and just rubbing it in their faces so i i'll agree with the fact that i love the fact

hold on i don't want to say this i will agree with you that i love that everyone is finally going to give tom his credit no matter what it's undisputed that was the question when he left who was it right is it this guy is it that guy who is it no questions asked settle the argument close the book it's done it's tom brady not taking away from what they did together right what they did together was special but I think the same thing will be said at the end of the day about Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid at the end of the day it will be about Patrick Mahomes it will be about what Andy Reid did and how he put him in position but without Mahomes there was no Andy Reid in my opinion that might I might get killed for that I think it it's the truth. But that book is closed. It's 100% Tom Brady.

I got to love slash hate to see it. It depends what camp you stand on. The Denver Broncos. And what happened there this year with the Russell Wilson debacle, right? Sean Payton comes in. They say, hey, you, you don't get your own office anymore. You don't get to be all this high and mighty. You don't get to do all this.

You're part of the team. You're one of us. We surround you. We're all together in this. And then halfway through the year, you'll be like, so about that injury guarantee, we're going to go ahead and not do that. And you're cool with that, right?

And then painting him to be the bad guy in all this. And it almost, when you look back to some of the stuff that's been said from the day Peyton took over to when it all blew up, it almost felt like this was part of his master plan all along. Peyton Russell is the bad guy. Make him out to be the guy that no one wants to be around, and he's about me, and then find a way to ax him out with keeping my hands clean. No blood on my hands. And it kind of blew up in his face a little bit.

And so either you're a Broncos fan and you hated to see it or you're russell wilson hated and you love to see it right i think there's a lot of san fran fans are like i love watching russell wilson just get killed but it was just such a train wreck right you couldn't look away from it year week after week they start terrible they come back then this happens that was just a weird thing for me to watch all year and i went back and forth on who i felt was the bad guy in denver but it was definitely this kind of love hate thing for me because i i love the broncos deep down kind of like you said there's a piece of it still really loves the broncos from growing up watching elway and trail davis and shannon sharp but then there's another piece of me that was like this this is disastrous and i hate this and i love this at all at the same time well the broncos uh when you know when i was

growing up for such a cool franchise and mike shan, talk about a guy who is one of the GOATs and also had a great quarterback, which is kind of how I think of Andy Reid, by the way, because he got a lot out of Donovan McNabb, ton of success there, a lot out of Alex Smith, and then you gave him Superman, and now it's unstoppable. But I feel like that's a little bit more of a pair. And with Belichick, look, if Belichick coached the Vikings, he'd be Mike Zimmer. He would have had number one defenses and everything. And if his quarterback got hurt instead of Tom Brady, he would be Mike Zimmer. So it's like some people just get lucky. But to your point about the Denver Broncos,

I hate to see when a great player is no longer great and he's trying and he's struggling. And I felt that way a little bit with like Pedro Martinez at the end of his career. And he's throwing 88 and you go like, he was the throw 98. And this is how it feels about Russell Wilson. When Russell Wilson was at his best, he was dropping dimes left and right. He was running away from people. He was juking. He was scrambling. He was one of the most fun quarterbacks to watch in the league. And now it's not fun. And him trying to like be the rah-rah guy is more sad than it is exciting or doesn't get you pumped up. It's kind of like, oh, that's not really who he is. And he's trying. And with Sean Payton, oh, what a shock that Sean Payton would not be a great guy.

I just can't believe it. Hopefully Netflix makes another movie about him with the Broncos and the whole thing like they did with him getting suspended from the NFL. Please. Here's my shocked face that Sean payton would have a personality conflict oh wait another guy who got to be a genius because of a drew breeze yeah uh-huh yep so for me it was entirely feeling bad for russell wilson because i just don't think he has it anymore and then he is ends up caught in the middle but a team that traded for him a coach that he thought

was going to be there and then gets fired and they bring in somebody else. And then immediately Sean Payton trashes his other coach. It just was, you know, what a calamity that entire franchise was for the entire season. Now there is a love to see it, hate to see it here with the NFC North, because as an enjoyer of front office decisions. We like to talk about them and analyze them. The NFC North executing their plans one by one. There's those tanking lions off to the NFC championship. Hey, they drafted a quarterback when they didn't need to. And now he looks great in Green Bay. And there they tanked in Chicago and played Tim Boyle in front of me

last year, which I'll never get that three hours back. And then they traded the pick. Now they pick number one and number nine, all these teams doing the right things. And there's a little bit of like, Hey, these are things that we asked the Vikings to do. But of course, from a Vikings perspective, they hate to see how well everything worked out in the NFC North. But for me, it's like the whole time I was going, that's going to be a problem if that works out. Oh, now that's really going to be a problem if that works out. And then they all did. And guess what?

It is a problem for the future for the Vikings. Yeah, huge problem. I mean, the NFC North is going to come in next year, depending what Chicago does with that pick, who they bring in, some pieces they can add in free agency because they also have a lot of cap room, right? So that means the Vikings very well could come into next year's power rankings as fourth in the NFC North. It's a very real possibility. I don't necessarily want to hang my hat on that and plant the stake in it just yet.

But looking across, if you were to say today say today rank them i'd have a hard time switching chicago and minnesota based off of where they're standing right now going into the free agency and going into the draft so agree isn't as a vikings fan you hate to see the emergence of those teams but as a football fan you love to see detroit finally back to some type of relevancy and even almost climbing all the way to the top. Jordan Love coming into his own there in the end, and then the question marks and the excitement that's in Chicago of who's going to be the next guy. So I agree with you on that. I have another love to see it.

My love to see it is, I'm just going to say it, Patrick Mahomes. The fact that we get to watch him. The fact that we are in an era of watching that dude and that guy when everyone was like, San Francisco is a better football team. They are. They have better talent. They have better guys, but they don't have 15. And when we get to watch that and every single person looked at that clock and went one minute 53 seconds this game's either going into overtime or they're going to win it there was no option of san francis going to win this game that never

even crossed into my mind and then the second san francisco kicked the field goal my brain went this game's over this game this game's over i've seen this movie before with greats and here we got to watch 15 just right down the field and we watched him will his team over and over again and as much as it's easy to hate the greatest and he's gonna get a lot now he's gonna fall into that Brady where everyone's rooting against him and I'll find myself in that camp too but as a lover of football and a lover of the greats I'm excited that we live in a time where we get to watch truly one of the greatest guys operate every single Sunday. And I agree. And, you know, we were talking about Brady earlier and by the way, I, I never hated Brady, uh, as much as I was just blown away by him and frustrated that other people got painted

as geniuses because of his genius. Uh, but as far as Patrick Mahomes, one of the things I enjoyed the most about his success that never gets old is one, who he is and just how he's always carried himself as a mega star of the league. You just couldn't ask for a better person to be the best player in the world. And even when they do those NFL films, where they mic up everybody in the Superbowl and you see how he leads his team, you see his calmness in the biggest situations. It truly is to me like a Steve Young or a John Elway type of effect with the way that guy just checks every single box of true greatness. But one of the things I really enjoy about it is that nobody, and I say no one, he was a first round pick, but nobody believed in him when he was coming out. I mean, I'm sure there

were some and Kansas city was one, but there was a lot of the draft analysis world. A lot of the NFL who said, you can't do it this way. You can't play this way. You've got to have better footwork. You've got to do it that this guy just runs around his offense in college. Isn't good enough, or it isn't right. Or he didn't win enough games in college with Cliff Kingsbury and all that stuff. And he came out and just showed I'm different. And I think that's awesome. And there's a little bit of that like with Steph Curry.

And again, like we're talking about first round picks. He's not Brock Purdy. But Steph Curry was sort of the same way. Well, he's too small. He's not a good enough athlete. And they overlooked the greatness within the guy. And I think there was a lot of overlooking of the greatness. So for him to do it and not just be the number one overall pick, I think is very cool. There is a little bit of hate to see it just because it feels inevitable

now. Like who else is going to win ever? I mean, the guy's not old. He's not even close to old. And when he doesn't even play his best game and they still win, you're like, geez, I don't know. Like, what do you do? What does anyone do with this? Right. Congrats to the runners up of the, you know, whoever makes it from the NFC.

Congrats to the runners up in the future. Geez. Yeah. I got another quick love to see it. And this is more for where the NFL is going. I love to see the reemergence of the player coach the player coach right the NFL kind of goes in these cycles of like what type of coaches right for a long time was the Sean McVay's the geniuses the the schemers the great and like that was great

once super rolls but we're seeing guys like D'Amico Ryan's coming back in the league Jim Harbaugh's back he's bringing Navarro Bowman in as his linebackers coach, right? You see Mayo taking the head job up in New England. We're starting to see the emergence of former players coming back into the coaching sphere, which I think is good for the overall NFL. Whenever you have guys that have been there and did it at a high level for a long time, coaching the youth of the new era coming into the NFL, it's only going to lead to good things. Like that never really, in my opinion, goes down a bad path because the guys that were cancers or the guys that were problems,

they don't get into coaching. That's not what they want to do. It's the guys that truly love football and truly love the development of the game that put themselves back into a coaching world where they're going to make less money, work more hours, way less fun, but they just truly love the game so much that they want to give back to the next generation. I think it's a really good thing for the NFL.

Yeah, I like that. And the Vikings have several of those guys on their staff, including Kevin O'Connell, Chris Cooper, also Keenan McCardle, who I think another guy that I just go, can we get Keenan an offensive coordinator job? Because he's been one of the best, if not the best wide receiver coach in the game for quite a long time. A guy that when they fired the whole staff was the only one who stayed because that's how the wide receivers thought of him. So I think that says a lot. Yeah, I like that.

I like especially when it's guys who I grew up watch playing. And then you're like, this is cool. Like I played with that guy in Madden, but players coach. See, initially I thought you meant just coaches who understand their players and who listen to their players. And gosh, when you watch back the mic'd up Superbowl stuff, you just get such a great sense for how much these guys understand the game. And a lot of them could

coach themselves. And it's just like, if you treat them like the employees, and this is a little message from Mike Zimmer returning to the NFL. If you treat them like the employees, as opposed to the coworkers, you're going to get run out of town. And I think this is the thing that Kevin O'Connell has done the best and a thing that former players understand how much players know, how much credit and respect to give them while also leading them as well. So I agree. Yeah, there's been definitely an emergence of that. And I'll be very curious to see how some of those guys do. Now, before we wrap up and put a bow on this podcast for another season between us, It's been magical, sometimes frustrating, not because of you or I, but to talk about losses and so forth.

But we need to do some Talk Me Into for the finale here. So I want you to talk me into this all working out. Talk me into this all working out because we just laid it out. The NFC North, we laid out the hate to see it's the potential headbutting. We, we, we covered it all. Talk me into it all working. I think the way that this all comes together is it starts with your hate to see it. If it could happen is that we have a united front in the front office for the

direction of this football team, the direction in the front office for the direction of this football team the direction with the quarterback position the direction of what next year realistically is really going to look like not having a gm that says we're rebuilding and the head coach goes we're gonna win right so a united front on all those things i think it moves with her cousins moves on to the next realm of wherever he goes atl most likely would be my guess. And we find our guy. And it all works out because the guy we draft at 11 or the guy we move up to take at quarterback is a star. And he's a dude. And maybe he's not a dude right away,

but you see some Josh Allen rookie year magic of, I see where this guy is going to go. And that is going to have to be the critical pivotal point that goes. We add some pieces and we get some really good guys on kind of the back half of their career on the defensive side of the ball in free agency that don't cost us an arm and a leg, but are big time contributors. Nothing against Dean Lowry. A lot of respect for the dude. Played a long time in the league, but he didn't contribute like we needed him to this year. We did wasted money on a Marcus Davenport.

I know he got injured, but that was a lot of money down the drain. We can't hit on those. That can't happen to us this type of year if we want it all to work out. But in my mind, and I may be different than you, working out next year is scraping a 10-win season together. That's a working out in my mind.

Not saying we're going to go blow the doors off the NFL, but to have a 10, maybe even a 9-win season with some big wins in the division over Detroit, over Green Bay, and setting ourselves up going into the next class of, hey, we have our quarterback, now let's build around him. That's what works out for me as what I'm looking for in next year's Vikings.

That's what I hope. That's what I hope it works out for. And that's the path for this future. Working out by definition in my mind would be you go into 2025 feeling like you are on the edge of breaking through and having a serious contender. I guess working out would also be if they brought back kirk and went to the nfc championship or better that's it that's it that's it that's the only option but that one i won't even ask you to talk me into because i don't want to do i don't know how you would i don't want to do it i don't i don't i don't want to even try. What do you want me to talk you into? Talk me into why next year we can find ourselves winning the NFC North. Can I injure people? I think, well, I would say this.

If they bring back Cousins, they could win the NFC North. I mean, that has happened with him. And if they do it, then they're probably going to spend like drunken sailors in free agency because they have no other way to fill this roster with talent. And if you tell me it's happening through the draft, look at first-year players for almost everywhere. You can get contributors. Every once in a while, you get a great first-year players for almost everywhere. You can get contributors. Every once in a while, you get a great first-year player. But difference makers, guys who move the needle, who give you more wins, that's usually not until their second and third years, even if they are a good player.

So you'd have to go into free agency and get Saquon Barkley. You'd have to get Grover Stewart or Josh Allen, the pass rusher, or Brian Burns or, or, or some real star talent on the defensive side, because you got basically nothing there. And then you'd have to say, Hey, 2025 salary cap, 2026 salary cap, who cares? Like that's the, that's the only way. And then you'd have to have some serious regression from some players who were really good in their young age in Detroit, which is hard to see. You would have to have some serious regression from some players who are really good in their young age in Detroit, which is hard to see. You would have to have some serious Jordan Love regression. He would have to play like the first half of the year for the entire year. And then in Chicago, I mean, Chicago, I don't think is a threat with Caleb Williams to win the division.

So it's really Green Bay and Detroit. One quarterback gets hurt. Somebody regresses. Maybe you've got a chance. If you don't bring back cousins, then it is a much longer shot. Maybe if they got Baker Mayfield or the Sam Darnold idea came up. I didn't expect. When I threw that out to you, I didn't expect that.

I did talk myself into that because if he was paired with a rookie quarterback, okay, I'll take that. That's not a huge deal. If he's the rookie quarterback, okay, I'll take that. Not a, that's not a huge deal. If he's the guy for the franchise, then I'm scared. But if he's paired with someone else, that's totally fine.

He's proven he could be a backup for a younger quarterback. So that's all right. But that's the best I can do basically is if they were to bring back Kirk, he plays great. Jefferson is offensive MVP and they sign a bunch of guys and none of them get hurt in free agency. And other than that, it's okay if they draft someone and it's a transition year and a development year for that player and they could still be somewhat competitive. I like it. I'm in on it. Okay. So let me, let me throw you one last one. Talk me into.

Talk me into the Minnesota Vikings reach the Super Bowl within the next five years. This is your hardest challenge maybe I have ever laid at your feet on this show. In the next five years, the Vikings make it or or win win it doesn't matter doesn't the other it starts with keeping our talent in-house we have to keep the guys that we've developed and we've drafted in-house addison hawkinson derisaw jeff, and so on and so forth. You don't let your, it's inevitable. You're going to lose a couple, but you don't let those dudes walk strictly because you think I can't afford them. Or we want to play the game of maybe we get rid of them before they regress. You need to have the core group there to make that run. The guys that have been through the trials and the tribulations like this year that are now on the back top part of that contract, or maybe on their first year of a big

free agency deal to lead the charge of pushing the rock up the hill. And you start with that, you start with your core group, and then you have to have a great trigger man. It has to be at the quarterback position. The trigger man has to be elite. Not good, elite. And whether that's through the draft, whether that's we draft a guy this year and it's two, three years from now and it doesn't work out,

but we've built a really good team on a rookie salary quarterback and we go pluck whoever the next great free agent is at quarterback at the time, whoever that guy is that is captaining the ship of that Vikings in five years has to be an elite quarterback. We also have to have the next Daniil Hunter at the time, whoever that guy is that is captaining the ship of that Vikings in five years has to be an elite quarterback.

We also have to have the next Daniil Hunter, and we have to have the next Xavier Rhodes or Trey Waynes lockdown corner. You have to have a pass rusher and a lockdown corner on defense that are all pro-type calibers that can work tandemly well together, a la Micah Parsons and Bland, Micah Parsons and Diggs, right? Guys that can ball hawk, go get the football, create turnovers. Because until we start winning more of the turnover battle and living on the plus side of that point differential, which comes a lot from turnovers, then we're not going to be there. So you pair those type of things together,

you have a trigger man, and then again, you get the crystal ball that says everyone stays healthy, right? Everyone stays healthy or everyone gets healthy at the right time, right? Everyone's back to full strength come December 15th. And you've battled through the season with an 11 and 12 win season. You've clinched first in the division to host a home playoff game. And now you've got your full group, your full core. Everyone's together and you make the run to the Super Bowl. Why does it feel like we should have

keith jackson or something saying it all comes down to this like that's how this month feels it all comes down to this and where their timeline is will depend in my mind on how they handle this and if cousins does come back i'm gonna have to really be sold on the rest of the plan, the draft, the free agency for how you're going to change an entire career's worth of not being able to get to that position with him at quarterback. But if they do, then hope will spring eternal for Vikings fans if they do end up drafting a quarterback and going in a new direction. And then I feel like that five-year plan becomes possible. Nothing is probable in a 32-team league, but possible? Maybe. And that's

the best way to describe doing a Vikings podcast is just saying, is it possible? Maybe. Maybe it is. It has been a magical year though with you and I. I mean, this is our fourth year doing this. It's been so much fun. And what's funny is no matter how many shows we do, I still learn from you all the time, from your incredible knowledge as a player, as an agent, and as a friend as well. So we have had a great time.

I'll see you in Indy for sure. And maybe we'll chat there as well. But you'll be in and out, but not every single week as you were during the season. But I just can't tell you how much I appreciate you showing up here every week,

depending on which day, sometimes Tuesday, sometimes Wednesday. But it means a lot to me. It means a lot to the audience. So just can't thank you enough, man. It was a great season. I appreciate you having me.

I have fun with this every year. I look forward to it every week. I've got to meet a lot of new people on Twitter, new followers and all that. So I appreciate everyone that tunes into the show every single week and listens to my big dumb ass say certain things that sometimes I don't know what I'm saying. Sometimes I do, but I appreciate you guys talking me through it and just going through. And again, I have a lot of love for the Vikings always have. I mean, they were, I spent the majority of my team, so my time in the NFL. So I'm excited to be here talking about them and trust me i want nothing for the best for them either but of course the show does not end and

we'll be breaking down uh incredible amounts of speculative uh things in the nfl and rumors and everything oh yeah we'll be there we will be there uh so thanks again jeremiah thanks everybody for watching slash listening and we will catch you all next time