Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Jordan Love is going to be a PROBLEM for the Vikings future

Episode Date: January 15, 2024

Matthew Coller talks about a huge day for Jordan Love and the Green Bay Packers and the Lions' win against the Rams and how it should impact the Vikings direction Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 🎵 Everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. Thanks for joining. Late at night following the Minnesota, wait, not following Minnesota Vikings game, following the Detroit Lions playoff win over the Los Angeles Rams and also a big day for the Green Bay Packers defeating the Dallas Cowboys. So we're going to talk about everything involved and what this means to the Minnesota Vikings. Happy to take your

questions, comments, and everything else involved as we go forward. So I'll just start off the conversation, then we can have some back and forth here. We'll begin with what I just saw, which is the Detroit Lions winning a playoff game. And that is something that I have some back and forth here. We'll begin with what I just saw, which is the Detroit Lions winning a playoff game. And that is something that I have not seen in a very, very long time in my life. And this Detroit Lions team, despite giving up, I don't even know how many yards to Matthew Stafford. It had to be close to 400. Somehow found a way to hang on and jared goff the quarterback traded from the los angeles rams makes a big throw at the end of the game to get a first down and sean mcveigh who has never

been very good at game management and not not very good at handling his timeouts had none left and gave away any final chance that the r Rams would have had to get another stop there. And the game just sort of ends and almost felt like, wait a minute, there should have been more fireworks here. There should have been more to this. And instead, you end up with the Detroit Lions winning. They advanced the divisional round. Their defense was problematic all day, but did just enough. Matthew Stafford had an incredible overall performance, but that throw at the end of the game looked like it might have been pass interference on Detroit, and it didn't get called,

and thus brings it to an end. An incredible day also from Aiden Hutchinson, who kept Detroit's defense alive. Turns out that Detroit tearing it all down and drafting number two overall was kind of a big deal for them. But I think that we all know what the takeaway is from this game, from a Detroit Lions or from a Minnesota Vikings perspective with the Detroit Lions winning a playoff game and the Green Bay Packers blowing out the Dallas Cowboys and Jordan Love had one incompletion at the end that robbed him from having a perfect passer

rating. The big takeaway from a Minnesota Vikings perspective is simple. It's that it's not going to be good enough. Whatever you did before is not going to be good enough going forward. Because when the Vikings won 13 games in 2022, the division had two teams that were not trying to win. They had two teams that were tanking, tearing it all down in Chicago and Detroit. The Vikings got a lot of wins against Detroit and Chicago over the last few years as they were bringing their teams down or on the down slope. And now we see the Detroit Lions, they're at the top now. They are a legitimate contender and will go to the divisional round with a chance to go deep. I think that their defense may hold them back from that, but their offense has so many weapons, such a good offensive line. They've got a running game. They can check it down. They can throw it deep. Amin Ross St. Brown is a star and Jared Goff

continues to be probably the most underappreciated quarterback in the NFL for X number of years. Never got the appreciation in Los Angeles because everyone always said it was McVay. He lost to Belichick and Brady in a Super Bowl, which many have done because he got traded to the Lions. The narrative seemed to be that he wasn't a very good quarterback and today has a great game against the Los Angeles Rams defense. There were a few funky moments mixed in as there always are, but if Jared Goff is leading this team into the future, which he is, they're going to be here. They're going to be in the playoffs. They have everything. They have everything on the offensive side set up for Jared Goff. And then on the defensive side, as poor as it might have been today,

go check out overthecap.com and take a look at the Lions cap space for next year. That's right. They've got a lot of it. According to overthecap.com, they have the sixth most cap space in the league next year. So all those free agents that you're looking up and saying, you know what, maybe the Vikings should go sign whoever Detroit can say, how about one more dollar? That's not a great place for the Vikings to be in. And that's not even the worst thing that happened to the Vikings today. The worst thing that happened is you can count on many more years of great quarterback play for the Green Bay Packers.

Jared Goff, no, not Jared Goff, Jordan Love. Sorry, it's late and I haven't had enough Diet Coke or Diet Dr. Pepper today. Jordan Love put together a marvelous performance, but it's not like it came out of nowhere. It's not like it was Nick Foles. It's not like it was random. He's been doing this for the entire second half of the season, including demolishing the Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium and looks like nothing short of a franchise quarterback. Love has arm talent, leadership capabilities. He runs that offense.

And by the way, he's got another one of those coaches who comes from that same coaching tree that runs all those play actions and screens and runs the football really well and has a ton of success. The Green Bay Packers are not only set up at the quarterback position, but they also have one of the youngest teams, if not the youngest team in the league. And they showed the graphic earlier today showing that they had the most receptions from first and second year receivers in the Super Bowl era in the NFL, which means that none of those guys are going away and that they will be

able to continue to add. And as they move out some of their older players for the Packers, their cap is going to get better and they're going to have more opportunities to sign players. And they are in a spot to legitimately compete for the division for many years to come. And today's the day where we had to say it's real folks. Not only did Jordan Love have the second most touchdown passes in the entire NFL, that's after having a tough stretch this year as he adapted and Matt LaFleur adjusted to him. That's after having some tough times and and Jordan Love uh showed up today in Dallas in a pressure pack situation and was as cool and calm and made great throws and executed everything the offense asked him to do even if Green Bay does not advance going forward because they're

still a flawed team I think their defense as you, couldn't close that game out, sort of allowed it to stay more interesting than it should have been toward the end. So they've still got some things to work through and could use maybe a veteran wide receiver at some point, but they've got an offensive line. They've got a coach who knows how to run the football and they can continue to build on what they have. And all of this means, by the way, Chicago's drafting number one and number nine. So the bears have two higher draft picks than the Minnesota Vikings, including number one. All of this is adding up to the fact that the Vikings cannot bring back her cousins. And if you're Kirk cousins, why would you come back? Because how would you make an argument right now that the Minnesota Vikings can compete with these teams? How could you make an argument that the Vikings can go do

what Jordan Love just did? Jordan Love just tied Kirk Cousins for career playoff wins, by the way. And Jared Goff just won a home playoff game. The last time the Minnesota Vikings won a home playoff game, 2017 on this date. It has been that long since the Vikings won a home playoff game and the Detroit Lions just did it. And Jordan Love just tied your quarterback that you're considering bringing back in playoff wins. How could you do that? How could you make the case that the Vikings in one off season this year

with a limited amount of cap space, they have some, but, and they can make more. So I did, you know, you don't need to tell me that they can make more players to retire, whatever, but how are they going to just walk into free agency and into the draft this year and be able to sign cousins, gather enough talent to put together in one off season to then go and compete with these teams that are just ahead of them now with these teams that have rebuilt and are now in this spot. They're just ahead of where the Vikings are. I mean, even the Chicago Bears roster and you go even position by position for what they have now, take away the free agents and just look at what they have now. Then look at the cap space, look what they have to build on. And then today, I mean, just for Jordan Love to do what he did and the idea that Jordan Love could be this team's quarterback for the next 10 years and be making throws like that, that arm talent is going absolutely nowhere. In fact, Jordan Love looks a lot like Matthew Stafford, to tell you the truth,

except for without some of the big mistakes that Stafford used to make. Now he's much better about that. But in terms of the arm talent, in terms of the high difficulty throws, the way that Jordan Love has executed for the Packers, it just raises the bar that you need to reach to win the division. It's not like it was just two years ago in the NFC North. And this is the thing about the NFL is that it's always changing. It's always rising and falling. Divisions are always getting stronger and weaker, and it's always changing and adapting. And you have to adjust accordingly because it suddenly got real today for the Vikings. So let's go back to what happened with Dallas. And another thing is an astounding meltdown

by the Dallas Cowboys. But where you have to be really impressed is the way that the Packers came out in their opening script in their game plan and the way that they were able to execute that game plan from the start. They just cruised down the field, scored immediately. And with Dak Prescott, I mean, it's amazing to me that Dak Prescott can lead number one offenses and then they get to the playoffs and it's like, he forgets how to play pick six interception in his own zone. And then off they go, the green Bay Packers, but they have a lot of talent and a lot of talent to work with in the future.

They had receivers running routes and getting open and they're two of their best receivers weren't even the guys making the biggest plays today. It was a Dontavian Wicks and Romeo Dobbs, but it wasn't even a Christian Watson or Jalen Reed. It was J Jalen Jaden. I've been, I've been having trouble with the Jalen's and Jaden's. But it wasn't even their two best receivers that were making plays. So they've got a lot to work with on offense and a coach that seems to really understand how to make the most of his quarterback in Jordan Love. And everything that was there for him, he made plays. Not to mention that everything that they do works off the running game. And I don't think that it that they do works off the running game and i don't think that it's just aaron jones with the running game although he's very good in green bay

it's also matt lafleur was in tennessee they were famous for their effective running game they played off of that with their quarterback they boosted up their quarterbacks there by using similar stuff to what jordan love is doing but instead of it being Ryan Tannehill or something, now it's a quarterback who can really make plays and make plays off script and make plays under pressure and everything you want to ask from Jordan Love. And I couldn't help but think about the quarterbacks the Vikings have let sit on the draft board over the years because they thought they were set at quarterback with Kirk Cousins, including Jordan Love. I know they took Justin Jefferson instead.

So that's fine. But Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson, a few years back, and here's the Packers using the same strategy, developing the guy over a couple of years. And he looks like a superstar quarterback. How are you going to compete with that for years? How are you going to compete with the lions for years? Their window to win is not just today with the cap space that they have and with the young players that they have. Jameer Gibbs, was it a good draft pick? I don't know. Probably not by the technical value of using a draft pick,

but look at him play. If you're going to face five years of Jameer Gibbs, that's pretty tough. Sam Laporta wasn't even supposed to play today, and he comes out and makes some plays in this game. And as long as they have Jared Goff with these players, you have Penny Sewell as well, Amin Ra St. Brown, Jamison Williams is just starting to get going. As long Jared Goff with these players, you have Penny Sewell as well. I'm in Ross St. Brown. Jameson Williams is just starting to get going. As long as golf has these weapons to work with, he's going to do stuff like this, which is play effective enough to get people the football, to keep drives going and to score enough points and have another top five offense for Jared Goff. So you're looking at a Packers team that in the second half of the year

with Jordan Love and then into the playoffs had top five type quarterback play. And then another team that has had back-to-back top five offenses. And then another team that is drafting number one overall and also has a top wide receiver. They're going to restructure their offensive, you know, the coaching staff and everything else. And then has the number nine overall pick the Vikings. If they think that they can just bring back their veteran quarterback, who has never gotten them into the top five as the starting quarterback of this team and has not gotten them

a home playoff win has only gotten one playoff win overall and they've had so many iterations of the same thing there's been the times they had a good defense which was in 2018 2019 the kind of rebuilding ish year the year where they tried to sign a bunch of free agents out of the bargain bin in 2021, when they got to Darius Smith in 2022 and won all the close games, and it still didn't matter when it came to the postseason. And then this year, when Cousins gets hurt,

they're 4-4, and if we're looking at the way the season played out, it might have been the Vikings today in Detroit losing instead of the Rams, but no doubt they were not going to have enough defense built up over the season, especially with a couple injuries to go deep in the playoffs. They didn't have a strong enough roster. And when we look at the off season roster,

it's not getting stronger. It's getting weaker, especially if they lose Daniil Hunter and Harrison Smith potentially to retirement and Jordan Hicks is a free agent. The entire defensive line has to be rebuilt and you have to compete with elite offenses now going forward. It's very hard to argue that the Packers won't be right back where they were at the top of the NFL after what we saw today and what we saw in the second half of the season and what we saw at U.S. Bank Stadium from the way that that team is set up. a tank type situation because if it was a tank type situation then it i mean i i don't know you'd be talking about not having any talent at all and they do have talent on the offensive side they do have two very good receivers they do have a tight end who i'm sure related to what he saw

from kirby joseph by the way hitting uh the rams tight end in the knees because that's exactly how TJ Hawkinson got hurt. But that's another part of it. So if the Vikings make the bet to bring back Kirk Cousins, you're going to be talking about bringing back a 36-year-old quarterback where you have to win right now with a tight end that's not 100% to come back at the beginning of the season after having an injury, Two good wide receivers, a good left and a good right tackle, but the interior is still up in the air. Imperfect at center and right guard and at left guard, there's an open spot and a free agent that, how's it going to be filled? There's just so much to do with this team that there's really only one

answer and it's not a one-year answer. And so when we hear this and this may be an ownership opinion, I don't know, but there are always people who say, I want to compete every year. I want to do everything we can to win as many games as we can every year. And I totally get that. But what, what does that mean for next year?

If you do everything you can to win next year in free agency, you put as many void years as it takes, you move all the cap space, and then what? Do you win 10 games? Even if you brought Daniil Hunter back, signed Cousins, added several more players that are in the ballpark of Byron Murphy type Marcus Davenport type signings is that good enough to compete with these teams is that good enough to compete with a team that just put up the offensive performance that they did against

Dallas a much better Dallas team than the Vikings have or even against Detroit. And Detroit had to be a really good Rams team. That Rams team was better than its record. Matthew Stafford had a great season. He was injured throughout the year, but when they were at full health and you saw how great of a player Puka Nakua is, this is another part of the conversation I was thinking about today as well. Not just the quarterbacks and the roster situations where everybody is, not just that, but also the fact that the Vikings are not the only team with a great wide receiver. There's lots of teams with great wide receivers here. I'm watching the Houston Texans and they throw a deep to Nico Collins and all of a sudden that guy's great. And then here you have today

where the Packers receivers are getting open, they're's great. And then here you have today where the Packers receivers are getting open. They're making plays. And then the night game is just a festival. Puka Nakua is unbelievable. And Amin Ross St. Brown is a star. And it's not like the Vikings have this massive advantage. DJ Moore is a star in Chicago. Where is the advantage that the Vikings have

if they bring back her cousins? And I think if you're trying to compare cousins and Jordan love right now, Jordan love is the more dangerous quarterback cousins is more advanced of course, but Jordan love is more gifted. He has, I mean, what a top three arm in the conference right away. And we already know what Jared Goff has done in his career. Another playoff win for him, a guy who gets criticized all the time for not being good enough. And yet a playoff win for, for Jared Goff, that team is farther ahead and going nowhere and they have elite receivers and they can rebuild their defense. I mean, there is no answer in my opinion that involves bringing back Kirk Cousins. The only way to get somewhere

in this division for the Vikings is to draft a quarterback now and try to plot out for 2025 to be your year to compete with these teams again, because next year, it's just not very likely to happen. And look, other teams can have bad luck and so forth. Another team could have, uh, you know, an injury and hurt their season or whatever it is, but that's not what you can bank on. That's not what you can hope for. You start looking around and go, well, what's the future going to look like in this conference? And tell me where the Vikings would fit in with an expensive older quarterback who it's very hard to argue is going to be a better version of

himself coming off an Achilles injury than before. There are teams that make a lot of sense for Kirk Cousins, and you could argue for him all day long. If, you know, Belichick goes to Atlanta, then he should look for a veteran quarterback to pair with all of those weapons that they've built up and they're ready to go. And if Pittsburgh loses to Buffalo, they might be making the phone call as well and saying, hey, we were right on the cusp if we'd only had Kirk Cousins. But those teams make sense because that's where they are at versus their competition. They are ready, for example, in Atlanta to win the NFC

South and to be a dangerous team. Someone try to make the argument to me that the Vikings are only a piece or two away, only a free agent or two away. And look, if this was Madden and the Vikings could go into free agency and say, I'll take Brian Burns. He'll take whatever contract I want. Cause it's Madden, uh, Christian Wilkins. We'll get a couple of corners, another linebacker and the best left guard. Okay. All set. And they all took very reasonable contracts and I just cut some random players. Like that's how I manage Madden. And if real life worked that way, the Vikings could very quickly be in this mix. But for players like Brian Burns and Christian Wilkins,

there is going to be 10, 15 teams that are calling their agents and even Daniil Hunter's as well. So there's no guarantee that you can add that type of player. So where do you end up being? If you don't the secondary type signing the Marcus Davenport, the hope and pray. Remember what we said last year when they signed Marcus Davenport, we said, Hey, look, it's not a bad signing because

if it works out, it'll be great. But you know, the chances of it working out are pretty met. And guess what? It didn't work out at all. And when it didn't work out, they had to turn to somebody else who was a backup. And then when he got hurt, they had to turn to a practice squad caliber player who ends up costing them at the end of the season because he can't play. That's where the Vikings roster is right now. It's not just that they can't field a starting lineup at the moment and they need to spend a lot of money if they were trying to do it. It's that the depth isn't very good either because they haven't drafted well on the defensive side. And that's not just

Kweisi Adafo-Mensa. That's going back years. Kweisi Adafo-Mentz has only made 14 draft picks. And I think Rick Spielman, since 2014, made something like 80. And almost all the players on the defensive side, save for Josh Metellus, is he the only one left that was drafted after Zimmer came here? I think that that's probably right, actually. I'm trying to think if there was anybody else. I mean, Anthony Barr was technically on the team, so I guess Anthony Barr, but Josh Metellus is the only future piece that was drafted by Rick Spielman. How could you make an argument again, that you're in a position roster wise to even bring in a veteran quarterback and even this is to totally take Kirk out of it.

Okay. Let's take, let's take Kirk out of it. And just, if Kirk is not a part of this and let's say the Vikings had a couple of options, you could either bring Dak Prescott here, for example, or draft a quarterback. Even though Dak Prescott has led top offenses, you'd probably still say draft a quarterback because of how much Dak Prescott costs. You can even slide in other players' names. Is this team in a position to trade for a Kyler Murray? Probably not because the roster is so empty after this year. And we felt like it was a one-year type of teardown last offseason. It might have to be two. And that does make things a little bit dicey when it comes to extending Justin Jefferson. But I think that that still makes a lot of sense to do in the

offseason for Jefferson from his standpoint. But today, I think, was the day where everything happened that we knew could happen. When we started last season, we were talking about it this way. So remember last season when it started, what were the big NFC North talking points? It was, Hey, are the lions still the lions? Are the lions going to fall on their tails because they're just Detroit and Detroit is always bad or whatever. And the answer is no. Detroit won the division and won a playoff game. So they're not going to collapse. They're going to be a top contender.

Here's another question. Where are the Green Bay Packers going to be with Jordan Love? And there was a wide range of possibilities. At one end of the spectrum was Jordan Love's terrible and the Packers have to draft a quarterback. But at the other end of the spectrum was Jordan loves terrible and the Packers have to draft a quarterback. But at the other end of the spectrum was Jordan loves great. And now you're going to have to deal with that for a decade. And this is the worst possible place for the Vikings to be with Jordan love. And I don't see any other interpretation after what we've seen from him

for the last eight weeks or so. And then the Chicago bears, what's the worst possible thing from a Vikings perspective that could happen to the Chicago bears is that they draft number one overall. And they're also just good enough to have a roster to build on, but just bad enough to still draft in the top 10. It's exactly what happened. And this should shape the Vikings mentality this offseason. So the Vikings think about it this way. Now, after we got a little work done here in the playoffs,

we can step back and say, all right, now the Houston Texans have double your playoff wins since Favre. That's not good for your franchise. You are in a position that the Vikings should be able to take a more patient approach. And the way that the team has operated under Kweisi Adafomensa and Kevin O'Connell should allow them space to take a more patient approach. And if the ownership is not doing that, they're being completely foolish.

If they are not looking at the way things have played out and saying, we have to try a different way. We cannot try this way of just patchworking the quarterback. They were just looking for somebody to put in there. Okay. This Kirk cousins guys available. We should go win the super bowl. It made sense in 2018. And it made sense to have cousins as your quarterback, 2019 and past that it's never made sense to have Kirk

cousins as the quarterback because they didn't rebuild then. And they didn't fully rebuild after 2021. Now it did result in a really fun season in 2022, but ultimately, once again, we're talking about a team that wasn't in the playoffs by the divisional round, which they've only been there once in a very long time. I guess twice since Favre have they played in the divisional round. Favre was a long time ago.

I mean, a long, long time ago. So I think that they really have to look at it, the ownership from the very top, because if I understand this operation correctly, the general manager and the coach are presenting paths and ideas, and the ownership is saying yes or no. The path has to be draft a quarterback this year and then build around that quarterback with plans to have that quarterback go into their second year in 2025 with a chance to compete legitimately within the division.

Based on who you draft around that player and how much money you can spend because you're out from under Kirk Cousins' contract. Any other plan will not work. Folks, Lucy is upping the nicotine pouch game with breakers, pouches packing a little something extra inside. What are Lucy breakers? If you know your pouches, then you know that the nicotine doesn't hit immediately and neither does the flavor. But the geniuses at Lucy came up with a brilliant way to fix both of those problems. They put a mini liquid capsule inside each Breaker's pouch. So here's what you do. You get the Breaker's pouch, break it with your teeth, and it makes a satisfying

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nicotine and nicotine is an addictive chemical. Not with the landscape that you have now. In 2022, I will say this, Kweisi Adafo Mensah said in 2022, when he was asked about the bad division and whether, cause remember how bad it was 2022, the Vikings won it faster. I think that any team had ever won a division or something. That's how awful all the teams were in the NFC North, how quickly it changes. But he was asked about that. And he gave an answer that was basically like, you have to consider all these factors as you're making decisions.

This has to be considered. Today has to be considered. And if the Vikings do go through March and do not sign Kirk Cousins and draft a quarterback, we'll remember today. We'll remember January 14th, not just for it being the Minneapolis miracle in 2017, or 2018, technically, January 2018, but also as a day that put the nail in the coffin

to the idea that you could stay at the top of this division with a veteran, highly paid quarterback who is not good enough. And here's the other thing I was thinking about today as well. Now, Jared Goff is a limited quarterback when he has to move. I think we really saw that today when he kind of fumbled, not kind of, he completely fumbled as he was trying to run away from someone. He fell another time. He's not a very movable guy, but you also saw from Jared Goff how he's been able to do this, which is the guy can throw the football. Sometimes it's a wobbler, but when you give him an offense to execute, he's brilliant with it. And I'm not even sure still that he's quite good enough to get them

all the way there. You have to remember with golf and how they built this. It was through the draft that they tanked around golf and drafted and drafted and drafted. It's the same way the Vikings in 2017 ended up there, which was successful drafts around a veteran. Well, it was a rookie quarterback at the time, but then they put in Sam Bradford and put in Case Keenum, but the roster was built through a huge 2015 draft through drafting Anthony Barr in 2014 through drafting Eric Hendricks and Daniil Hunter and Trey Wayans and Stefan Diggs. That's how the team in 2017 was built. And so they had like five, six star players on rookie contracts. That's really hard to do, but it happened then. And it's happening to the lions now. And that's why their window is not crazy long because they're going to have to give golf an

extension, especially after this. And those players will get expensive and they'll have to do some work around that. But that's one way to do it. Do the Vikings have that? Do they have years of really great drafting that has built a cheap team around an expensive quarterback? No, they don't. And the other part too is when you watch CJ Stroud and you watch Jordan Love, these are inexperienced quarterbacks. These are quarterbacks who are starting for the first time. Now, Jordan Love got to develop over a couple of years. I bet that will be mentioned a million times as we go forward, how genius the Packers were for developing Jordan Love. But quarterbacks, if they work out, can come in faster than ever now, especially if you have a guy who's pulling the strings with that quarterback and weapons around

them. So the Matt LaFleur relationship with Jordan Love, it was a little rocky at the beginning and into the middle of the season, but they figured out what worked for him. Is it the most complicated offense of all time? Of course it's not their biggest play today. It was just a little bootleg and a guy leaked out wide open. Everything doesn't have to be dropped straight back. Seven steps, make 14 reads and throw it 30 yards down the field. It can, it can actually be made easier. And you know, what helps too is a little bit of running game that also helps as well, as we saw from green Bay, but you can build an offense around a young player.

And if he's good enough, you can succeed pretty fast. And with CJ Stroud, it's a good roster. It's not the best roster I've ever seen in Houston, but that's what it looks like when you hit on that draft pick. It looks like that guy, by the end of the Lions did, what the Chicago Bears are in the middle of doing, tearing everything down, stacking draft capital. Those teams, even when they were at the bottom, were in the direction of the Super Bowl because that's how it works. If it worked differently, I'd tell you. These are the rules, though. This is where sometimes it comes to, well, you know, you got to do everything you can

to win and so forth. That's not how the rules work. The rules work in a way that the worse you get sometimes, the better your chances are to actually win something. And that certainly worked for the Texans. They have Will Anderson, who is dominating. They have Derek Stingley, who's a great young player. And they also are going to be able to spend forever on this team because of C.J. Stroud.

And with the setup that the Vikings have, I guess what I would say is if Kevin O'Connell believes in himself as a quarterback whisperer at the same rate of a Bobby Slowik in Houston or as Matt LaFleur in green Bay, look what these guys have done for their quarterbacks. And we circumstance does have a lot to do with the success of quarterbacks. Is it a shock that, you know, Zach Wilson with Nate Hackett there didn't have success in New York or Mac Jones with Matt Patricia and Bill O'Brien, those aren't surprises, right? But if you're the guy who can develop quarterback, give him the best opportunity to make plays, and then he's got raw skills, you should be able to take a chance at this. And the other thing is, too, that I wanted to bring up,

that, okay, so put Goff a little bit aside and think about the playoffs here. We got Josh Allen coming up tomorrow and Jordan Love and CJ Stroud and Patrick Mahomes won and Tua did not. Now, Miami is a good example of having a cheap quarterback, how far that can get you. But there's another element of this that I want to bring up that I think is important is the quarterbacks who win and gosh, you know, Stafford played well enough to win. Maybe they should have tried a 60 yard field

goal at the end. I don't know. Making plays, cheat codes, finding ways when everything goes wrong to do something special. And gosh, Jordan Love did that a few times today. And Patrick Mahomes did it like seven times in the ice cold. That team, Kansas City, their quarterback is such a great playmaker that it's minus five and they design a game plan to throw the football. I mean, it's just that when you have that, when you have the playmaking, when you have a ability to make something happen, when everything goes wrong, you've got a cheat code on the rest of the league.

And there's a play with the Texans where there's pressure in CJ Stroud's face and he's not a runner, but he is a playmaker and especially with his arm talent. So you got to have a cheat code. And the cheat code for, I think Jared Goff rarely gets sacked and he gets the ball to his playmakers. He runs an offense as brilliantly as anybody has. So he's a pocket quarterback. He kind of is almost like what Drew Brees was doing for New Orleans, like a poor man's version. But, you know, Drew Brees is a Hall of Famer.

But the same sort of deal where it's not always super impressive with the throws, but it's just one after the next and he operates the offense and he doesn't have negative plays and doesn't get sacked. What's the cheat code. What's the cheat code that you have? Well, you've got a good receiver.

You've got a great receiver, unreal receiver. Well, so to like 11 other teams, is that going to be the difference when things went wrong for Tua in Miami, who is a very similar quarterback in my mind to Kirk Cousins, he's not big, he's not fast, he's very accurate, and he's very smart, and he's not good enough when everything breaks down and the other team has a great defense and it's minus five and you need somebody to go do something. It's not there. It's just like when it's San Francisco and they've got a good defense and your running game isn't working and you need somebody to make a play and it doesn't happen. And you check down right out of San Francisco and you check down right out of losing against the

New York giants last year. This is not going to compete for a Superbowl. So what do you do? What do you do when you watch this? Start making phone calls to try to get Jaden Daniels. Maybe I think that has to be in the discussion. Now I see that some of the chat, you guys have been on fire and I'm reading and talking at the same time, I promise. Trading Justin Jefferson, to me, is not an option. I have never looked at it that way. I think that if you trade Justin Jefferson, you can guarantee that some other GM is using those draft picks, because if you trade Justin Jefferson and you completely tank, which by the way, they're not far from with the rest of their roster, they're really not. But if you trade Justin Jefferson away, that means you are completely tanking. And that means that you're going to win like three games next year. Cause you're not bringing back Kirk if you don't bring back Jefferson. And look, I kind of like that plan. If you were telling me I have job security for 10 years, okay, well, I guess that makes a lot of sense then. Trade away one player, three first round

draft picks, draft a quarterback, try it all again because you failed Justin Jefferson and his rookie contract. Good work. You blew it. You wasted the best receiver in the league's rookie contract with zero playoff wins. That's kind of mind blowing, but that's the position you're in. Anthony says traded away Jefferson and Madden and still win. Why would you do that in Madden? You can just use all the codes there that you want to work the cap. But as far as trading Justin Jefferson, I'm not into that because your next quarterback has to be set up to succeed. And who better to help him than Justin Jefferson? It's no surprise that Goff goes to the lions and they get an elite receiver in Amon Ross, St. Brown, who does not get all the attention in the same way some other receivers do. But that guy looks like a bigger Steve Smith to me. I mean, he is a nasty player in the best way.

So when you look at these quarterbacks who succeed, they usually have a top-notch wide receiver, an elite wide receiver to work with, or two, or three. And this is what you want for your rookie quarterback. But the question to me is not even do you bring back Cousins at this point. Not after watching this today. There shouldn't even be a debate after watching this today. It's because you can't explain to me how you're going to build a roster good enough to compete with all this, but are you going to trade up or are you going to wait? Are you going to take a shot at Michael Penix or at Bo Nix or at JJ McCarthy?

And I know people have strong opinions on JJ McCarthy, but if they draft JJ McCarthy, this is the right direction. It's the right try. I don't know if it'll work, but it's the right try. Bo Nix is a good athlete with a good arm. Pennix has a monster arm. He's very much like Jared Goff. It's a pocket quarterback, but he can distribute the ball and he can really sling it. So are you going to go with him or are you going to try to trade up and get Jaden Danielsiels and if you trade up to get jayden daniels the thing that you sacrifice is those first round picks for rebuilding the rest of the roster which

could make it difficult because yes you can build a defense through free agency but that is expensive and you do need star players the v The Vikings have no star players on defense. If Daniel Hunter goes, none, none at all. Now for the longterm. And even if you signed Daniel Hunter, how much longer is he going to play at this level?

I mean, this might be the best season of his career. If you go back and look at even Jared Allen around this age, he's getting 20 sacks. And then a couple of years later, he's out of the league. So they also have to consider that as well. They have zero game changing players on defense. The lions got away with today because they have at least one and his name is Aiden Hutchinson. He's an absolute monster. And that's a big part of making it is you have to

have game changers because even if your defense is struggling, someone has to be able to make a play in the biggest situation. And they don't have that if they move on from Daniel Hunter. But I mean, even when it comes down to the Justin Jefferson discussion, I'm not open to it because everything's about the quarterback. And if you have, this is another point too. If you have a quarterback on a rookie contract, then other people can get paid and you have the ability to spend up to the salary cap and still have money. So what Chicago did is they trade for Montez sweat. They signed him immediately. He's got a huge contract. That's not going to hurt

them. DJ Moore is not going to hurt them as a contract because they have so many other draft picks and they also have a rookie quarterback contract. And presumably if they draft Caleb Williams or Drake May or Jaden Daniels, they're going to have that rookie contract for a while and they can continue to spend even more money. It's exactly how Miami ended up with Tyreek Hill. But if you trade all your draft picks to get Jaden Daniels, if you trade two firsts and a second or something to move up, that's a lot to then say, all right, you've got a good offensive setup to Jaden Daniels,

and we'll work through the defense. That means you've got to hit on some mid and late draft picks, which maybe they can. One thing working to their advantage in that though, I'm not against that idea, by the way, I kind of liked that idea. One thing that seems to be working to their advantage is that Brian Flores looks like he's coming back as far as so far, as far as so far, yeah. At this moment, Brian Flores has no interviews that have been reported for head coaching jobs. The one team that seemed like it might make sense for Brian Flores was the New England Patriots. And they hired Gerard Mayo immediately. So if Brian Flores is staying and he has the scouting ability that he has and the ability to identify talent, that's going to work for him, which we really saw.

And you can add some edge rushing talent, some defensive tackle talent that isn't Jonathan Bullard playing over his head or Harrison Phillips playing too many snaps, then you've got an opportunity to build an offense that could be a juggernaut and bring along the defensive side. And really, when you look at Detroit, can you have just enough on defense to make a few plays? I mean, is it going to win you the Super Bowl right away? No, it has to be a multi-year process to rebuild the defense, but at least you will have the money to be able to do that. If you were to trade up though, I'm just a little hesitant about the number of draft picks. And also historically, it has not really been a great idea to trade up for quarterbacks. It has worked at times, but it's also really not good if it doesn't work. And with San Francisco,

they have a great team regardless. But they already had a great team before they traded up for Trey Lance. They were already on the cusp of a Superbowl roster. That's not where the Vikings are at the moment. So if they bust on this quarterback, then you're talking about a pretty ugly circle of hell. If you trade up, if you wait, you don't get the prospect of that caliber of Jaden Daniels. And that would be concerning. But also when we look at the landscape of quarterbacks, it's not always the top guy. It's not always the first overall that ends up becoming the best of the quarterbacks. And Jordan love is a great example. Jordan love dropped all the way down to the bottom of the

first round. Well, other teams took burrow who's good and two, who's pretty good and Herbert, who's good, but Jordan love may end up being just as good or better than some of those guys. So the NFL is good at identifying who the quarterbacks are toward the top. And we saw that in 2022 when they identified who the quarterbacks weren't, Sam Howell, Malik Willis, and so forth. They're very good at understanding who the first round pick should be, but nobody knows who's going to work out after that. And we've seen plenty of times where it's not the first quarterback who ends up being the best. Folks, if you've been listening to the show, then you know how much fun we have been having

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

And if things go sideways for you, you're not out a whole heck of a lot of money. But normally, I do much better than this. So that is prizepix.com slash purple. Just more or less on yardage totals and you are in prizepicks.com slash purple the code purple for a first deposit match up to 100 would i trade jefferson and the first four is that the first overall pick sorry the scrolling scrolling back up oh for, for the, uh, for the, uh, let's see. Oh, for the first pick. I think that's probably, is that too much? That's probably too much. Well, also the team that has the first pick is Chicago. So would you want to give Chicago, Justin Jefferson? Um, I would say

probably not, probably not, not unless you're going to do way better at quarterback. But if you were talking about trading up Jefferson to try to get to the number two pick or the number three pick to take one of the top three quarterbacks, then yeah, if it's like trade Jefferson to try to get Caleb Williams or Drake may, to me, it's robbing Peter to pay Paul. I just, I mean, I like the idea of trading up to get a quarterback because I think the offense is in position. But if you're now asking Jordan Addison to be your number one and TJ Hawkinson to be the second weapon, remember you have no number three or number four wide receiver that is in the mix

for this whole discussion as well is like they need receivers. They need a guard. Like there are needs on this offense but to me one of the main arguments for why this should be the strategy is that we have seen Jalen Hurts develop in Philadelphia to be successful with what a good supporting cast Houston a good supporting cast for CJ Stroud now he might have been great regardless because he's awesome, but it doesn't hurt that his receiver is really good. And through the year he had tank Dell as well. And his coordinator is really good. Those things help Brock Purdy is not Brock Purdy without Debo Samuel. We actually saw him without Debo Samuel, not the same guy, Brandon Iuke, George Kittle, Trent Williams. It's a lot of times the complete roster, which is why we obsess over it on the show here

as it pertains to Kirk Cousins. But now all of a sudden the bar is raised. Now you're playing in a different world because a couple of years ago, the narrative on the NFC, which was correct, mostly was the NFC is bad. The NFC has pretty much no quarterbacks and there's like two teams that are good. And that was again, mostly right. Philadelphia, San Francisco, Dallas in the regular season, that's all, that's all the NFC had and everybody else was just kind of putzing around. But now are you saying that now?

Not when an NFC team has the number one pick. Not when the NFC has Jordan Love, has the Detroit Lions, their complete roster. The Rams, I mean, Matthew Stafford is probably going to keep playing. And the Rams now have another superstar wide receiver. They're not going anywhere. Arizona is tanking, which means they're going to draft good players and rebuild and use their cap space and they'll improve. There's a lot of teams that now all of a sudden are a lot stronger than they were.

And the Vikings have to consider this as they go forward. Skull City Blues says, trade up for Jaden Daniels. He totaled 3ed 3 812 yards passing 40 touchdowns and just four interceptions while adding 1134 yards and 10 touchdowns rushing you know what i agree i mean it's hard to argue with that there are always going to be things when it comes to these rookies that you can pick apart you're going going to say, well, is Daniels developed enough to be an NFL passer or something? I don't know. That usually comes up with running quarterbacks. Should it? No, but it, it often does. There's always going to be, did he play in an NFL ish enough offense? Is he accurate enough? Is his arm strong enough? Is it what like they pick apart these players to the point where I was comparing it to a friend the other day. If everyone knows the old Chappelle skit where they put them in this draft process and they just pick them

apart like crazy. And by the end, you don't want anybody. You don't even want to look at any of them. Like you're all terrible. Joe Burrow's arms, not strong enough to is not big enough. Herbert doesn't process well enough. Jordan loves not accurate enough. Jalen hurts. Can't throw it all. And as a running back and all of them are good. There's always going to be a percentage chance that it doesn't work. But man, when you read those stats, 3,800 yards passing, 40 touchdowns, 50 total touchdowns over a thousand yards rushing in college in a big program in a tough conference, man, if I fail with that, I'm going to fail with that. I'd rather fail with all of that and a guy who runs a four freaking four than I would a guy who's never done it over 10 years in his career.

The last time. So the Lions had an 11-point lead in this playoff game. I've got all the facts for you today. I had time. You know why? I wasn't covering a playoff game. That's why I had time. So I looked this up. When was the last

time that Kirk Cousins was in a playoff game with an 11 point lead? It was against the Green Bay Packers in 2015 in his first playoff appearance. And they blew that lead and lost to the Packers. 2015. I didn't even live in Minnesota yet. I've been here a long time. I mean, man, there is just no evidence this works. Not really at all. And there might be another situation in this world where Cousins can be somebody else's Matthew Stafford. But did we watch Matthew Stafford today? Does anybody think that?

Does anybody think that? I don't think so. I don't see no-look rocket throws when everything breaks down the way that Stafford is able to play. You're never going to be able to create something good enough with a complete roster and with that player who you just can't even really project going forward.

So this was a really rough day for the Minnesota Vikings, 53 minutes of ranting for me. It's a lot. Usually these rants are like a burst of like 10 minutes. This was just 50, 50 minutes. Um, so, uh, unfortunately you're, you're, it's funny, unfortunately for us that I moved here, but you're watching my stream. So I don't know why that would be unfortunate. Um, weird take, but I guess when we have this big of a crowd watching, there's going to be some hate watchers.

So I appreciate you stopping by. I get paid for the numbers either way. So I appreciate you. Uh, but you know, this is a situation that I think the Vikings were put in by Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer and that era and the decisions that were made. But we have now reached the pivot point away from that. Okay. So you could make an argument that the last two years have been dealing with what the hand they were dealt. When you look at the salary cap and how messed up that was. And when you look at Cousins contract and you look at the salary cap and how messed up that was, and when you look at Cousins' contract, and you look at the demands of the ownership, hey, we want to prove that it was Zimmer's fault.

And they did. We want to improve the culture, but we want to keep winning while we do it. And they did. But now we have reached the point where they've gone to the end of the road of it was their guy's fault. It was the Spielman-Zimmer era. They did it. They put us in this spot. They put us in the spot where we had to give Kirk a short-term extension. It's the owner's fault. They put us in this spot.

It's everybody else's fault from the past. No more. Now, this decision is officially 100% the roster, the franchise on Kweisi Adefomensa and Kevin O'Connell. It is on them to figure out a way to compete with what we just saw today, which is going to be hard. It's going to be hard. It actually kind of reminds me of when Zimmer took over. I think when Zimmer took over, it was what it would have been Jay Cutler, Stafford and Rogers. And it was part of the reason, if I remember that they wanted to hire a defensive head coach because they were looking at these other teams and saying, well, these offenses are too good. We need to hire the best defensive coach

to be able to shut these guys down. And they did a lot of that over the years under Mike Zimmer, but now they have an offensive coach who touts his passing game. And look, I mean, against the same lions defense, Nick Mullins threw for like 800 yards. I think it works. I think it can work. And I think it's got the players to work. But I also think that if you do the same thing you did before, it's not going to work any different because a crazy stat, crazy stat that blows your mind is that Kirk Cousins actually has a worse quarterback rating by about seven points with Kevin O'Connell than he did with Mike Zimmer, which doesn't mean he was better because they leaned on him more. And the more you ask him to throw, the less the efficiency

is going to be. That's how it works. But the point just being, it doesn't change. It's not going to be different. And if you had a top five offense and a terrible division, I'd say go for it. But they don't on either one of those things. And when we're talking about Kweisi Adafo-Mensa, and every stream is like this, and it's going to be like this, the discussion all offseason. Kweisi's made the roster worse. You're right. He had to.

He had no choice. All the players were older and expensive. Is there a season different with Delvin cook this year? Did you see Delvin cook? Are they better with Eric Hendricks? Their linebackers played better than Eric Hendricks did this year. Are they better with Zedaria Smith? Probably. Maybe they should have just given him some more money and not had Marcus Davenport. Now that actually, you know, that one, you got a beef, that one, you got a pretty good beef, but the, the roster and moving on from the older players, it was unequivocally the right move

because if they moved all the cap space and kept all those guys, then where would they be? That was different. Kirk still ends up popping his Achilles, I would assume. And then you end up where wasting everybody's time for all those players. Adam Thielen was okay this year for Carolina, kind of their only receiver. Jordan Addison was better. I mean, I think that they did what they had to do with the position that they were given. So I will apologize to that point. And I will say this out of the draft, out of two drafts, 14 picks, which by the way, one of them you have to count goes to TJ Hawkinson.

That's pretty good. One of them goes to Jordan Addison. That's pretty good. You can't expect to hit on all of them and get all foundational players all the time. So they screwed up one draft. They did much better in another draft that's life that's how it goes so if we're taking the entire accounting of where they're at i think that they've done a totally fine job to get to this point but it's all what you do with this because this was the path they were always going to need to take to move on from Kirk Cousins. They were going to have to get the cap, right? They were going to have to move on from the

previous regimes players from all the older and expensive players. They were going to have to do that. They've brought themselves on this path. I also agree with Richard that Ivan Pace counts for your draft class, who you bring in undrafted counts. So whoever brought in Adam Thielen, you get credit because you know why you don't have to give those players back because they count the same. If you drafted them under, or if you got them undrafted or drafted them in the third, you brought, okay. So anyway, uh, I agree, uh, that Kwesi D'Affo-Mensa has executed the plan to this point, but this is the pivot point where we get to decide. This is now where we get to decide, did they do the right

thing? Did they rebuild this thing around a rookie quarterback and actually give themselves a real chance to be with these other teams? Or did they try to play safe? But you know what? Anybody, a golfer, I love this comparison. So I play golf a lot in the summer and, uh, this is called a lot of ups and downs.

We'll say like nine good holes and nine terrible holes every 18. But here's what I tried. One summer I play. Some of you know, my friend, Sam Ekstrom works for lockdown. He and I play golf a lot. And I tried this thing. I was calling it collar golf and I was teeing off with a four iron. So I wouldn't hit it in the woods. And I thought this is brilliant.

Most of these holes are only like 360 yards. So if I get it 200 down the fairway with my iron, I mean, I could just get it up there on the next shot. Decent little mid iron shot. We'll play for par and not try to get birdies. Guess what happened? I'm not that great with the four iron either. The four iron is imperfect. It feels safer, but guess what? It was better to just let it rip. And at least the high end is the high end. At least, at least if I let it rip, it goes 260 yards. And now I've got a nine iron to the green. And sometimes it goes in the woods. My point is playing it safe is not really playing it safe. If you think you're playing it safe by bringing back Kirk cousins, you're going to finish seven and 10, and you're going to lose four out of six games in the division and have a problem. And by the way, I think they're going to

steal a home game for next year and send it to London. So you don't even get an advantage there. I'm not a hundred percent sure. I haven't checked. Are they stealing a home? I think they are stealing a home game. So playing it safe is not always the right way to do it. And everybody thinks, everybody worries in the NFL that you're going to get fired. But the reality is that the last people who tried to play it safe with Kirk Cousins got fired. I mean, if you play it safe, if it seems safe, you probably hit it in the woods half the time. With this situation, it's probably 75% of the time. And think about it. My history with the four iron, not that good.

I've got my moments, but it's not that good. Does that sound like the Vikings over the last six years? So you might as well just take the big swing. And if you hit it in the woods, you hit it in the woods. And then you get fired anyway. That's life. That's the NFL. That's how it goes.

So, and I mean, you're right. SoCal natives is not for long as the NFL. I mean, that's the thing is, is everybody deals with this in the NFL, but the Green Bay Packers are a good example here of a team that was in a spot where they probably by all accounts should have just tried to take a wide receiver in the draft. And instead, they took a quarterback. And people ripped on them. And the Philadelphia Eagles.

The Philadelphia Eagles. Go look at their draft grades. Go look at them. Go search Philadelphia Eagles 2020 draft grades. D minus, C minus. Why'd they draft Jalen hurts. So they took a big swing at a quarterback with a big upside. It was a great athlete and they ended up in the super bowl.

And this year they're all mad because they won 11 games and they're not happy, not happy enough that man, if that's how it turns out, then, uh, you know, you'll deal with the fact that you got to the Superbowl and didn't win. Uh, Richard says, sorry, I haven't been putting the comments on the, the, um, the screen they've been moving quickly and I haven't been able to keep up with them, which is a good thing. Uh, Richard said, you covered this team since 2016. Uh, yep. And, uh, what do I think happens?

That is a great question. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But I also, like, if you put yourself in Kweisi Daffa-Mensah's shoes, and look, the Rams, let's think about the Rams for a second. The Rams were in a position where their roster was ready to win the Super Bowl. They felt they needed one more piece and they went nuts. They trade for Stafford. They get Vaughn Miller. They get Odell Beckham and it all

comes into place and they win the Super Bowl. And Kweisi Adafo Mensah's analysis of this, whether he wanted to say this on the record or not, I don't know, but he said it to USA Today, you never go full ramps. And he explained later that there's a lot of luck that goes into it. And so if you slide all your chips to the middle of the table on one year, you can end up having something go wrong and you lose. And then it's all for nothing. So now the Rams, since they went all in and won the Super Bowl, it worked out great for them. They had the roster to do it, the best defensive player on earth and so forth.

They missed the playoffs and they just lost in the first round. And they probably lost because there was a pass interference that didn't get called at the end of a game. Bad luck, bad break. Matthew Stafford played amazing, bad break. If that had happened to them in the first round in their first, or I guess it was the second, it was the divisional round where they played Tampa Bay and Brady came back and then they scored at the end. If that had happened and Brady came back and won that game in 2021, imagine how the Rams would feel right now about Matthew Stafford and that whole trade. They would think it was a disaster and it wrecked their franchise. And so if Kweisi Adafomensa views it from that perspective, that going all in on a veteran quarterback for one year, which to me with Cousins, how can you even project more than one or two years down the road?

In fact, Kweisi said that to us last year. If that's the way that his wheels are turning, then the signs would point more to drafting a quarterback. And the only way that I think you could get talked out of that would be if your head coach believes that you're this close and you need Kirk Cousins and he has more of the owner's ear than you do, or the owners say, there's just no way. We're too afraid of Christian Ponder happening again, which, hey, you know, it happens. We're too afraid of Christian Ponder happening again, which, hey, you know, it happens. We're too afraid of Christian Ponder, bring back Kirk. And if they do that, they're just put it on their gravestone. You are the walking dead if that happens. After what we

watched today, walking dead if you bring back your veteran quarterback at $40 million. I don't see a path there. So I think that the general manager, from the moment he got to Minnesota, if he brought a big binder, I have no idea, but I always envisioned it this way because there was an episode of, what was the Rocks show? The Rocks show was about football where he was an agent or something,

where a coach was doing an interview he had this big binder so i always envision it that way quacey walking into tco performance center with a giant binder and setting it down in front of the wilfs and going this is how we get to drafting a quarterback and winning the super bowl let me show you that's how i envision it i don't know that that happened and I don't know what they'll do because they're playing very coy. And I like to think that all the, we want to bring back Kirk stuff is just,

is just public posturing to make sure that they don't make it look like they don't love Kirk. And I believe that they do. I believe that when they say how much they care about him, how much he cares about them. He has ingratiated himself to Minnesota over the last two years in ways that I didn't think were possible. And I don't think ways he thought were possible.

Do you ever think in 2019 that that guy would be taking off his shirt and doing the skull clap? Like, of course not. It's quite a thing the way that it's happened with Kirk Cousins. He has been great with the media. He won the media good guy of the year this year, was deserving, very, very open, very available to us even at the end, even if he didn't even have to at the end talking to us about his contract situation. He didn't have to do that. He could have waited until the media was gone out of the locker room, cleaned out his locker and headed out. So, so he's been there.

He's been available. He has taken people behind the scenes and shown everything it takes to be a quarterback. There's reasons why people stand up for him as much as they do. So it becomes so much less about him than it is about the situation you have to to stick with the golf you have to play it how it lies i personally would love to hit from the middle of the fairway with like i think probably a six iron is maybe my best long club give me a perfect lie setting up on the little grass just a little bit on the fairway. Is that the Vikings right now? It's not. They're in the woods. They need to find a way out. They need something special to find their way out. So, I mean, that's the thing

is we always focus on the negative possibility, the possibility that it doesn't work out and then it's bad, but you just draft another one and you move on and you try again because this team has spent so much time floating around in the middle now, you're probably not going to be able to because of the way the division is set up. What a crazy day and a crazy road it's been to get to this point of today, of this happening. Who would have thought when the season started that every possible bad situation for the Vikings in the division would all come together? But it has. So now you have to play it how it lies. And it lies very difficultly. So we'll continue to break it down. We'll continue to talk about it. The guests will bring on to break down the draft class, the salary cap, the situation, the playoffs, everything will be here. So if you're new to the channel, because there's a lot of people watching, I imagine some are welcome.

Welcome. You can also download the podcast, listen to wherever you go. You can also go to purpleinsider.com to read my articles, and you'll never guess what I'm writing about for tomorrow, this very subject that we've spent over an hour on. And there's a lot to break down. I'm going to be doing a position-by-position analysis as well, breaking down every player, every free agent, every option. In the woods with poison ivy is funny. Skull Vikings, that's funny. Yeah. Kind of. Yeah, they kind of. Yeah, that's right.

But draft the quarterback and you got a chance. That's the way I look at it. But we'll look at every angle. We'll look at every player and every option that they have and break it down. And of course, draft season already making my plans to have Chrisris trapasso from cbs go to the combine with me again he did that last year so our combat and he's going to be every week cbs sports draft analyst chris trapasso by the way a very big fan of jayden daniels from day one uh really good eye chris has great great great uh draft uh analyst so he's going to be on, we're going to the combine. We're going to be here for free agency for emergency podcasts.

So subscribe, watch, enjoy rants. We do the live broadcast at least a couple of times a week where I'll be answering questions and talking to fans. So I'm so happy to have everybody here. This could be one of those big bang type of days for this organization where the owners of the team watch and go,

we're not in a spot. We are not in a spot to battle these teams. And then we go forward. And if not, then we're going to have to figure out something else. We're going to have to figure out how they're going to work it out. If they do decide to bring back cousins, crazy day,

two more playoff games tomorrow. Everybody enjoy. Hopefully you can get out of work or find a way on your phone or something, or hopefully you work from home to be able to watch playoff football again tomorrow, three straight days of playoff football. Craziness. Absolute craziness. Thank you so much.

Again, everybody joining in tonight. I really appreciate all of you. And, uh, we'll talk again. Actually, I don't know about tomorrow night. Cause playoff games going on. We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out when we're going to go live probably tomorrow night though. So keep your eyes out, subscribe, and we'll catch you all later. Thanks so much everybody for joining in.