Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Kevin Cole talks about the things that matter at the Combine... and advocates the Vikings trading up for a QB

Episode Date: March 4, 2023

Kevin Cole of Unexpected Points joins Matthew Coller to talk about the areas where the NFL Combine matters and what it tells us about the positions the Vikings need, including pass rusher, cornerback and wide receiver. Plus Kevin thinks that the Vikings should go for a QB sooner than later if they aren't signing Kirk Cousins to a long-term deal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and joining me on the show. Had a chance to meet for the first time in person in Indy, which is really what the NFL Combine is all about. It's saying hello to people that you only know from Twitter and from the podcast. Kevin Cole, Unexpected Points Newsletter, which I have become a huge fan of. Kevin, what is going on, man? How are you? I'm doing good. And yeah, you know, it's weird. Maybe this happens other times, but the fact that we've done a handful of podcasts here, we've used video for it. Didn't seem like meeting someone necessarily for the first time. I'm not sure, but that's

the vibe that I got. I felt like we knew each other. Yeah. When we said hello, because it's like, you sound the same and you look the same. We're just in a different proximity. And yet there is like an uncomfortable, like nice to meet you. But I also know you, which happens about 15 times to me every year.

We go to the combine, but that is, that is kind of what it's all about. How did you, how'd you enjoy Indy camp? I mean, I thought it was great. I mean, but that is, that is kind of what it's all about. How did you, how'd you enjoy Indy, Kevin? I mean, I thought it was great. I mean, this was the, I went in 2020, but then for some reason, my credential didn't come through.

Then I did not go last year. So this is actually the second time I've went the full-time having the first time I made credential, you know, got to do some media hits got to do tv which is it's a strange experience it's like the the Seinfeld close talker thing like I wasn't expecting someone to be standing so close to me and then what I'd lean back a little bit they'd move in a little bit more and I I was I was probably awful probably made the the cutting room floor there but that was an interesting experience as I hadn't done like a live TV hit sort of thing before. It is very different for me. I'm on radio and podcast. And what I realized from seeing myself on TV a few times is that I'm very twitchy. So like when I, and I try

not to do it here on the pod, like move around too much and just stare, you know, straightforward. But when I was on TV, I was kind of like, how much do I use my hands? And which camera do I look at? And all those things. That was the other thing. I think I had three different poses, which was probably the worst of all. I had like hands behind the back.

And then I'm like, what am I doing? Am I like, I'm like a groomsman or something. And then I had my hands in front. And then I was trying to like punctuate my points with the hand. So I was, yeah, it was all over over the place much respect to our more beautiful friends who are in front of the camera all the time uh not as easy as it looks so let's talk about some things from the combine though I want to I get a question all the time about how much it matters and I feel like no one's better to answer this

question than you uh from my perception just from covering the Vikings for a long time here, they always looked at it like they were trying to confirm things. So they were seeing things as they scouted players and thinking that they knew their wingspans and athleticism and do they meet certain thresholds and things like that. But if they liked the player and he wasn't the greatest athlete of all time, they were going to take him. But I think that there are other teams that will eliminate a lot more players

if they don't meet certain thresholds. I think that's what it's really about, but also maybe varies from position to position. And seems like, this is just my perception, I want you to agree or disagree, but seems like some of the defensive perception. I want you to agree or disagree, but seems like some of the defensive side guys have more potential to make noise when they have a great combine than if, you know, maybe a running back runs a four, two or something. I don't know. How do you feel about

that? Yeah, I think that's, that's mostly true. I do think wide receivers, at least according to the numbers that I've looked at have moved quite a bit. I mean, it's possible because I'm looking at a sample of how players draft position has been affected and then how their quote unquote NFL value, which I'm trying to measure with this plus minus metric that I have, how those two things are affected by their performance in the combine. And generally draft position moves a lot more than their actual NFL value. So maybe it's less of a thing that it is. But I do think there's also perhaps some decision makers who are fooling themselves a little bit who are saying, you know, you got to trust the tape. It's all about the tape. We love the tape. We love the player. And then it's like, oh, you ran a 4-3. Then all of a sudden,

this guy starts moving up boards. I mean, it happens. The data shows that these guys do move around quite a bit based upon, especially the marquee 40 yard dash. So I think ideally maybe the right way to go would be a little bit more tempered when it ends up happening, but it looks like some guys definitely get pushed up a lot. Well, and I guess it's also, how do we truly quantify how they move around because they're moving around in mock drafts and what insiders think, but that might not be changing as much behind the scenes or it might. I don't really know, right? Like if somebody, yeah, I doubt that John Ross was a top 15 pick when he got to Indy and then ran a 4-2 and then was a top 15 pick. So I think there are probably some examples of that, but there might also be intel that teams have because when scouts go out, they meet with the college team and talk with them and they would know pretty much if

somebody's going to have certain numbers or not have certain numbers. So I always wonder about that and there's no way to know because they're not going to tell us. But I was thinking about that Rick Spielman interview where he said that they do look at the mock drafts from the outside, but they also have a better feeling bit of a loop of intelligence from what's going on on the inside leaking out. And then I think mock drafters also know who may be plugged in a little bit more and then start to move upon that. Maybe there's a few guys in the past where if there's a medical issue that sometimes that doesn't fully leak out and those guys can fall the most so the medicals might even be the most important thing when we're talking about the intelligence that teams are learning uh even beyond how they perform athletically in these drills where they would have had plenty of evidence like you're saying not only on the field but in training and other things of how how fast they were going to run right i mean was it uh nicobe dean last year who was clearly

a first round talent, but ended up going in the third round. And it was just one of those things where nobody on the outside knew what the medical said, and it never got reported what the medical said about him. And that's why he ended up dropping. And there, there are always other reasons to, uh, this whole Jalen Carter thing has been weird where Todd McShay hints at an issue, but won't say exactly what it is. And then it comes out and now we don't really know how it's going to affect his draft stock because I don't know if the legal issues will be resolved by the time he's drafted. Like there, there's so many complicated factors that go into this, but when you mention wide

receivers, my ears do perk up a little bit because I was looking over the wide receivers that are supposed to be first round talents this year and it seems to me like there are a lot of different maybe kinds of wide receivers in this draft and I wonder from your studies if you've run across like clearly the best type of receiver is going to be the dude who's an absolute freak and can do everything, but that's not everyone. And when Justin Jefferson came out, he was criticized for being in the slot too much. And it turns out he could line up anywhere, beat anyone anytime and do anything. So I wonder about how your kind of view on that has been shaped over the years of the different

types of like, this guy's a slot, this guy's taller and has longer arms, or this guy is a quicker route runner. Like what things would you think would correlate more to success in the draft? Yeah, it's interesting because when it comes down to positioning, when we talk about being on the slot versus being on the outside, players are very productive out of the slot or can be very productive out of the slot. So be very productive out of the slot. So even the same player, when you talk about someone like Justin Jefferson, I mean, you move them inside to the slot. In some ways, it frees up quite often. And you'd see this with Julio Jones in the past. On a per route basis out of the slot, they actually end up being more productive than

what they do on the outside sometimes because of the fact it's become such a quick passing game in the NFL. Now, guys who are restricted to only being in the slot, that's when their value goes down. But I think we can see some ways that they could still be used and still be highly valuable players there. What I found is looking at their performance, this is something I did back at PFF, so I'm going to have to infiltrate the building and go get this data for this class here. But looking at press coverage versus off coverage, not only in man-to-man situations, but then also if they're getting sometimes solo these sort of situations? Because that's one of the bigger things is when you get a big NFL corner who are much, much bigger generally than the corners

that you're going to see in college. If they start putting their hands on these guys, that's when things can be somewhat of an issue. So I think that's something that you can pick out for. And slot corners can be really, really good at beating press coverage also. And that's really important in the NFL where you need to be open in about a second in a lot of these different plays yeah and I thought that the slot thing was a weird criticism of Justin Jefferson even back when it happened because a lot of NFL receivers are coming out of the slot all the time I mean one year it was actually interesting how over time with the Vikings, Adam Thielen and Stefan Diggs both had very different usage, even from year to year.

When Stefan Diggs was getting a lot of catches and sort of breaking on the scene in 2016, he was out of the slot pretty often. And then Pat Shermer didn't like that and switched it around. And then Adam Thielen was in the slot more often. And he did great. It was one of his best seasons. So you have to be able to do a lot and when i see and look at the alignments of wide receivers and see that you know they're outside you know 50 of the time inside 50 of the time left right that their target share um you know there's those maps that uh

renner and the you know PFF draft thing put together that shows where their targets were. If they're on one side of the field and just outside, I wonder, is there a reason for that? Like, do they not understand how to read zone defenses or something like that? Because it's such a good weapon to have. Why would a coaching staff in college not be using it? And I don't want to give college coaching staffs too much credit for player usage, but you would think that if that was something in your tool bag, you wouldn't just ignore it.

So maybe the guy has some limitations. Every situation is different, but I think that the more places they were used, probably the better. Yeah. And I think on college, it makes sense that they would adjust a little bit less to the player personnel sometimes because you have new guys coming and going quite a bit.

So if you run a system where, you know, your ex-receiver lines up on the left side of the field every single play, that may not be an indictment on that particular receiver if he's coming out of that sort of system. So I think the performance against press is important. And, you know, I do think there is a difference in a degree of athleticism for someone who can win on the outside or win down the field. I mean, there's a lot of skill in receiver when it comes to knowing how to stack a player, knowing how to use leverage, knowing all those different things, but it doesn't hurt. And this is something when we talk about Justin Jefferson too, is the guy ran in the four fours, right? It wasn't like he came in and he posted a time that

was four five something or four six which would have been really poor for his weight he ran a pretty good fast time so that at least gives you a little bit of evidence there too that maybe he can play on the outside yeah yeah and all these things are are very complicated to figure out so when you look at the receivers uh zay flowers is the one that catches everybody's eye and that makes a lot of sense but i don't know if you've had a chance to kind of look at their profiles closely but i was curious if you had any observations about this group and i only ask because this is the podcast where we push the idea all the time of drafting a wide receiver if they have to but in the next two weeks,

though, this could really change because there is a decision to be made on Adam Thielen. And if Adam Thielen is not here, then wide receiver goes right up there with some of the other positions with defensive line, with corners, which we'll get to. But that decision could have an impact here where they could be looking at some of these first round wide receivers. And I think it's an interesting group. Yeah, no, I do. I think it's an interesting group too. I know there's some concern about a little bit of a lesser size, maybe speed. We'll see once these guys are out here, whether or not they're, they're viewed as being someone who can really play on the outside. But I mean, for me, it's still more about production most of the time than it is about the athletic measurables.

It's just something you can't replicate, that ability that's being displayed on the field. So production, I think, is a big thing. And then for me also, guys who come out as early declarers, I think matters a lot at wide receiver, being able not only to win and get on the field early in your career, because, you know, in most colleges now, and then most time in the NFL, we're talking about three receivers who were on the field. So there's less of an excuse to say, I wasn't able to get on the field until my junior year or something like that.

And then having to come back to my senior year, I mean, you should have been able to find something into the top three receivers and then, you know, schemes can prefer one receiver over another, but generally this is one of the few positions also where you're competing within your own team to gather targets and yards and production there. So looking at what share of the production that you're bringing out as a receiver can be very, very important. I mean, I'm pretty high on gotten someone like Jordan Addison for the reason that he

had such good production so early in his career. But we'll see. Some people are a little bit concerned about the fact that he maybe he's only going to weigh, you know, has he weighed in yet? 175 pounds or something like that. And he, you know, he, maybe he won't run as fast as some others, but he's someone that I'm pretty interested in. That's why it's weird doing interviews in the middle of the combine, because we have defensive line results. And as we're talking, we're getting other results that are coming in and trying to discuss them. But yeah, here's a weird philosophical question about this when it comes to the production, because I know that you've looked at a lot of that stuff and studied a lot of that stuff

and how it correlates. And there was a hockey study one time where a guy went through, I believe it was the Vancouver Canucks draft picks. And all he did was instead of whoever they drafted, he drafted the guy who scored the most points in junior hockey, just picked whoever it was and came out with way better drafting than the Vancouver Canucks had actually done. And I, I wonder about that in football. Now you can't just take the person from the Mac conference who has 2000 yards as a wide receiver, but let's say

you put them relatively in buckets of areas where you would take these players. How much, how much would that, would that tell us? Cause I know it's not always going to be the thing, but sometimes we overthink it with, wait a minute, Justin Jefferson annihilated college football. Maybe you should have just drafted him. Yeah. I think what ends up happening though, is if someone has a down year in their last year, that is probably over rated, overvalued, whatever you want to say, or earlier production being undervalued, depending upon how you want to, how you want to flip it around. Because if you've displayed the ability to produce at a high, and that goes down in your senior, let's say

your junior or senior year, depending upon when you come out. I just think that's more, there are so many things that could be going wrong, uh, for, from a perspective of injury, from a perspective of, you know, who knows what's going on, personal life scheme, coaching, everything else that's going in there. Um, so for me, maybe that hints a little bit at what you're talking about. Like if you're really, really good at one point in time, we have to pay attention to that. Even if things have been a little bit more muddled since then. All right. So you wrote about, maybe this is where I should have started,

but this is a wide receiver draft podcast. The defensive lineman for the unexpected points newsletter uh i mean every year is it just me or do they get faster dudes running under 4-4 as defensive linemen seems just completely mind-blowing but they're also i was in indy going to get an uber to the airport and i was walking next to someone who clearly was a participant and I was looking at them trying to figure out what position they played I was like you know that the guy looks a little bit too like not quite like a tight end like not beefy enough to be a tight end but a little too thick to be a wide receiver like edge rusher must be I because they're built differently

than they were in the past. But I wonder what your observations have been as far as how some of these combine things point to defensive linemen, because one of the things that you found as you were looking at the correlations is that, you know, the weight of somebody isn't all that important. And I think that, you know, the Vikings should be looking at interior defensive linemen who can get after the quarterback, even if they don't fit the profile of like a Delvin Tomlinson. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, we've probably said this ad nauseam, but you know, it's a passing league and it's just more and more about pass rush when it comes down to the defensive line. And you're right.

I mean, the speeds have gotten absolutely insane for some of these bigger players. Actually, one player that also another group that ran last night, the linebackers, that's the one where I would be more concerned about getting too high on someone just purely based upon speed for the fact that it doesn't translate into the passing game as much as you might think. You might think fast coverage, but coverage is about a lot of things and not necessarily just about being fast, as we see with defensive backs so often. But when it comes to pure pass rush, that's probably the most athleticism type of thing that you can do on a football field.

So I think it does matter there. And of course, having, you know, a weight adjusted speed that's really strong can be important, but just purely getting there faster can be important too. And that's why the lower weight, which often coincides with guys who are, um, guys who can really get after the pass. Um, that's, that's the most important thing for their value nowadays. I don't know what we're supposed to do with Kalijah Cansey, who is from Pittsburgh, and a guy that the Vikings could look at in the first round. He's kind of mocked in that general area, but he just ran the 40.

Like, what are we supposed to do with you, man? Like, how are we supposed to figure that out? By your metrics, the three cone is going to tell us more than the 40 but we don't have that i mean i guess i would do the same thing if i like dunked one time i would just quit walk away be like deal with that i'm insanely fast but yeah now you have to assume you have to assume they're not that great you have to assume i guess they're not that great in that thing but it's always weird to me what's even weirder to me sometimes is when someone like um I don't know DK Metcalf a few years

ago like you don't have to run the three cut also would it become a big deal I mean you're huge and you run really really fast I mean Calvin Johnson didn't run the three cone I believe at the um at the uh at the combine so yeah it all depends on how much teams value those individual drills and you're right he's a first round type of guy i think having the fastest 40 and 10 uh yard split at the position at a you know 281 pounds isn't super huge but that's a pretty big dude um it's going to be plenty fine for him now the edge rushers again these are if name a position on defense and i'll say yeah if it's not safety the vikings are probably looking at it um edge rushers are another one

that now we're seeing like i said the guys running under 4-4 nolan smith from georgia it seems like georgia knows how to get fast players that are ridiculous at football. I don't know how I figured this out, but it's pretty evident, but Nolan Smith running under a four, four is pretty wild. But again, we kind of look at the the 40 yard dash as something that seems to matter with where guys are drafted, but maybe doesn't matter quite as much to whether they actually succeed or not and i think that makes a lot of sense because those positions while they do require insane quickness they also require a lot of technique and the daniel hunter thing where the guy just destroys the combine but didn't have production it's proven i think over the years to just be an outlier yeah there's some people may

say um when the packers took Gary that was also a guy who maybe was more of a athleticism than a production type of guy but I mean for at least what I've found is that even within the 40 just splitting it up by that 10 yard split seems to be you know almost as important as as the full 40 according to just relative to each other. But then also if you look versus draft position, the 40 seems to bleed over a lot more into draft position than the 10 yard split. So that's something I would look at. And again, the agility drills and the vertical look like they have some good importance. So, you know, Nolan Smith only 238 pounds, but still it's not just a 40. He had the fastest kind of by far.

I think he may have been a tenth of a second faster than anyone in the 10-yard split. And also, you know, a 40-plus vertical. So he kind of checked a lot of boxes with that performance there. The question is whether or not teams are going to get used to this 238 pounds. And I think seeing Micah Parsons have success is going to change some people's opinions on maybe because he's a guy who is just a total physical freak also and in some ways that's that that makes me more confident in an ability as someone who's rushing than someone who's out playing coverage yeah and I also think that how the Vikings see these positions is something we really don't know on defense

because Brian Flores just got here and they just fired the last guy so we really don't know on defense because Brian Flores just got here and they just fired the last guy. So we really don't have any sample size. We knew what kind of players Mike Zimmer was looking for in general and Rick Spielman, but we really don't know with Brian Flores. But I would think that when you play a system that blitzes a lot, that is based in the three, four, uh, is kind of where his his roots are that plays the wide nine type of thing that you would want guys who are edge rushers that ran super insanely fast to get around the edge uh that's just how i would perceive it so when you look at these 40s and you look at these freak numbers i think that that does send up some flares for the vikings but if we're looking at the mock

drafts uh for the vikings of it, Kevin, is corners. And that makes a lot of sense because we don't know what they're going to do in free agency with the cornerback position. Patrick Peterson, to me, seems unlikely to stay in a system that asks him to play man to man a lot. And we really don't know what's going to happen with Andrew Booth Jr. or Caleb Evans. The corners, I think this is the position in my mind, other than edge rusher, where the combine would matter the most. Do you agree with that? Actually, I don't find it. It's tough. Okay, let me just say this. It's a little bit hard. And I think one of the reasons is my best input for trying to gauge value when it comes to defensive backs. Again, they're going to give you more value and coverage than against the run.

I don't really have a whole lot to go off of other than looking at their PFF grading. And, you know, I am matching this up against clusters of players who, and they're on the off the field type of split. So it is kind of showing some sort of correlation there with the players who grade better, the teams have done better when they've been on the field. But, you know, one of the things with the grading is when they're not being targeted, it's also not really affecting it that much. And sometimes players can have a poor rate stat when being targeted, but that doesn't mean that they're bad players. It just means that they're only being thrown against when someone is completely wide open because they're kind of scared to go after them. So I think for that reason, maybe there's a little bit less stability in how well players have done. But again, at defensive back, some of these guys are just so, so, so athletic now that they throw off the projections. They throw off the correlations between athleticism and success because they

can just be complete projects who, who run so well. Yeah, I guess I was looking at it from the perspective of if you don't meet a standard of length and speed, you can't get on the ride. And then we'll know by the order of how these guys are kind of put right now,

where they should actually be if all of them meet those thresholds because if they don't then you're just you just you're taking a major risk there right like lankiness does correlate to success does it not uh yes yeah arm length i mean these all these things it's just it's just they're all to a lower degree than what the NFL values these things. So even things like agility, which is maybe what some people would point out to, I don't know, everything's like what the Patriots think. So like the Patriots may have favored that. That doesn't seem to be that important. The 40-yard dash or the 10-yard split does not seem to be that important, but it moves up the draft position. And size and arm length are important, but again, it's to a lesser degree than it is in

the draft. But again, that can be skewed by very tall, very athletic guys that we've seen get pushed up into the first round that they just shouldn't have been there in the first place. But you're right. If you're not even meeting a threshold, then that's a different discussion. Now, yeah, so I so i guess you know we're going to just kind of keep an eye on how those things play out for the vikings and we'll have a better sense after free agency because if they sign three corners then it's still a good idea to draft one because i agree with mike zimmer you can never have too many but maybe not draft one in the first round they need far more things than they have draft picks.

And that's what I was going to ask you about with a need for defensive tackle for corner defensive end wide receiver. How do you feel about trading back? Because when I asked Casey Adafo-Mensa about it, he gave the answer that you would expect anyone to give. Like, yeah, I mean, it depends on the year. And it kind of depends on like where we think the strengths of the draft are versus what we need

and all those things that play into a trade back. But I also think that last year became the first time that I remember where it was really debated a lot of like how much you draft, how much you trade back in the draft, like where you're losing out on great players, how the salary cap plays into all those things. So if Kweisi Adafomensa called you up and said,

Kevin, we don't know what to do. We've been reading unexpected points and we think it's the smartest newsletter in the world. You're the only man who can help our front office. Should we trade back? Well, I mean, it's almost going to be a default to say trading back. And in most circumstances, it's going to be beneficial for you. The one caveat, I guess I would say, in trading back,

and this is when you're looking at an average-ish sort of value that you would get from a player as you move further and further back in the draft, it doesn't fall as much as the market value of these draft picks. So that's why you're, you know, it makes sense to move back because you're getting more value. But there is a positional difference between there, not cornerback as much, but for edge rushers, for really strong pass rushing interior players on the defensive line and for tackles, for offensive tackles, those are the three positions where, yeah, maybe you can find a wide receiver in the third round. Potentially you can put up can have as much, you know, value, quote unquote, as a tackle in the first round can do. But you can't find a tackle in the third

round you just can't fill that position very well or at least not often as you can in the first round so with the Vikings being at the end of the well 23rd uh pick they're not so far up where I think they're going to really have a shot at maybe in the teens where you can still get some shots of some really elite talent at those other positions that I was mentioning that are so tough to get later on. So if they were going to trade back, I think that would make sense. And also, you know, they don't have a second round pick. So probably adding another pick, maybe even a pick in the, in the top 100 or in the early fourth round can really help have a one more arrow at a higher success rate probability than, you know additional

late day three picks or something like that i remember a few years ago the vikings collected like 17 seventh round picks which i thought was an interesting strategy but i'm not sure if that's what we're talking about we're talking about training back and one of them they used on a long snapper okay so yeah that was I don't understand that. If you're accumulating all of the worst draft picks, then, you know, with no disrespect to Brock Purdy, a seventh round draft pick and those who have made it, but your odds are pretty darn low

if you're getting all of those players. It was a lot of conference calls that day with those prospects. I remember that quite well that, you know, when you get to the seventh round, it's been a long day three in the media room. And then you have to do four or five. I mean, I'm not asking you to cry any tears for me. I just remember being like another one. Um, so there's only so many articles I could write about these guys, but, um, I think that's a great point though. When we talk about like, what is rare? Is it rare?

I walked by a guy in front of a restaurant and I just looked at him. I was like, that's rare. He was like six, seven, probably, you know, would have had one, I'm sure. I don't even know who it was, like his name, but immediately the size would have been as big as Christian Derrissaw like that's rare

you're not going to get a guy the size of Christian Derrissaw and size is going to matter when you're a tackle you're not going to get the speed and quickness on the edge in the third round or something if you're an edge rusher like that I think that makes a lot of sense but with wide receiver you have a lot of people who run between 4-4 and 4-6 and it comes down often to ball tracking and technique which you might not be as well adept to analyze based on their college tape so you could see where you know a Debo Samuel or an AJ Brown or whatever like some of the guys are not the first receiver or a Justin Jefferson, who's the fifth wide receiver. So I think that makes a lot of sense that trade back really position dependent. Now, wait, Kwesi is calling me again here and people love when I pick up the phone. Kwesi's calling me

again. He says, Oh, you know what? Now that you have Kevin there answering this question, ask him about trading up for a quarterback. Um, with Kirk Cousins situation, Kevin, quarterback um with kirk cousins situation kevin with his contract it's not the craziest thing ever to talk about that possibility if someone were to drop to a certain point how would you address the vikings quarterback situation if kirk cousins said we're just not going to be able to work out anything except for a long-term contract. Would you reach into the future to try to trade up for whatever quarterback drops or to get into the top 10? Or would you wait and see how it played out? Or how would you approach? Yeah, I think you could think about it getting up into that area.

I mean, it's going to depend on the cost. I'm trying to think to when the Texans moved up to 12 from somewhere in the 20s, I think. I guess the Chiefs moved up from somewhere in the 20s to about 10. But that's really the limit for where you can get to without mortgaging everything. If we're talking about going from the 20s into the top five or something like that, that's almost a multi-trade type of deal. Like when the Eagles moved up for Carson Wentz, they moved a couple of different times in order to be able to get up there. So yeah, I think you can look around on it. But again, we're talking about it may happen, it may not

happen. You're very subject to the whims of what's going to happen. But quarterback is one of those positions. And if you've seen my Jalen Hurts take before, andims of what's going to happen, but quarterback is one of those positions. And if you've seen my, you know, Jalen hurts take before, and then even what's going on with the bears now here, I think you always have to be considering it. So you want to have that plan in, in place.

And again, it's, it's, it's not, it's even more so than when we're talking about the tackles and the edge and the other things I know you can find, you know, Brock Purdy maybe,

or Tom Brady or wherever you want to say you can get at the very end of drafts and put them in there, but it's not really going to work most of the time. And most of the most coveted young quarterbacks in the league, almost all of them, other than let's say Lamar Jackson, uh, were guys who were top 10 picks in the NFL draft. Um, you should in all of the appearances you do, and I know you got a few and you're going to have to go do another one in a minute, drop the, Oh yeah. When I said that it was a good um you should in all of the appearances you do and i know you got a few and you're gonna have to go do another one in a minute drop the oh yeah when i said that it was a good draft pick for jalen hertz when i wrote that article uh you know you were on top of that one is a good process

decision where that pick was criticized a lot based on what draft analysts thought he was going to be and the reality is we don't really know what someone's going to be, but you have attempted to figure it out numerous times. And I think even last year, a lot of your metrics were not showing very good things about that draft class. And it turned out that the NFL strongly agreed with you. What about this one? If Kweisi called me back just now on the phone and said,

okay, we're trading up for a first-round quarterback, only if it's this guy. Which guy would that be in this draft? Oh, see, that's something I'm not nearly as confident as some others as to who that guy may be. You know, everyone seems to be falling in love with Andy Richardson now, and I don't see any problem with that.

I think any of the four guys that have been talked about the most in that area, I think if any of them are there, it's really going to be contingent upon what they've seen, how they've been able to break things down. I looked at pressure performance relative to their clean pocket performance being a quite an important metric. Unfortunately, I don't have, I have to break into, again, I got to break into the PFF vault here and get the play by play so I can match that up with their efficiency on those particular plays on that. So I think that's something that's important. I would look at a lot and, you know, it helps to

be athletic to do that. So I do think being strong and big and athletic like Richardson is can help in those circumstances. Yeah. I mean, for me, it probably is Richardson or Stroud if either one of them were to fall. And I just can't make myself say, well, there's no way that happens because there is a way that happens. There's so many times where we've thought there's no way something could happen. I just wonder if you're the Vikings, where that threshold would be, like how far would someone have to go if somehow there were three quarterbacks taken in the top 10 and then other teams just started picking other players because they didn't believe in one particular guy. This is what happened in a way with Mac Jones, where some people thought he was going to go to San Francisco at the top. And then here he was for the Vikings and the Vikings went,

and they, and they did a half-hearted effort to trade up for fields. But both of those guys were projected to be taken really high. So we don't know. But Richardson with his upside and his physical ability, Stroud with his ability to throw the football. I think that those are, I don't want to say safe picks because there's no safe pick, but you could look at that and say, I could see this guy being a superstar because he

has this one superstar talent. That's the less analytical way I would look at it is the guy has one thing that makes him a freak show, whether it's accuracy for CJ Stroud and anticipation or Richardson. Maybe you could say that for Bryce Young and playmaking too, but I think he's probably going to just go number one. So he's not as much in that conversation. Levis, I'm not sure. Maybe it's the arm strength that everyone is falling in love with, but I think it is an interesting discussion. So last thing I want to leave you with Kevin is just the huge discussion with

Kwesi Adafo Mensah and Kevin O'Connell is all about the timeline. The Vikings are not favored right now to win the division next year, which I don't know how much that matters since it is March. But how would you approach the timeline if you were them to make this team a Super Bowl contender? Not just good, but if you were to say, Kwesi, here's how you should handle the timeline do xx and x and then you'll get there uh what would you say um i mean i think we're already

as we talked about ready to say a quarterback pick can be really helpful right now and i know there's this thought that maybe even if they didn't do it this year, they did it next year, that it starts the clock again on front offices and others. But again, that's like, I guess, theoretically, you could say that. But, you know, I think Jeff Fisher got fired after Goff's rookie year. All the Bears got swept out of there after Justin Fields' rookie year. Like, it doesn't necessarily work that way. It's one of those things I think people say, cause it sounds good in theory,

but sometimes there's just time to go no matter who you particularly draft. So I think as soon as you can start moving forward on that discussion, you should be looking at it now. And we, the NFL, this is sometimes what I fight back against people who are, you know, so anti-tanking, I mean, whatever, no one wants the tank. No one goes, I don't think it actually happens as much as people think about because there's not conscious decisions to lose games.

You might just be rebuilding in a certain sort of way, but the NFL, it should never be longer than a real one year cleaning out and you should be building again one year later. So that's why I think right now is really the time where if they have to adjust some things, if they have to move down at some positions, if they have to take some less salary that they can build up for later on and start to put pieces in place, that'll pop the following year. That's what you want to do. Cause we're talking two, three years down the road. That's just way too much in the NFL. Yeah. And, uh, I don't know who said it, but whoever it was that

said like, take a quarterback a year before you think you need one is pretty wise, I think, because we're always thinking like, well, now they desperately need one. And now you have to take one where maybe this year is the year that opportunity arises. Kevin Cole, I get your unexpected points emails all the time and I read everything that you write. Great stuff on free agency last week. I know that people are going to be ramping up for that as soon as the combine is over. So go check that out. You can sign up and give it a try for free. And just so go to unexpected points, just Google it and give it a look. Some of the best NFL analytical work that is out there. So great to meet you again in person.

And thanks so much for making time for me, man. Well, thanks. Thanks for having me. Thanks for reading. And they say you can either be prolific or brilliant. And I've chose the former. So I'm just spamming you, spamming out those emails there. Sometimes maybe both.

Maybe we could say both sometimes. But I definitely there's no lack of content coming out there, but I try to do more of the visualization so you can kind of digest it yourself rather than me blabbering on for too long about everything. You know what? We have a similar strategy

because people will ask like, how do you do so many podcasts? Like, well, if I don't, then who's going to listen? So anyway, but I also have a lot of fun talking ball. So that's what we did here. Thanks again, Kevin.

And we'll talk again soon, man. All right. Thanks, Matt.