Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Khali Mack traded and which teams are the best targets for a Kirk Cousins trade

Episode Date: March 11, 2022

Matthew Coller and CBS Sports NFL Draft analyst Chris Trapasso talk about how the Chicago Bears are taking a long-term view by trading away Khalil Mack and how we might see the Minnesota Vikings do the same thing in the coming days. Plus what teams appear as possible targets to trade for Kirk Cousins. And we look at the latest from Bruce Feldman on the draft class and compare the current crop of QBs to those quarterbacks who didn't work out in the NFL. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, along with CBS Sports Draft Analyst Chris Trapasso. And Chris, I have something special for you. I usually edit in your intro, and sometimes I forget, to the show. But I figured out a way to drop it in live now so you can hear it. So, you're welcome. I'm going to play it now. Here you go. And if it's too loud, like maybe turn down your audio. This might frighten you. So here we go. Good evening and welcome to the NFL Draft. Draft season is here. Come on, come on. There you go. To break down every need. They're not going to pick a quarterback. They need offensive linemen. They need defense.

Every pro day. He had a phenomenal pro day. Explos day explosive really good in the three cone the broad jump and every mock you could probably tell me if you think the vikings would actually do it i can tell you as a draft analyst that they absolutely should welcome to the chris trapasso draft show on purple insider this is a good podcast to listen to leading into the draft how about that amazing and your voiceover guy like he belongs on like he should be doing that for commercials for nbc or something or he's phenomenal manny hill is incredible with the voiceovers we used to on the show uh when i was on radio i would make him do like game previews in nfl films voice so he would like yeah the vikings travel west to face the 49ers yeah that's all film desk i know he

should be the one that's doing it he's got got an incredible voice. So I don't know if you noticed this, Chris, but a lot of stuff is happening. Like all the stuff. Every day. It's amazing. So I waited today to see throughout the day if there was going to be any sort of craziness. And good thing we did because Khalil Mack got traded. So why don't we start by just reacting to the fact that Khalil Mack is now a member of the Los Angeles Chargers and no longer will haunt the Vikings in the NFC North. Yeah, it's huge.

What's interesting about Khalil Mack, and I'm sure you and your listeners know this, he is unique in that he is truly a three-down defensive end. He's not just a pass rushing specialist. He can have a game where he might only have two quarterback pressures, but he can wreck an entire run game plan for a team. So to get him out of that division, into that now suddenly stacked AFC West is super fascinating. The Bears, to me, only getting a second rounder and a sixth rounder was not the best value.

I tweeted that right away. That was kind of my knee-jerk reaction that I felt like they should have been able to get more than that for someone that's not 34, 35, 36, but early 30s, three-down player, should be fine coming off the injury, happened early enough that there's no concern about it leading into the 2022 season. I know that they just needed to get that big contract off their books, so they weren't willing to get as much so the Khalil Mack trade was mostly a failure for the Chicago Bears I would say

definitely a failure they got the one playoff season out of it the one NFC North title but yes Vikings fans Kirk Cousins whoever the next quarterback for the Vikings is if it's not Kirk Cousins should be pleased because Khalil Mack is an all-pro talent when he's on the field and now he's in the other conference. There's a few things to relate with the Vikings aside from the fact that Khalil Mack will no longer be sacking your quarterback or at least not twice a year. Number one is that the cap is real. It is extremely real and it is something that teams are dealing with quite a bit here, especially teams who kicked money down the road in the past

or signed deals that had lower cap hits a few years ago, and then they had those cap hits explode like Khalil Mack, whose cap hit I think is $26 million or something, or was set to be somewhere in that crazy range. It was like $30 this year. Yeah. $30 and then $28 and then 30 this year. Yeah, right. It was 30 and then 28 and then 26. So you're right.

It was team-friendly up front after the trade happened with the Raiders. And then, yes, like you're saying, it was gigantic over these next three seasons. And this is what we always talk about on the show here, is that you can help yourself in a short window in terms of the salary cap by structuring contracts that way, but it only works for that short window. And eventually you're going to have to deal with it. And what the Chicago bears just had is having to deal with it. So the bears are going to carry in something like $40 million in dead cap into next season. Again, this sort of all sounds familiar to Vikings fans when

you sign these deals that eventually they restrict you to the point where you have to move on from players that you absolutely don't want to move on from. And the Vikings could be in this place with other stars. And what Chicago is saying by doing this is, look, could we mess around with our cap to keep Khalil Mack for this year? Yeah, we probably could. Is that really wise considering his age and considering his price? I mean, I agree with you that what they got back is pretty meh for the player, but you have to factor in that the other team says, why should I pay that much when I have to take on that much salary cap space? The Vikings are in this spot

with multiple players, with Daniil Hunter, with Adam Thielen, with Delvin Cook, Eric Kendricks. Any one of these guys could be moved for basically the same reason as Khalil Mack. And I feel like I've tried to prepare people for this reality and now Chicago doing it. Now I can be like that LeBron meme where he's pointing toward the basket with jr smith like see see there's other teams that are having to do exactly this the thing that we're talking about yeah that's definitely true it's funny we when a team like the saints historically and when i say historically i mean the last 10 years signs a big ticket free agent when they're supposedly up against the cap.

Everyone says, oh, the salary cap is a myth. It's not real. It's easy to move it around. I think the way that you worded it is the way that we do need to look at it. Could the Bears have kept Khalil Mack? Absolutely. They could have restructured him. They could have converted salary to a signing bonus and added void years.

But it's real. Usually we understand that. And really it almost slaps us in the face when a new GM comes in and sees, hey, I have this 31 year old coming off an injury. Or like you mentioned, a lot of those Vikings players, even if they're not 30 yet, they're making a lot of money. They have no connection to the new regime, GM, head coach, whatever it may be. That's when we kind of understand that, hey, the cap is real for a lot of these new GMs. And they'll take on dead cap in their first year as GM if it frees them up into the future. I saw in 2023, the Bears are currently, and they'll sign some guys in free agency, currently set to have $123 million in free agency next year. So really, I'm not going to say that the Bears are trying to tank or they don't want to build

around Justin Fields, but they understand, hey, this year, we're going to be paying Khalil Mack $40 million to not play for us. And this is exactly why there are reports that the Vikings could move on from these players and take the same exact type of approach because it's the most prudent way to go. And I don't doubt that if Ryan Poles had become the general manager of the Vikings, we'd be talking about him right now doing something just like this with Vikings players. And we're kind of sitting and waiting around to see who gets moved, if it's Cousins or if it's other players, but they're $15 million over the salary cap as we speak. So it's got to be somebody and it's got to be sometime. And I think it's the smart thing to do is to try to set yourself up to have all that money to spend going into 2023 and not

expect Kweisi Adafo-Mensa to snap his fingers and all of a sudden just fix everything that's wrong with this team. Yeah, that's a fantastic point. And one thing I want to mention, this is going to sound super draft analyst of me, that if there's a trade of Eric Kendricks, of Danell Hunter for Bears fans today that are sad about Khalil Mack, there are good players in the draft. I think as fans, it's easy to get almost emotionally connected to these players and say, oh my God, we don't have Khalil Mack anymore. Well, this edge rusher class is fantastic.

Or your team trades a wide receiver. I was trying to talk to my dad recently that he's not happy about these cole beasley trade rumors or that the bills might cut cole beasley and i'm like dad look cole beasley was good he was a you know arguably a top five slot receiver in the nfl in terms of that niche possession slot receiver but there will be more good players like don't think that just because and yes Eric Hendricks is one of the best linebackers in Vikings history I'm not saying that it's guaranteed that your rookie is going to instantly replace Eric Hendricks but Eric Hendricks was once just a second round pick that no one really thought too much about and didn't think he was going to

become as good as he was today so that's just one thing that if there are any of these trades, like you're saying, the LeBron meme of pointing like I told you so, it's not necessarily you rubbing it in the faces of fans, but just it is the right thing to do if you have a new GM because the draft is there, younger free agents are there that are 25, 26, 27 that can become the next wave of quality players for your team. Well, and I was trying to make this point on Twitter and not surprisingly, it got

misconstrued by some, some on purpose, maybe some not so much. But the point that I was making on Twitter when I said, like, there's no reason at this point in the game for Vikings fans to be nostalgic about past players if they have to get rid of them. And I don't mean that you didn't enjoy watching Adam Phelan catch footballs. I think that's obvious or that you shouldn't have bought his jersey in 2018. Again, I don't see how you can miss that point, but it just means that as we evaluate how Kweisi Adafo-Mensah does his job here, don't hang on to those players in your heart if they have to move on from them. There are a few players in the NFL that are more respected than Eric Hendricks.

I mean, we're talking about a Walter Payton Man of the Year nominee, an all pro, one of the hardest working, most intelligent, instinctual players that everybody looks to in the locker room but the reality is he's 30 years old and he's very expensive and if you look at 2022 as a transition year from the old regime to what the next regime has as their vision you're talking about him being 32 years old by the time they're ready to start signing all those free agents and they've gotten the cap right. And whoever they draft this year is developed for a year because we know and look at last year that draft picks do not impact you right away, usually, unless you get somebody who's an instant superstar like Justin Jefferson. That's rare.

And so you're always looking as the general manager, what are we going to be able to do for our team for the future? And if that means someone lays down a second round pick for your 30 year old linebacker, who's very expensive, sorry, Eric Kendricks, you're wonderful, but goodbye. That's just how it's got to go. And I understand, I understand that, that these things hurt because you get to really love players and you get attached to players and everything else. However, the last four years they've made the playoffs one time.

It's just not an era of Vikings football that you're looking back and going, remember the good times? Boy, I mean, not recently. 2017 was now a long time ago. And I think what the Bears are doing is very smart here. And Seattle, I'm not so sure how smart they are, but even trading Russell Wilson for everything, if their plan is to take more of a rebuild, I think that's also a smart thing to do. And I

wanted to ask you of all these moves, is there any that have really impacted the way that you see the draft turning out? Because now of course you could say, well, maybe Seattle could be looking at drafting a quarterback if they can't get somebody like Deshaun Watson. Denver is off the board for drafting a quarterback, so there are a few things. I was curious if there's something kind of in your drafty realm that stuck out to you with these moves that have happened so far. The biggest would probably be what you mentioned, that the Seahawks are firmly in the quarterback market

in the draft, having that number nine overall pick. It was kind of rumored forever that the Broncos were going to sign someone or trade for a veteran. So there wasn't a lot of, hey, you know, could the Broncos pick Malik Willis? That was never really a thing early on in this pre-draft process. So the biggest shock was that all of a sudden the Seahawks might pick a quarterback and maybe not start Malik Willis right away, start drew lock week one, or maybe half the season, whatever it may be. So I guess the commanders too, like, but they were a team that we kind of,

they were open about it that they made that ridiculous list. I thought it was ridiculous where they said, we wrote down 42 quarterbacks that we might look to sign. I was like, what? Like, how did you make the list so big? Like, why would you make it so big at the start? So those were not two major surprises, but now suddenly the Seahawks, are they rebuilding? Are they saying let's draft Kenny Pickett and try to still be kind of good? I mean, we're only a few months removed from Pete Carroll saying, Hey, like we're in win now mode when they were like three and seven or whatever that was. Um, so it'll be interesting to see what they do. We don't really know. Are they going to go quarterback? Are they

going best player available and looking at the quarterbacks at next year's draft class? So that's been the biggest surprise, um, which to me was the biggest and most surprising move. Russell Wilson getting traded to the Broncos is Washington Washington not the funniest franchise in the world? They are hilarious. I have no idea what they're doing. It starts at the top with Daniel Snyder, all the legal stuff going on with them, some of the decisions. Someone tweeted, and this is kind of, I guess, a Vikings tie-in,

that it feels similar to when the Washington then Redskins signed Donovan McNabb or traded for Donovan McNabb at the tail end of his career and it was I think they off they got a they traded a lot for him and it was kind of like what like what was this is how the the Carson Wentz deal felt initially and then I I even tweeted something like 15 minute cooling off period kind of getting your mind right like okay, okay, what's the logic here? I was still like not understanding at all. And then I was seeing some, which I get their fans are going to try to defend their team. And it's totally fine saying like, Hey, you know, $32 million is actually pretty cheap for a quarterback. Not if that quarterback is Carson Wentz. Carson Wentz is once or twice every three months a top half of the

league quarterback. The rest of the time he's holding back your team. And I know he didn't throw a lot of interceptions last year, but I think that was not good for him because he was not making throws that he needed to make. And then he was turning the ball over far too often. I don't think they really even upgraded that much from Taylor Heineke, and they spent a ton of early round draft picks to get Carson Wentz. So, yes, they are hilarious. I don't know what – I mean, there's Ron Rivera there who's very respected, but whoever else is making the decisions and has the final say,

it seems kind of like par for the course for this team that's really just been run into the ground by Daniel Snyder the last 25 years there's a tie-in with the Vikings and we'll get to it but I just wanted to go through the list of some of the hilarious quarterbacks for Washington over the years uh Jeff Jeff George went one in six as they watched about that you know Tim Hasselbeck the uh current tv analyst went one and four once upon a time uh john freeze tony banks our guy case keenum went one and seven uh heath schuler was one of the biggest busts in history which we're going to get to that topic donovan mcnabb went five and eight

as their quarterback i mean it is amazing the guys they've run in here rex grossman trent green uh patrick ramsey of course is a classic draft pick who i'm going to reference possibly later in the show uh mark brunel went 15 and 18 as a starter for them i mean just the names jason campbell kirk cousins is actually sixth all time in touchdown passes by a washington football team quarterback and he didn't even play there that long he played like 57 games for Washington. So truly, truly incredible. Truly a privilege to have them in the National Football League.

But here's the tie-in, though. That when a team trades for Carson Wentz, the natural thing to tweet if you're a draft analyst is, well, I guess teams don't respect the quarterback class. Do you buy that or not? Because even as silly as this move is, I think by Washington, when you could just sign Marcus Mariota and have the same caliber of quarterback play, I don't think it precludes them from drafting Malik Willis with the 11th overall pick or Kenny Pickett or whoever else they decide is a first

round draft pick. If you're telling me that Carson Wentz is going to be your bridge quarterback, I still think you traded too much for him to be your bridge quarterback, but that would make much more sense for them than saying, oh no, no, no. We're the ones who can actually solve this problem with Carson Wentz. But what you just said, Matt, is logical and has a clear-cut long-term vision. I don't know if the Washington Commanders have that. That would make sense. I would be on that train of, hey, we traded for Carson Wentz, but we still have that first-round pick.

Let's select Malik Willis here. Then I think everyone would applaud that and say, okay, there's your bridge. He's expensive for this year, whatever. But if you get the right quarterback in the draft it doesn't matter but that doesn't seem like a sensible thing because i don't think the washington front office does sensible things very frequently even after bruce allen uh left that front office so yeah it doesn't really speak well to the quarterback position in this draft class. I think in general, the league is down on it slightly, but you and I talk about team building and the philosophy behind it all the time. And even if you're sitting there and you're thinking, Hey, you know,

I don't really like these quarterbacks too much beyond Malik Willis. It's still that roll of the dice costs you one first round pick to get a quarterback, nothing else. It's a cost controlled deal for four years, maybe a fifth year that gets a little more expensive, but it's cost controlled, very cheap.

Try to build around that quarterback. And maybe you don't, maybe Kenny Pickett is not the next Patrick Mahomes, but maybe Kenny Pickett can be good enough where you can have a Kirk Cousins situations where he seems pretty good, but not amazing, and you can trade him, and then you find your franchise guy in three or four years, keep your job security. I tweeted, I think Brady winning the Super Bowl with the Bucs and then Matthew Stafford winning the Super Bowl with the Rams. now everyone or a lot of teams feel like what i was saying earlier about you know being fine with a new gm trading or cutting past players they're acting like there's no good quarterbacks available that it's like nope the draft's over there's no more college players coming into the draft

none of these guys uh like no young players are going to be entering into the league you have only the pool of quarterbacks that we already have. So do what you must, trade, do whatever, trade a bunch of third-round picks to get Carson Wentz. And I get it. This class is not as good as the 2018 draft class, but there have been other draft classes. I think you mentioned it before that the 2017 draft class,

no one was really that excited about it. And I remember when, especially because the Bills were involved, when the Bills and Chiefs had that swap for Patrick Mahomes, I believe it, I don't know if it flashed on ESPN, but one of my friends got a text that said Patrick Mahomes just went number 10 overall. And everyone at the draft party that I was at, this was the bills drafting Patrick Mahomes potentially were devastated. They're like, why would they take a huge risk on this guy? He is throws a ball all over the lot. He makes stupid decisions. He's not going to be able to do that in the NFL.

So that draft class, everyone was down on it. Deshaun Watson, for whatever reason, even though he had a great career, he's okay. He was a third quarterback picked in that draft class. So I think the league is a little bit scared off and the recent developments in just winning the Super Bowl are making teams think that, hey, we need to trade for Jimmy Garoppolo, get Kirk Cousins, do all this crazy stuff. When it's just draft a quarterback, it costs you one first round pick then build around him and see what you have that's the always is going to be the best way to get not only just a good

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Kirk cousins and that buzz. Uh, Jason lock on for, uh, threw it out there like, Hey, you know, there's a contract issue to be dealt with, which could slow down a potential trade. But if you're the Vikings and you've now seen the return for Russell Wilson and Carson Wentz, it's got to be hard not to be taking these phone calls and seeing what the Bears are doing too and saying like, oh, that's kind of us. We're really in the mirror. I mean, think about if Andy Dalton's Bears had beat the Vikings at the end of last year, they would have had the same record as the Bears. And they have the same problems with the salary cap. The only difference is they have Justin Fields, who they're not sure whether he's good or not. And the Vikings know exactly

what Kirk Cousins is. But otherwise, those two are the Spider-Man meme looking at each other right in the mirror in terms of what their rosters look like. Lots of holes, a few very talented players still, but not enough to really compete with the Green Bay Packers with Aaron Rodgers coming back. And I feel like we should talk about, and then I want to get to what Bruce Feldman wrote about the quarterback class, but the potential targets for the Vikings, if they're going to trade Kirk Cousins. To me, it just, it starts with the Indianapolis Colts. If they can't get their hands on Jimmy Garoppolo, that that team makes so much sense for the Vikings to try to trade with because they have the cap space to actually be able to take Kirk Cousins in a trade. And they could make him their bridge quarterback without having their salary cap be completely constricted.

They have the offensive line they can give him. They have a very good top receiver in Michael Pittman. They have a tremendous running game that's probably the best in the league other than Tennessee with Derrick Henry. I mean, everything sort of fits there with Cousins playing behind an offensive line that's really, really good and a running game that doesn't ask him to do everything. And not only that, but they only have to take on 35 mil, not 45. The Vikings will have to take on 10 million of dead cap. But everything there kind of checks the boxes. But it sounds like they want Jimmy Garoppolo first.

I also think if they want Jimmy Garoppolo, who's similar to Jimmy Garoppolo, it's Kirk Cousins. So they're the tops on my list. Yeah, I think they are too for me. You could throw the Carolina Panthers in there as well. I don't think they have as great of an environment for Kirk Cousins, but I mean, it could be, you know, this is what the Vikings want to do. And it's not up to Kirk Cousins.

I don't think he has like a no trade clause, does he? He does not. Nope, he does not. Okay, he doesn't. So yeah, I think everything everything it would be technically a or I guess theoretically a win-win for both sides in that hey like this is the the type of quarterback that you want that that can operate the type of offense that you want uh you have the money you have some I don't know if Kirk Cousins could get a ton on the trade market, but like you mentioned, I mean, they should be happy with what they're seeing

has already transpired on the veteran quarterback market with Carson Wentz. Maybe they could get a bunch of day two picks in a very integral draft, not just for the state of the team, but because there's a new head coach and a new GM, that's the ultimate luxury to get into a new, you know first-time job as a GM and not just, oh, hey, we have the number one overall pick. That's the ultimate luxury, but having a ton of picks early in the draft to kickstart the rebuild right away. Okay. Here's the other teams. And you tell me if you agree with any of these that I wrote down that are possibilities would be the Steelers, Texans, Saints, Browns, and Seahawks. I think Seahawks is another one where you have to kind of wait and see,

and this is the game that everyone's playing on social media is refresh, refresh, refresh. But if it's someone like the Seahawks and they're waiting on Deshaun Watson, if he ends up going to the Eagles or he ends up going to jail, then I mean, right. That's what we're waiting on here is whether he's going to be indicted is whoever is left out of this party is going to be, I think, pretty desperate because if Deshaun Watson is the guy that Seattle wants, that means Seattle does not think that they're tanking for next year, even though their team is in the same spot

as the Bears and the Vikings is not being ready to compete for a championship, especially in their division. But they brought back Pete Carroll, who's like 70 years old, and they brought back their GM, who's been there forever. That seems like a team that wants to try and win.

So what do you think of that list? I'll read it again. The Steelers, Texans. We talked about the Panthers, Saints, Browns, Seahawks. I think the Saints would be the team that would kind of pop out to me because I think if you get Kirk Cousins, you probably want him playing in a dome at this point to get those eight or nine home games in perfect conditions, given his arm strength.

The Steelers would be really fascinating, too. The offensive line is not to the caliber that you would probably want to acquire Kirk Cousins. But if you're like, hey, we're going to acquire him and then just try to load up all the rest of the resources that we have, whatever we can spend in free agency. And I'm not sure what the Steelers have. I haven't checked those lists. I should check those over the next couple of spend in free agency, and I'm not sure what the Steelers have. I haven't checked those lists. I should check those over the next couple days as free agency starts, how much cap space the Steelers have. But sign a couple guys in free agency, mid-round picks up front,

and then you have a good defense, and you've just drafted a first-round running back. You want him to be your bell cow. The Steelers are kind of a sneaky team that they were apparently in on Aaron Rodgers and of course Aaron Rodgers and Kirk Cousins are not in the same class at quarterback but I think the statistics that Kirk Cousins puts up the fact that he does operate the game plan and throw to the right read most of the time or probably more than any other quarterback he's not going to do much off script but will make the right decisions maybe that's something that the Steelers could kind of go down that path and say, hey, we weren't really getting much at all from Ben Roethlisberger.

He wasn't ad-libbing either. Let's get someone that has proven over the last three or four years in Minnesota that he can be a 4,000-yard passer, but we're not going to ask him to do too much and say, hey, just don't turn over the football. I think Kirk Cousins more so than any other quarterback or would be in the group of the quarterbacks that's fine with saying, hey, I will throw the ball away on third down and just hand the ball off to a really good running back and have a really good defense. I also should have thrown in the Bucs here too, is all these teams seem to be waiting for two other quarterbacks jimmy garoppolo and sean watson so it's those three watson garoppolo and cousins and then after that for quarterbacks

who could win now it just goes off the side of the cliff i don't think anyone believes that they can win a super bowl with jamis winston or with marcus mariotta teddy bridgewater like those are not quarterbacks that are taking you to the next level those are you hope to go 10 and 7 with a good roster and sort of survive maybe pittsburgh would be a decent fit for bridgewater because they kind of play like the ball possession and don't turn it over yeah exactly so um but ideally you're looking for guys that are really good starters and that's where those three fall into that category and so it's kind of like this thing of um there's a scene in in the office where they're playing this game and and michael scott and uh pam and and who else andy are kind of pointing at each other like with

finger guns yeah and like you know i mean that that's kind of how this standoff now feels that we've seen a little bit of movement um from quarterback. So how do you think it plays out? Like, give your best guess. I know this is not, you're not the like hot take, put down your, put down your chips on the table or whatever, but how do you think this ends up playing out? I think Deshaun Watson will go to the Carolina Panthers. I think we've talked about it. Neither of you nor me are very high on the decisions that Matt Rule has made.

And he's seeming, he seemed to be extremely desperate at the quarterback position, which I get. He's made some bad decisions at the quarterback spot. I think at this point he knows if they don't really turn it around, and I always think about that. His first draft, they only drafted defense. What was that? They drafted Derek Brown, a nose nose tackle inside the top 10 like that I think I like wrote an article about that

in real time for CBS sports.com and got like hammered for it because a lot of people liked him and I was like this is a horrible way to begin a new regime to draft a nose tackle inside the top 10 and whatever that was 2020 uh i think they will say hey look we we don't care or not not that they don't care about the like legal stuff but if he gets cleared then they'll just say hey like we'll trade whatever we just sent a boatload to the jets for sam darnold we'll do the same again we just so badly need a quarterback. I think he ends up there. I think Kirk Cousins ultimately ends up in, let's say, Pittsburgh. Because I think, again, that would probably be of those three quarterbacks or of him or Jimmy Garoppolo, I think Kirk Cousins gives you a little bit

more of a ceiling than Jimmy G. And I think the Colts and Jimmy Garoppolo seem just like a perfect fit for each other. I think that's ultimately what they got in the Carson Wentz trade they'll send some of those draft picks to the San Francisco 49ers to get Jimmy G so do you feel the way this is a total aside but the same way about Jordan Davis as you did about Derek Brown when it comes to the hype of drafting someone who's more of a nose tackle because I think there's a really good debate here of positional value where I fully believe that a dominant nose tackle who could get after the passer even a little is super helpful but that player has to kind of be like

Vita Vea in order to be a major impact player for 700 800 snaps if you're Delvin Tomlinson, if that's what Jordan Davis ends up turning into, which Delvin Tomlinson is a very good player. You're only on the field for like 500 snaps though. And if you're a corner, you're on the field for a thousand. If you're a receiver, you're on the field for a thousand. Like the value you can bring, even though there is a trickle down

of having a great nose tackle, I think is different for some other positions. I know that some of the PFF guys have found that it's great if you've got that big nose tackle stuffing everything and you can have less guys in the box. So it's helpful to the rest of the defense. It's just that if you can only really play somebody on first and second down, I don't know if that's a guy that you want to take super, super high. I feel very similarly. I don't remember. I could pull it up, but I don't want our connection to get bad. I don't remember where I had Derek Brown graded, but I don't think it was in the first round or it was in the back part of the first

round because I was factoring in positional value. And I wrote, you know, Derek Brown is an amazing run defender. I think what does help Jordan Davis is that he is not as good of a run defender as Derek Brown was and is maybe a little bit better of a pass rusher. But do I think he's Vita Veya 2.0? Not really. I don't even think he's as good as dexter lawrence who's been good for the giants and was the 17th overall pick in the 2019 class or 2018 or 2019 but it's not there's just not the value there on let's say third downs but third downs are like that is always the

insinuation has been that's the passing down passing downs first down passing down second down when you're facing the elite teams when you're watching the chiefs watching the bills offense a lot of those teams using analytics the chargers as well you're going to be seeing passes on first down passes on second and long and i don't think jordan davis has the pass rushing moves or and this isn't this is important i think at 6 7 3 40 which he did slim down for the combine. I don't think he was playing at 340 at Georgia. Being really fast and being someone that runs a 4'7", 8 at that size, that matters. But it's all relative to his size.

Like 4'7", 8 is not incredibly like, oh my God, we've never seen anyone move on a football field as fast as that. So it's great for his profile, but I don't see someone like when I wrote him up, I didn't write, oh, my God, this is the most explosive defensive tackle in the history of the draft. I wrote good quickness for his size, and it doesn't really translate to you know overwhelming power where he's just unblockable I think unfortunately for as much as I like the combine it does kind of send a few players into a stratosphere where they don't belong Jordan Davis is probably going to go in the top half of the first round now and I think he will be a good player in the NFL in four years he'll be on a team that probably has a pretty good defense but it would kind of feel like oh we could have him you know we don't really care that much if he's on the team in three or

four seasons it's not an absolute must extend this guy so yes i feel very similarly to jordan davis as i did to derrick brown a few years ago yeah i have a great appreciation for the giant men but me too spending a high first rounder, I think I'd be a little dodgy about, you know, looking at Delvin Tomlinson and second rounder snap counts, right? A second, second rounder has never reached 700 snaps in his career. And last year his pass rush snaps were 359 and his run defense snaps were 282. So he was in on pass plays way more than he was on run plays,

even though run stuffing is his main thing. And that's where it becomes a little tricky to say, oh yeah, draft the guy whose main asset is being able to shut down the run. I think there are other people that you can find to do that in free agency that you don't have to spend a high first round pick on. Uh, okay, well let's get to these quarterbacks as always, but like the latest from the quarterbacks is we went from they're all bad to no, they might be good to no, they're actually all bad again. Um, just in a couple of days. So Bruce Feldman, Bruce Feldman, quoting people from the NFL combine, got a lot of, yeah, there's no one great here. So he was talking with someone, let's see, an NFL assistant who said, Kenny Pickett's his 4-5, but he doesn't look like that on the field, which I actually do agree with. And Sam Howell was good, and he was good in the meetings, but they're not sure that there's any more ceiling there.

And with Malik Willis, he quoted a coach saying he has a big arm, he can generate serious horsepower, and his accuracy is good when it's the first read um but he needs time like you know he's gonna need time to develop let's see it says um let's see uh you don't get many plays in the nfl that are one two three throw instead you have to react and change then throw okay and that's his biggest concern about Malik Willis. Matt Corral is apparently immature and Carson Strong is even more immature. So that's what I took away from Feldman's piece. And by the way, Feldman's book, Making of a Quarterback is incredible. So check that out. So he knows the stuff and he's got a lot of great sources when he talks about these things, but just your reaction to all of a sudden the pendulum swinging back the other way about the quarterbacks.

Well, like I just said, it's a perfect segue, unintentional segue that the combine sends people into a tizzy in a good way that they watch Malik Willis throw at 75 yards in prime time. And there's oohing and aahing. There was 10,000 people there inside Lucas oil stadium. And it's like,

man, maybe these guys are good then Carson Strong steps up he throws it almost 70 yards Sam Howell throws it 70 yards and everyone's like I always say I take literally zero from the quarterbacks working out at the combine zero I don't care if they throw one behind a dig route, if they throw it 40 yards or 80 yards, I care zero about the throwing portion. But it does generate buzz. So I think somewhere in between it's the worst quarterback draft class we've had

in 25 years to, hey, maybe there's like three or four franchise quarterbacks in round one, down to, again, this class is terrible. I think it's somewhere in the middle. I think in the right scenario, Malik Willis can be a very, very good quarterback. I mean a top 10 in the league quarterback. The one thing I agreed with a fair amount of those quotes. The one thing that I do disagree on, and it was from some executive that knows a lot more about football than I do, her coach, I don't think the NFL is very, you need to get to your second, third, and fourth read. I think with what Mahomes and Allen and Deshaun Watson and Justin Herbert do and all the off structure stuff, I don't think

Josh Allen is like Tom Brady in terms of reading a defense and going, I need to look here and then I need to check him off and go here and then there.'s, Oh, first reads not there. I'm going to get out and I'm going to use my athleticism and my arm and I'm going to, it's going to be a scramble drill and I'm going to find Stefan Diggs, 25 yards down the field. Patrick Mahomes does that a lot. I mean, are they good at reading coverages? Have they gotten better inside the pocket? Yes. But I think the old era, the stay in the pocket, that was more one, two, three, get through all your reads. How fast could you do it? So if Malik Willis is a little bit behind in reading coverages and getting to a second

and third read and then throwing accurately, I think now is the time that the NFL is welcoming that and offensive coordinators are saying, Hey, don't stay in the pocket, get out, get your athleticism, uh, accentuate your athleticism and your arm talent. So yeah, I think it's somewhere in the middle, uh, but it is striking because I think Bruce Felden, like you mentioned with all of his sources, uh, does kind of indicate just the general consensus of how the league is viewing these quarterbacks, which is probably precipitating a lot of these kind of crazy quarterback deals on a veteran market. Yeah, there's a couple things

there is that number one, according to PFF, 66% of throws in the NFL are first read throws. So that's a pretty high percentage. And if you have someone who scrambles after the first read, a lot of times they're throwing to the first read, a lot of times they're throwing to the first read. The other thing is too, that, I mean, we're talking about someone going from Liberty to the NFL, how they read the entire field. You have no idea because it's Liberty to the NFL. And this is the same thing with Matt Corral, where it's like, well, he just ran all these RPOs all the time. You're like, exactly. So how is he going to do in an NFL offense? We don't really know, but I don't think you should take away from the guy.

It really should be about what tools does he have? How strong is his arm? How fast is he? And even the processing stuff, I'm not sure you can really figure that out because it's totally different circumstances. The game moves at a different pace. And plus, you're not asking Malik Willis to win the Super Bowl tomorrow.

You're asking him in his rookie contract to be good enough to be with a good team around him to succeed. Like this is where I think the NFL gets this wrong. It's like, these guys don't actually have to be unbelievable to get you to a Super Bowl. They just have to be good. Like Jared Goff is just good. He's not unbelievable, and he went to a Super Bowl with a great team.

Yeah, and the point on Malik Willis, too, in that he's going to take time, well, yeah, all these quarterbacks are going to take time. The most hyped quarterback class with the most hyped quarterback prospect maybe ever, or since John Elway or Andrew Luck in Trevor Lawrence, well, guess what we found out he's gonna need time too and so is Zach Wilson and so is Justin Fields and so is Mac Jones so to say hey it's gonna take time that's totally fine and completely normal Josh Allen was not a starter in the NFL was not starter caliber until midway through his rookie season and really was not very good Patrick Mahomes sat his entire rookie season. So to say it's going to take time for Malik Willis or any of these

quarterbacks is completely normal. That's totally fine. So I'm going to, I'm going to put this down on record and then we'll play our little game to finish it off, which I'm excited about. And I've been excited about all day is if the NFL does not draft these guys in the first round, I'll take it all back. If there's one first round pick and it's Malik Willis, everybody these guys in the first round, I'll take it all back. If there's one first round pick and it's Malik Willis, everybody else goes in the second or third. I'll take it all back. I will say, okay, you got me. It was a weak quarterback draft. I admit it, but the NFL has been remarkably good at figuring out which quarterbacks are first round draft picks. And among those first round draft picks has not been very good at figuring out which ones will turn out to be star quarterbacks.

So if they evaluate them and spend first round picks on them, then it was not a weak quarterback class because you guys made the decision based on your evaluations to spend that high of a draft pick. So that's very true. It's nuanced, but I'm good, but that's what I'm going with. If, if they're all second rounders, I take it it back it was a weak quarterback class and i am sorry uh all right and speaking of that because we have snarked so many times about the weak quarterback draft class everybody's always comparing quarterbacks in the draft to quarterbacks who succeed right i want to compare all these quarterbacks to other quarterbacks who succeed, right? I want to compare all these quarterbacks to other quarterbacks who busted.

So I have made the list and I even included Carson Strong, even though we rolled our eyes at Carson Strong. All five potential quarterbacks in the first round and Carson Strong and players that they comp to that turned out to be massive busts in the NFL. So I'm going to start out with Sam Howell, and you made your list. I made my list. We have not compared these at all.

Which bust quarterback did you compare Sam Howell to, Chris? J.P. Lossman. Come on, really? Me too? J.P. Lossman from Buffalo. I think us being from the western New York area definitely saw him up close and personal in that he was pretty athletic he liked to run around a lot in college and early in his career the arm was there but never made the right decision in terms of where he was throwing the football through a bunch of interceptions did have a few flashy games uh but was ultimately just not there in terms of the mental side and not that he was like crazy off the field or anything,

just went on the field through a lot of interceptions, like directly to players or to defenders. And I think that could be kind of the way that Sam Howell would be a first round bust, tries to run around a little bit, but not quite an amazing athlete. The big arm is there. He trusts it too much and that gets him into trouble in the NFL. Exactly. What you laid out is exactly what I was thinking, which is JP Lossman's big thing was he has this arm where he can go downfield

all the time. It's his number one asset is launching the ball down the field, which shouldn't really be something you draft for because there's only 50, 60 throws a year that go more than 20 yards. So I'm just saying, uh, but with Howell, he's sort of the same size. He is like finger quote athletic, but not actually athletic for the NFL. He's athletic for plays at North Carolina and can run for a thousand yards. But when we saw him, even in the senior bowl, he was not able to escape guys with his legs the same way that he was when playing North Carolina. So JP Lossman is a perfect, perfect. I know. All right. Next one is a Desmond Ritter. I'll give you mine and then you can give me yours. I went with Jake Locker for Desmond Ritter because they both ran a four or five for one. They are both talked about as

being mature leaders, guys that you want in your locker room, guys who you would go to war with, that kind of thing. And also the throwing mechanics, not so perfect. The accuracy, pretty questionable at times. Locker's accuracy was horrific. It was like 47% completion percentage. And I remember Mel Kiper, was it Mel Kiper who got really mad at that criticism or was he the one that had it I forget who I forget which way it went but I remember Mel Kiper freaking out over Jake Locker uh but I think it was that he I think that he and John Gruden were arguing and Mel Kiper was like dude he can't even complete 50 of his passes he's just not going to be good. So Ritter was better than that, but also playing worse competition.

That's mine for Desmond Ritter. Okay. I actually used Jake Locker for another quarterback, interestingly. So that's a little teaser ahead. For Desmond Ritter, I went with Christian Ponder or a quarter, like I'll do two, like a hybrid of these two players. Christian Ponder and a first round pick that I think a lot of people forgot was a first round pick, Jason Campbell. Both of those quarterbacks for their time were decent athletes.

That was not an era where quarterbacks were running even remotely close to the amount that they're running today. Christian Ponder, 2011 draft right before Andrew Luck and RG3. RG3 was kind of at the forefront of like these truly running quarterbacks, designed run game, him and Cam Newton. But good arm, not quite as athletic as, you know, what he tested. I didn't pull up Christian Ponder's workout, but I remember him being like, hey, he's, you know, a pocket passer, but he's pretty

athletic. Same with Jason Campbell, but the decision-making play under pressure for Christian Ponder and Jason Campbell, not very good, looked very antsy, overwhelmed. That's what I saw. The little that Desmond Ritter, I thought, was pressured in some bigger games that he did make some mistakes. That's where we saw the worst of his play. So being this really good in Indianapolis at the combine workout, that doesn't really transition over to the NFL. And then just being overwhelmed by the speed of pass rushers and corners under pressure. Once he's in the pros,

that's how I could see doesn't render being a bust. And again, these are bust comps only. So we're not saying that these are who these guys are going to be christian ponder this blew my mind dude ran a 463 what he was a good athlete yeah and he was like that at florida state where he kind of had a reputation of like he's going to test pretty well even though he didn't really show it and then he i remember people being like see this is a pocket passer but he gives four, six speed if you need it.

And he never showed that in the NFL. No, not at all. Kenny Pickett, who is your bust comp for Kenny Pickett? All right. I took a while on this one, but I kind of went with the low-hanging fruit because I couldn't really pinpoint one. I went with Daniel Jones. I think the people that don't like Kenny Pickett as a prospect say, hey, is he even better than Daniel Jones? Why should the Giants select him? The small

hands, the fumbles, the turnovers before his final season, those were all issues for Kenny Pickett. They were issues the entire career for Daniel Jones. They've been a huge problem for him and is what has held him back from becoming even like a top half of the league quarterback so if Kenny Pickett flames out I'm not going to say it's going to be directly because of his hands but he could have a Daniel Jones-esque flame out where he does flash a little bit but he just turns the ball over way too much I went with Brady Quinn because I think that Brady Quinn again was a really good athlete, not an unbelievable athlete though. And I don't think that Kenny Pickett is either same deal where he wasn't really a runner,

got antsy inside the pocket. And the biggest thing for Brady Quinn is that he just wasn't that accurate. And the thing about accurate from college to the NFL, and I don't know exactly why this is, maybe the players are better or whatever i'm not sure but you got to be i think really accurate to be considered nfl accurate if that makes sense like this is maybe one of the reasons why the athletes are taking over the position is because accuracy is really really hard in the nfl most of the windows aren't you know that wide open uh you can't really just screw around for three or four seconds and then find somebody running wide open most of the windows aren't that wide open. You can't really just screw around for three or four seconds and then find somebody running wide open most of the time, unless you are an unbelievable athlete.

And I think that those things got Brady Quinn is that he just couldn't truly execute the simplistic, straightforward stuff, even though he was a good athlete and had a decent enough arm, but it wasn't an amazing arm. I think there's something there between Brady Quinn and Kenny Pickett. Yeah, I can see that too. And that's what's held me back from really putting a stamp and saying, Kenny Pickett is Joe Burrow 2.0. I think I said that on an earlier episode, that for all the age,

all the similarities between Pickett and Burrow, Pickett falls way short of Burrow in terms of his pinpoint accuracy. Burrow dropped dimes all over the field in the SEC where there was a wow. There was like seven wow throws a game. Kenny Pickett did have some of those, but then there were also a lot of misses or post routes that were slightly behind his receiver. He had to make adjustments. So that is a good point that the ball placement issues could also hurt Kenny Pickett once he gets to the NFL I could feel Vikings fans being scared off as we speak uh Malik Willis this one um I I was trying to not go with another black quarterback but it was hard

not to because you know just the comps are bad when EJ Manuel is coming out we heard is he the next jim marcus russell like no there no no uh but i had to go with akili smith akili smith was just an incredible athlete again bust comp of somebody who just never had it he never had it at the nfl level it wasn't there and the other one i considered and maybe you use this one was jordan love that he had lots of tools that everybody was excited about. And at least so far, Jordan Love hasn't proven to the Green Bay Packers that they should move on from Aaron Rodgers. So those were my two.

I almost went with Achilles Smith for Malik Willis, but I decided to actually go with Jake Locker because I saw a lot of the similarities. I mean, I guess now thinking about you saying Malik Willis or Achilles Smith, I probably should have gone in that direction because I don't believe that Malik Willis is nearly as inaccurate as Jake Locker was, but Jake Locker was kind of this, Hey, he can be like Tim Tebow or, or he was Tim Tebow on the West coast. He can be in your design run game. He's a fantastic athlete, ran in the four fives rocket

arm just kind of have him make better decisions throw the ball with more with better ball placement uh and just it was always just too fast for him and he leaned on his legs a little bit too much uh matt corral i struggled with so who did you go with the mac rail i went with tim couch the first pick in the 1999 draft in that he ran around a little bit at Kentucky kind of elevated that program when they were really when Kentucky was the bottom of the SEC was really productive through a lot of interceptions I believe 19 interceptions in his second to last season and then 15 and Matt Corral had a bunch of picks in the 2020 campaign where people were like hey we got to see those interceptions come down.

They did, but I think that's still part of his resume. And Tim Couch was never really able to parlay the athleticism that he showed as a runner in the SEC, elevating that program to the pros. That's how I kind of feel about Matt Corral, more so than Sam Howell. He'll be able to move around a little but you're not getting Cam Newton you're not getting Justin Herbert you're not even I don't really even think you're getting Patrick Mahomes type level athleticism and they both had good arms were both pretty productive in the pocket and kind of a wide open system that just never allowed them to

quickly translate to the NFL level so I may have cheated slightly here because I had to go to a second round pick, but an early second round pick, I went with Gino Smith. And the reason I went with Gino Smith, that's a good one. That's a really good one. Exactly what you were just talking about is like at West Virginia, he looks like a fairly athletic quarterback, but in the NFL that that never really translated he looked pretty accurate but not unbelievably accurate there were a lot of advantages from you know just what his offense was spread offense yeah yeah i was thinking very much that spread offense he kind of threw it all over

the place uh and really didn't have one tool that blew you away and i think the same maybe exists for for matt corral so that was i had to leak into the second round for that but gino smith went all the way through the draft process everyone fully expecting him to be a first round pick like that was the talk of the first round was that gino smith was not a first round pick so everyone expected that he goes in round two that was one that the nfl kind of got right i mean he's still playing but was not worthy of being a first rounder and that could ultimately happen for matt corral right right. I mean, he's still playing, but was not worthy of being a first rounder. And that could ultimately happen for Matt Corral. Right.

And good for him that he's still playing because a lot of these busts flame out pretty quickly. All right. Last one. I had Carson Strong. I did not assign you Carson Strong. So if you want to come up with one off the top, but I just wanted to mention Patrick Ramsey and the fact that Patrick Ramsey ran a 5-2-4-40. I was just like, this is perfect.

He had a big, giant arm. It was either him or Kyle Bowler that I wanted to go with, but I thought I got to go with the slowest guy, Patrick Ramsey, 4-2-5-40, and I think that's Carson Strong. I'll go with Sam Bradford off the top of my head. Oh, like it, like it. Bradford's a good athlete, though, back in the day. Yeah, he was

not the way he played because of the knee injuries for sure yeah I was gonna say like that early in his Oklahoma career it was like at the time a totally different era of what we expected for quarterbacks athletically he could move a little bit then he had the shoulder injury in the knee but when you watch Carson Strong's film you do see a lot of like threaded needles uh where the accuracy is really good. The arm strength is there. That's what I kind of remembered from Sam Bradford at Oklahoma and early in his career with the Rams, with the Vikings, with the Eagles, that he always was someone that was getting traded a lot. And that he was kind of the Carson Wentz of his day now

that because there were those wild throws and he had the strong arm like Carson Strong has, but ultimately as he got older, he just could not move whatsoever. As he was part of the beginning of the Cam Newton, RG3, Andrew Luck era, he just fell way behind athletically as, you know, pass rushers got bigger and stronger and faster too. I just actually see a lot of Sam Bradford to Carson Strong that he almost just wants to be a point guard back there and just throw the ball all, all over the lot. And you can easily fall in love with him.

If you're thinking, Hey, I want my quarterback to just be a pocket passer, but anyone watching the league today knows that that's really not the direction that the quarterback position has gone in. I think that's well done. And PFF had Carson strong is one of the best in terms of big time throws so yeah throwing it into tight windows and things like that uh that's very good so those are

our bust comps of course we'll get to a point where we do our uh 90s only comps and things like that we'll continue to have fun with it so chris will catch up again very soon and uh hopefully by the time you're listening to this nothing else has happened and it's still good because it seems like every afternoon, something big is going on. So follow Chris on Twitter at Chris Trapasso and CBS sports.com. And we'll catch you all later.