Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Kirk Cousins vs. the QB schedule, Part 1
Episode Date: May 25, 2020Is Aaron Rodgers washed? What does Philip Rivers have left? Is Ryan Tannehill for real? Can Deshaun Watson carry the Texans even without his best weapon? And how does Kirk Cousins compare to each? H...ow many games in the first half of the schedule do the Vikings have the advantage at QB? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Folks, do you feel like everything these days is go, go, go?
It's non-stop, from work, to friends, to family, and a million pressing issues.
Sometimes you just need to take a playoff and hit the reset button.
That's when you reach for a Coors Light. It's made to chill.
Hey, it's that time of year in Minnesota, again, to get out on the lake, go to the cabin, sit back, watch some baseball.
Coors Light is the perfect refreshment to chill during these summer months.
There's only one beer out there that's made to chill.
The mountains on the bottles and cans turn blue when your beer is cold,
and that way you know it's time to chill.
Hit that reset button with some mountain cold refreshment.
Coors Light is cold lager, cold filtered, and cold packaged.
It's literally made to chill.
It's crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies.
Coors Light is the one you should choose when you need to unwind,
when you want to hit the reset button, reach for the beer that is made to chill.
Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door
with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado,
and as always, celebrate.
Hi, welcome back to Purple Insider.
Matthew Collar here, and we welcome in our friend Eric Eager from Pro Football Focus. What is up, Eric?
Man, you know, just trying to enjoy what we have now that the draft's over and, you know, free agency's over. And, you know, we do have a schedule, which is good, and that's what we'll talk about today uh but you know right now we're we're you know sort of deep deep diving into all of the uh the the depth so that is the nfl at this point yeah you know i actually like this time of year for that reason that when it's amidst the off
season or the regular season you're usually so buried in whatever the day-to-day type of thing
is you know who you're playing next and then in offseason, who you're going to draft, who they should sign.
And then when the dust settles, we can really pull back and be creative
and look at it in a lot of different ways, which is what I attempted to do
in my article on purpleinsider.com, Kirk Cousins versus the schedule.
So we're going to go over the second half of the schedule later with Sage Rosenfels.
Eric, you are up for the first half of the schedule, QB versus QB.
And on opening day of the season, we will have Kirk Cousins against Aaron Rodgers.
It's a great debate about whether Aaron Rodgers can still be any portion of the great Aaron Rodgers
because over the last five years or so, when you compare his quarterback rating, even his PFF grades, his QBR,
whatever you want to look at with Kirk Cousins,
there isn't that big of a difference,
and he's really struggled when he's come to U.S. Bank Stadium,
but he's still Aaron Rodgers.
He still has this freakish arm that flashes every once in a while,
and it really stuck out to me,
the pro football focus numbers in the QB annual showing that he still had a
lot of big time throws last year,
even if it was just another kind of,
eh,
not,
not good,
not like great,
but good type of season.
Yeah.
I mean,
the,
the issue with Rogers,
you know,
has to be always,
you know,
what, what have they done to his supporting cast?
Because I think a season ago they struggled at times offensively, but Devontae Adams is out.
They don't have – they brought in Devin Funchess this year.
He's at least sort of an NFL caliber number two wide receiver.
But what this will look – I think the biggest thing here is whether Rodgers will succeed
and, you know, outplay Cousins here is what's going to happen with the Vikings, you know, three corners, right?
They're going to turn over that position entirely.
And while, you know, I don't think Green Bay, you know, amongst the teams we're going to talk about today,
Green Bay is not the best team to exploit that.
There's certainly a team to exploit that.
And maybe at least for one day,
we'll see the old Rogers against the Viking secondary.
That probably will resemble the 2013 version of the team more than it has
the last few years.
Well,
on that matter last year,
the cornerback play was pretty abysmal outside of McKenzie Alexander,
who was,
I would say an average nickel corner,
but Xavier Rose is one of the worst in the NFL,
and nobody's statistics show that better than Pro Football Focus.
I think he was fourth worst in quarterback rating allowed
and one of the worst graded corners in the league.
So you're bringing in rookies who might struggle
and might even be not good in their first year,
but it's almost hard to be as bad as Xavier Rhodes was last year.
So I wonder how different it's going to be.
Plus the fact that they were able to bring back Anthony Harris,
that makes up for a little bit of the difference in my mind.
Yeah, it certainly helps.
And I think having two good safeties and frankly, a middle linebacker in it,
Eric Hendricks, that's, you know, quite good will help.
Especially if, you know, they really are trying to
lean into, you know, the sort of San Francisco 49ers type of offense in Green Bay. Because if
you, you know, if you remember that playoff game, you know, in January, the passing game of Jimmy G
was not what beat the Vikings, right? The crossers and so on. The Eric Hendricks got his hands on a
crosser. You know, the Vikings did a pretty good job of defending the pass in that game.
It was that they were, you know, a little bit soft against the run,
and that still might be the case in 2020.
But, yeah, you know, coming in and getting rookies to play well,
my issue is just that, you know, instead of having sort of one weak link
and a couple of average players in Alexander and Wayne,
there's a significant chance that all three corners are below average,
and that force multiplier might work in Green Bay's favor in week one.
That being said, this is not, you know,
watching the Vikings against Green Bay for the past 15 years.
I mean, Rodgers has always, Rodgers and Favre,
have always scared the Vikings.
I don't think that's a situation that's actually true anymore.
I think Vikings fans certainly believe that, you know, he's a good quarterback, but not somebody that will terrify you.
Well, it was really interesting in the quarterback annual that looking at his accuracy percentage,
I was shocked to see that he ranked 24th last year. And so he was not the same accuracy,
even though he had the big time throws to go along with it. It kind of reminds me like an old power hitter who, you know,
is not hitting for average anymore, like still hitting the home runs,
but their ability to hit.330 has sort of disappeared,
and now they're a.220 average hitter with still getting a decent amount of power.
And I wonder if the system plays into this.
You know, there was the comment by, I think it was Greg Cosell,
talking about how Rodgers really isn't a Kubiak or Shanahan-style offense type of quarterback
with the bootlegs and rollouts and things like that.
That's never been his game.
So do we think that he's going to be able to adjust to that from what they started last year and play better or if that's just not
ever really going to be a fit it's tricky because i i do think that the the draft pick of jordan
love is very much a signal to rock you know that they're going to move on from rogers and not
because he's bad but just because he you know it's a comfortability thing it's why it's why
shanahan was so uh enamored with Cousins,
because Vikings fans have seen this over the last two years.
Cousins will get you exactly what the play gets you,
and he doesn't deviate.
For better or worse, he doesn't deviate off of that.
And I think some coaches find that appealing as a trait,
because you can go ahead you know, as a trait because, you know, you can go ahead and, you know,
you can go ahead and know, you know, draw a circle around all the stuff that can happen
on a play.
And some of these coaches are such control freaks that that's like what they prefer versus
where Rodgers, I mean, he, the plus side of him is so immense, but the downside is not
trivial either.
And, you know, a lot of the downside is him just working outside of structure.
And if you're a coach who, you know, sort of puts a game plan together,
puts an offense together very meticulously and the quarterback goes off script,
I think that's sometimes frustrating for these guys.
So I do think that, you know, eventually they're going to move on from him
just from a stylistic standpoint.
And that's, you know, that's where the draft pick of Jordan Love points to.
You know, I was thinking about this for older quarterbacks and how John Elway early in his career used his
athleticism in a similar fashion where it was a lot of off schedule a lot of rolling around back
there and then finding somebody down the field but then Elway late in his career just becomes
a pure executor of the offense and ends up with two Super Bowls, of course, with super stacked teams
as well.
But he changed himself as a quarterback.
And Rodgers, I'm not sure that he has that same type of capability.
And the other guys who have gone into their 40s are the all-time great executors of offense,
Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees.
And I don't know that Rodgers is on that same level because he was so successful with rolling out,
finding ways to manipulate his blocking to give him a little more time,
throwing off of platform,
and now that athleticism just isn't what it used to be.
So I wonder if you think in this game, or in these two games,
Vikings and Packers, if Kirk Cousins is the better quarterback now.
If you said that three years ago
people's heads would have exploded into a million pieces but I don't think that that's a crazy
statement anymore yeah it's tricky I mean the Vikings I think are three and a half point
favorites in this game uh if you give the Vikings a full home field advantage of three points the
market would seem to imply that the Vikings with Kirk with kirk cousins are a better team than the green bay packers uh with with uh aaron rogers i i dispute
that a little bit um i still would give rogers the edge here especially considering kirk is dealing
with i think a supporting cast that is probably as weak as green bay is currently um you know i
think zealand and adams are both great receivers but the lack of a number
two on both sides i think still throws me on the side of rogers given that i think they have similar
things to work with now unlike last season where you know uh kirk had both feeling and days i i'm
more on the side of rogers but i think it's slight it's more slight than people believe
well and the difference might be that rogers could play bad and still do some things that are so good that he wins anyway.
And with Cousins, he has to play really, really well in order for him to win.
And that might be one of the reasons that, you know,
you have an easy schedule last year and you still go 10-6
is that he had bad games and they lost.
Like, he couldn't overcome the bad performances that he had bad games and they lost. He couldn't overcome the bad performances that he had
by doing something special,
by throwing a 60-yard Hail Mary or something like that
or making some crazy throw to get them a late touchdown.
It's always he has to drive them down the field,
he has to execute, the play has to work, all those things,
and then he has to be on that day for you to win
where that's not really the case with Rodgers.
I don't have a ton to say about philip rivers here the vikings will face the indianapolis
colts in week two other than like the rivers coaster over the last five years has been fun
to follow uh the difference in his pff grades between the lowest and the highest over the last
five years are the same difference between what you'd expect from Brian Hoyer and Drew Brees he's he's had seasons that are backup quality he's had seasons that are
elite quality uh what do we think is left there with him going to the Colts I think it's anybody's
guess right you know the Colts are the favorite in the AFC South, you know, basically even money to win the division.
And I dispute that.
I think Tennessee, Arthur Smith, you know, Ryan Tannehill, Derek Henry,
A.J. Brown, that offensive line, I think are game.
And, you know, Frank Reich's a terrific coach.
And, you know, Phillip Rivers is a Hall of Fame quarterback.
But, you know, we've seen it go pear-shaped. I mean, in the Minnesota game a season ago against the Chargers,
I mean, Rivers had that team in the game for about half of the game. And then, you know,
normal Phillip Rivers stuff happened and this sort of thing imploded a little bit.
So I think there's a significant question as to whether or not, you know, Rivers is going to be
good enough. A, because we have, because we have sort of an abbreviated season,
which I think works against Minnesota too
because they're switching offensive coordinators.
You have Michael Pittman, who's a wider receiver they drafted,
with their first pick, who has to acclimate to the system.
Jonathan Taylor is a player that I think that they're going to really want
to push into a prominent role right away. But again, if they have an abbreviated offseason,
those things are harder to do. So I think the advantage here goes to Kirk, and I think it's
slight, though. Yeah, I think it is, too. And Rivers has that volatility to him that has made
him really entertaining. But you also don't know like you
could show up one day to play the Colts and he just goes absolutely bananas and throws for 400
yards and completes 27 of 30 or something like he's still got that in him it's just the thing
with Rivers is he loves to take those risks and to launch the ball down the field still
from what we saw from him last year.
And the ball is just floating at this point.
I think it could be really hard to be that kind of guy who loves to take
risks and throw the ball down the field when you don't have that capability
anymore.
And based on last year,
he was not really adapting his game to be just the,
just the short passer.
I mean,
he was to some extent with,
you know,
throwing to Austin Eckler and things like that, but he still had that,
uh-oh, he's throwing it 40 yards down the field,
that it's just floating like a punt.
What's going to happen here?
And I think because of that, the Vikings do have an advantage,
or at least the fact that we can predict Cousins a little bit easier than
Rivers.
Now, on Ryan Tannehill, this is a great one to talk about because this is like a guy who
was a utility infielder who was pretty solid at like 230 batting average like let's say he was
like nick punto or something starting at second Jeff Rebele yes exactly and then all of a sudden
he becomes kirbyett for last year.
He's the best quarterback in the NFL.
It's 2006 Nick Puzo.
It doesn't make any sense for someone even changing places to be this good.
However, he threw fewer passes than Matt Stafford did last year,
and Stafford was out for more than the season injured.
I wonder what we think of how we deal with such a small sample size,
286 throws for him to lead the NFL in quarterback rating.
You know, if you had cut off Kirk Cousins' season at 286 throws,
he might have had a quarterback rating like this coming out of that section
of games against the Eagles and the Giants and Washington.
I mean, this to me is one of the most obvious small sample size things.
The guy's coming back down to earth.
My question for you, though, is just where earth is for Ryan Tannehill.
Yeah, because there's a ton in there that sort of implies that there's going to be a regression.
He averaged 13 yards per pass attempt when using play action.
He took sacks at a rate i think was
top three in terms of pressured you know when when he was pressured he took sacks you know so there
there are some things that don't show up in sort of the fantasy statistics that are bad in his case
but he limited negatively graded throws better than all but one quarterback a season ago um
you know arthur smith is still
there which a lot of times we don't when we say okay this matt ryan 2016 has an amazing season
averages nine and a half yards to pass him kyle shanahan goes to san francisco and there's a new
variable arthur smith is still in tennessee um they did lose taylor uh or jack conklin i believe
um but you know they drafted is drafted Isaiah Wilson in the first round.
They got Christian Fulton.
I mean, their defense wasn't particularly good last year,
but all the Titans did was score.
And so it helped them, you know, down the stretch.
Derek Henry had over 1,000 yards a season to go after contact,
which is, you know, running backs are –
it's hard to be a good running back season to season,
but one way to be so is to break tackles and get yards after contact so there's a lot of there like to like about the titans um
and tannahill i think last season is like you know he had the season that
when you look at sort of like what kirk cousins could be uh that that's the ceiling right and so
um if he falls back down to earth and Cousins falls back down to
earth I still would take somebody who was a top 10 pick in the NFL draft you know basically a year
the same year as Cousins over Cousins at this point well we're very much on the same page I
wrote this sentence in my article at purpleinsider.com is it would be a win for Tennessee
if 2020 Tannehill was in the range of what Cousins has been over the last few years.
And I think they're still a very good team if that happens.
But, you know, if you throw out the 2018 season and you sort of go back to where Tannehill was before his injury,
it did seem he was making progress toward being a solid NFL starter.
And his 2018 season, that's Miami falling apart.
That's Adam Gase as his head coach.
That's him coming back from a severe knee injury that kept him out for an entire season.
So you're talking about, actually, was it that year?
All right, I'll have to check that.
But he had that injury mixed in, and it's not an easy situation to be in.
And I think if you're Tannehill,
you are another one of the many quarterbacks in the NFL who are really affected by what type of situation you got.
And if Derrick Henry is running for six yards a carry
and putting you in second and four all the time where you can use play action,
and then you have A.J. Brown, who is, I think,
emerging as a really, really good receiver,
especially runs yards after catch, I mean, you a really, really good receiver, especially runs at yards after catch.
I mean, you could continue to be good. Yeah, it was, it was 2018 that he was coming off of that
ACL injury in 2016. He had the Dolphins in the playoffs, you know, and got Berg and, you know,
Hall of Fame backup Matt Moore started the rest of the season, but like, but you know, the,
but he was, you know, Adam Gase has had one successful season but like but you know the um but he was you know adam gaze has had
one successful season as a head coach in the nfl and tannahill was a big part of that right right
so i think it's fair to say that tannahill is probably good it's more likely that he's good
than he's terrible but how good is still to be determined. Is that fair? Yep. All right.
Yeah, and I think with Cousins,
we view Cousins a little bit more stably than we view Tannehill,
mostly because of Tannehill's injuries.
But, you know, as you pointed out,
I think Tannehill was having a halfway decent career prior to those injuries,
and maybe 2019 was sort of a catch-up year for him well that that's one
of the things by the way that I like about this article this idea this these podcasts is having
this conversation of comparing Kirk because Kirk you know exactly what he is now you've got a huge
sample of very similar type of play from year to year he has his career best season last year his worst season is probably 2017 uh 2018 is
is okay but like you know exactly where the floor is you know exactly where the ceiling is you know
exactly how much supporting cast and system affect him and so you could just compare that pretty
easily to everyone else of like what we know and what we don't know about these other quarterbacks
and now our next quarterback deshaun watson what we know about watson is't know about these other quarterbacks. And now our next quarterback, Deshaun Watson,
what we know about Watson is he is one of the guys that you would,
without any hesitation, take.
I mean, over almost anyone in the league outside of Patrick Mahomes.
Yeah, Watson has had to deal with quite a bit in his career.
And unlike Tannehill, he hasn't wavered a whole lot.
I mean, he's in a different class, and there's not a whole lot to that.
Now, they're going to be tested as a team because, you know,
obviously Bill O'Brien saw DeAndre Hopkins and wanted to upgrade
by making three versions of Will Fuller on his team.
And, you know, they dumped a lot of money into Laramie Tunzel.
Their defense still stinks.
Like I think Minnesota is going to have a chance to win this game.
Um, but it's not going to be because they have a better quarterback.
How good do you think that Deshaun Watson would be with DeAndre Hopkins and without
like, I mean, they're bringing in Brandon cooks.
I'm not really enthralled with that idea because he is a pretty one dimensional wide receiver as opposed to DeAndre Hopkins, who is as good as it gets. But, you know, the supporting
cast is not a complete atrocity. It's just not as good as it would have been with the top three
wide receiver in the NFL. And Watson has the capability to overcome things because of his
ability to go off schedule, his running ability, he, he does make a lot of big time throws into traffic and things like that.
So how much, like, can we put a number on how much it will affect him?
Yeah, I think, you know, we, we have hot, we had Hopkins last year at,
you know, at about half to three quarters of a win.
Brandon cooks at his best is sort of more around a quarter to a half of a win uh brandon cooks at his best is sort of more around
a quarter to a half of a win so you know it's interesting because no one player makes that
big of a difference unless it's a qb but you know these receivers are such force multipliers
the interesting thing about hopkins and this is you know just from reports i've heard or you know
people i've talked to they were a little a little worried about Hopkins declining average depth of target.
They were worried about it. It was silly things, but I do
think that Houston wants to be more of a deep passing team and
less of a grinded out team. When you look at their playoff games
and it does show. They turned in.
Watson turned from a player that held onto the ball, you know,
three seconds per drop back down to, like, 2.7.
And the passing game, in some sense, suffered from it because, you know,
they tried to cross the street a million times on the way to the end zone.
And Watson's sort of more of a big play guy, right,
a player who, you know, needs to be able to get chunks every once in a while
and use his legs and things like that.
And maybe Bill O'Brien, the coach, is far better than Bill O'Brien, the GM.
Maybe he's got a plan as to how to use that offense efficiently.
I mean, the splits with them with Will Fuller on and off the field
are enormously different.
And so I do believe that for that offense to work,
they do need deep threats
in addition to somebody underneath now the somebody underneath whether it be randall cobb or kiki kuti
has to step up and they and be 70 of what hopkins was um but there's a chance that they do and you
know we end up with seeing a similar uh you know offensive production from that team yeah there's
a few guys that i would just never bet against no matter what.
And Deshaun Watson.
He's one.
I mean, yeah, that's exactly how I look at him.
And last year he was still sixth in big time throws, eighth and third downgrade.
Like everywhere across the board, you see how much he is impacting winning.
And that's one of those where you go in and say, well, the Vikings are the better team
top to bottom.
You know, they might be better coach.
They might have a better front office and everything else.
And your defense might play well that day, and you could still lose to Deshaun Watson.
That is something you can't say for very many quarterbacks.
You can for Russell Wilson.
I don't have a ton to say about Russell Wilson.
Vikings fans very familiar with Wilson.
He's great, one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.
Does not turn the ball over, but also
has a ton of big time throws. I mean, this is, he has put himself in the range of the very elite
quarterbacks and is not interesting to me for that reason. But Matt Ryan is interesting to me,
Eric, because I think you can make an argument that Matt Ryan has been a little underrated
during his career because of so many great quarterbacks.
Your Ben Roethlisberger, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and so forth.
That he is that little notch below, but a notch above the other quarterbacks who are kind of entirely dependent on their supporting cast.
Like a Cousins, Garoppolo, or a Jared Goff.
But his circumstances last year were very bad.
Extremely bad.
The offensive line was an atrocity for him.
Caleb McGarry gave up 13 sacks.
He still got Julio Jones, okay, so that's great.
But everybody else, I mean, Devontae Freeman, the washed-up version,
he's throwing checkdowns to him and getting six yards per pass.
I mean, it was not a great situation,
but Ryan was still very very
good when he had time to throw still one of the best clean pocket passers in the nfl last year
right and when you look at when you look at you know they traded muhammad sanu mid-season
uh you know uh calvin ridley still is sort of trying to find his own um you know as you said
the offensive line i mean we we know that offensive
linemen don't uh you know their learning curve is steep so they draft two in the first round last
year and you know this is a you know a good thing for viking fans to realize as well with ezra
cleveland like that the impact might be seen more this year than it was last year but then the other
thing about the falcons which is not trivial at all as well, they play in a tough division with it, you know, with the New Orleans Saints and their defense has had clusters
of injuries. I mean, Keanu Neal has been lost for the season the last few years. Ricardo Allen's
had injuries. Desmond Truffaut, Brian Poole, and Robert Alford, some combination of them hasn't
worked out the past few years. So, you know, they're always playing from behind. And as we saw, you know, following the Vikings last season,
when you play from ahead, it's a lot easier to be a quarterback, right?
And Tennessee found that out as well.
And so with Ryan, you know, yeah, he wasn't as good as his 2016 version.
He certainly was never fundamentally that good.
But he's played well over the past three seasons,
despite the lack of team success there. was never fundamentally that good but he's played well over the past three seasons despite
the lack of team success there um it remains to be seen whether you know drafting aj terrell will
help them remains to be seen whether you know uh they can you know they can get it figured out
defensively but i think as far as quarterbacks are concerned if you're a vikings fan you'd take
matt ryan any day of the week yeah that's always the conversation here that adds an extra layer to it.
It's like you're not really playing Matt Ryan versus Kirk Cousins.
The defenses are involved here, so it's two different ways of looking at it.
It's like who would you take, who's the better quarterback in that game,
versus who's the better team and what does the matchup really look like.
And in this one, I still think that the Vikings have a stronger overall team than the Atlanta
Falcons, and that's a difference maker here.
But I just wonder how much longer Ryan is going to be good.
Did they just miss their shot and that's kind of it for the Atlanta Falcons?
Yeah, I think that's probably fair, especially when you look at, you know,
the division in which they play.
You know, New Orleans, probably even money to win that division,
but then now you have Tampa Bay, who not only has Tom Brady,
but has a defense that is to be reckoned with.
And, you know, you look at Tampa Bay's defense was top ten in the league
in terms of yards per play, expected points, all that kind of stuff last year.
And they got screwed by Jameis Winston throwing 30 interceptions.
So, you know, so they gave up the 28th most points in the league.
When you look at, you know, when you look at that division, yeah,
Carolina's going to be a cupcake.
But, you know, Atlanta's got a lot of path,
terrain to travel just to even get into the wild card conversation.
So it's tough.
It's interesting that Dan Quinn has kept his job this entire time.
Yeah, no, I know.
I thought after last year they would have moved on,
but they have a good second half of the season, and we see that sometimes that owners say, okay, well, you know,
you've got to turn around, so I'll give you another chance,
when maybe it was time to bring in one of those offensive gurus for Matt Ryan and see if you could reca, out of the first eight games of the year,
how many are they the better quarterback's team?
Man, I would say, when I'm looking at it,
I don't know which two, but let's say two.
Yeah, I've got a lot of even.
You know what I'm saying?
I've got a lot of even. You know what I'm saying? I've got a lot of even, yep.
Yeah, because I think if the – so if the Chips fall with Green Bay, right,
like they – I would say even with those two games, so that's like one.
Yep, yep.
And then I think the combination of Colts-Titans could be one.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
Somewhere in there is one.
But they're definitively worse against Houston, Seattle, Atlanta,
and especially Seattle-Houston on the road.
And then when you look at Green Bay, it might be one of those where at Lambeau,
I'll give Rodgers the edge at home.
I'll give Kirk the edge.
And then the tricky thing is which rivers do you get and which Tannehill do you get?
I think if you flip both of those coins, one lands head, one lands tails.
And you might even say the same for Matt Ryan too. And based on ryan's age his pff grades have gone down the last couple of years
that's why i gave cousins the advantage because i think cousins is still very much who he's been
uh and matt ryan the skill set may have faded to some extent and keep fading and not ever bounce
back to where he used to be if we were were talking about last five years, Matt Ryan,
the cumulative is on another level from Kirk Cousins,
but what's he going to be in 2020?
I don't know if I want to say that he's going to be better than what I think
Kirk is going to be.
So, well, this is what makes this schedule for the Vikings so interesting,
Eric.
And really around the league,
when you look at the number of teams who feel secure with their quarterbacks, I don't know if its and 40s that are stars or future hall
of famers we're in a very interesting transition time in the league at the quarterback position
yeah it's interesting i think what was it two years ago where we ranked quarterbacks or maybe
maybe it was last year where we said you know there's only like one or two positions that are
even open at this point yeah that's different now but i also think if you're if you're looking ahead let's say quarterbacks that you'd rather have for the next five years there's what there's a tier
that includes mahomes there's a tier that includes russell wilson and then there's a and then there's
a tier that includes uh speculation on a bunch of players right right but it's nowhere near where it
was a couple years
ago because some of these quarterbacks like, you know, Roethlisberger, the Rivers, the Bradys,
the Breezes, the, you know, all those players are probably going to retire in the next two,
three years. And the league, there's a ton of players that could go either way. I mean,
Mayfield, good season, bad season. Murray, we're not sure. Donald had two bad seasons,
but he also had to play with
adam gaze uh you know uh lamar jackson is the mvp of the league there's still question marks about
you know what would happen if you know he had to play on a you know he had to play in a situation
where his team wasn't quite as good right uh you know so it's interesting i think that we're
you know we need some of these young quarterbacks to work out. You know, for example,
the 2015 draft was over whatever.
And the 2016 draft looks like about a 50, 50 proposition at best.
Well, and even Pabst and Lynch is bad too. But so, you know,
we need some of these young quarterbacks to work out and, you know,
I'm bullish on Tua and obviously Burrowrow i'm not quite so uh you know on
on the other two quarterbacks taking the round one well that definitely sounds like another podcast
at some point or a hot routes question would be you know which of the young quarterbacks do we
think will be great but that's another podcast uh eric eager you can follow him at pff underscore
eric the pff forecast is absolute must listen uh podcast make sure you go find that
pff forecast and uh you will be a regular on this podcast for sure and i'm looking forward to all
the football breakdowns to come eric yeah well thanks for having me on and and uh i'm so uh happy
that uh you know you continue to cover the vikings because you're the best at it and uh and you know, you continue to cover the Vikings because you're the best at it. And, you know, the Vikings fans deserve it.
Well, thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
And we'll catch you all next time on Purple Insider. Thank you.