Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Let's be reasonable about Anthony Richardson

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Matthew Coller answers a ton of Vikings fan questions, from what to do if Anthony Richardson drops outside of the top 10 to the easiest vs. hardest decisions the Vikings are facing over the next few weeks to whether it's better to build a roster first and then draft a quarterback. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and this is the post-NFL Combine fans-only edition. I've been gathering a bunch of your questions that have been sent to me, either at purpleinsider.com or on Twitter, and I apologize for how long it's taken to get to some of them because we had so many guests at the NFL Combine. If you missed any of those episodes, make sure you go back and listen to them. It was a really fun time in Indianapolis, but the fans only questions got set aside a little bit. I've got a ton of them gathered,

and I know I always promise to work at a little faster pace and not have huge rants about different things. And there might be a couple mixed in, but I'm going to try to work through them a little quicker to get everybody's question in. So thanks to everybody who sent the questions. And again, if you want to add to that list, purpleinsider.com, use the contact us, or you could send it to me at Matthew Collar on Twitter. So I was looking around,

is there any headlines that I need to talk about? And the only thing that really popped up, aside from crazy combine times and things like that, is that Derek Carr is reportedly slightly leaning toward the New York Jets, which is complicated by Aaron Rodgers, who could be in play. And also the more reporting that comes out, now we did talk about this a little bit last week on the show, but the more reporting that comes out about Aaron Rodgers seems like the Green Bay Packers are done with him. And maybe we'll have some questions about that in fans only. But it's going to be weird if Aaron Rodgers ends up a New York Jet or a Carolina Panther or a Vegas Raider or something like that to look to the east and not see Aaron Rogers there for the first time in I don't know how long I mean really 30 years to go back all

the way to Brett Favre to at least have the possibility of not having a Hall of Fame quarterback playing for the Green Bay Packers is pretty darn wild. And don't celebrate too early because I'm sure there were a lot of people who celebrated when Brett Favre finally left. So we don't know what Jordan Love has in store, but it just appears coming out of the combine that Vikings fans are closer to that reality of finally having Aaron Rodgers out of the division. And as far as Derek Carr goes, if he does end up with the New York Jets, think about how that impacts, even in a little way, the NFC and the quarterback situations where

we're still talking about most of the best quarterbacks in the NFL playing in the AFC. Because I don't want to make it seem like Derek Carr is a great quarterback, but think about who was playing quarterback for the Carolina Panthers last year, who was playing quarterback for the New Orleans Saints last year. Those teams really didn't have a shot at making the post-season with Andy Dalton or with Sam Darnold or PJ Walker or Baker Mayfield playing quarterback for them. If Derek Carr ends up in the NFC, where does he rank? Is he like the fourth best quarterback in the NFC to start? I mean, you'd have him and Kirk Cousins probably neck and neck. Dak Prescott might have an argument for being a shade better than those two,

but not a perfect quarterback. Jalen Hurts clearly at the top, but if Aaron Rodgers is gone, I mean, it's yeah. And we really don't know what San Francisco's situation is just a lot up for grabs in the NFC. I guess Jared Goff would go into that conversation too, after how good their offense was. But if he stays in the AFC, you're still talking about not really an impressive group of quarterbacks that the Vikings will be going up against until we see what happens in the NFL draft. So that's kind of just a little bit of a rundown of things going on. The other headline that I wanted to mention was with Adam Thielen.

Now, the Star Tribune, our friend Andrew Kramer, wrote a little bit about the reality that Adam Thielen might not be a Minnesota Viking next year. And there was more buzz at the Combine about that situation of which guys are going to go from the Vikings, which will stay within the next two weeks. And I think that if you were ranking them, that Adam Thielen's name would be pushed a little bit higher after some of this reporting from Andrew Kramer from the Star Tribune. And it's not definitive that he absolutely is gone or anything like that. It just seems like there's more momentum to the idea that he might want to find somewhere else to go to get a different role and maybe even try a championship chasing

type of strategy as he goes into the latter years of his career. So we will see, of course, all these things are going to start falling within the next few days. And make sure you keep your eyes out for emergency podcasts, because anything that happens of significance, whether it's Rodgers finally picking a team, if it's the Vikings moving on from key players, we will be doing emergency podcasts here on the channel. So make sure you keep your eyes out for that. We'll see. We'll see. I think that one interesting part of this with the season last year that everyone was so much in lockstep, it was, oh, this locker room, it's really galvanized and everything else. And when they

lose, everybody starts looking around for, well, what about me kind of thing. And we've got two players saying, or not directly, but indirectly, Hey, maybe I deserve a bigger role. Maybe I deserve more. That's Delvin Cook through his agent and Adam Thielen in a couple of different ways, I guess, maybe subtly in some interviews, not subtly in an Instagram post that we've brought up on the show before. So it's funny how that works, right? Like everybody's happy with Justin Jefferson driving the entire team's offense until they lose in the first round of the playoffs and then not so much.

That's football for you. And as much as, again, we can praise culture all we want, the end of the day, people are gonna kind of look out for themselves. So anyway, let's dive into your questions. First question comes from Connor M511. Anthony Richardson drops past number 10. How much draft capital would you be willing to give up for him? Well, let me start with a little bit of an Anthony Richardson rant, if you

will. So he had one of the best combines ever of any player at any position and the best combine ever for any quarterback. And I think that if anyone is trying to tell you that that doesn't impact how people look at Anthony Richardson, they're absolutely fooling themselves. And you shouldn't buy that because there is evidence and our buddy, Kevin Cole, who was on the show the other day that shows that even when wide receivers run a better 40, they get more attention from the NFL that their draft stock rises. So what does this do? I mean, this, this, yes, it does impact his draft stock. Now his draft stock was already high coming out of college. Yes, people already knew he was going to be a really good athlete.

Did they know he was going to have the best numbers ever? No, I don't think that that was something anyone was really prepared for. And that also tells you, as the NFL, what the potential ceiling for the guy could be that if it all clicks together, this is like a Lamar Jackson, Mike Vick level, Randall Cunningham. If he had had a combine back in the day, you are talking about instantly cam Newton level quarterback, which raises the floor on a player. If you are that great of an athlete, if you were just okay, if he ran a four, six, if he had normal numbers for broad jump and everything else, and was just a runner in college, okay, you know, maybe whatever, right. He would be looked at as still kind of a project,

but this is now someone who has the potential to be one of the best runners in the NFL right away. And also has a monster arm. That's a lot for the NFL to work with. And what I see sometimes, and this is just like, don't be this guy, is people definitively telling me, oh, he's not going to make it. The guy doesn't even really play quarterback. He's just an athlete. Go back and look at Josh Allen's stats for his final season. The guy threw 16 touchdowns in his final season in college. Also, Anthony Richardson started one year and is 21 years old. I mean, go look at after one year what Jalen Hurts looked like as a passer in college. Go look at Lamar Jackson after one year.

These players can get better. They can develop. We've seen this many times now in the NFL. This is the future of what quarterback conversations are going to look like, where it's not all about this player's stats and what he did in college statistically. Although to act like Anthony Richardson's stats were bad would be ignoring his nine rushing touchdowns. So yeah, he only threw 17 touchdowns. Oh wait, it was actually 26 or whatever. So there is a big part of that that you have to factor in as running games with quarterbacks are increasingly part of the conversation that that matters a lot of things that NFL quarterbacks do. He barely got sacked. He was only sacked 13 times all season. That's really impressive that he just didn't get sacked a lot. His average depth of target was one of the highest in all of college football, meaning that Florida was asking him to throw the ball down the field a lot for an inexperienced quarterback.

So that's part of the reason he doesn't have a high completion percentage. I looked up how often he threw screens. It was hardly ever a lot of college quarterbacks. Max Duggan threw screens over 20% of the time. Anthony Richardson barely used screens in that offense. So there's a lot of things that are context that you have to consider. But also, we've got to be over two things. One, thinking we know.

Because it's so proven that we don't know. And if you think about it from this perspective, that if you're sure that you don't know, because you can't know which quarterbacks are going to succeed, I think you approach this in a more rational way. Like, look, if the Vikings had a chance to take Anthony Richardson, then you take him because you don't know. All you know is that the guy is one of the greatest athletes to ever play this position. So if he dedicates himself to improving some of the passing technique, he's got the ceiling of being a superstar player. That's what we can know. All right. I see so many, oh, this guy can't play quarterback. He didn't play quarterback in college. He played for

one year and showed a lot of high-end potential. Look at his grades from game to game from PFF, where he's grading in the high 80s and 90s in some games and having bad other games, because that's what happens a lot with players who are newer to the position and inconsistent and have to have some time for development. So there's a great argument for a lot of teams to take a player like that and bet on the upside. So how much would you give up for him? If he got out of the top 10, you'd give up a lot because the chances are that if it hits, he's going to be one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. And if it doesn't, then you'd be like the many other quarterbacks that didn't for a myriad of different reasons. So that's important to recognize that no matter

how hot your take is about this, it doesn't matter because you don't know because what it depends on is how he develops from here. That's what matters the most is where he takes this skill. Jalen Hurts was told by everybody, you can't throw the ball. So was Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen. A lot of the numbers people completely hated Josh Allen because he didn't have good stats in college. And they pulled out all this. If you're completion percentage is below this and this, they forgot to factor that Josh Allen is one of the greatest athletes to ever play the position. So it's really about how you develop. I'm not saying I know whether he's going to make it or not.

I don't any better than anybody else does, including the NFL, who consistently gets these wrong all the time for all of history. So nobody has an idea. It's only what could he become if it goes right. So we got to make sure we talk about that in the right way. And also the other thing is it feels like some people are flat out just rooting against the guy because they have

this thing about well if you can't you can't really play quarterback if it makes you feel like you're a real smart football man to say he didn't really play quarterback maybe maybe just take a step back and look at some of the recent quarterbacks that you probably also said the same thing about and were just dead wrong. We don't know. It's going to take a couple years to know with someone like him. But if the Vikings had a chance to take him, sit him on the bench for a while. Hey, remember those conversations about how Patrick Mahomes footwork wasn't good enough? If they had a chance to take him, sit him, and then start him next year,

it would be an ideal situation for the Vikings. It would give them the best chance that they've had to really build something around him on a rookie contract and a quarterback who fits what quarterbacking is going to look like in the future. If you don't like guys who are great athletes and take some development, then I don't know what to tell you

because that's the NFL and probably will be. I don't think we're gonna have a ton of straight drop back pocket passers as we go forward here. More and more quarterbacks are fitting in this type of game. So I don't know. I don't know what you'd be watching in the NFL to think, oh, a player who didn't throw the ball perfectly in college can't make it

because that's all we've seen in recent years. So to your question more directly, I just think that if they had that opportunity, how much draft capital, next year's first, next year's second, whatever it takes, because all the gaps you're going to lose by trading draft capital, you can fill in free agency. And that's why you saw a team like

Philadelphia, or you saw a team like San Francisco, or you saw a team like Los Angeles, they traded up and they made up the gap in free agency. Remember the Rams traded up for Jared Goff and the next year in free agency, they signed Andrew Whitworth and they signed what Robert Woods. I mean, they, they, they turned that into a juggernaut through free agency. If that's the Vikings plan, it's a good plan. But I think also after this, that it's going to be hard for some of those teams, Indianapolis, the Raiders, uh, anybody looking at the top of the draft to pass up on him. I also wanted to mention, by the way, that Anthony Richardson stole the show. But if you watched any of CJ Stroud throwing the ball, that was fun too. Go back and watch it

because that didn't make any headlines. That guy really, really threw the football well. This is a good quarterback class and it could shape how the nfl looks in a couple years with whether these guys turn out or not so i know that i didn't really answer that question maybe exactly how you wanted to but i've just been getting a flood of these folks who seem to think that they know how this is going to go and then when you go back and look at their old comments about jalen hertz or lamar jackson it's all the same stuff. So maybe just think about that and where we're at as a league. Next question also comes from someone named Connor. I know the teams are just doing their due diligence meeting with quarterback prospects, but is there any significance to meeting with them

for the Vikings or should we just treat it as a formality? Yeah. I mean, so Kevin O'Connell told us at the combine that he always meets with the quarterbacks. He always wants to go to the combine. A lot of coaching staffs didn't, but he always wants to go to sit in a room with the quarterbacks. And sometimes you will end up playing them in the future. Sometimes you'll end up where they might be a guy that you're looking at for a backup down the road or someone who develops and whatever reason. He even used the example of somebody as a coach who was a former quarterback that he had interviewed at the NFL Combine. So he was going to interview Anthony Richardson.

He was going to interview a lot of the quarterbacks at the combine, if not all of them, because he's a former quarterback and he's always wanting to pay attention. But with that said, every single day that goes by that the Vikings don't have Kirk Cousins on a long-term contract extension is another day where it's realistic that they could draft a quarterback. And I mean, I'm not saying that that's the most probable thing that they'll do. I think if we were playing the probability game, we would all probably vote for next year as the year that they draft a quarterback, even if they signed Cousins to an extension just based on his age and price. But is it realistic

this year that they could trade up if somebody slips, which does often happen, or if someone were to slip way down the board that they could take them at 23? Yeah, I don't think that there's anyone else outside of those top four quarterbacks where that could actually happen. But I do think that it's possible

that they could look at it and say, let's go for it. Let's take that big swing and trade up. Let's say somebody gets to 14 or 12. Would you make that trade and try to go up? If they know that this is the last year of Kirk Cousins because no extension is happening, that has to be in consideration. And one thing that we have learned about Kwesi Adafo Mensah I would say that a lot is still to be determined about his philosophy and how that all applies to what they're actually going to do I think he explains it well but can we put together the pieces yet based on the recent past but in one area we can and that is trades the man is not afraid to trade. You have to give him credit for that. He traded in the draft last year. He traded for Ross Blacklock. That one didn't really work out,

but he traded for TJ Hawkinson. That one really worked out. He's not afraid to take a swing. And if they think that there's an opportunity to take a swing, knowing that Cousins is not going to stay here long-term, Yeah. I mean, I think that they want to make sure that they're doing their diligence at the combine. So if the opportunity arises that they could take that shot, I still think that if we're ranking their needs, there was some really good cornerback performances, some really good edge rusher and defensive tackle performances at the combine that matches up with their prospect status. Those still are at the top of the list to rebuild the defense first, but it just is a situation

where if you don't have certainty that you can draft a guy and have that rare spot that almost never happens where you sit someone and develop them and then they play the following season so yeah there's there is not exactly smoke where there's fire here but we can just use common sense to say you might want to meet with all the quarterbacks just in case a situation comes about where it makes sense for you to potentially draft one on to the next question from joey matthew collar is called up as interim gm oh no uh that made like quasey must have um made such a bad trade proposal they fired him so i'm the interim gm i don't think that's going to happen what is your easiest personnel decision before the season starts and what is the most difficult well Well, I think that the easiest

personnel decision for me would be to move on from Delvin Cook. It's all the things we've talked about a number of times, but I just don't, I just think that's kind of a no brainer. Now at the combine, Tom Pellicero of NFL Network said that he believes Delvin Cook will be back next year. That one is a little harder for me to see, but there's always the element of ownership, loving certain players and wanting them to stick around. But you add up all the things with running backs. His contract is big. He's coming off a season that was ineffective. The replacement could be Ty Chandler, could be anybody you draft in the middle rounds to come in. We saw the Chiefs.

We've seen the Eagles. We've seen lots of teams have success with players that they just sort of cobbled together in the backfield. And if you're making bets on older running backs, you're just asking for it. And I think Delvin Cook has had a phenomenal career as a Viking overall, but it's just about projecting to the future and what the price tag is, how much cap space you can make by moving on. That would be the one where I wouldn't have to

think about it very much. As far as the most difficult personnel decision, That's a tough one. That's a tough one because I think it might be Eric Hendricks because I can understand why they would want to keep Harrison Smith. Harrison Smith is not really on a contract where you benefit a lot from cutting him a couple million bucks. You actually benefit more from a restructure, which you don't really want to do because it kicks money down the road, but you can do it in the short term and maybe it won't destroy you in the cap down in the future. I think that's what they'll probably do. But I also think that Harrison Smith can still really play. Kendricks is on a one-year deal. And if you're not going to extend him long-term and you can make a ton of cap space, I think it's

around $10 million in cap space by letting him go. Someone else might know that off the top of their head. I don't have that in front of me, but a big amount of cap space that you can make from just straight up cutting Eric Hendricks, but also it's Eric Hendricks. I mean, he is kind of a heart and soul type of player that is really important to them in their locker room. And I also wonder how much better he would be under Brian Flores. There's also the plus 30 linebacker thing. Do you let this play out for this season and see where you're at? If you want to resign him, do you just let him move on? That one might be a little bit tricky. So that's up there for me in part, just because of what he means to the organization since he got here in 2015. But the most difficult is Daniil Hunter. Daniil Hunter

is a great player. He consistently puts up double digit sacks when he's healthy. He overall at the end of the year, I think there was a perception that he had a down season in the end of the year. He's ranking in the top 10 in total pressures and in PFF grade. He was a dominant pass rusher again. And if you're making a bet on him based on the way he came back from those injuries, and even last year, he was terrific before he had the shoulder thing. You'd probably say he'll keep doing that, but the price tag is so high. And there's another part of me though, that says you can't just throw away everything. You can't just say everyone who's going to be worth money. This is like when people ask about Justin Jefferson, like what would I trade Justin

Jefferson? No, you can't just throw out hall of fame talents. You can't just throw out all pro pro bowl talents all the time. But if you're projecting forward, you do have to be concerned about how he's going to play into his thirties because you're talking about a long-term extension. And then is he a Miles Garrett type or a, or a Nick Bosa type that is so dominant that they require all of the attention from the other team to slow down and the data would say no so even if he's as good production wise he's not drawing as much attention as those other rushers and that's making it a little easier for the defense to kind of spread out who they block and try to handle him one-on-one it it's it's a very

complicated question he's another guy that you could not ask for a higher class individual for the way that he has just handled everything with all these contract issues and so forth that he just comes out and plays every year so you can't like the guy anymore if you're the organization but at the same time the prices for these guys have just shot through the roof and you're talking about somebody who is in their late 20s. Pass rushers do continue to carry on and have success into their 30s. That's why it's a complicated question. But the one thing that might put me over the edge on it is he's the one guy that could

get you a second round pick or something high in a trade back. All these other guys, just probably not going to happen as far as the getting something back but in his case yeah you could definitely get something back in a trade next question comes from Jeff says the Delvin Tomlinson situation is not all that hard to understand he will count for 7.5 million dollars on cap, whether he plays here or not. You agree that he's a good player. So a new deal is good for both sides. Well, it is a little bit different than being that simple with the $7.5 million, because if they move on from Delvin Tomlinson or he moves on from them, then they have to pay the $7.5 million this year. If they extend him, they still pay it, but it's

spread out. So there is a benefit to that, that it helps them in the future and now to lower that 7.5 million in dead cap. The problem of course, is that you're paying Delvin Tomlinson a lot of money after that. You're probably looking around $14 million a year. I would think that he's going to go for 14, $15 million. He's one of the best players at his position in free agency. And if there's a team like Chicago that really needs a defensive tackle and is looking for improvement, they can top your offer. They can push up the offer up and up. So you're going to be sitting there saying, can we really afford to pay this nose tackle who is very good and very effective and a great person in the locker room and deserves all the credit for how good he is and how consistent

he is. But that's very expensive for a team that's way over the cap. And that's why they're continuing to negotiate here. But if you're Delvin Tomlinson, why would you not want to see what's out there for you? And I think that's why they pushed back the deadline for his $7.5 million to kick in is that so he could during the legal tampering period, find out if any of the legal tamperers in the days coming up to free agency want to pay him essentially too much. Like somebody come and get me and pay me too much. But clearly he wants to stay with the Vikings if they're going to make a good offer. Otherwise he wouldn't have pushed that date back. So yeah, I don't think it's so much to do with the dead cap as it is. They want

to keep the player. Brian Flores probably wants to keep the player. They think he's good. They think he'll be good into the future. And they're probably right. But this is where you talk about like the price of somebody like that, who doesn't sack the quarterback very often. Is that really where you want to spend your money when you're cash strapped? That's where the question comes in. I think it's as much about the position he plays and he does impact a lot of things. And I think those tackles are more valuable than maybe people think. But if you're talking about 14 to $16 million on the cap, that's a lot.

That's a lot of money to do right now. There's also nobody to replace him right now, but you can, you cobble together somebody who does his job against the run and somebody who does his job getting after the passer and maybe even more effective at creating sacks. Maybe, probably, uh, he gives you a real sure thing though. He is one of the most sure thing players in the nfl and i think they appreciate what he brings to their locker room so i yeah i'm not i'm not confused about this it's just that i wonder if it's the best way to spend your money all right next question comes from ralph here pretend you're justin jefferson and you look at the roster and don't

see a lot of talent. Do you play out this season, then try to join the LSU alumni in Cincinnati? Well, you know, we're talking about cap space and affording players. It would be almost impossible. And this is how the NFL maintains its parody folks. It would be almost impossible if you were talking about trying to have Jamar Chase, Justin Jefferson, and Joe Burrow all on these maximum contracts. You're talking about spending $60 million a year on receivers and then another $50 million a year on Joe Burrow. And even if the cap goes up, 50% of the cap on three players or 40% of the cap on three players would be crazy difficult to manage for them. But I think to your point,

you can't really do what you're saying. If you're Justin Jefferson, or if I get to be Justin Jefferson, you can't just play out this season and then force your way to Cincinnati. You could try, but the Vikings have the fifth year option. And that would mean not just next year, but the year after. And then he would hit free agency. They can play this out as long as they want to. Now, if he told them for sure, I will not be resigning here no matter what, that's when you consider the trade thing because the price in return would be preposterous. It would essentially be like trading a starting quarterback.

That's when you would consider that. And maybe, yeah, he could say, I'm not signing with you. But also, if you're the Vikings, I think you're going to press him on. I think you're going to try to call his bluff and try to use that fifth year option to keep him around as long as you possibly can. But if he decides at the end of this off season that he doesn't really want to go or that he doesn't really want to stay here and does want to go somewhere else, he can play that out. He can play that out and he can have a chance. I think that the NFL PA survey is something they can use as a

feather in their cap to say, look, you won't ever find it better than here. His input, which Kwesi Adafo-Mensah made very clear that he's going to have. You might not have that somewhere else that they're going to say, what do you want? You're the franchise. You're the guy. You probably will though, if you're Justin Jefferson, it's really, the ball is in his court. I don't want to tell you he's not going to do this because it is possible. The ball is in his court. And my understanding is with Justin Jefferson,

it really is all about winning. If he looks at this team next year, and this is why they have to try to win next year, we'll see how much they do, but it's one of the reasons they do have to try to win is if they are really bad and he doesn't see a future, then yeah, I mean, it could be a pretty tough case to make. I think that's why they really want to get him signed right now because if they do have to take a step back, then they can already have him under contract. And if I'm Justin Jefferson and they're letting me help them with decisions

or have my input with decisions and they are guaranteeing me the most money that any receiver has ever been paid. It's a pretty tough thing to turn down. And I know he's got money now as a first round draft pick, but that's a pretty tough thing to turn down. So that situation is just until they sign him to an extension, it will linger and people will wonder what's going to happen here for sure. That's, that's the way it's going

to be until that's resolved. On to the next one with Chuck. How should I feel about the Packers and Aaron Rodgers situation? Wouldn't it be better to watch Rodgers contract continue to cripple the Packers through his declining years rather than see Green Bay trade him. You know, there might be an argument for that, but I also think there's a witch is dead element of this as well for the Vikings and Vikings fans that you go down to Green Bay last year with a chance to stay in the race for the one seed and Rogers beats you. And you go back to 2019 where you got a chance to battle the guy and potentially win the NFC North and Rodgers beats you. There's just been so many times where Aaron Rodgers has either won the division, the MVP or big games against the Vikings that I think everyone wants

to be done with him and done watching him do that to the Vikings. He hasn't always done it. There have been some big Viking wins along the way. But what you saw last year was there's still some in the tank. I don't know how much, but there's still some. If you could promise me that that was going to happen, that his contract was going to cripple them and that they were going to fall apart and they were going to go seven and 10 and Rodgers would be bad. If that was any sort of guarantee, I would say, oh yeah, well, you want that. You want, you want to watch him decline and have it be all sad for them. If you're a Vikings

fan, are you the one that's going to guarantee that? Because Favre had a little dip and then he was great again. And even Rogers before had a little dip and was great again. Peyton Manning, you know, you had that injury and they weren't sure what it was going to be like. And then it was great again. And then you got to know when it's all time legends, you'd rather just have them be gone. Tom, you know, Tom Brady's last year in new England, not that great. And then really great in Tampa Bay. If they hit on a couple of draft picks, if Christian Watson becomes a star, like you're always that far away with somebody who's that talented. I think you would just rather see him out of the division and go on to the next guy,

then take any risk that that's the case and then have him win a couple more divisions. And you're just sitting there still sad. So I would still lean that way because with players of his echelon, it's not over till it's over. But I get what you're saying. I get what you're saying. Like, hey, they're not going to win anything as long as he's this expensive and not that good rather than moving on to Jordan Love.

So I feel you, but I can't get there. This one comes from Nick. It's really hard for me to imagine Kevin O'Connell wouldn't want to develop his own young guy at quarterback. I'd be stunned if the Vikings didn't draft the quarterback within their first pick of 2024, maybe even this year. I agree with you. I agree with you that the only thing is if they just decide that they won't be able to find any better

options and they believe in Kirk Cousins and they sign him to a long-term contract extension. I think that would be talked about a lot right now if that was actually happening. And I don't know that Kweisi Adafo-Mensah would be talking the way he was at the NFL Combine, unless that was actually happening. Talking about the differences in how Kirk's side and the Vikings side see it. I mean, it might be smokescreen, I guess. I don't know what he'd be smoking us for. I mean, if they wanted Cousins to sign the long-term extension, I think they would come out and say, he's our guy. We're going to go forward with go forward with him but that could happen could happen before this podcast because it could happen right now as we're

recording this podcast that has happened before actually so i i'm not counting anything out because i don't think they like to just show their cards at the nfl combine but at the same time like this thing has an expiration date when a quarterback quarterback is the age that Kirk Cousins is, it has an expiration date. And I agree with you when you talk about the timelines and how they match up. Kweisi Adafomensa and Kevin O'Connell need to get to a point by 2025, if not 2020, at the end of 2024, where they can say to the Wilfs, our culture is phenomenal. We've got our quarterback of the future. Justin Jefferson is here and is going to be great forever. So is

Christian Derrissaw. And we are just on our way to the Super Bowl or, you know, unless they already got there, but that's the case you want to make. So give us a long-term contract extension, buy into us. We've been great leadership and we've got the quarterback of the future. Yeah. That's the position you want to be if you are the leadership of the Minnesota Vikings. So is it this year or next year is really the question. I have a hard time believing it's this year because of opportunity. And that's only based on the draft insiders, the draft mockers, and everything else, which we don't know if they're right because they weren't right last year. But I think this is quite different. This is quite different. Like Malik Willis was six feet tall and did not have the same pocket presence or arm strength or a lot of different things that Anthony Richardson can do. He was a very good runner who got sacked

a ton and seemed to struggle reading defenses and that's why he dropped uh that doesn't seem to be anthony richardson's problem if you're trying to make that comparison but they're really nowhere close in terms of the athleticism of those two players willis was a was a really good runner and was fast but richardson is the best that has ever done this so So there I've seen that brought up like, Oh, isn't he like Malik was no, no, not really. Not every, there's a lot of people who have been a Trevor Knight was a great athlete. It wasn't a high draft pick. Like the NFL knows the difference, but there's always that that's always that potential that someone could drop

and they could go for it this year. I don't want to tell you no on that. It seems more likely that it's next year. But I think that you are right that Kevin O'Connell is a quarterback and is going to always be thinking with every draft, is my guy here. I could also see the Vikings looking at a development quarterback and trying to make that swing and get their Brock Purdy. I don't think it's a great play, but I could see him doing it. And if they do, I guess we'll all say, we'll see. I mean, it's to me, it's the Nate Stanley or Kellen Mond thing all over again, but that would be very interesting if they did to try to kind of play it down the middle,

like they did with Kellen Mond and then go forward from there. But yeah, I mean, I think it's going to happen at some point here soon. And I agree with your logic that Kevin O'Connell is not going to want his era to end without his shot at drafting a quarterback and developing it. I agree. This one comes from Justin. What do you think it would take to get Zach Wilson? What do you got in your pocket? Like 40 bucks?

No, I'm good. I'm good. I'm not. No. Is there any history to suggest that picking up someone else's trash that has completely busted is a good idea? I mean, you could say Ryan Tannehill, but Ryan Tannehill had his moments as a pretty good starter in Miami, and he had some down moments too, and then became a pretty good starter in Miami and he had some down moments too and then

became a pretty good quarterback in Tennessee but Rick Meyer or you know even recently Baker Mayfield who also had some moments wasn't that good if a team is giving up on someone this fast it is very bad and I think with Zach Wilson it's very bad so that is going to be a no from me dog. And you know, once upon a time I said about Josh Rosen, again, maybe they should just give that a swing and see what happens. And really like you live and learn, they probably were right to never take a swing at that until recently he's on the team, you know? Uh, but yeah, I, yeah, I don't think so. I mean, I, I, I'm good. I'm good there. Try to get your own guy.

Next one comes from Ken. Mahomes, Wilson, Murray, and Purdy all played middle infield. Does footwork, quick decision-making skills help the new mobile quarterback in this era? I like Jake Hayner's pocket presence. And they might too. They might also like that. That's the type of development quarterback although not a big guy i think and that might matter with someone who doesn't have unbelievable skill and it might even matter for someone who does like bryce young yes yes yes as far as playing baseball playing middle infield this is something that p Carroll talked about at the combine, really liking players who played multiple sports.

He loves that. And I totally agree. There's something, something to throwing at odd angles that I really think is going to factor when you're talking about playmaking and moving and having to escape crazy pressure, which everybody faces all the time in the NFL now. Yeah. I think that that matters because when you are a shortstop, there's a lot of footwork involved and there's a ton of footwork involved in playing quarterback. I could definitely see

that. That doesn't mean that because someone did play baseball, a lot of people did a lot of these guys were great at everything they did uh but i i think that it helps i definitely think that it helps and pocket presence is one of the biggest things that's going to tell you whether someone can translate or not if you take a lot of sacks if you get you know anxious nervous and drop your eyes and look at the rush as opposed to keeping your eyes downfield it's pretty good chance that you're going to struggle in the nfl and our friend kevin cole he studied this before he found that it's weird because pressure in the nfl year to year can really vary with quarterback performance but pressure in college can be pretty predictive of what someone's going to do in the nfl um that's something you should definitely be looking at for sure

uh all right this one comes from lee cvn 72 does it seem like delvin cook getting shoulder surgery is his way uh off the team from oh his way of the team uh keeping the team from trading him right now that's what you mean yeah Yeah. Yeah. I don't think so. They weren't going to get anything for him anyway. I mean, that just wasn't, yeah, it wasn't going to happen. They weren't going to get anything for him period. So I, you're not trading a running back. Who's really expensive coming off his worst year for anything. No one's trading for that. If it was, if that was a scheme of his, it's not, it's just not going to work. It might be, but it's not going to work. If they want to move on, then they'll move on. This one comes from Alex, which philosophy is stronger in

your opinion, drafting a quarterback, then using cap space to build a team, building the team, then getting a veteran or building the team, then drafting a quarterback. It's probably the last one, but the other one can happen pretty fast. I mean, if you have a team that's in really good shape that you could just drop somebody onto and say, here you go, this is Patrick Mahomes, right? Here you go. Great team. Go win with them. Yeah, that's pretty good. But when we look at Cincinnati, when we look at Buffalo, those are two teams that were in pretty dire straits when they got their quarterbacks. Josh Allen, they moved on from a lot of players early when they just drafted him. And didn't they lose their first couple of games before he began

starting like 40 to nothing or something with Nathan Peterman, they were in a pretty bad spot. The Vikings were favored by like a zillion points against them when they lost that game early in 2018. And they might've won six games. They didn't have a lot of talent at that point and then built around him. That's probably the one that maybe is the most common because to get a high drafted quarterback, you have to be bad most of the time. You have to be in Chicago's position. But if you have the luxury of having a great team and drafting a quarterback onto it, Baltimore is another example of this. They had a very strong roster. Joe Flacco was falling apart late in his career. And then suddenly, you know, they dropped Lamar Jackson into this really good team

and they win a bunch of games. That's the most ideal, but it's very hard to pull off. Usually, if you're drafting a quarterback, it means you're in pretty tough shape and you're trying to build around them. As far as building the team and getting the veteran, I don't think that one is even on the table as in competition with the other ones. It definitely worked for Matthew Stafford, but I'm just going to sit and wait for a lot of other examples and Tom Brady. There's not a lot of other ones. Now in the future, there might be, there might be because Jimmy Garoppolo is available. Derek Carr, you know, there's, there's going to be more quarterback movement every year. So that one might be.

I think of that one as the option of, oops, we were too good to draft any of the quarterbacks available. And we really know this roster has an expiration date. So let's just go nuts. And that's Los Angeles. They knew that that team was going to come apart eventually because they had poured so much draft capital into building it. And they said, you know what?

Let's take our big shot with Matthew Stafford. And it paid off. And the same thing with Tampa Bay. Let's take our big shot. And it paid off. And that might be San Francisco this offseason. They might take some big shot that we don't expect coming. And then all of a sudden, like they're competing for a Super Bowl.

That's one that's hard to rely upon, though, if you're the jets and you don't land Derek Carr and Aaron Rogers retires, what are you doing? Like Jimmy Garoppolo, I guess, or Baker Mayfield. Like if you, if you don't recruit that guy that you expect to drop onto your team, then what? That's, that's where it gets really tricky. So I think it's clearly dropping someone onto the right spot, but that's rare. Most likely you have to go with the first one because you have to, and then you try to use that cap space to build around that player. But you also have to hit on other draft picks too, and you have to hit on that draft pick. All right, from at rat trapping, what kind of effect does the NFL PA survey have on the Vikings

in recruiting players this off season, especially as well as in the future? I think the impact is, is very significant. Recruiting players is a, it's hard because it's usually money. I mean, let's be honest. It's usually money. You are not taking way less because the Vikings have a better facility than another team. But if it's Vikings versus Cardinals and the two teams that have equal offers, I can tell you you're playing in Minnesota. And this really makes a lot of sense for why so many players stay as Vikings and don't want to leave is they know that they've got a great situation. And now that Kevin O'Connell has made it a more comfortable working environment, and now that they've gone all in on the sports science element

and trying to maximize player health, those things will be there in the future. And look, this is why they did it. They did this survey to help other players decide where they want to go as free agents. I think it's significant. And this is one thing, as you guys know, who listen to the show all the time, I am here to lead the conversation with you guys and to report and whatever happens on the field happens, you know, this objective observer, but I will say that I

root for all players to be treated well by their organizations, because this league does not have a great history of that. And so the Minnesota Vikings should be extremely, extremely proud of that. And that's one thing that you have to be very happy as a Vikings fan, that your team is not treating your players like garbage, like in Washington, like in Arizona, those teams that got F minuses. And in that way, that's why when people say to me, like, oh, I don't know if the Wilfs are doing everything to win. Look, I get that. And I get that. And we all are playing GM here every day. But this is also doing everything you can to win too, is being the environment that people want to be in. And yeah, it's significant. It matters.

That doesn't mean they're getting all the top free agents because they don't have money, but it matters. And it matters probably to the Justin Jefferson conversation as well. Do you want to leave this stadium? Do you want to leave this facility? Do you want to leave this coach who's going to set things up like this? Do you want to leave the trainer that you have, which I cannot tell you how huge the trainer is to conversations with players when they ask each other, hey, what's it like there?

Like, you don't want our trainer, because that's your life, how they handle that. That matters a lot. So yeah, it's a big deal. It's a big deal. I'm really, really glad to see them there. And the teams that aren't there should be ripped to oblivion and forced to improve.

And hopefully that's what it does. This comes from Jackie. Justin Jefferson is Minnesota's MVP in recent history. Short of him getting into legal trouble, do you think Minnesota fans would ever dislike Justin Jefferson? Even if he went to another team, I would enjoy him. Well, you know, it gets complicated sometimes. It gets complicated. If there is a situation where justin jefferson decides that he wants to be traded i promise you most of minnesota will not be his best friend from there on but they will more likely look at it there will be rationalization

as there was with stefan diggs but ultimately i don't think minnesota fans dislike stefan diggs either i think they look at it like the team kind of blew it there. And if the Vikings can't retain Justin Jefferson, they may look at it like the team didn't do enough to convince Justin Jefferson to stay and not so much dislike Justin Jefferson. But you think that now and things change really fast. Joe Maurer is a good example. When I arrived in Minnesota, Joe Maurer was somebody that people were really snarky about. And in the long run, time heals all wounds. He's looked at as one of the great franchise players in Twins history, hands down, everything else, the way that he ended his career

was like, you know, heartwarming kind of and all that with him playing catcher one more time and all that stuff. But there was a time in the middle there where people thought he was paid too much, didn't hit enough home runs, bilateral leg weakness. Like these things, they don't always go the smoothest. So you could say right now you could never see a world where they would dislike him. But if he left and said he didn't like a hot dish or something, well, you know, things can change. So I don't want to guarantee that. But I would say to your point, yeah, I mean, he's going to be a really fun player wherever he goes.

But Minnesotans should never underestimate that possibility. I don't want to predict it, that he's going to leave. But I think Minnesota fans would dislike him quite a bit if he chose another organization as opposed to staying with the Vikings. Two more questions here. This one comes from at Uncle Pauly's Robot from Rocky IV. Great reference.

With the limited cap space the Vikings have, would it be a good idea to attract better talent by offering shorter fully guaranteed contracts not really uh no I mean yes in the way that players would like them because the more fully guaranteed that you can give them the better for them for the player and then if they have flexibility earlier in their career, that's going to be great for them. So if you told somebody, a receiver, that they were going to get 50 million guaranteed over two years, that's a decent free agent receiver,

they're going to be like, great, because the guaranteed money is all that really matters in the NFL. The problem is the more guaranteed money, the higher the cap hit. And you can't really work around guaranteed money. That's how you end up with all these dead cap hits is, well, the guy's got X number guaranteed left. And like, I don't understand all of the salary cap either, but I know this one.

This is where the more guaranteed, and this is what actually has made Kirk Cousins' contract so difficult to work around. If Cousins would sign a five-year deal with a limited amount of cap space, well, they could spread it out and they could work around it and have a couple of years of lower cap hits. And other teams have done this. But if you're talking about all guaranteed, there's not much you can do to fiddle with it when it's guaranteed. Then you just got to pay it uh as cap space so it does not help them it would probably attract talent if you were the team that

gave out fully guaranteed contracts every other team would completely hate you uh if you were also the team that started giving out fully guaranteed contracts all the time think of how angry everybody in the league must be at cle for Deshaun Watson's. So, you know, I think that, I don't think that that's really a solution. Unfortunately, when you have cap space problems to deal with, the solution is giving out longer contracts, which they don't really want to do either. So there's no, there's really no easy answer. There's no easy button. If there was, they would have found it already. Again, love the name. Last one comes from Brandon. Any thoughts on trade scenarios for Rashad Bateman of the Ravens and or Thielen to the Ravens? Seems like it could be possible, but I'm seeing too many mock drafts or am I seeing too many mock drafts and not living in reality? Rashad Bateman is clearly an unhappy man uh that is for sure uh because I think that over the years

he um feels like they just haven't had an offensive system that's maximized what they can do passing wise that that one is a tough situation because a player goes to Twitter and lets everybody know that he's not happy with the way that they have designed things there with the offense. And that kind of puts a target on your back the same way as with Stefan Diggs, making it clear that he didn't like where it went. If the Vikings could attract Rashad Bateman in a trade, then yeah, you got to do it. Especially if Adam Thielen is not going to be a big part of this going forward in the future. Yeah. I mean, if you're telling me that there's an opportunity to trade for Rashad Bateman, I say, yes. The problem is they're going to want a lot.

Like he's not been great, but he's had flashes of being really good. And if you, you know, I mean, if you could put somebody next to Justin Jefferson, they're just going to be better guaranteed. So I think that the answer is yes, I'd be interested, but the price tag is going to probably be fairly high. Are you giving up your first round pick? Hollywood Brown got a first round pick in a trade at the draft last year. Are you doing that? Probably not. And feeling to the Ravens for Bateman, it's just, it's hard to trade players that are in their 30s and are expensive. No one wants them.

It just is what it is. No one wants them. They know that you have to cut them and they're not gonna pay out for them. So yes, I'm interested in the first part of that. No, I don't think it's really possible to do the other part of that. Also, if Adam Thielen, assuming they keep Lamar Jackson, if Adam Thielen wants to be part of, uh, you know, a team that is chasing a championship,

then maybe the Ravens are that. But if he also wants to have a lot of targets, it's not an offense that's really built to throw the football all the time. So he might be looking for something else. Um, it is interesting interesting though with lamar that they might use the franchise tag where people can make offers that's uh that one doesn't get used that often and yeah i don't know like you got to make the phone call right you got to check on that so anyway well more great stuff from all of you guys great great great questions can't say how much I appreciate all of them. And I tried to gather everything that I had from all of the questions that you guys sent during the combine and everything else.

And we will have another fun week again. Keep an eye out for all breaking news, our reactions here on the podcast, jumping on as soon as anything big happens i'll be paying attention i have cleared the next two weeks i will not be leaving the house i have hunkered down i have gone to the store and bought a bunch of soups and a bunch of water and diet dr pepper and prepared so i don't have to leave at all i will be here for all of you when things happen in vikings land again, thanks so much

to everybody for listening or if you watch on YouTube and we will catch you later.