Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Lets Get Nuts And Talk About Joe Burrow And Lamar Jackson

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

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Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, presented by Fanduil, Matthew Collar here. And returning to the show, Garrett Greenlee, he runs the incredible YouTube page football analysis. You are like the goals for all of us building our YouTube pages, Garrett, also a lifelong Minnesota Vikings fan. So you pay particular attention to this franchise. I wanted to bring you on and play a little offseason with you because, you know, I talked to a lot of the beat reporters, some former players on the show and things like that where I feel like we're really close to it. And your perspective is a little bit different because you're analyzing the entire NFL and where the Vikings fall into that. So why don't we just begin with the most obvious question, how do the Vikings get Joe Burrow or Lamar Jackson?

I like that there's no beat around the bush. It's just let's just, let's just dive 10 feet in, you know, deep into the pool. Here's the deal. whenever whenever we were playing the wonderful shutout game against Seattle, that was probably the lowest point that I've had as a fan in years. It was right after we got pantsed in Green Bay, 23 to 6. We had six points at eight quarters. And I was looking at contracts.

I was looking at just, you know, what they are getting paid, what the financial ramifications would be for each franchise. And you look at Joe Burroughs specifically. I don't think he's as untradable as people probably think, you initially hear that idea and there's the shock factor of there's absolutely zero chance to Bengals trade Joe Burrow. But when you break it down and think about it, you have to view players from a franchise and front office standpoint that you have to view them to a degree as asset allocations.

And if we have a player that, and I'm not saying not to view as humans, by the way, let's just clear the air on that one. But from an asset allocation standpoint with Joe Burrow, he's missed two out of the last three seasons, you know, a lot of each season, right? he has had three season ending or sorry three season altering injuries in six seasons and if you can trade him and if you can you know trade this 29 year old player in his prime for a couple of first round picks why would you not at least entertain the idea of that considering we are now going on a presidential term in terms of the bengals not making the playoffs i mean the last time they made the playoffs ed donatel was our defensive coordinator to give you an idea of how long it's been so to trade for joe burrow I mean, J.J. McCarthy would be in the conversation, obviously because he's a young quarterback. He did show flashes this year. I would think it would start with McCarthy, probably two firsts. And I would be comfortable trading or at least, you know, if it pushes the needle over Jonathan Grenard as well because of the emergence of Dallas Turner towards the end of the season.

I was very down in Dallas Turner midway through the year, but he had a really big year to a really big second half of the season. and I think there's something there to reasonably buy in with Dallas entering 2026. What if I told you that Dallas Turner ended up with more sacks than Jared Verse and a higher pass rush productivity stat by PFF? What if I told you that players can get better as they emerge and find their right roles and develop? But let's go to the Joe Burrow thing. So I would put it at about a 2% chance, which is not zero, but is also extremely extremely, extremely. low that the Cincinnati Bengals would even take phone calls on Joe Burrow because while he has had these injuries when you look at how he has played for the Cincinnati Bengals, I mean,

he is elite, elite falls into that category of to me the big three or four quarterbacks in the NFL that you never let walk out of your doors. But when you talk about his contract, things do get interesting with his contract after 2026. Because if he were to tell that, there is no way whatsoever that I will sign a contract extension with you. They are screwed on the salary cap because that means that you just have to pay it what he is scheduled to make. There isn't a whole lot that they can really do to mess around with that number because every one of these contracts is set up.

This is the shell game of the cap. It's real, but it's flexible. Is to get to the point where the cap hit gets really high, then sign an extension. with that player. The same actually exists for Justin Jefferson and his contract as well, which is why next year is very important to Justin Jefferson's future. And at that point, if the player says, sorry, I'm not signing an extension with you, then you do have to think about making that trade. But what I go back to with Cincinnati is when you have an entire city that has fallen in love with a quarterback the way that Cincinnati has and that caliber that if

you put anything else around him, not even a great team, but even good that you're a Super Bowl contender, I just don't think you can let him go. What it comes down to, though, for him is, is he going to exercise whatever strength of situation that he has, like Carson Palmer did once upon a time? Like, this does have precedent of quarterbacks that have found their way out of places. And that's a very valid point and very great point to bring up, because within the 2025 season and why I also think it's a non-zero chance is,

I mean, a couple of weeks ago, or whenever I sent that tweet, out during the Seahawks game, it was November. It was, I mean, every reply imaginable, you're a dumb biased Vikings fan. No way that happens. And I knew that was going to happen, right? Especially as, I mean, that's the Seattle game was, was, was embarrassing. That was, that was awful. It was, it was, it was bad, right? So I sent out the tweet and I was basically like, internally I was thinking, this is not as crazy as people think. I know I'm going to receive a ton of pushback. But a couple of weeks after that, Joe Burrow basically said in a press conference, you know, if I want to continue to do this, I have to be happy. And,

Joe Burrow is a really calculated individual. He's very smart. He is, I mean, he's very intelligent. You can listen to the way that he always gathers his thoughts. He's calm, cool, and collective, you can't rattle Joe Burrow. And for him to say that after, not like the Vikings part, but for him to say that, you know, willingly during the middle of a season. And then for a reporter to ask, is it personal?

Is it football? And for him to say all of the above, it's not, it's not as crazy as people think. And then especially now that you have the Bengals bringing back Zach Taylor and you have Adam Schaefter tweeting out that the breaking news, the Bengals are bringing back Zach Taylor a couple of weeks after Joe Burroughs said that. I would say there's conversations that are going on behind closed doors that we don't know about right this time, but we could know about in a couple of months or even a couple of years.

So I do know this, that the Minnesota Vikings are not shy when it comes to using their cell phones because they called about Justin Herbert just in case when Jim Harbaugh got there, are you sure you don't want to give us Justin Herber and maybe you take J.J. McCarthy. So in the the cap hit situation there would be something you'd have to work with. But still, they gave it a call. And they even considered and thank all lucky stars. I didn't have to cover this one, Deshawn Watson as well.

So these things are possible that they will look into him. Let's just do it because we're here and we got a lot of time to talk football. Why not? Why don't we, you know, just make up a trade for Joe, Burrow. Like what, you kind of mentioned Jonathan Grinard, but give me like the specifics and then we'll get into Lamar and then we'll get into more realistic stuff. So, uh, give me a trade for either Joe Burrow or Lamar Jackson that they would consider, you think. I go back to Grinor J.J. 2 ones. And then at that point, if they're like, hey, like, we need something else throwing a two, throwing a three. If you're throwing

in the two and the three, you would definitely want those picks to be in different drafts. You would not want to have no pick in the top three rounds in any draft. I know the 27 draft is is is is perceived as a very, very loaded draft. So if you wanted to say, hey, here's a one into two and 27 in addition to Grunard and McCarthy, go for it. And the reason that I would say go for it is, well, there's two reasons. One, we still finished nine and eight this year. And we had awful quarterback play for for most of the year. Yes, we had a game here, a game there. The JJ McCarthy, Dallas game. That was fun. I, that was a really fun game. I actually enjoy watching my team play football that day. But for most of the year, it was, I mean, the Chargers game,

the Lambo game. It was, it was ugly. The Ravens game with McCarthy. I mean, there, there were times where he was, I mean, before he went out the second time, he would throw a pass and I'd have no idea where the ball was going. It wasn't even a matter if it was going to be complete. It was, I have no idea where this ball is going. So why I think this trade would make sense is you also have a GM that while Quasey may not officially be on the hot seat right now, It's, I mean, his seat's not ice cold. His seat's not chilly by any means. And you also have to acknowledge the fact that, hey, we have two playoff wins in the past

15 years. Can't exactly say, I'm, I'm full from all the winning. Can't say, you know, like, hey, we just had a Super Bowl title. We won one. I know a lot of Vikings fans have uttered this, just won before I die. I know that's been a common phrase. It's not like we won one, you know, 12 years ago that we can still talk about. We have nothing.

We've been to one NFC championship game in the past 15 years. and which, I mean, we were also pantsed in that game, but go make something happen. You have nothing to lose. We still finished with a winning record. And what is the worst that happens? Oh, no, we didn't make the playoffs again. Well, we still have two playoff wins in the last 15 years.

At least you went out and tried and at least you didn't leave a stone unturn. Well, I mean, the only real precedent for this is getting Brett Fav, which resulted in coming very, very close to reaching the Super Bowl. But to your point, it has really stacked up. I looked this up the other day that since, the Wilf's took over as owners, this team is 21st in playoff wins. They have eight appearances, but only three wins. There are many, many more franchises that have a lot more playoff wins than this team does. So you can feel that desperation all the time, which I think is actually one of

the ways that we got here of there were times where they could have ripped it all truly apart and gone to the bottom. But it's never felt like they wanted to do that because they always want to have as many bites at the apple, even if those are more like nibbles at the apple than they are actually big bites. Lamar is an interesting case because there has been tension with Lamar and the Ravens now for a really long time. And this goes back to when they kind of made him available to the rest of the league. And then there was this colluding or not from the rest of the NFL that didn't want to give him, you know, the largest contract in history or a Deshawn Watson contract. And he ends up going back to the Ravens, but he never seemed super thrilled about that exactly,

got underpaid by what he's actually worth. And then in the Baltimore Sun, there's this piece about him playing video games, which is preposterous because a lot of players play video games. But then, you know, falling asleep in meetings, okay, through 41 touchdowns, four picks and ran for 900 yards last year and probably deserved another MVP. it feels to me like they are frustrated with him, the number of injuries, the playoff wins that don't happen. I think Garrett that it's the hardest place to be in sports

when your team is really, really, really, really good and your quarterback is really, really, really good, but you haven't gotten there yet and won a Super Bowl. So do you think it's realistic that they could move on from him? Folks, as you know, Purple Insider is always growing and changing and I'm looking to take steps forward in 2026, just like your business. Now, I'm lucky to have a great crew, business owner, I am well aware of the challenges of trying to find quality people to add to the

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I mean, there's also, I think Harbaal would also go before, before Lamar. And I do live in Maryland, so I hear the concerns regularly. And there's part of the fan base that gets frustrated with Lamar, because it's, it's more of a with the video games. And then what people get frustrated with is Lamar going out at like two, three in the morning going to like, the one thing that comes up a lot within the Ravens fan base is him going to like gas stations. And then there's people that like at two in the morning and then associate with him like with his immune system that where Lamar misses games for like sickness that other guys simply don't and there's people that get frustrated with that. So there's there's that within all of this. And I know that sounds like very laughable and very

like, are you serious when you have Lamar Jackson and you could be trotting out Max Brasmer quarterback. But it's there there is frustration on both sides. But if push came to shove, I think Harbaugh would go before Lamar, especially with how they've lost the their final games of the seasons over the past couple of years, whether it was in Buffalo last year, whether it was the 23 AFC championship gamer, the wild card round in Sincere in 22, I think Harbaal would be the odd man out. You never, to me, you just never, ever, ever move on from someone who is at all time great, unless you absolutely have to. And even those guys have often made their teams wrong, like Brett Favre coming to the Vikings or Peyton Manning going to the Denver Broncos or Tom Brady

going to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Sometimes it hasn't worked out, but a lot of those, like, second half of somebody's career or twilight of their career, Aaron Rogers is even good enough to get a mediocre Pittsburgh team into the playoffs. Now, I would not want to be the team that gave away Lamar Jackson and then he wins somewhere else.

But his contract situation is real as well, and he's set up to make another mountain of money. And if you look at the numbers, even through this year, where I felt he did not play anywhere close to what he has in the past. If the Minnesota Vikings had that performance from Lamar Jackson, they win 12 games easily, right? And I think that some of the stuff on that team that was so strong in years past,

their offensive line, their defensive line has just corroded a little bit. And if you're the Ravens, the one way you would do this is if you thought, I don't see a path to us building the rest of this roster out. But even then, I mean, the Rams with paying Matthew Stafford, and through their drafting, they had a down year, and then they bounce back, and now they're back to a Super Bowl contender. It feels like the stronger franchises

can find their way back to that when you have that one piece that is the most important, and you just have to work your way through the drama. I 100% agree with that. And the biggest thing with the Ravens right now is their interior offensive line, specifically their guard play, because Linderbombe is, he's a really good player.

He's going to receive a hefty contract extension this offseason. probably the highest paid center in NFL history. But I mean, that's typically how it goes. The next guy gets paid, he's the highest in all that. But they're left and right guard, Andrew Borges and Daniel Falilele, it's brutal. And there's times where I'll go back and watch Lamar tape specifically. And even on the one touchdown that he had to Zay Flowers,

the one deep when he had two deep touchdowns this past Sunday night and the week 18 loss, Fulele was beat immediately. I mean, it was very much like, I'm just going to stick a hand up. And the guy's already buying me because he's, I'm an NFL, you know, he's an NFL player. He's going to run right by him. And Lamar has made to make, or he's had to make a lot of chicken salad out of, just not great material to make chicken salad out of over the past, or really in 2025. And I would agree, I would agree that any even average quarterback for the 25 Vikings,

it's definitely a season where if we have 25 touchdowns, you know, 10 picks, 13 picks, whatever we, we win 11, 12, 13 games. We're pretty comfortably. NFC North champions. So why don't you just put percentages on it and we can get on to realistic ideas for the Minnesota Vikings chance that they get Burrow or Lamar Jackson? Nine. No, no, no.

That's well played. Thank you. Thank you. I'll say, I would say anywhere between 15 and 20% just because I go back, I go back to the end. That's still a small percent. that's still less than a quarter. I would just go back to the fact that there's a lot of things that that make a lot of sense

whenever you think about it because Quasi say what you want. We all know the draft history. I know about Lewis, and Andrew Booth, we know that, but, and even other picks, but he's not afraid to make trades happen. Good or bad. He's not afraid to pull the trigger. He's not afraid to basically say, hey, you know, look, we, we're going for it.

And this is that. And I mean, good or bad, I'm really eager to see what that looks like with his, job getting warm. With his job, basically, hey, you spend all this money on Ryan Kelly, Javon Hargrave, Jonathan Allen, and those contracts, by the way, in a cap space discussion. We are not in cap hell the way people think. People think that the Vikings cannot do anything this offseason. There's a lot of manipulation that we're going to do. It's going to be fine. So with Quasi's job, definitely getting a little warmer. Who knows? And that's why I think it's a higher chance than what people think. I mean, the fact that Brett Farr have played here will forever be

the top card that anyone can play in a discussion like this. You could say, why are these dopes talking about these crazy trades? Hey, Fav, right? It happened. Sam Darnold won 14 games like anything can happen with the Minnesota Vikings. But why don't we just come back into the real world where everybody lives and we talk about their realistic options for the 2020-6 season? Now, that has to start with a discussion about how you feel from,

watching J.J. McCarthy tape and what you think that the likelihood is that he could reach that level that we're discussing because now if you're going to compete for a Super Bowl, I think that you have to be at least in the C.J. Stroud, Bow, Knicks sort of tier. You don't have to be God tier necessarily with a roster this good. And we've seen, at least with veteran quarterbacks, Kevin O'Connell's ability to elevate, but you also can't have the 23rd best quarterback in the NFL either. Just making a little bit of progress is not enough to put you in the Super Bowl discussion. So start for me on what you saw this year from J.J. McCarthy and his likelihood to be the starter next year. You can put a number on that if you want as well. And then we'll get into the

options and the other things on the roster. I definitely put J.J's the percentage of him starting next year for is probably at 65 to 70 percent just in that. I mean, it's more than likely that's what's going to be the option because he's still a 22-year-old player. He'll be 23 next year. There is still flashes that you can convince yourself off. And one thing that people don't bring up is there were flashes with Sam Darnold prior to Minnesota. There was, I mean, he didn't, he didn't just luck into being the third overall picking the draft way back in 2018. Like, you don't luck into being a top three NFL traffic, right? So the flashes have been there. And the reason I brought up Darno is because the flashes with him, they were also there with

McCarthy this year, whether it was the Washington. game, whether it was the Dallas game. And even in the Giants game, before he got hurt, he was playing fine. He had a couple of incomplete passes. One was an interception that hit right off Jalen Naylor's hands. He had a ball that should have been a touchdown to Jordan Addison, and he dropped it. And Addison also didn't have a great year, which he had several drops. And Jefferson also had a down year, too, for the Justin Jefferson that we know. And that's not just because of bad quarterback play, although that certainly attributes to that. And obviously, he was a victim of bad quarterback play for, you know, most of the season.

But he also didn't have a great year personally as well. And I think he would agree to that. But with JJ, the biggest thing that, you know, we have seven months to convince ourselves of is, you know, look at the final couple of games that he played. Look at that Dallas game, is specifically the 20-yard touchdown to Jalen Naylor, where he rolls it all the way backside and throws the ball on an absolute rope to him in a place where only Jalen Naylor can get it for a touchdown. And I know the Cowboys just fired their defensive coordinator,

but whether that defense is the 25 Cowboys or the 85 Bears, there is, I mean, you can't, unless you were a strictly a hater, you cannot deny how great of a play that was. And there's also within this the fact that, you know, Kevin O'Connell is the offensive mind. What will we have with a true offseason of having JJ as the guy and having an offseason to work on the mechanics, which was obviously an issue all year long,

which, by the way, I do think improved in the final couple of games of the year, because after he came back from the concussion, he was a better player. Now, I mean, is he going to get to a Joe Borough Lamar level, top, you know, two or three quarterback in the NFL? Probably not. That's just statistics. That's just the way that that's going to work. But if he can be an above average quarterback, which the flashes indicate that he can,

then there's no reason to think that this team can't win 10, 11, 12 games next year, especially given the fact that we just won nine in a season where, well, a lot of things went wrong. The thing that's hard to get there with is when you look at the history of other guys who have performed like this through 10 games. And there are a couple of Josh Allen's in that list, but there's not that many Josh Allen's in that list. And he's just an outlier in general because also he, his college career wasn't all that good.

And, you know, comes from Wyoming. And this is just not a person that we should ever compare anybody to ever. But the other comparisons are guys like, J. Manuel, guys like Blaine Gabbard. You know, Ryan Tannehill was probably the best I could do for someone who was similar, Alex Smith, but those guys, Smith played in a previous era where it was, I think, harder to come right in and start. And Ryan Tannahill took years and another team before he was able to get to the point where he could really consistently win games in the NFL and play at that sort of level, because usually don't always have Brian Flores keeping you in all these games. And at the back end

of the season. There's no doubt that he was making progress and building on his confidence. But when we're talking about the 20th best defense, we're talking about like 32 and 31 and 29. Like, we're talking about the worst of the worst. And there were still all these kind of tendencies even within those games to you've got Justin Jefferson on a crossing route wide open and you just are laid on it and then fly it over his head. And that inconsistency and accuracy to me is very difficult to resolve. But where I do agree is that last year he's coming off the knee injury and doesn't start throwing until January.

Well, he can start throwing now is fine as soon as his hand gets better. But let's say that internally, they just feel like we don't know, which is how I feel. I feel like we don't know. Like there's a chance that he can turn it around. I just think too many things have to go right for it to be good odds to happen fast. Not that it'll never be great, but happen on the timeline that they need. that's hard to convince me of. So then what direction do they go with competition or with someone else as a starter?

Is there an option? Because I know that my listeners don't have an option that they like. Is there an option that you like? So this is, let me just go off of this and then I'll talk to the other option. This is why I think the Joe Burrow specifically, I don't think Lamar would be, I don't think Lamar is going to get moved. I think there's a higher possibility of Borough personally. That's why I don't think it's as crazy as people think,

because we are clearly in a win now mode. We clearly have a good team. And also within this is our division, our entire division would have won the NFC South. Our entire division winning records this year. And say what you want, sure, the Lions came down from 15 and 2 and we swept them and whatever. They are still a very good football team.

And this division is not going to take off next year and say, hey, we know you guys have JJ. You got to keep the training wheels on them. Let's just, you guys, we'll give you a free win. So that's why if, you know, if GM's job borderline on the line, go for the absolute home run. Now, there are two options that I think would make sense. One is Kyler Murray that, I mean, that's, and I don't think the cost for Kyler would be all that much because everybody knows that the relationship is already soured and that he was

benched and then the whole thing. So I don't think it costs for Kyler would be all that much. But then there is another quarterback that. has played in another system, very similar to O'Connell's, which is, of course, Mac Jones out in San Francisco. And Mac Jones could be a distributor of the football. Mac Jones also led the 49ers to a win against the Rams on Thursday night earlier this year. And that was a really good game from Mac Jones. He had over 300 yards. And to be able to beat the Rams in a short week, I mean, what he did in that game was be, I mean, people like to use the term game manager, but I prefer,

at least in this sense, a distributor of the football area, it was I'm going to get to the top of my drop, boom, ball is out. I don't have to, you know, wait for everything and get the happy feet in the pocket. Mack Jones, the way he played in that, I want to say it was week five Thursday night game against the Rams. That is exactly what the Vikings need. And the cost, obviously, for Mack Jones would, I mean, it would be more than Kyler Murray because the 49ers know they have a desirable asset at quarterback. There's obviously only so many good quarterbacks to go around. We found that out this year firsthand. But those are the two options that I think would be, if the Vikings are going to trade for a quarterback.

That's not one of the, you know, the big guys. It would be one of those two players. So Mac is an interesting one because coming out of Alabama, he was called Kirk Cousins, which is just sort of a time as a flat circle thing, right? With the Vikings having these retread quarterbacks, but also one that's just like Kirk. But he is also a first round draft pick. And somebody who made a really strong first impression in the NFL. and then his coach started dating 20-year-olds and lost his marbles and then got fired

and started hiring special teams coaches to be offensive coordinators and defensive coordinators to be they just just lose it his mind and then Mack ends up out of there and he goes to the jaguars he plays a few games that's a train wreck had he only had Liam Cohen and some of their options that they have now but that team was a complete mass couldn't win with Trevor Lawrence last year goes to san francisco does this journey sound like somebody oh it sounds like sam darnold and i think the difference is that when you watch sam darnold throw a football your jaw hits the floor he has one of the best arms i've ever seen in my life mac does not have that but he does have the processing ability

the anticipation throw ability and he is a pocket quarterback which kevin o'connell has mostly always had with Stafford and then Kirk and then I would still call Sam Darnold that even though he can get outside and make a play here there. I think in terms of fit, plus going from San Francisco and their offense to the Vikings is not a crazy jump. In terms of fit, I like it for that reason. I also like it that it sets a fairly high bar for J.J. McCarthy. It's like here's a guy who's had some success in the NFL, but if you're any good, you should be able to beat him out. I like that idea a lot. My audience does not like the Kyler Murray idea any near as much as me. And I'll admit, Garrett, I think part of that is because I think it would be entertaining. I like, week in,

week out, show up to the stadium and like, what's he going to do today? This might be fun. And as you mentioned, we've been real short on fun at the old ballpark over the last year. Nice, nice, nice, nice pun. Yeah. So, uh, the, go a little deeper into the Kyler Murray idea. Let's say that they cut him. Like, is it to you, is that a good idea. I mean, based on what we saw this year, yes. And the one thing, you know, we discussed percentages, there is a 100% chance that actually I'll say 99 to not talk in absolutes. A 99.9.9% chance the Vikings make a some sort of, I would say decent move at the quarterback position. They're not going to walk into the year. And in the middle of August, say, oh, guess what? We actually received a better pick them what we traded Sam. How for we'll just, we'll just send him away.

and Carson Wentz, how are you doing? Come on in. I mean, I pulled up the free agent quarterbacks this off season. Daniel Jones is, of course, going to be brought up because of, you know, the practice squad with the Vikings and then, you know, the connection with O'Connell and Stuyken. But he's coming off a torn Achilles. I don't think that that would be the best option, especially off the Achilles. You're going to have the 43-year-old Aaron Rogers that's going to be naturally brought up. But after that, I mean, take your choosing of any of these guys. Russell Wilson, I wouldn't. Mariotta is probably going to stay in Washington, I'd imagine. But, Then Zach Wilson to Rod Taylor, Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, Jimmy G, Mitch Trubiskey, Trey Lance, Carson Wentz, you got to do something. And that's why it's exactly, exactly.

So that's why the Vikings are not going to bring in and say, oh, hey, Brandon Allen. And by the way, if you watch the Titans play this week after Camerward got hurt, that was awful quarterback play, like worse than Barasmer quarterback level play. So we're not going to bring someone like him in either. And Max is not a great player. an undrafted free agent. So I'll at least I'll cut him some slack there. But they're not going to run it back with,

with Rosmer and say, hey, buddy, you're the guaranteed quarterback too. So there's going to be something done this off season. And that's also why I think this is an incredibly interesting offseason for the Vikings because we are kind of waiting for the hurricane to hit. We just don't know what is going to, we don't know what's going to happen.

Which is why I have you on the show to get lots of different guesses. I appreciate what's going to happen. Yeah. I mean, You're absolutely right that someone else has to be here because even if even if he had played really, really well, but had all these health issues, you would still be going into the season, not entirely sure. But at the bare minimum, it has to be someone who is going to legitimately compete with him for the starting position. And, you know, you sully the name of Brandon Allen.

He once had a 20 to nothing lead on the Minnesota Vikings at halftime or whatever it was. Remember that game against Denver? Yeah. And Kirk brought him back. and J-Rone curse, I think, knocked down a pass in the end zone for Cortland Sutton to win that game. Yeah. So, you know, that tends to happen. But I agree with, you know, the look on your face for all those names is just, that's not going to do it.

You know, Mitch Trubisky or Marcus Mariotto, like, it's just not going to do it. It's not going to do what you need it to do. But let's discuss other storylines for the Vikings this offseason. And you mentioned the salary cap situation. This is something that because I'm kind of game to game to game, haven't pulled up over the cap and really broken it down until I just started doing this the other day. And I, I agree. The one thing that hits me, though, Garrett, is that it feels so much like 2021 Vikings where like,

oh, well, they just got to get rid of this guy and restructure this deal and everything else. You're going, okay, then what? I mean, then what happens to the salary cap down the road? it does feel like we've reached the point in this regime where there is no down the road. So what can they do to enhance this roster in your opinion? Well, I hate to say it, but we are going to have to like restructure and then cut guys and so the whole thing. And I'm going, I'm doing this based off of over the caps like, you know, they're cut pre June 1st, cut post June 1st. I want to say you can only cut, have three designated post June 1st.

cuts, which they save more money against the cap. But right now, again, per over the cap, we are 39.3 million in the hole. But if you cut T.J. Hawkinson post June 1st, that saves $16 million right there. That's such an easy decision based on the player that he is at this stage in his career. So that brings it down to $23 million. And I don't know how exactly I will be fully transparent. The restructuring works in terms of like the money that would be, I mean, obviously like the players are still getting the money.

but in terms of how that works exactly on the books. But based off of this, if you do restructure Jefferson, it brings us down from $23 million to $5 million, which would save another $18 million. And then you can get into the free agent signings from last year. How do you want to go about cutting Javon, Hargrave, or trading Jonathan Allen? And the one thing that I would like to be able to do that is a pipe dream

based on the over-the-cap cap number is if you trade Jonathan Allen post-June 1st, it saves $16 million. The problem is you have to find somebody else to actually, actually want to take on that money. And this is the only part that I would say like, hey, this may sound a little crazy. I would not be opposed to save $16 million against the cap. If we traded Jonathan Allen and a sixth for a seventh in return,

or maybe even a fifth and a sixth in return, like an NBA trade where we are, you know, saying like, hey, take on our money. If it came down to that. But even if you wanted to just designate him as a post-June cut first, you'd save $9 million. It would cost you $12 million to do so. but it's not as bad as people think.

You also save roughly $9 million by cutting Ryan Kelly, which will inevitably happen. He'll be a cap casualty. Javon Hargrave will also, he'll also be a cap casualty in some aspect. He won't be back next year. So it's not as bad as people want to make it out to be. And just sitting here doing those moves that I was discussing,

we went from negative $39 million to plus 24. And then you can still restructure guys. You can restructure Darrasaw and you can still restructure Van Ginkl. And there's a lot within this that you can do to manipulate the cap and also have to factor in that with all of the revenue the league generates, whether it's the gambling, whether it's the overseas games, whether it's games on YouTube or Netflix or Peacock or whatever, the cap goes up every year. So you also have that back. You also have to factor that in as well. Bottom line, the Minnesota Vikings cap situation, nowhere as bad as the people as the national

media wants to make it out to be. And they are going to carry over some last year. They did not do some restructures and things like that that they could have. And they created some space. for themselves and then that carries over. So you're right about that. Some of the ideas, though, the realistic nature of it, I think with Hawkinson, that feels inevitable at this point, the same with Hargrave. I would add Aaron Jones to this as much respect as everyone has for Aaron Jones. That's going to create some space for you.

And a guy with that many injuries who was banged up for most of the season, 4.2 yards per carry. It's just not justifying what the paycheck is. goes along with it. But the issue is when you go, oh, well, you could just lop off this, lap off that, just cut off this and chop off that. And then you'll be fine. And then you've got some money.

Like, well, right. But then you need a bunch of players. Jonathan Allen is a tough one for me to see anyone take him in a trade. I think he's here. Maybe the best case scenario is that he could do something with the team to work together to create a little more cap space, sort of like take one for the squad in a way. but I don't see a world where they can be huge spenders in the offseason. Like you mentioned Tyler Linderbaum, that'd be fantastic.

But he's going to cost $24 million a year or something to play center for somebody else. They just don't have that kind of money. But I also think that even though we've lopped off a few pieces here or there, the fact that Dallas Turner made great strides, the fact that Donovan Jackson made a great first impression with this team, I think if you go position by position, it's going to be a hard off season for us to go, well, they need this free agent and this player and that player, and that player.

Even Isaiah Rogers finishes in the top 20 PFF corners. That's a Brian Flores special playing over 900 snaps this year. Jay Ward started to develop. I mean, I think that replacing Harrison Smith is absolutely huge for them, probably adding a little more to the interior D-line if you're cutting Javon Hargrave, looking to the running back position. But this is, this is the hard part about talking about the Minnesota. Vikings, man. It's like, okay, yeah, a little bit of that, a little bit of a quarterback. It's just, it doesn't feel like a team that is very far away from a roster perspective from being

with anybody else in the NFC. That's, that's, that's also why I go back to the, to the main, or to the first point of, of just hitting it head on the nail. Joe Burrow, what's it going to cost? Because like, we're right there. We, we are right there. And, you know, you can do this with everybody. Yeah, you could have another defensive line. You could have another corner. But is, is any NFL team saying, hey, we're good with the corners we have? No. So when you have gink and a healthy Dallas, or not healthy Dallas Turner, a healthy gink and Dallas Turner, I mean, we are a solid team. It's just can we, you know, can we get that, that quarterback to push us over? It honestly feels like similarly between if you remember this, between 2008 and 2009, where we have the guys there,

but can we, can we have the quarterback to push us over the top, if you will? So I'm with you on that. And also, even within the cutting guys and everything, we still have 11 draft picks. So we have four of the top 100, which I'm not going to talk about the draft history with their GM. But what I'll say is there is an opportunity to bring in a youth movement and to bring in, you know, key backup contributors, which is always helpful. You look at the 24 Eagles. They had Quinnian Mitchell. They had Cooper DeGine, both rookies. Cooper DeGine obviously had the pick six in the Super Bowl.

So it's never a bad idea to also build through the draft if you want to cut the fat on the roster. then again, draft good football players. That's a term that I use on the channel where just draft high floor guys, don't overthink it. I actually had Quignan and Cooper Degine both of my top 12 of my 2024 big board. I had Dallas Turner. I want to say 15. And those players have been really good through the first.

Well, Dallas came on at the end of the second season. But those two specifically with the Eagles were great players. And if you have those guys fall to you in the draft, go get those players, go draft them, don't overthink it. And that's where I would kind of stand on that. I think that they have gotten out of it, the draft, less than you probably should, but nowhere near as bad as it seems because they gave away all of their draft picks. And like, well, that is certainly a demerit of giving away all your draft picks.

You did it in the name of trying to win in the moment, like in 2022 or in 2024, which I think all of us advocate when you get your shots, push chips to the middle of the table, or they did it to get a solid to go. good player, T.J. Hawkinson, who we didn't know was going to tear his ACL later and have that forever impact him. So I think that the overall philosophy of shifting from drafting a million players in 2022 having it not work out to why don't we just give away these draft picks and try to get the guys we like and then fill in the rest with veterans, it makes sense if there's no tomorrow. And the way I see 2026 is there's no tomorrow. So we might even see them move draft picks.

make a trade up like I'm not saying this was good for Atlanta, but they did it out of desperation to trade up to get James Pierce. Why did they do it? Because they knew if it didn't work out this year, they were probably going to get canned. So that adds an extra layer to this with the draft of are they even going to use some of these picks or would they look at players available for a trade and try to make one more big move to stack this up as much as possible? I did want to get into the NFC North with you before we finish here because all three other teams are just super fascinating for their timelines. All Packers people could talk about. It's so interesting. All Packers people are talking about going into the playoffs is if Matt LaFleur is on the hot seat

or not, which is crazy to me and crazy to every other person that hears this that's not in Green Bay. But if you're in Green Bay, it's like, yeah, let's talk about firing Matt LaFleur. On Fandul at the moment, the Packers are one and a half point favorites to beat the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field in their playoff matchup. If the Bears lose, it'll feel like, well, what a great season Caleb's on his way. If the Packers lose, it feels really devastating to them. The Lions are out of the playoffs. Like, how do you assess these three teams and where they are in their different timelines? The idea of the Packers firing Matt LaFleur, I mean, as a Vikings fan, like, please do it. You want to fire him, go, be my guest, do it, go for it. But as an analyst, it's like, why? Like,

there, there's no, it may, I mean, maybe he's not, you know, Sean McVeigh, Kyle Shanahan. I guess you can toss Mike McDonald there now too. And maybe he's not top three in the NFL, but guys, he's, I mean, he's top 10, top 12. There, you could do a lot worse. What do you want to bring in? You want to bring in Brian Callahan to coach your team. You want to bring in, you know, whoever, right? That, I don't like the even entertaining the idea of that because of, he's a good head coach. And I also think that the Packer season, not a hot take here, but their season was altered significantly when Micah Parsons went down.

And I'm a big advocate. I'm like give guys their flowers and their prime. I mean, Michael Parsons, to me, is a Hall of Fame talent. I don't know if he's going to have the longevity to get there, but there's one player in NFL history to have 12 sacks in each of his first five seasons. It's Michael Parsons. So to have that type of, of, of franchise altering player go down. Inevitably, your Super Bowl chances kind of go along with that.

but there's nothing, that's nobody's fault. Now, I do think the Packers are going to win in Chicago on Saturday night. I think they are going to win. I think they match up favorably against the Bears and also the Bears' pass rush is non-existent. And that also creates a dynamic or a big question this offseason, especially with a Raiders player in Max Crosby, who recently, I mean, he was on IR to end the season. and then there was a video that he posted of him playing basketball after being put on IR.

There's a lot of questions about, you know, hey, if he's on IR, can he play basketball? And maybe this is the end of the line with Max Crosby and the Raiders. Obviously, that's been talked about for years. Hey, trade a good player to get draft capital for him. So that way you can try and rebuild your team rather than have a good player and a bad team. Maybe that's the final straw. And that would also help the bear significantly, which we know that this is the probably the best division in football, at least record-wise it is this year.

There's a good chance that the bears say, hey, we have a good window. We're going to go all in, push our chips to the center of the table, regardless of what happens in the postseason. Max Crosby, come to Chicago. Detroit, they're a very, very talented team.

And Dan Campbell, to me, another great head coach that we have in our division. I mean, we have unequivocally the best division of head coaches. There is no division that comes close to our head coaches top to bottom. But, and I don't care how you rank them. like LaFle, Campbell, Johnson, Kevin O'Connell. It's insane how loaded our division is specifically at head coach. But they're going to be fine.

They have too much talent to not at minimum win eight, nine games next year, 10 games, 11 games, barring major injuries, of course. Now, there is a conversation about Dan Campbell because he always preaches toughness. He always preaches like, hey, you know, we're going to, you know, the kneecap is the infamous one. We're like, we get knocked down. We're going to, you know, come back up, bite a kneecap, whatever. There's a conversation.

worth having and I'm not a medical guy to be able to assess this or talk about this. But are the Lions too physical to the point where they practice too hard that their players inevitably get injured? And that's a, that's a 15 minute conversation. But I kind of just wanted like, you know, touch on that. But there's a, that's a separate conversation. But all the teams are going to be back next year. And I do think the bears are going to be big time buyers this offseason because they can't have the pass rush they have heading into 26 with where they currently are. And if I had to push my chips to the center of the table,

I do think that Max Crosby will be a bear next year. Someone, whether it's him or Trey Hendrickson, someone will be a bear that's a pass rusher. And they are in the dream position. This is the reality. And this is why the Purple Insider podcast has advocated tanking for many years because they are now exactly where you dream to be when you tank. And you can argue Caleb Williams.

is maybe not in the elite category yet. But if you want to make a comparison with a quarterback to Josh Allen, it's not J.J. McCarthy. I'm sorry to inform you. It's actually Caleb Williams. And this is kind of like Josh Allen's 2019 season where he wasn't as accurate as he needed to be, but he made plays like crazy, was clutch,

was a leader for them, which Caleb Williams is starting to become. The belief was there. And then he took the next step the following season. But my thing is they got the O line, they got the weapons and they got the HC that now it's much easier to put some defensive players on than it is to find any of those things, the weapons, the offensive line, and of course, the quarterback position.

It's a scary proposition because they're the team you would bet on for the ones we've seen before where this actually works. And the others, I feel like all of them are just, who wants to be in the middle? Who wants to be in what position in the middle? And that's where they all are. Okay, you got nine wins. you got nine wins, you got eight or nine wins. Like, what, we're all in the middle together.

And with Detroit, feels like late stage Jared Gough rams to me. Like, remember, when they got rid of Jared Gough, they went to the playoffs, won a playoff game. And they were still a good football team. But the roster had corroded a little bit and the line had corroded. And when that happens around Gough, he's not the same as great as I still think that he is. And I have actually heard what you talked about, talked about in the league. Like, do they just practice and play?

like such maniacs that they hurt themselves all the time. And I think that there is truth to that. Okay, let me get one prediction for you before you head out here. And I really appreciate all the time. We could just talk ball all day long. How about that big game that's going to be played in early February? The favorites on Fandul right now are your Sam Darnold led Seattle Seahawks at plus 390. Then the Rams, the Broncos, Eagles, Patriots, Bills.

They're all kind of jammed in there because I don't think anybody, really knows how to separate these teams. So let's say that I take the Seahawks and the Rams away from you. You don't get to pick them for the Super Bowl. Who would you pick? Carolina Panthers versus Chargers. So if I know, no Rams, no Seahawks, I'll go, I'll go the Patriots. Drake May, MVP, I mean, he looks to be a future MVP quarterback.

It would also be pretty cool to see Stefan Diggs get a ring. I love, I love Diggs. I miss him. I know that we traded him to get Justin Jefferson, obviously very beneficial for us. But I miss him on the team. He always played with fire, played with passion,

really, really good receiver. Over 10,000 career yards might make the Hall of Fame. We'll see, but love that. But I would take the Patriots personally. I think the Hall of Fame and wide receivers is complicated. Somehow Jimmy Smith and Tori Holt aren't in there. I think that that bar is like stupid high. But, man, if I'm taking away those two teams,

absolutely nobody thinks that the Denver Broncos can win the Super Bowl, which is interesting to me because you have to go to Denver and beat them and they're going to be fresh. And I think this is, tell me if I'm wrong. I think that's entirely because people didn't think Bo Nix was a first round draft pick. And I don't think that he's a megastar either. So I haven't paid a lot of attention to Bo Nix. I just see the dialogue or whatever.

And, you know, because the Vikings weren't playing them. I didn't see a ton of their games. I saw the one against Green Bay where he was freaking awesome. And then I went to his stat page, kind of poke around. I'm like, this is the guy they're acting like is Tim Tebow? It's nowhere near his bet. And here's the stat that everybody overlooks with Bonix, sacks. Yes, his yards per attempt aren't that great.

And his accuracy is not perfect. And he's got, he's got some problems. But that guy never takes negative plays. The offense just stays on track. They do not give the football away. They do not take sacks. And it kind of reminds me of like the way Teddy Ridgwater played or the way we could have projected him to play in the future. I think they've got enough to win the Super Bowl with him there.

And nobody wants, and I could be completely wrong because predictions are bad, but mine are. But I wouldn't be shocked. And I really, I really think that no one wants to give him his flowers because they didn't have him as a first round draft pick coming out. And people just do not let that stuff go. Very fair. I mean, people remember the Bo Nicks, Auburn days, and then associate that with now. And Bo's the only player, this was a stat that popped up in their game against the Chargers this past week, only player in NFL history to start his career, 2.30 plus total touchdown seasons, 10 win seasons. I look, I said the Patriots, you could convince me the Jags, you could tell me the Broncos.

Those, I mean, all three of those teams are very good. And actually, I do have a video coming out in a couple of days discussing teams that have the. the most to prove. I do think that the Jags, Broncos, Patriots all have a lot to prove specifically because of, okay, you dominated this regular season. Who are you when it matters? But going out to Denver, Mile High City already can't breathe, already difficult situation. You know, you're already at 5,280 feet elevation. You have the pass rush. They have, you know, one of the highest sack teams of all time. And then you also have to go against Pat Certan, a quarterback that is a good quarterback. Good luck. The only thing that I worry about the Broncos is,

is the weaponry is not great offensively, which they will address this offseason. But Jags also another elite football team. And I really think this is just the start for the Jags. I'm really high in the Jags in their future. But right now I would choose the Patriots. I trust Mike Vrable. I trust Drake May. And they've also had, I mean, they've had several good free agents players step up this year.

So I would choose the Patriots, but if you said the Broncos Jags, I wouldn't be opposed to it. My pick actually all year has been the bills just because they have the best quarterback. And that feels safe to me to go with the AFC's best quarterback, which usually has worked out over the last, I don't know, all of our lifetimes. Garrett Greenlee, it is very easy to find your YouTube. Just go in and type in football analysis. You will find your incredible page that just continues to grow.

I just love to see how you've been able to build and build and build with the consistency of your great videos, break it down winners and losers of each week and the specific features that you do. so it's awesome to see. I love your work, man. And we'll definitely get together again soon. Appreciate it. Thank you for having me on.

As always, Matthew. Football.