Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Let's go searching for a Kirk Cousins comparison and talk about the Vikings' free agent plans

Episode Date: February 22, 2022

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom wish ESPN's Courtney Cronin good luck in her next endeavor and talk about what it's like to cover and NFL team as a part of a beat, then get into more hardcore quarterback talk as they look for a comparison from the past to Kirk Cousins. What does Pro-Football Reference's Hall of Fame Monitor say? Which QB from the early 2000s looks very much like Cousins and what does that reveal about the Vikings' QB? Plus a report that the Carolina Panthers have called about Cousins and the Vikings' free agency plans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with Sam Ekstrom. And Sam, you know, it was Will Raggetts on the show a few months ago that had never heard the song by Boyz II Men, It's So Hard to Say Goodbye. But here we are having to sing it again for our friend Courtney Cronin from ESPN as she leaves the Minnesota Vikings beat and she is headed to Chicago to cover the Chicago Bears. She announced that on Twitter today and it will be so hard to say goodbye. She's not leaving the show and we're going to do a show later this week with her and I talking about her time in Minnesota covering the Vikings and what's going to be next on this show. But she is going to cover the Chicago Bears. So that's still very relevant to us. And she's going

to be doing her regular appearances. So don't worry, Courtney, our draft scout is not gone. But Sam, we've actually had this crew of beat reporters for quite a while now. And I was just thinking about how we've sort of covered this team and the whole Zimmer and Spielman era and everything else together. And now one of our key players has gotten signed by another team. It's a little bit strange today. Yeah, it is bittersweet for sure. I'm happy for her. Chicago's her home.

So she gets to go home, be close to her folks and familiar places and the city that she loves. And that is fantastic. Really happy for her. She gets to pursue radio even harder now. And it's all great. We knew this a few days ago. We got to spend some time with some of the beat and Courtney and had a great time downtown um but the when you look at sort of the construction of the beat you know i uh was in place 2014 you were 2016 courtney was 2017 a reef and chad were 2018 andrew um you know was was just before you at at 1500 he was around the same timeline as well. So kind of this influx of fresh blood on the beat, um, like about half a dozen, half a dozen writers over the past five, six, seven years, that all sort of cover the Zimmer era together, kind of on the same timeline and went through, you know, a lot, the ups, the downs of the beat and the craziness that ensues. And,

and along the way, you kind of start speaking this shared language with all the inside jokes and all the references that you get. And you kind of, I mean, if you heard us talk in the media room, you probably wouldn't understand a lot of it because it is very inside and very like special to us. But, um, we spend a lot of time together in there and it's really cool that here in Minnesota, we like the people we work with and we got to form this crew and you've gotten to hear, you know, a lot of them on this show kind of come along and you might get a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes. But yeah, Courtney was a big part of that. So we're going to miss her, but we're also glad that we get to, you know, see her once a year

here and we'll go and see her in Chicago and she'll remain a presence for sure on this program. It's something that we don't talk about a whole lot on the show is what it's like to cover an NFL team. Part of it is, like you said, spending so much time around people that you don't actually work with, but they all work for, and I say in finger quotes, competing, I've never seen it as competing back in the day when there were two newspapers and they were, you know, you're trying to sell this many papers and they're trying to sell that many papers. I could see it as being

competing, but it really isn't that way anymore. We all have Twitters and Vikings fans can read all of our articles or listen to all of our podcasts. And so I never looked at it as, well, you have to listen to me and read me and that's it. And nobody else. There are people who are still around who are kind of from, I guess, a previous era that might look at it that way. But I think that us all being kind of the same age or around the same age, we recognized that we can all act like coworkers with the same goal of getting the most out of press conferences, covering the team the best way we can, and have fun talking about it together. In radio, you can't bring on somebody from a

competing radio station, which i always thought was so stupid like other people know they exist they know the other radio station is real uh you know you know it's like if if if will raggetts comes on from you know si covers the vikings if he comes on and someone clicks on his article because they heard him on here great good good for him like read his work he does a good job. And I've always looked at it the same way with Chad and Andrew and everybody else. And that, I think, is a little bit of a difference. So we feel like we all work together, even though there are some times where you're working on a story and it might be pretty good

and you kind of don't want other people to know about it a little bit like there isn't a whole lot of secrecy i think even in doing that and we all travel together we eat together we uh you know go out you know go out places and things like that on the road and then we all deal with the same things all of us in los angeles got lost in the stadium or whatever we all we've all gotten lost in many a stadium and we help each other out and everything else like that. And then, like you said, there are so many things that we sort of come across throughout the path of covering a team, whether it's stuff that is sort of out there in the public or not that, and it ends up being like all of our shared experiences that we talk about.

And that's just like anybody else with a job with your coworkers, where you all kind of know the inside BS that is happening and whatever else. And, uh, you know, I, I've really, really enjoyed that part of it that we have all sort of become a crew. And so now to have one of our crew members going to Chicago, uh, Courtney will still be a part of our crew forever, but it feels like we're in high school and somebody went off to college. Yeah, she graduated after a five-year degree in Vikings coverage.

And to be honest, it's a pretty good education because the nonsense that you deal with on a year-to-year basis prepares you for anything i think you're you definitely have triaged um all of the the craziest breaking news items and you know now she gets to go to hopefully a little bit a quieter of a beat new coaching staff there that she gets to go in fresh with. But it's wild when kind of the group gets together like we did, you know, kind of sending Courtney off, going out to Black Sheep the other night. And we get in this circle where if someone hasn't heard one of our stories,

then we all get to retell it and we get all excited about it. And just going back into the library of these old tales that we've we've created over the years it's pretty cool um so that's it's something it's probably the best part of the job wouldn't you say matthew i mean it's you certainly you like doing the work but it's who you get to enjoy it like because it is a grind sometimes and transcribing sucks and then you can share that with people that you know make it easier to commiserate. And that's kind of the charm of going to work every day. Yeah, I agree. Like getting to know everybody. And a lot of us have followed sort of similar paths and have similar just worldviews in

general of like being of kind of a certain age in our lives. Like we've just had a lot of things happen that are people becoming 30 plus year old adult sort of things to happen. And a lot of us got here as it being, you know, a big jump, like with Courtney, it was a huge jump for her. It was a huge jump for me. Somebody like Chad, who was kind of a general assignment reporter, you know, taking that big step of like, now you're actually covering an NFL team and then us growing together as a group. Yeah, I guess I'm, I'm being a little reflective here, but it's just, it's been a great experience to be around her. And, you know, as everybody knows, she is a remarkable talent who will continue to climb the ladder and continue to have success. And she'll still play a role on here

but um you're gonna hear on espn radio she's gonna be on tv it's gonna be all that stuff so uh really really excited for her and uh people don't know her personally obviously but just like a really really loyal to the point of being overly aggressively loyal friend um and i mean that is the biggest compliment you could give. So anyway, well, we're happy for her. And we're also screwed, though. You know that like she I mean, no one even realizes the amount of legwork that she did behind the scenes to make sure that the transcription folder was in the right place and that PR was, you know, like she was kind of the main liaison as the president of the PFWA chapter. And she organized a bunch of stuff that now we've got to somehow figure out and patch

together ourselves and certainly not as effectively. Our culture will suffer from a loss of leadership for sure. Yes. Yeah. I don't know how we're going to collaborate. So anyway, somebody tweeted me something yesterday. Interesting. And well, it's like we've got a minute here almost to take a breath because we'll be at the combine and i've got a fun surprise

for that at the combine for everybody on the show i'm looking forward to that also uh i mentioned the that dante call pepper played for the sacramento mountain lions the other day and i was directed to a couple of ways to find his Sacramento mountain lions Jersey. So we might have a giveaway to do at some point. I'm going to have to buy that. But since we have just a time to take a deep breath from, are they going to do this? What's going to happen? Coaching search,

GM search and everything else. I wanted to, somebody sent me a tweet yesterday that I thought was kind of interesting about Kirk cousins comparison. Like who is, who is he like? And we could do this for different Vikings that are on the team now or whatever, but Kirk is the most interesting because I really like trying to rack my brain and think about like, so here's a, here's an example. My wife played me a cover song by somebody else of a Taylor Swift song,

and it sort of presented it in a very different way, but was kind of revealing about how well the song was written. And I think when you do comparisons, you're trying to look for something that's a little revealing about the thing you're comparing it to. So like, what can we compare? Who can we compare Kirk Cousins to, to shed some light on the situation and on what to think about Kirk Cousins? So when I said to you, I want to talk about like who he reminds you of, like, what did you think of?

Yeah, well, I realized that he's already kind of an enigma. And if you run statistical filters, a lot of times, if you do the right filters, he's with like Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady. Like if you spin the numbers the correct way, he is in that group, oftentimes using traditional statistics. And obviously that's not who he is um so thinking of it sort of quantitatively like the best the best i could come up with was the following search so over 100 starts um over 100 or i'm sorry over 200 passing touchdowns um less than three percent interception rate so that implies that he's taking care of the

ball pretty well yeah yeah um this is very specific by the way yeah it is but and here here's and here's what what it spits out and the final one was approximate value over 75 um so that gives me 18 quarterbacks kurt cousins has the lowest av of any of them now there's bias in the in the search because a lot of these guys have completed their careers and kirk cousins has it av is kind of like a it's sort of a wins above replacement type of statistic that pro football reference uses thank you for clarifying that um so here are the quarterbacks that he's sort of just below. He's in last, but here's who he's close to. Andy Dalton, Matt Hasselbeck, Tony Romo, Joe Flacco. Doesn't that feel about right?

I mean, you've got one guy who kind of crazily won a Super Bowl. Romo did not. Hasselbeck did not. Dalton did not. And they were all like solid, but not Hall of Fame quarterbacks. That to me felt like a fairly accurate representation. And by the time Kirk Cousins' career is done, his AV will probably be right in the mix there with all those guys. So to me, those quarterbacks quantitative quantitatively it felt about accurate to me now stylistically

maybe you have some other ideas for for who he fits so i i was also using uh the measure like a statistical measure from pro football references hall of fame monitor which i've brought up before but i think is a fun comparison tool it takes a lot of different things including accomplishments pro bowls championships uh it throws in their approximate value and things like that and then like certain statistical benchmarks because its goal is to try to predict which guys will be voted for the hall of fame which even though it's not the best statistical way to break things down of who made a pro bowl and cousins was an alternate this year and he gets another pro bowl, you know, on the notch or notch or whatever in the belt. But, um, you know, so, you know, that's a little messy,

but ultimately the voters will look at your accomplishments as much as, or more than your statistics. And what it shot out when I looked at the Hall of Fame monitor was, now if you go back, if you're a little bit of a back-in-the-day person, you could get Danny White. That was the old Cowboys quarterback. Jim Everett would also be a back-in-the-day one. More recent, you get Ryan Tannehill, Jay Cutler, Kerry Collins is on here, did go to a Super Bowl with

the Giants, but made two Pro Bowls in 11 years as a starter. Andy Dalton is another one, but I found one that I really like. I really like this one. Trent Green. Remember Trent Green? Trent Green, the quarterback from Kansas City, started out with Washington, went to St. Louis, was the guy that got hurt for Kurt Warner to come in. And then he goes to Kansas City and has some good years. I mean, one year he was 13 and three and Kansas City was unbelievable in 2003. This is also a guy like Cousins who didn't really start as a starter until later in his 20s and he ends up with a career record of 56 57 and 0 had some great seasons really good statistical numbers uh quarterback ratings over 90 at a time when that was a good thing to have really good supporting casts around him and then sort of just

you know didn't quite get his teams over the hump and was considered a good quarterback at the time, made some pro bowls, didn't have a super long run. I think that's a good one. I think that at any time in the early two thousands, if you looked at all the quarterbacks in the league, you would have said Trent green would be like the 10th best quarterback in the league at any given time in the NFL and was limited in terms of his physical ability, but not so limited that he couldn't be really good on a really good team. Like I like that for anybody who watched early two thousands football, and I'll try to get one that's a little bit closer to like playing now, but I like that. I don't really love the Dalton one. Cause I think

he's better than Dalton, but Trent Green, I think is right. I love that. I love that. You know, someone who is not mobile. The record is the, I mean, that's, that's the best one right there is that he's almost exactly a 500 quarterback. Cousins, I think is right on the nose. Green is one below. Green didn't take care of the football as well, but a lot of quarterbacks at that time didn't. Yeah. But with the exception of the 2003 year, which was that not the year where Kansas City was propelled by a ridiculous amount of Dante Hall returns? Yeah.

I mean, they just had a ridiculous team. I think it was like Priest Holmes. I mean, they were super stacked. I think they had a really good defense. They went 13 they went 13 and three yeah which just let me interject real quick is the type of quarterback like historically a matt hasselbeck a trent green a matthew stafford that exists in this world where they can absolutely get a team to the super bowl but it has to be one of those thread the needle perfectly type of teams and green didn't get his team to the Super Bowl, but it has to be one of those thread the needle perfectly type of teams. And Green didn't get his team there, but they went 13 and three. That is definitely good

enough to do it, but it's always about the circumstances that it would take for them to do it. No doubt. And I've regurgitated this line probably too many times in the past few months. But if you play out a Kirk Cousins season enough times, there will be a 13 and three in there or a 12 and four. And Green got how many years as sort of a committed starter? One, two, three, four, five, six. And then it's a couple of half seasons. So say it's like eight.

You know, he had a one year. He had a one year that was well, well above average. Another year where they won 10, then you've got an eight, a six, a seven, a six again. Um, and without the 13, three season, he's well below 500, but, uh, I, I think that's a pretty good or similar career arc cousins is going now on starting year number eight. Um, and if you play, yeah, give him a few more. Maybe he sneaks into the 13 and three realm, but it depends where he lands, obviously, for his next team, if it's not Minnesota.

Right, the opportunities that have been there to have that season, 2016 in Washington, where they were super stacked and their offensive line was great. And then 2018 with the Vikings, it just didn't happen. But I would never say that it was impossible. It's just that it usually takes for these types of quarterbacks, it all to just fall in perfect lockstep to go right.

So I was thinking, I pulled up the leaders in 2003. If you were ranking quarterbacks, let's see how many it takes to get to Trent Green. All right, Peyton Manning, obviously number one, quarterbacks, let's see how many it takes to get to Trent Green. All right. Peyton Manning, obviously number one, Tom Brady, number two, or whichever way you want to have those. Brett Favre is still in the league. So that's three.

You would have had Donovan McNabb over Trent Green. That's four. Steve McNair, clearly better than Trent Green. After that, Dante Culpepper was better. And then you start to get into the, like Matt Hasselbeck, Brad Johnson. I think Brad Johnson was a better quarterback than Trent green. Tommy Maddox is around here. Jake DeLome, Carrie Collins. Does this not sound similar to, oh, I drew breeze, but he wasn't drew breeze yet.

So that doesn't count. I mean, doesn't this sound similar to what we're dealing with right now in the NFL, where you're going like, okay, let's rank all the quarterbacks. Let's see, Rogers, Brady pre-retirement. You know, you go forth with like the top five, Mahomes, Allen, Burrow, bing, bing, bing. And then you go, okay, well now let's talk about these other guys. You know, let's talk about Derek Carr. Let's talk about Ryan Tannehill, Jimmy Garoppolo. And you can have weeks long arguments about who's better Kirk or Jimmy Garoppolo. But what you usually come down

to is it's not much different than arguing Trent green or Matt Hasselbeck. Right. And I don't know, like what lights does this shed? That was the goal. The goal is to shed light on Kirk Cousins by making comparisons. Does it shed light? Yeah. And I think realistically people probably weren't thinking that he was in the, the Rogers, Wilson, Brady, Breeze, Peyton Manning group. And like, but, But I think when you go back historically and you compare him against quarterbacks from a previous era, it almost is more illuminating, right? Because there's a certain fluidity to the quarterbacks of today. If you asked last year, Matthew Stafford or Kirk Cousins, we might've even taken Kirk, But now Matthew Stafford is a Super Bowl champion. So does that comparison still hold? Because when you look back at someone who's

retired, whose career has already played out, you have the full context of who that person was versus trying to compare Kirk to a moving target in Jimmy Garoppolo, who, you know, keeps winning postseason games and sort of changing the equation. So I think it's a good exercise. I liked it. Thank you for having us do that, Matthew. Folks can save 15% at SodaStick.com by using the promo code PURPLEINSIDER at checkout. That's S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com for your Minnesota sports inspired hats, hoodies, shirts. Use the promo code Purple Insider at SodaStick.com. Now that Stafford has a Super Bowl,

his Hall of Fame monitor is actually like his argument has become much better where he is now compared. But, you know, it's not perfect, though. I mean, he's compared to it's not perfect though. I mean, he's compared to like Boomer Esiason, which I think is a great Matt Stafford comparison of somebody who had some wild ups and downs in his career and had some really great seasons with unbelievable teams. Rich Gannon is also a Matt Stafford, similar kind of thing. Warren Moon, somebody who put up tons of statistics warren moon made the pro bowl

nine of 15 years as a starter which is kind of crazy but i love the way and anybody who wants to fiddle with this you just go to pro football reference and hall of fame monitor it's super fun it's got it kind of marked into tiers like your first tier hall of fame quarterbacks brady manning rogers farve unitis montana breeze elway marino tarkington steve young like that's your first fame quarterbacks, Brady Manning, Rogers, Favre, Unitas, Montana, Breeze, Elway, Marino, Tarkington, Steve Young. Like that's your first tier hall of famers. Weirdly, Matt Ryan works his way into here. And I don't know if I would agree with that, but Bart Starr, Terry Bradshaw, Roger Staubach, Dan Fouts, Kurt Warner is just on the edge of that. And then your second tier has guys who are really good. Um, like Russell

Wilson, Joe Namath is in here. Warren moon is in there, but it's a little bit, it's a little bit under the elite of the elite. Troy Aikman is there too. And cousins comes in and kind of the fourth tier of quarterbacks that are much, much more in exactly what we're talking about. Mark Brunel, Matt Hasselbeck, uh, Ron Jaworski, Andy Dalton, those kind of guys. And for again, our back in the day fans, Craig Morton, who played like, I think he was what with the Broncos back in the day. So, you know, it's the guys who are on the cusp who are borderline or like Phil Sims, Randall Cunningham, Drew Bledsoe, Donovan McNabb. So I really liked the way that it kind of just chunks these quarterbacks. And I think that Kirk is in the right place. He's in the right place as a

quarterback who's put up a lot of numbers and has been very good, but you wouldn't ever mistake him for one of those top-notch quarterbacks. And I think that that's a good way to look at it. Let me ask you a question, Just top of head knee jerk. How many years does Kirk have left as a starter in the league? I'm going to say, you know, it's, it's weird because he's just not like old at all in my mind.

But when you look at his actual age, 34, it still feels like the answer is five or six though, doesn't it? I mean, he's just, he has no injury history whatsoever. Yeah. And 33, he'll turn 34 just before the season. So I get you're basically right. He's 34. Let's say the answer is five. All right. So if he maintained his production for five more years,

we're probably talking about a quarterback with close to 400 touchdown passes, probably under 150 interceptions, probably around 100 wins, AV probably about 150, which for reference is like Russell Wilson right now or Joe Montana for his career um but what if those five years have no meaningful success I mean he's going to be a hall of fame head scratcher if that occurs if he gets through these next five years without a real playoff run and puts up those kind of numbers, I mean, I feel like time usually does these quarterbacks well. When you look back and you see the numbers and in retrospect, you're removed from the frustration of it and you look and you say, hey, this guy's a Hall of Famer. Are we going to have that argument a decade from now?

I don't think so without accomplishment. With Stafford, it only became a thing after he won the Super Bowl. And I still think he's well below what you think of with a Hall of Famer. The monitor is showing that he has somewhat of a decent case, but I can't really make it. I think that one of the things that's really changed, and we're going to have a fun conversation with Ben Lindsay of PFF Wednesday, I think is when that episode is going to run about the quarterback annual that PFF puts out with all the analytics from all the quarterbacks around the

league about like what matters when it comes to these traditional stats. Everyone has pumped them up so much in recent years that it becomes to the point where it's almost like you don't know what to do with them anymore. Let me go back to that 2003 year with Trent Green, just for context of how much the league has changed and how you just can't really do a lot with counting statistics when the league changes this much. let's see player stats here i want to see what the league leaders in passing looked like in terms of their actual box score stats yeah there were two quarterbacks in the nfl in 2003 over 4 000 yards two i mean what like that that i mean that's just that's just unfathomable let me look how many were this year. There were 10 this year.

Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, there were 10 this year. And I know there was an extra game, but that's part of it. And Tom Brady, the league leader Tom Brady had 5,300 yards. The league leader in 2003 had 4,200 yards. It's just, it's totally different. And I don't think you can really make that comparison. And that's why I like that the Hall of Fame monitor includes accomplishment,

because I think it's fair to connect accomplishment with quarterback play to give you at least sort of a broad comparison. It's not, it's a team game, but also like the goal of the team game is to win. And only one guy commands winning more than all the other guys. And that's the quarterback. So I don't know. I've always struggled with that a little bit. But anyway, I think that's sort of that's sort of our insight from the comparison.

By the way, on that that filter that I ran where Cousins was last, Matt Ryan is seventh. It's Brady, Breeze, Manning, Rivers, Rogers, Roethlisberger, Matt Ryan, ahead of Steve Young and Joe Montana and Russell Wilson. Okay, this is actually a fun game. So who do you think the quarterback is in the league, either right now or just like that you've watched watching football, that is the most underappreciated. I mean, the numbers would say it's Matt Ryan, but I don't, I'm not sure if I want to do that. Like, I'm not sure if he would be my answer. He's put up

so many stats for being around for so long and does have a trip to the Superbowl and the MVP. And I think that's why his Hall of Fame monitor is so good. He's right below Steve Young and just ahead of Ben Roethlisberger on the Hall of Fame monitor. I mean, this metric in particular says you guys are sleeping on Matt Ryan. Yes, and my tendency has always been to say overrated. So it kind of is the Kirk discussion. I would love to,

to hear, um, Falcons insider, what they're saying about this, because, because I mean, they have to be having the same discussions, right?

He's expensive. He doesn't win. He's not mobile. Like does the Superbowlth buy him that much leash? He also played amazing in that Super Bowl. Yep. Well, so there's a – okay, here's the thing about Matt Ryan is that his career has these weird rollercoaster moments

because at the beginning of his career, this is crazy, his first five seasons, he went 56 and 22. I mean, just instant success to 13 and three seasons out of his first six as a starter. Sorry. I said it's six, six total seasons there. And then four and 12, six and 10, eight and eight. But then he, he bounces back and that's where he made the Superbowl post Superbowl though, for that team, it has just been a total slog. Their teams have been miserable. Matt Ryan hasn't been all that great. It is very Eli Manning esque toward the end. And I think that Eli Manning suffers from this too, from some people that they don't remember the good times because the good times were a long time ago 2008 through

2012 he was really one of the elite quarterbacks in the nfl elite qbrs elite quarterback ratings yards per attempt adjusted for sacks and all those things like he had all the numbers until you know he hit kind of a rocky period but then like the let i mean we are going on four straight years of incredible mediocrity for Matt Ryan. I think that really hurts him. If he retires in 2017, I think people are like, yeah, Matt Ryan's a Hall of Famer, right? Yeah, probably. I mean, when he goes out on top or close to the top, probably, you know, in his prime.

That's a tough discussion, you know, because a lot of quarterbacks are in that, in that realm where they're not good enough to get their team to win 12 games, regardless of, of what's around them. Do you want to know the answer to your question that you asked? Who do I think is most underappreciated? I think, and disclaimer here, like most of the quarterbacks i think already like we understand what they are they're elite they're bad like there's only a few quarterbacks where there's ambiguity i think derrick carr is a little

overlooked in the league i mean he's never hurt he's an eight-year starter. He's had to go through basically two rebuilds because he came into a terrible situation. And then they rebuilt when they hired Gruden. They sold everything. And yeah, he didn't win in that situation. But once they got a little better roster-wise, they did start winning again. And I think he's good late in games. So I mean, 30 game-winning drives in eight years. That's not bad. So I don't think he gets enough respect. I also don't think he's like someone that, I mean, you're not going to talk about him in the hall of fame either, but right now in the league, Derek Carr does not get enough respect. Derek Carr is a much better Matt Stafford comparison

than Kirk Cousins, because I think Carr has physical tools that are really impressive, but he also has rollercoaster moments. And Mike Mayock was a parody of a general manager. I mean, this guy who, Oh, Oh, the world thinks this draft pick is going to be a fourth rounder. Watch me take him in the first like oh everybody thinks that cleland forell or whatever his name was is a 28th overall pick i'll take him fourth overall because i'm the brilliant g like he was a laughingstock and that really hurt derrick carr's chances to win anything so does having patrick mahomes in his division because even if he's good it's it's like rogers and everybody else here in the

nfc north you just aren't going to win all that often uh because you got a couple of l's built in to what you're doing from the very start it's been a very tough division i do think that derrick car is good i just he's he's so kirkian in his-ness. Like this is one thing that I wrote about at our site the other day about Kirk's QBRs and how, if you plot them out, which I did, it's wild, the ups and downs. I mean, it's just like, think about the first month of this season. He's playing extremely well. And I looked on PFF. It was like four of his first five games are graded over 80.

And then the only one in the second half of the season was week 18. And it's like, that's Kirk. And it's also Derek Carr where Derek Carr was playing extremely well last year and then hit the skids. And so, you know, that's kind of Stafford. He falls into this group that you think, well, they're definitely good, but getting them to be good at the right times or all the time Flacco ask in that way is, is probably a hard thing to do. Uh, I always say in terms of underrated quarterbacks, historically, Steve McNair is probably it for me. Uh, I think he's one of the great quarterbacks ever. And his hall of fame monitor is not too far away from Troy Aikman, but he'll never get consideration for the hall of fame. Randall

Cunningham's greatness may have burned hot early on, but like such a trailblazer in NFL history that I always want to give Randall Cunningham a lot of credit. But as far as right now, you know, sometimes I feel like we have so many details and so many statistics that it's, it's like hard to figure out like, because, because there's just so many different ways you can search it or ways you can organize it to try to get some sort of insight. And there are statistics that tell you certain quarterbacks are like better than you think,

but then it doesn't really pass the sniff test. And there are certain quarterbacks who are good, but you know, the numbers don't give as much credit to like i i think it's it's gotten like how good is dak prescott is a question like i'm not really sure at this point i'm really not sure i think he's really good but i'm not 100 sure he's great i struggle with this all the time i mean there was a show earlier in the year where i think we talked about like which quarterback would you want number one if you had to draft in the nfl and that includes age contract status like you weren't going to take brady or rogers just because of their age and I think at least one of us arrived at Dak. Like, Dak was the, like, best, most established, but still young quarterback in the league, putting up insane numbers.

I think, do we just hold quarterbacks to too high a standard? Like, because he's not one of those three, you know, Hall of Fame guys? I mean, he's really good. He's really good. And we've been spoiled with quarterback play the last couple of decades. And we've seen some dynastic quarterbacks come along that seem to kind of be immune to the ebbs and flows and the unpredictability of the league. I don't know if that'll, I mean, will that sustain from 2020 to 2040? Are we going to see that type of consistency from three or four guys? Maybe.

I mean, the homes probably maybe, well, I don't know. Or has the, the bar been raised of quarterback place so much that there's enough parody that will prevent any type of dynasty that makes those quarterbacks untouchable.

I don't know. So in my search for my quest for knowledge, uh, I looked back at a few years ago of the quarterback tears that Mike Sando puts together. Uh, that is T I E R S not when your quarterback loses and cries. And, uh, you know, it was, here's what was really interesting. And then I compared them. I think it was 2016 or 2015 because he does it every year where he interviews a bunch of people in the league, tells them, okay, you have to put quarterbacks in buckets. And Kirk has not changed much.

He was 18th last year. I think in this one, he was maybe like 20th. And there are other times where he's been 12, 14, things like that. He's mostly been in that third tier quarterback, but there's a lot of ones that change from year to year, but you know, who almost never changed is the guys at the top that it was Rogers. It was breeze. It was Brady. And they were always in that top tier back in 2015, Eli Manning was getting top tier. And then a couple of years later, he's like 27th. I mean, so it's just like, there are, there are a lot of quarterbacks who change over time, change with circumstances, change as players, systems, all those things. We've seen how much cousins was impacted by a different system in

2018 than he was even to 2019, the schedule, who you play against all those things. But there are some players at this position who are just invincible. And I think that invincibility will continue to exist. And I mean, I'm not, but it's like, is Justin Herbert going to be invincible to this? Is Dak Prescott invincible? Because they had, I think, the number one offense in the league, and they went 12 and five.

So it's not like he was just a bum or something. He was tremendous and lost the playoff game against the really good defense that Aaron Rogers also lost to. And Matt Stafford had seven points in the fourth quarter to in San Francisco. Like, so we judge it on, oh, well, he didn't get to the Superbowl. So Dak isn't as good, but there's also this, like, he's definitely not my homes though. And he's, you know, he's not what I see from Burrow though.

Like Kyler Murray's another interesting discussion. Like if Arizona wants to sign Kyler Murray to 45 to $50 million a year, like, is that a good idea? Have you made a decision on Kyler Murray? Is he, is he great? Is he good? Is he meh? Is he bad?

Like, what, what do you think Kyler Murray is he is he great is he good is he meh is he bad like what what do you think Kyler Murray is he was the MVP from like week 12 and now it's like I don't know Arizona might get rid of him is it is it too easy to just say he's kind of a poor man's Russell Wilson at this point like he he's got a big arm can move around kind of has stretches where he's he's so unpredictable sometimes that it's almost hard to like create a game plan around him because you just know he's gonna freelance a lot and when that doesn't work is he a little bit exposed as a pocket passer um i think we're we're learning that Cliff Kingsbury is maybe not quite the tactician that he was believed to be.

So do you get Murray in a little bit of a different system, different leadership? Does that help him? Maybe. I would tend to think he's on his way to being really good. I think he's just too exciting to not be to not be good um and that might not stay with him forever either like he might you know he might not be able to sustain that type of electricity outside the pocket um so if you

were ranked it's like if you were ranking quarterbacks today i think he's like on the he's like 10 give or take you know he's probably he's probably right around there what do you think it's always a question of do you want to blame cliff kingsbury for this do you want to blame deandre hopkins for this because deandre hopkins was just destroying the league and then got hurt and so all of a sudden you don't have your best wide receiver and that's the invincibility thing where if you don't have your top receiver and your play falls off and your coach isn't all that good and your play falls off or doesn't adjust throughout a season you're not invincible you can't just make plays if teams can figure out

a way to rush you to contain you in the pocket, this was Randall Cunningham. When Randall Cunningham played, he was the most exciting player in the NFL, hands down, back in the day. There was nobody who was more fun to watch with the Philadelphia Eagles than Randall Cunningham, but he was failable. If you could keep him in the pocket, if you rushed the right way, if you got the right amount of pressure, if you sort of forced him to rely on a system that wasn't actually very good. I mean, this is talking too much about Randall Cunningham, but like his early system was basically Randall run around, throw it or run it. That's what you do. And then they, he went to a West coast system. This is cam like cam Newton. Like he went to a West coast

system and actually started doing really well in terms of his numbers. They improved. He won a playoff game. It's one of those things where as great and exciting as someone is, there's a fallibility about Kyler Murray that I think exists of can you sit there in the pocket and operate an offense not at the same level as some of these other guys. That's what actually makes Dak great because Dak came into the league running around a bit. He doesn't run at all anymore. He ran for like a hundred yards this year. That part of his game maybe would have existed more if not for the injury, but Dak is a pocket passer who just can sit back there and fire and fire and fire.

And maybe has had some some some bad breaks too but you know put up incredible numbers so i think dac is ahead of kyler kyler's also pretty young um i'm not ready to say he's not a leader because of what's come out it's kind of weird though that that's come out yeah i don't know like all of this is it's really hard to sort of pin down and maybe that's why quarterbacks will be everlastingly interesting of like what each one of these guys is and how much it can change. Can I give you another historical comparison? Yeah. That is crazy about, um, about Kirk, another guy that came up who's so interesting. Jim Everett.

I think you have to be a little old to remember Jim Everett. That's the Jim Rome thing. Yes. That's what he is. That's sadly what he's most known for. And yeah, not a bit that would have held up. I think Jim Everett in the late eighties was amazing. Had these, had a couple of great years, led the league in touchdowns, was considered one

of the best quarterbacks in the league, and then just never did anything again. He went, you know, struggled with the Rams, went to new Orleans and Carson Wentz is like this. There are certain guys that you think, Oh yeah, like everything about this is good. And that guy will continue to be good. And then he doesn't. And there are other guys you think, well, that, that player will never win anything. And then he does. So it's hard to pin down. Would you trade Kirk for Kyler Murray, like straight up, and then sign Murray to that huge contract? Yes. Oh, for sure. Undoubtedly. I mean, not only what I think, what I take Kyler as he is now, but I mean, what he's going to become too. Kirk is not going to become something different um you get more out of kirk by surrounding him with other things but i think he's a finished product at this point i i feel

like we can safely say that he's not gonna have a mobility increase um i don't know if there's any epiphanies that are gonna hit him about you know his aggressiveness or his leadership but i think kyler can still evolve um i would definitely make that trade 100 yeah i think i would too uh the contract is always going to be a sticking point for me but it's not impossible to build around an expensive quarterback it's just that that expensive quarterback has to be able to overcome some things and you can't blow every draft pick. Like, isn't this, isn't this the hard thing about the Kirk discussion is that when people bring up how well he's played, they're not wrong about how well he's played at times, but you don't get to go back and replay it. Like, well, you know, if they had a good right guard, which no surprise,

the Vikings allowed, I think 45 pressures this year from right guard. I saw in the PFF QB annual. It's like, yeah, that's about right. They should be giving up about 20 and they give up 45. But you don't get to go back and put somebody else at left guard in 2018 or

someone else at OC. It's like the decision has to be about the future. It really isn't worth even looking at like what happened in the past. And I mean, there's just like a lot of regrets to have there all around, but it's, it's something that it leaves you feeling like, man, not only did you pick a quarterback that probably wasn't worth that much money to give that much money, but you also did the worst job of putting people around him and being savvy and clever and everything else. And if, and if quasi and Kevin O'Connell are going to make a big, shocking trade for Kyler Murray, or they're going to keep Kirk cousins or something,

you, you have to be way, way more savvy than the previous leadership was. Did I see Judd scooping that the Panthers have called about Kirk? Someone tweeted that out. I've seen that out there, yeah. Yeah. If you're getting the calls, I mean, you better be listening closely, to be honest with you. You got to be. And I'm not really that concerned with the return like i think ideally you get

rid of all the money try to get a day two draft pick day one's great day two's fine and uh and make the move panthers are the mark man they're the mark they are the mark, man. They're the mark. They are the mark. The Panthers are one of the dumbest teams in the NFL. Their coach has no business being here. It's just, it's, it would be perfect. I've always liked the idea of taking Sam Darnold back and letting Sam Darnold either cutting him after June 1st, which is fine, or just letting Sam Darnold exist as your bridge quarterback, probably your backup and be expensive. I don't care. That's fine.

Because it doesn't matter who that person is if you're drafting somebody else. Well, let me ask you one more question. I know we've had a long discussion here. It's been fun. I just like this is why football is the best, because we can always talk about quarterbacks and what it takes to be a great one. But if the Vikings trade cousins, what do you think their free agency plan will be if they trade him and create some space, not an ungodly amount of space, because you're probably taking

some back. Or if you take someone like Sam Darnold, he's got 18 million on a cap hit. You're giving, you know, the math gives you like 17 million in space. If you were to trade him straight up and then a draft pick comes back your way. So you create enough. Let's say that they restructure some deals that doesn't harm them too much in the future.

Like, what do you think their free agency plan would be if they were to trade Cousins? Yeah, so let's plan on a budget of about $25 million, let's say, after restructures, maybe one cut. Could be a lot more if they dumped a Neal, but let's just assume they won't. I mean, I think the free agency market is extremely favorable for centers, like really, really good at the center position.

So you don't need to get the top, but you could get the third or fourth and still get a pretty good center. I would probably approach that and say, hey, can I get a guy on a two or three year deal that can and sure you can keep garrett bradbury he's good depth um but have someone usurp garrett bradbury maybe bradbury tries to be your right guard because you need one of those two um but i would i would let's not know let's just not let's not let's not ever move a player ever again. If you're a guard, you're a guard. Basically never works. Nobody moves ever again. I would go after a cornerback. I think I would, even though you're not in a Super Bowl window this year,

if I could find a cornerback that would join the team, and if you want to find someone elite, and I heard Kevin O'Connell talk quite a bit about the need for coverage in this opening press conference, if you can get a future cornerstone cornerback, by all means, on a long-term deal, because that's someone that will be around, I think, when the window does open, and you've got nothing. I mean, I don't need to see Chris Boyd give it a shot as a starter next year, nor do I need to see a third-round pick struggling through the trials of learning the position. I would prefer to get a veteran cornerback, and hopefully it's somebody that can last for a bit. I think those would be probably my my two big moves one on

the offensive side one on the defensive side offensive line is number one for me and make sure you're getting somebody for multiple years because i mean think about this let's say the carolina thing is let's say it happens they trade darnold and a second round pick for cousins which i would give an a plus to that deal. If that were to happen. Yep. And then they draft Malik Willis and he's your backup quarterback. And you're saying,

well, we're going to have a quarterback competition, but like really nod, nod, wink, wink. Malik Willis is winning this competition. The number one thing for me for helping a quarterback transition to the

league is offensive line. We saw this with Justin Fields last year in Chicago when their offensive line was complete garbage. This doesn't help anybody. I mean, quarterbacks who are rookies already have it hard enough reading coverages and learning systems. The last thing they need is just getting smacked all the time and getting sacked nine times. That's just not what they need. They need time in the pocket. And that's something that was underrated about New England last year and Mac Jones that, you know, we were sort of, um, touchdown dancing about Mac Jones and, you know, the Vikings not picking him and so forth, but he was assisted by a very good offensive line

in new England. That to me is like the cheat code if you could draft malik willis kenny pickett whoever and they can have success right away how are they going to do it with good protection they already have good receivers they already have a good running back like that that means if you come in and you don't look at least decent with good protection all those things around you and a freaking good system, of course, that he's bringing here. Well, that means that guy stinks and they should get rid of him and draft someone else the next year, because it's going to be all set up for you. And this is why I've always thought like, this doesn't have to be tanking. This doesn't have to be a rebuild. Kenny Pickett or whoever Kenny Pickett is probably going to be the first

quarterback him behind a great offensive offensive line throwing to Justin Jefferson. It's got a chance to be good right away and then to be great the following season. I like that. I like that option. Corners, I totally agree with you. Get one. Sign him to a long-term deal. Make sure he's there for years.

But I'm not even that concerned about what's happening on defense just yet. Because I think that when you get to 2023 the cap goes up the rookie quarterback contract you could just be like defensive players you know just like we've got money and here's the gala horn so anyway um but i think it's a good i mean i think what you're saying is a good plan like start with the offensive line find some defensive players who could be here a while not rentals and then just kind of figure out the rest let players develop you know that kind of thing so football football um we got an exciting an exciting week leading up to the combine this is it's sort of an odd time what i see out, tell me if you see this on the internet, is people just trying to come up with crazy takes to get some attention.

I saw Aaron Rodgers was playing too conservatively from someone. I've seen Matt Stafford is a Hall of Famer. I've seen that Joe Burrow is better than Patrick Mahomes. It's just take season at the moment. But his PFF grade, Matt, he was higher. I know. than patrick mahomes like there's just like it's just take season at the moment but um but his pff grade man he was higher i know even the guys at pff would be like whoa let's not be using our data that way so anyway we've got some good stuff coming up courtney's goodbye goodbye but not goodbye episode and things like that so it'll be fun um i appreciate your time sam and i forgot

once again to promote the new purple insider.com, which I didn't mention on yesterday's show, was built by our friends at Cultural North who come from Duluth. And so we went Minnesota for this. We did not go Silicon Valley to build our website, purpleinsider.com. So check that out. And also check out Cultural North because those guys did an amazing job. We did nothing. We told them, can you just like do the stuff?

And they were like, yes. And here it is. And it's amazing. Yeah. Incredible. Huge hats off to them. I was blown away.

So check it out. It's a, it's a hub for everything. Purple insider. It's got the videos, the stories, the podcasts and um some great uh graphics include in like you like slide on slide in like a collinsworth slide onto the home page brilliant so check that out and uh we will talk again soon thanks for your time sam yep