Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Let's talk about Dalvin Cook

Episode Date: May 18, 2023

Matthew Coller and Jonathan Harrison go through Hot Routez, breaking down Dalvin Cook's legacy if the Vikings let him go and talking about whether Matt Ryan is a Hall of Famer and whether the Raiders are now the lowliest franchise in the NFL Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Oakley. Express yourself, build a look that's made for you. When you wear Oakley, there really is more than meets the eye. Try it for yourself. Oakley is not only the best looking, but the best quality. So head on over to oakley.com for more information today. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Hot Routes. Matthew Collar and Jonathan Harrison here with you. And Jonathan, it is finally summertime.

And I always have this thing happen to me when it reaches summertime, where I completely forget about all the horrible things that happened during winter and why Minnesota can be the absolute worst state in the entire universe. And then it's like, this is beautiful. Why doesn't everybody live here? This is great. I had all the windows open today. I was just having a good time. I'm going to play 18 tomorrow on the golf course. And Minnesota has a number of wonderful, beautiful golf courses in the twin cities. And like, Oh, this is wonderful. I never want to leave this. This is great. Why,

why would everyone not move to Minnesota? And then I saw a picture of at one of the malls, the giant ice thing from wintertime has still not melted. Like the mountain of ice that was pushed there by all the snow trucks or whatever so yeah um it's a it's a weird feeling but we're here and it's summertime and uh i think we can have a lot of fun throughout the summer on hot routes oh absolutely i mean it's great weather outside heck maybe if we can get our our setups worked out we can do it from our respective decks i mean if you have your fox problem worked out but we can figure out that later at a later point but yeah minnesota is absolutely gorgeous in the summers and it makes you forget for at least three months why everybody dislikes this place for most of the year i mean maybe if the 5g is strong enough

out on the lake kayaking live on hot routes There have been times before for sure in the summertime, because I lose sense of what time it is and what's going on when I don't have to go out to the Vikings facility where I've been kayaking or golfing and looked at my phone and be like, Oh wait, I think I have a podcast or something I was supposed to do today. You just entirely lose. Like I took a nap in the middle of the day. This is another thing. Summer naps are happening a lot.

And just waking up and like, what time is it still light outside? I mean, you if you take a nap in the middle of the day in the winter, you can fall asleep, wake up dead in the middle of night. It feels like and then it just messes up your entire body. So the midday summer nap is absolutely tremendous so i'm gonna probably do that just about every day uh i never did update everyone on the fox thing they just left exactly what they said would happen which was leave them alone don't try to fight the fox it'll bite you and just just let it be and it'll eventually go so that is what happens so i no longer have foxes underneath the coach

if everyone was worried about that. But that was a weird couple of days for sure. So let's get into this, Jonathan. The rumors continue to swirl about Delvin Cook. And I think after Zedaria Smith was traded, it's pretty clear that they're going to move on from Delvin Cook as well. They do have a little more cap space now if they wanted to hang on to him,

but it just has been in the cards for so long. And then they drafted a running back that I think the Vikings really, really like in Dwayne McBride. So that running back room is pretty full. And maybe they're making final phone calls over the next couple of weeks to see if anybody will make that trade before June 1st. But if we go past June 1st, then they can create more cap space and move on from Delvin Cook. So I've got some questions because there just seems to be more and more reports indicating

that it's going this way. Number one is where does Delvin Cook rank among all running backs since Delvin Cook came into the league in 2017. I am curious about your answer because there have been a lot of good ones. In fact, in that draft class alone, there were a lot of very, very good running backs. So where does he rank since he came into the NFL? I think because of the way he was used for the first couple years of his career for up until last year he's got to be up there I would imagine in the top three just because of his usage how much the Vikings relied on him and considering the weapons that the Vikings had elsewhere on the field it

opened up a lot of space for him and he did create some pretty good runs and was able to break out and have some really long runs and be an impactful player for the Vikings for a decent time as a running back. So I think he's got to be top five. I'm struggling to put that list together, but since 2017, I'd say top five, maybe even higher than that, maybe top three, just because of how much the Vikings relied on him, what he was able to do, the amount of yardage he was able to pile up. Yeah, he had the injury issues. Yeah, he was never really the greatest catching the ball. But from a pure running back standpoint, following up Adrian Peterson as just a pure

runner doesn't give you anything else. He was pretty dang good, and he gave the Vikings a lot of threat from the backfield. So I'd say top five, maybe top three. I don't know. That might be a little high, but I think top five since 2017 at least. So here's what I plugged in to pro football reference. And I think it's the only position that it's fair to do this, but the top fantasy stat producers since 2017. Again, I wouldn't even do that with receiver because there's a lot of circumstances there, but running backs, it's really all about production.

And here's who I've got as the leaders in fantasy points since 2017. Derrick Henry is number one, Elvin Kamara, Ezekiel Elliott, Christian McCaffrey, Austin Eckler, Delvin Cook, Aaron Jones, Nick Chubb, Joe Mixon, Melvin Gordon after that. Then it gets kind of not so great after that, or guys that kind of just came into the league. But I think that all of those guys are very, very similar. That if you went to every one of their teams, their fan bases would say, oh yeah, our guy was the best.

I mean, Aaron Jones has played enough times against the Vikings for us to know how good Aaron Jones is. I think he's probably equal with Delvin cook over that time. I would go Elvin Camara and Derek Henry decidedly better. Christian McCaffrey. What's remarkable about that is he missed so much time to injury and yet still is fourth on that list Eckler is another one that you know sometimes I do think that swing passes and check downs are overrated like anyone could do it McCaffrey is dynamic though in catching the ball I don't know that Eckler falls under that same category I don't think I would put Austin Eckler ahead of Delvin Cook. So I think I would go, but I would put Nick Chubb ahead of Delvin Cook. He came into the league one year later and he's just been an absolute monster. So I would put him ahead. I think he was better than Joe Mixon. I think he's been better than Saquon Barkley. Maybe when Barkley is healthy, there are guys like Jonathan

Taylor who had one year at it. But I think that probably top five is a good way to put this. I would go Henry Kamara. Now, Ezekiel Elliott's a tough one because he had a really, really great run. But a lot of it was kind of before or just as Delvin Cook was getting into the league. And then he really started to fall off these last couple of years for Ezekiel Elliott. So he kind of came in really hot and then faded fairly quickly. So I don't know. I mean, I don't know if I would put Zeke ahead of him or not, or they're kind of similar.

But one thing with Delvin Cook is it seemed like for several seasons through the first five or six weeks, he would be talked about as MVP. He's been so incredible these first five, six weeks. And then in the second half of the season, there would always be this fade. And there was last year as well down the stretch for him. And that might happen to other running backs. And we just don't cover them as closely or watch them as closely,

but it was so pronounced how much he would slide in the second half of seasons that I don't think you can put him on the same plane as Nick Chubb, as Derek Henry, or as Alvin Kamara. So I think that he was sort of a second tier down from them, but at his best, he's one of the most unstoppable players in the league. And I do think that a major part of that was the usage. I mean, if you go look at Alvin Kamara, he wasn't even putting up thousand yard seasons because they weren't giving him 250 carries. And maybe there's some element of Delvin Cook's career would have been extended a little more. Maybe he wouldn't have had those fades in the second half if he wasn't used as much as he was. Yeah. And looking at some of these other guys on

the list that you put together, Eckler, he's more kind of recency bias, I'd say over the past two years, his usage has really stepped up. But I think I would agree with you on putting Henry and Kamara above Dalvin Cook, just because of the way those guys, their longevity and what they've been able to do over entire seasons, as opposed to Dalvin Cook, who has his moments every season. As you said, he fades off near the end of the year, generally under Mike Zimmer anyways. I think I would put Dalvin Cook probably at the top of that second tier. You have, as you said, you have Henry, Kamara, and Chubb. I think I would put Dalvin Cook at the top of that second

tier, just kind of bordering that first tier, just because of what he was able to do for the Vikings. I definitely agree with you that there's probably three guys above him, but there's not much else above Delvin Cook over the last six years. So the other part of the question is Delvin Cook's legacy as a Minnesota Viking. It is certainly not Adrian Peterson. Adrian Peterson is one of the greatest football players of all time, absolute legend, hall of famer. It's not that, but how would you define it? And so I made a tier list of former Viking players that we could kind of put all of them into this category legend really good and memorable really good and forgettable or just another guy where does Delvin Cook fall into that I mean I guess if you want to

make an argument for a legend you can do that um so I kind of steered away from that a little bit in the questioning but if you want to make that case you can I know it's hot routes but I'm not willing to go that hot on Delvin Cook I don't think he's legend status I think he's hot routes, but I'm not willing to go that hot on Dalvin Cook. I don't think he's legend status. I think he's good and memorable. I think especially his 2020 season when he put up 1,500 yards, he put up five yards a carry, which is just insane. I think he's good and memorable. He had a good run over the past couple years,

but I don't think he's going to be legendary, and he's not just going to fade off into the distance. As some forgotten Vikings running back. He was a top end running back in this league. The Vikings had a true weapon in him. They probably could have. Kind of given him a couple carries off. A couple more carries off every season.

But Mike Zimmer was Mike Zimmer. And wasn't willing to do that. Wasn't willing to split the load with Alexander Madison. But I think Dalvin Cook is good and memorable. I don't think he's going to fade off and just be some forgotten Viking. People are going to remember Dalvin Cook and still be wearing their Dalvin Cook jerseys for a long time. Yeah, I think good and memorable is the clear choice here because of what you said. He was extremely, extremely popular. And that's a part of it that, like you said, I mean, when you go to the stadium, there are a lot of number 33 jerseys or number four

jerseys for Delvin Cook that he was a memorable player who had some very memorable moments. He had some huge games. He had a great game in the playoff game against New Orleans in 2019. That one gets remembered for the touchdown pass at the end and the, maybe it was a push-off from Kyle Rudolph or maybe not, depending on who you ask. But Delvin Cook was massive in that game, caught screen passes, made big plays, ran touchdowns. I mean, everything in that one. And that was, you know, after a very long season for him. And I think that they had a meaningless game in week 18. So he was able to kind of rest up and at his best,

so many games, so many runs where you were like, whoa. And in 2019, I thought the first half of that season was some of the most dominant running back play that we've seen in the last, I mean, decade or so he was that good through about 12 weeks in 2019 before he got banged up.

I think right before the bye week, it was against Denver. Somebody fell on him and he hurt his shoulder and he was never really the same guy that season then came back healthy 2020 and went forward from there. But memorable, I would say. The only reason you might argue for not as memorable, number one is that they didn't have a lot of success as a team.

And if you're not putting up a 2000 yard season, like Adrian Peterson and Adrian Peterson was on an NFC championship team that maybe he fumbled a couple of times in a key game of that 2009 year, but you know, he still had gone to an NFC championship. There was a little more success there and had just legendary numbers, the single game record for, uh, you know, rushing yards against San Diego. So he, you know, he did those things, but with Delvin cook, it was always really good, but it didn't go over a threshold of breaking records. And it also came along with a lot of, you know, there's a few things in there.

I mean, the injuries just cannot be ignored. That in the second half of every season, he was banged up. He was missing time. And sometimes he was playing at, you know, 60% in very important games and was not as effective for them. And it may have proven to be pretty costly that he was not somebody who could be leaned on all the time in a lot of those big games. And if other teams did find answers for him a lot of times in big games,

I mean, San Francisco in the playoffs, I know offensive lines, a big part of that, but it's also a part of the discussion that there are a lot of big games that they came up short where they couldn't run the ball as well. He was not the all-around player that they touted him as. He was much more of a traditional running back who caught screens, didn't do a whole heck of a lot else. There's maybe three or four passes that go five yards beyond the line of scrimmage in his whole career that I can remember. He had one last year in Washington that was great, had a slant route that he ran against Green Bay in week two of 2018 that I remember pretty well. But aside from that, very one-dimensional. And even when you go back, and Adrian Peterson was never touted for his pass

blocking, but even when you go back and look at the pff grades for pass blocking adrian peterson and delvin cook don't have much difference there and if not adrian peterson grading even a little higher which is just not it's just not this all around do absolutely everything type of running back that maybe alvin camara was. And so I think that there's always that like little asterisk. Oops, sorry if I froze here. There's that little asterisk with him and just his overall play. And then the fact that it wasn't consistent all around seasons. So that's kind of what you get when you get good and memorable players. Like they were really good, but we're not talking about someone who deserves to be in the conversation with Randy Moss or Alan page or Adrian Peterson. Like there's just

a different level of that. But if someone wanted to make the case to me that almost anybody could have stepped in and been a running back on those teams and they would have had the same amount of success, same amount of wins. I mean, I I'm here for that argument, I guess, like how much different was it really? How many games were there really where it was just pure takeover mode? How many games would they have lost or one that were different? I mean, if you want to make that case, uh, I'm not against it. And then the off field stuff does matter. Um, and most recently, and that was when he came into the league, that was the concern. And what happened in, I think, 2021, that's, it has to be talked about. It just has to be discussed

as part of remembering him here in Minnesota. And so if you want to add that to it and say, well, kind of a little more forgettable when it comes to that part from 2021, then I'm just not going to fight you. I think that the standard for considering a running back as a legend for a team is just really, really high these days. And it's unfortunate because it's still a great position, very likable from fans, but it's a really, really high bar. Yeah, absolutely. Especially considering who he was following up in the Vikings backfield.

You go from Adrian Peterson and a couple of years later, you're on to Dalvin Cook. Like that's not an easy task to pick up from. And there is that filling in for a legend that Dalvin Cook just never lived up to. And that's not fair to him because he's never was supposed to be that guy, but you were brought in after Adrian Peterson and the bike and the Vikings got a lot out of Adrian Peterson, but living up to that is always difficult and never did because of the injuries because the off field stuff because of, because whatnot, but he just never lived up to the bar that Adrian Peterson set.

Dalvin Cook had to set his own bar and he set it pretty high, but following that up, it's always going to have that mark against him, whether that's fair or not. Folks, I'm super excited to announce a new sponsor to the show that just made us a whole lot cooler. Oakley, express yourself and build a look that's made for you. You guys know that I spend my summers on the golf course, and while my golf game will remain the same, Oakleys will do two things for me. They will improve my golf look by a lot. Anytime I can look more like Justin Jefferson, I've got to take that opportunity. And they will also protect my eyes from the hot Minnesota sun as well.

If you're out golfing like me, training, going to baseball games here in town, or hey, training camp is right around the corner and I know you guys are going to be out there watching practice just like me. Oakley is changing the game so it's time to discover a whole new world of possibilities. They're suited for everyday eyewear with frames and lenses allowing for an extension of yourself, an expression of your personality more than meets the eye. So make a sunglasses upgrade now at Oakley.com. Personally, I'm getting the Holbrook XLs for a classic look. Oakley even offers prism lens technology.

What the heck is that, you ask? It is a proprietary technology to Oakley and available for everyday settings as well. Want to know more? I know you want to do your own research, so head over to Oakley and available for everyday settings as well. Want to know more? I know you want to do your own research. So head over to oakley.com and while you're at it, get yourself a pair of everyday glasses that'll be sure to change your look for the better. When you wear Oakley, there's really more than meets the eye. Trust me, try it for yourself. I've worn a lot of sunglass brands in my life and I can assure you that Oakley is not only the best looking, but the best quality out there. Head on over to oakley.com for more information today.

So Duke to God says Dalvin Cook will be remembered for being one of the best, never having an offensive line. The ACL injury is one of the main reasons that the 2017 team didn't get over the hump. I don't think I agree with either one of those things, Duke, because they were a horrible pass blocking offensive line at times with Kirk Cousins. But I don't agree that they were a bad run blocking offensive line. I think they were actually a very good run blocking offensive line. I think even last year they were a good offensive line when it came to blocking. By PFF grade last year, they were one of the better run blocking offensive line. I think even last year, they were a good offensive line when it came to blocking.

By PFF grade last year, they were one of the better run blocking lines. And he, again, has to be discussed that he just fell off last year and was not the same running back. And I mean, Gary Kubiak built that thing entirely to run block. Also 2017, this is another part

of why you might say forgettable because Latavius Murray and Jarek McKinnon were phenomenal that year. And they played a huge role in that team getting over the hump to win 13 games and get to the NFC championship. And if you think they were making up a 31 point deficit in the game against Philly because of Delvin Cook. I'm just going to disagree. I don't think that had anything to do with it. I think that he was given a run-first offense that was completely centered around him and even built blocking-wise around him. Look at Garrett Bradbury.

They did not draft him for pass blocking. He was always an excellent run blocker and screen blocker. They did everything from scheme to drafting around him to make Delvin Cook the center of the offense. And that's actually part of the frustration of fans as it relates to Delvin Cook is that there was more done to help him than there was to help Kirk Cousins at times by getting pass blocking guards or by, you know, setting up the offense to throw more often. And so I think there's, yeah, that's probably a different way to look at it than I would. Dustin says the running back by committee was always the next inevitable move for the

Vikings. I saw him break away at the Colts game and run the touchdown. I was right in front of him in the end zone. Yeah, that was amazing. And that was the thing about the second half of last season and how typical it was for Delvin Cook was that play against Indianapolis was probably the only memorable play that he had the entire second half of the season. And the offense sputtered at times. And he had, I believe, I ran this number, the most runs of zero or negative yards of any running back in the league. So they were just getting a lot of negative plays from him. And I, this is part of the issue is the running back by committee in 2017 worked out fine. And if next year, the running back by committee works out fine, I think a lot of us, including

me, we'll look at it and go, well, maybe, you know, that contract extension, that's another part of it. Everyone was always on Anthony Barr for his contract, but what about Delvin Cook? What about the amount of money you spent on him for what? Like for half seasons and being banged up. And that's why, again, I think it's good and memorable. And I think he was absolutely breathtaking when he was at his best, but there's also a lot of cases for, uh, for the other part of that too. Uh, Matthew has them in the hall of very good players, which I think is probably right. And CJ Delvin was a great player on a

mismanaged time horizon, two to three more years on a more team-friendly deal. And he would start to approach team legend. I think that what he would have needed, Jonathan, tell me if you agree, is probably three more years of playing like 2019 and 2020. Last year, 2021 wasn't even really a great season for him. And then last year was just very poor. And they were one of the worst running games in the league. So I think that when you take the entirety from 2017 to present, how many seasons were actually good? Like really legit good?

It's probably only two, right? Yeah, it's really only the 2019 and 2020 season. And even 2019, you look at it, it's four and a half yards per carry, only 1,100 yards rushing. But, I mean, the effect he had on that team. I think I agree with you. A couple more years of playing at those levels would have done it for him. If he had followed up 2020 with successive seasons of that

and had maybe one more year, then we're reaching legendary status and at least for the Vikings anyways. Uh, but it just seemed like with the amount of stress that was put on his body early on in his career, the amount of injuries he suffered, you weren't ever going to get that over the last couple of years. And you're not going to get that in the future. And it seems like that's kind of why the Vikings want to move on from him smartly going into his year 28 season. It's it, you're getting on that shaky ground with a running back of how much longer can you hold onto this tight rope and with how much you're paying him. If it, if part of the argument against Kirk Cousins is how much he took of that cap that cap. I think it's only fair to put that same argument against Alvin cook,

because he, he took a lot of money for a position that a lot of teams aren't paying a whole lot of money for anymore. They're going running back by committee. As you saw, and as we mentioned in 2017, Derek McKinnon had a great year to the point where he got a huge ton of money from the 49ers that off season because of what he was able to do.

And yeah, it didn't work out for the 49ers. It worked out a couple years later for the Chiefs. But still, the running back cut by committee has been proven to work for multiple teams across the league to get him and win a Super Bowl. As we've moved into more of a passing area era, you were putting way too much money of your cap into a running back when you didn't need to, when you had a guy like Alexander Madison and you had a guy like Kenny and Wong behind him and other guys behind him as well, that could have taken up some of those, some of those carries and done probably similar things. Yeah. And there's just always going to be that with the contract and so forth, but there's always going to be that, Hey, I know he was great,

but you should have been passing more. And that's just always going to sit over, which is not his fault. That's a, he's so good that they want to build an offense around him. So that's that. Yeah. I would say,

yeah, I'd put it under like the old Facebook. It's complicated status when it comes to Delvin cook. I mean, and just like Adrian Peterson in some ways as well. Like he is an all-time legend. He is a Hall of Famer, but there is a, it's complicated that goes along with him.

So, you know, I do think that we're going to probably like what we see from a committee, which will make it easier to move on from somebody who is, you know, like a very good player. So I've got a few other things to uh ask you about uh really enjoyed that discussion though how about um the schedule for the nfl opening up with the kansas city chiefs and the detroit lions of which none of us would have seen coming in fact when we were talking about this last week with manny we were talking about our dream matchups and stuff. I don't, I mean,

a lot of us said chief somebody, but chiefs and lions, I did not see coming. So do you think that the lions deserve to be on opening night? Does it, do they deserve the hype of playing against the NFL's best squadron as the league opens? So I'm going to, I've been flip-flopping on this one, but I'm going to go, yes, they do, just for the sheer drama and talk factor, if they are able to pull off the upset. Because they ended the season on an 8-2 run. They stopped the Packers from going to the playoffs

in that final week of the season. They were talking to the town across the NFL, despite not having any reason to try and play and try and win on that Sunday night. You've got one of the more likable coaches in the NFL. People are all behind their head coach. They've got a roster that's young. That seems like it's on the cusp of doing some special things, especially in NFC North.

That's there for the taking now. And if you can pull off, and I know you've talked about this a couple of times on the purple insider podcast. Uh, if you can pull off a crazy week one upset, cause that's the week that random results happen on Sunday or on Thursday night football, the first game of the season, you get to have the Detroit lions, the team that all the national pundits and everything are getting behind to restore the roar movement, it's all there. Everybody's tweeting this out for the past two years wanting this to happen. If you can get that to happen on opening night,

the NFL already won't be or will already be the top thing on every sports show. But if you get the Lions of all teams to pull off the upset on week one, it's going to be, it's going to be crazy just considering what the Lions have gone through for the past, well, their entire franchise history. And now all of a sudden they have this win on opening week. Can you, there's going to be a whole lot of, can they do this? Are they the team to beat this year? You know, it's going to happen after week one, after that Thursday night, because you'll have two days to build up to Sunday football, and the Lions will be the talk of the town. If the Chiefs win, it's going to be, oh, yeah, the Chiefs are supposed to win.

They're the Super Bowl champs. They have Patrick Mahomes. But if the Lions pull off that upset, watch out for all the sports talk ratings to go way up. Well, one thing I like about it is that the Lions have a really good offense. They have lots of weapons. They have a great offensive coordinator. They have a good offensive line.

And even though they drafted somebody that I wouldn't have drafted in Jameer Gibbs, I would not have invested that. But he could be a very exciting player and he could be very exciting right away. And maybe we could convince the league to let Jamison Williams play because his suspension is pretty bogus. I mean, betting on basketball or something on the team premises. I mean, you guys got to tell people they can't do that. But anyway, he's not going to play.

But they still have a great offense. They had a great offense last year without him. And so what they did was put up somebody against the chiefs who could go back and forth with them and with defenses not having everything figured out yet in the early part of the season sometimes we see absolutely bananas results uh and from the very outset and we just see these crazy explosions of scoring, if you have a 38-35 matchup between two great offenses, that could be really fun. So I looked at it as just entertainment value.

You're kind of looking at it for the Dan Campbell, Restore the Roar movement and how interesting that would be if they were to beat the Chiefs. I was looking at it as just from a pure entertainment standpoint. I think it could have the potential to be a great start to the season where you just have Goff and Mahomes going at it and putting up huge points. And, you know, neither defense is probably going to be overly dominating, even if, you know, Detroit is improved. So sure. All right. Give me, give me fun. Give me two teams

that are going to match up. Well, it doesn't have to be deeper than that. It doesn't have to be like, oh, Detroit, they're overhyped. They're overrated. It's fine to just say, let's put two really good offenses up against each other and have some fun at the beginning of the season. I'm okay with that. As far as the actual hype, yeah, I mean, I guess I look at it like they're being talked about as if they're going to win 13 games. I think more realistically, it's probably a 10-win team that is flawed enough to get beat sometimes, but also is good enough to take a step from where they were last year. And there's a lot of things you don't know, injuries and everything else.

But Jared Goff has a really good record of health. I think that as long as their offensive line stays healthy, we know that Goff behind a good offensive line can be great. And that was what really correlated with their success last year is the first part of the season, they were banged up on the O-line and they blew some games like to the Vikings. But then once they were healthier on that line, Goff, when when given time to throw can be really good. Kansas city doesn't have a dominating pass rush. Like this is just going to have a lot of points.

But I, I am not putting them in the category of Philly as being a team that should win 12, 13 games much more in the, they're going to be in the race, but deserve the attention that they've gotten this off season. Yeah, absolutely. They,

if they hadn't had the draft that they've gotten this offseason. Yeah, absolutely. If they hadn't had the draft that they had, and especially that first round that many people have been questioning since the draft happened, I think there'd be even a little bit more hype. But they deserve the hype going into this season because of the way they finished and how exciting they were to watch. They were putting up a ton of points at the end of the season over the last, over that eight and two stretch. Uh, even in the, even in the one and six stretch, they were still putting up a ton of points. They put 45 up against Seattle and lost by three points. I mean, there was some games early on last season where Dan Campbell made

some questionable calls and definitely blew games for them over the last half of the season. They were a completely different team. They completely changed and it felt like a team that is definitely on the rise. If they can continue on from that instead of start off the way they started off last season, they deserve, they deserve a ton of hype. But like you said, I don't think they're in the Philadelphia Eagles or the San Francisco 49ers range of hype in the NFC, but we've talked about it plenty of times. The NFC is pretty weak after those two teams. They could be up there as maybe the three seed if things go right for them. If they continue, if they can stay healthy and if they can get a good Jared Goff year, they could be the number three seed in the NFC. So let me answer some questions here before we get on with the show.

Would it be better to cut, mean this is about delvin cook cut delvin cook post june 1st or trade him and get some picks eat some of the cash for 2024 draft picks i think what zadarius smith situation and i could be wrong what zadarius smith situation shows us is just how hard it is to get anything for players when other teams know that you have to move on. So I would still be surprised at this point if they're able to get something back. Yeah, but that's the only way they're going to do it is probably the Vikings have to give another team draft capital. If you remember the old Brock Osweiler deal where the Texans traded Osweiler to the Browns and they gave them, I think, a second round pick

to take Osweiler or something like that. I don't remember exactly, but they gave them a draft pick to take Osweiler off their hands. I think that might be something the Vikings have to do if they want someone to take Delvin Cook. That's not really favorable. It's probably better just to cut him post June 1st and kind of move on from that uh caleb says i think if delvin cook was in his prime with justin jefferson the vikings offense would have been really deadly um they had digs and theelin and and was jefferson not in his prime instantly i mean right 2020 jefferson by week three is the best receiver in the NFL and Delvin Cook has his best season. I think the Vikings offense,

as long as it has the quarterback they have is never going to be really deadly. It's always going to be occasionally amazing and occasionally super frustrating, no matter what, but I don't, I there's been a couple of these comments, Jonathan's like if only Delvin Cook had,

and I just don't get those. I mean, I think Delvin Cook had everything and that was part of the reason why he put up the numbers that he did, uh, from Aaron, if they could make better in-game decisions with the talent on that team, they could be pretty good. That is in reference to the lions. I agree with that. Dan Campbell is such a wild card. And that's why bringing back Ben Johnson was so big for them, their offensive coordinator, because then, you know, you have some stability there, but Dan Campbell's, he's a wild man. Like that,

that is going to be a discussion for sure because they did blow some of those badly, some of those in-game situations. And when they're the cute little engine that could last year, Oh, look at this little run. They're on. There's no real pressure for Dan Campbell they were kind of the the team no one believed in but now there is real pressure there is real expectations on Dan Campbell and he's going to have to uh be sharper when it comes to those decisions uh the Kansas City Chiefs got worse lost Juju Kelsey's year older questions about jawan

taylor their offensive lineman didn't last year some folks declared that kansas city was like rebuilding or something the thing about patrick mahomes is he just there's just a different set of rules because all the time we talk about with k Cousins, we talk about how the supporting casts impact the quarterback and that exists for everybody except him. I think, I mean, maybe they did get worse. I don't know. He'll make somebody else great, right? That's just what he does. And that's what Tom Brady did. And with the Patriots, this was Belichick part of his genius was he understood that Tom Brady was just going to make everybody better. So he would say, all right, I don't want to pay this guy.

This, this guy's not worth it. We'll let this guy go. We'll let that guy go. We'll replace him. We won't spend big at the receiver position, except when Randy Moss came along, but we won't spend big at the receiver position because we know that Tom Brady is going to make all these guys better. So that might be true that Kansas City's roster dipped a little bit, but they also have a bunch of rookies from a successful rookie class last year who are taking the next step. I mean, to me, it's Kansas City, huge gap, everybody else in the NFL that's trying to compete for a Super Bowl until basically proven otherwise. But when you go to five straight AFC championships to start your career, I'm going to continue to bet with you. When you win the Super Bowl. Let's see. Let's go one or two more questions here. So Devante Adams sounds happy, right?

Is it really funny about Devante Adams? I mean the guy wanted to go to vegas in the worst way to play with derrick carr and wanted out of green bay of course the vikings were beneficiaries of this because um you know he didn't play for the packers and they missed the playoffs purely because davante adams wasn't there if he's there they make the playoffs right green bay makes the playoffs. They're a much better offense with Devontae Adams. And probably in even week one, it would have been a different ball game if Devontae Adams is there. We've just seen that.

So he decides, no, no, I want to go to Vegas. And then they move on from Derek Carr. And now he's questioning the offense and saying that their front office is not on the same page. I mean, this definitely looks bad for everybody. I think it looks probably the worst for the Raiders though, because we talk about timelines all the time. And that was never a team that was going to really compete last year. They had signed Derek Carr to an extension that screamed that they were

going to ultimately have to cut him. Team in transition, new coach. Where does the Raiders rank in just debauchery in the NFL? The most just lost and clueless franchises. Oh, it's at the bottom. I mean, it absolutely is at the bottom. Just because of you're in, you had what seemed like a roster that could have could have i mean you had a quarterback who could have done something in the afc at least a little bit i mean over the past couple years that quarterback class in the afc is really just built up and made it really difficult but you had a quarterback and a wide receiver pair who wanted to play

together who played together in college and were successful at it and you could have had something but then you hired josh m McDaniels as your head coach. And we saw how that worked out in Denver. And I don't know what Mark Davis was thinking with that decision, but it just didn't work out. It's not going to work out because Josh McDaniels thinks of himself as the next Bill Belichick. And he's just not,

no one is the next Bill Belichick. So it's not going to work there with Josh McDaniels. And it just feels like every time they have something going for themselves, they find a way to just trip over themselves and fumble every single time. And they're in a great market in Las Vegas that is eminently marketable. You should have a team that fills out that stadium every week, but it's an away crowd for you every single time because of the lack of interest from your fan base

because you don't have a good product on the field. You haven't put a good product on the field since you got to Vegas. You had John Gruden and Mike Mayock. They're making incredibly dumb decisions, especially in the draft. It just feels like every time, and that should be a franchise, considering you had John Madden, you had one of the legendary coaches of this league and you had what could have been a really good franchise, historic franchise.

It's just not like you have all time, great uniform, all time, great logo. You should have an all time, great franchise, but you don't because you screwed up every single time because the owner always gets in the way there whether it's al or whether it's mark the owner's getting in the way and it's just never works the owner just for some reason never trusts the people he hires to put in place or the people he hires in place to just do their jobs and it's it's a sad franchise. It's why I love them, but they, they really should be better considering kind of the history that is that franchise.

I mean, they're really the lions of the AFC at this point. I mean, it's, if I'm not mistaken, the last time that they won a playoff game was 2002. Like what were you doing in 2002? I mean, I think I was maybe in my sophomore year of high school when Rich Gannon was winning MVP and taking them to the Superbowl and then completely forgetting how to play football. But that, I mean, that's how long it's been that you are really talking about Lions level of disaster. And I think that, I mean, the Lions would have been that franchise before Dan Campbell, before Brad Holmes, who's a very competent general manager and has built a really nice team there. So they just, you can see how fast you can turn that narrative. But they were even, like the Lions were even, I think, more competitive than the Raiders with Matthew Stafford.

At least they had a quarterback that people liked and they were with Jim Caldwell, a competitive team. And I don't think that people thought of them as just a complete joke in the same way that the Raiders have been for so long. They had a couple of pop-up seasons along the way where they were competitive, but still resulted in absolutely nothing. And it's not just, it's not just that, but moving to Vegas, having to leave Oakland, like all those things. I like that there's a team in Vegas because we're going there in December, still not exactly the look with the whole stadium mess and everything else. Just all the things that have gone into this. I would say that they are at the very bottom right now. And this always is shifting with Washington. Of course, Washington getting a new owner can quickly change that, but their facilities, their stadium, their controversies, if you want to put it lightly

with Dan Snyder, like finally being out from under him, they have a chance to shoot up the rankings and the Arizona Cardinals with Steve Kime. do you remember a story where there was an offensive line coach who got fired for something that happened in Mexico when they played a game there and it I think right and there's something like this and I'm sorry if I'm missing details but the offensive line coach argued that it was actually Steve Keim but they looked similar and he had pinned it on the line coach. Do you remember this story? It was just absolutely insane. I don't, but I'm looking it up. Hold on one second. So that's worse though. That's where, when you have the one, the one thing the Raiders don't have. And I do think there was like maybe some accusations of workplace troubles that they had, but nothing to the effect of what has happened in Arizona or what has

happened in Washington. But these, these teams are definitely armpit of the league type of franchises for the way they run. Yeah. So I looked it up. It's very bad what the offensive line coach was fired for. But he says in his first statement,

it was a mistaken identity. What? Yeah. He said, let me see here. He said, I think his lawyer says, the allegations against Coach Kugler are simply untrue and have caused Sean, his wife and family, enormous personal and professional damage. They don't say, it doesn't look like in the story they say who he blames,

but he says it's mistaken identity, but he was fired for doing very bad things in mexico well there's yeah so i think that it was out there somewhere um about steve kime because he looks just like steve kime so when he's talking about the gm the former gm so i don't know. But anyway, that's bad. That's like really, really bad for their franchise. They had the NFL PA gave them F minuses that like, I don't think that the Raiders are quite that level of debauchery, but it's, it's pretty bad. Another one that could be on the way would be maybe new England could be on the way down, depending on, I mean, if, if Bill Belichick keeps doing weird things, I think that he corrected his mistakes from last year, but they could be in quickly if Belichick just kind of gets, you know, way past his prime here, but won't let it go.

And then who knows what happens after Robert Kraft is probably never going to have a horrific, horrific franchise franchise but they could fall into disrepair as a roster and as a team Jacksonville still has to be mentioned for sure they're they're I mean just not really a stable franchise but now with Trevor Lawrence this is how fast it could change because Drew Brees in New Orleans they were like one of the worst franchises in the world and then Drew Brees shows up so a lot of times it is the quarterback situation you get a good head coach and a quarterback and you can change your franchise around quite quite quickly right right exactly uh okay so last thing for the evening is uh matt ryan is going to work for cbs and he didn't

officially announce his retirement which is weird uh but seth Seth Wickersham of ESPN wrote a pretty good piece about the difference between being really good and great with Matt Ryan. Is Matt Ryan a Hall of Famer and who are the most comparable quarterbacks to Matt Ryan historically? I don't, and I like Matt Ryan. I really do. I don't think he's a Hall of Famer. I think he's in the Hall of Very Good. I think he's along the levels of Phillip rivers where he put up some really good seasons, had some really good teams. He actually got to the super bowl where Phillip rivers didn't mean the super bowl and blowing a 28 to three lead, not entirely on him. Uh, even though he gets a lot of, he gets that hung around him a lot. For some reason, it's not entirely on him.

Some questionable calls in that fourth quarter. But I think, I think Phillip Rivers is a good, good comp there, even though they didn't, they didn't play the same style. Like they had very different styles of play, but with the careers they had, the numbers they put up and just being unable to get over that final hurdle and win the big game. I think Phillip Rivers is a good comp. I don't think either of them are, are hall of famers because the quarterback classes that we've seen over the past 20 years, it's going to be really difficult for any quarterback to get in unless

they're Patrick Mahomes, they're Aaron Rogers, Tom Brady level. You're going to have to be really stinking good as a quarterback to get in considering the quarterback play we've had over the last 20 years. And we're going to have for what seems like the next 10 to 15 years. So I don't think he's a Hall of Famer. He's definitely Hall of very good though. I think that Matt Ryan is Eli Manning with worse luck. So he's right on the cusp of winning. I think, against San Francisco

when they went to the Super Bowl, and it's close. And I think there's a pass breakup at the end of the game, and he doesn't go to the Super Bowl, right? It's like that close. I don't remember what year that was, but it's that close with Matt Ryan. And early in his career, like Phillip Rivers, the supporting cast was great, and he played at a Hall of Fame level for five, six years like Eli Manning did there will be people who are like oh he was never that good well then you weren't paying close attention for the first five six years of his

career and really through that time where he did win the Super Bowl Eli Manning was an elite quarterback through that portion of his career but then Matt Ryan has this other section of his career, kind of like Phil rivers where it's mediocre, it's 500 seasons. And then Phil rivers has a pop-up 14 win season. And the same thing with, you know, Atlanta where, you know,

there, there was that season where he wins MVP and goes to the super bowl, but then has worse luck. You're right. They're up 28 to three. And if they run the ball three times and kick a field goal, it's over. They win the Superbowl. And then he's talked about just like Eli Manning of this great quarterback who wasn't quite Peyton Manning or Tom Brady, but wow,

what a winner and everything else. Matty Ice, so clutch, beat Brady in the Superbowl. The narrative is probably different and he's probably in the hall of Fame if that happens. And he has, I think, a very similar resume to Eli Manning if that happens, if not even a little bit better. And the same goes for Phillip Rivers. I mean, Phillip Rivers, the Chargers are a field goal away or they are an interception and the guy just catching the ball and going down away from potentially being there. And he didn't do that. And yet for Eli Manning, he had everything come together. He played really, really good football.

He made some legendary throws in those Super Bowls. And he deserves all the credit for that because the playoff runs he went on, oh my gosh. Like, let me know when your favorite quarterback does that I mean is it right so anybody who's down playing Eli Manning please stop because what he did was astounding however the defensive line sure had to pressure Tom Brady right and they sure had to scheme against them and make those plays that uh you know Matt Ryan did not get in the Super Bowl against Tom Brady from his defense and from his coach. And so there is always that bad luck element of it. And CJ in the comments says, Philip Rivers is a bad luck Drew Brees. And that's right. Like there are guys who were

good enough, but just did not have that one good thing go right for them to win. I think that there's another comp too, to Drew Bledsoe. If we're going back a ways guy who put up like big numbers was a great quarterback for a long time and got a team to a super bowl, did not win and never quite got to own that legend, true legend status, even though he was really, really good in his time. And I struggle with this because i think with the hall of fame i think well kurt warner is in and kurt warner did not have as consistent of a career he was great terrible great um there's also maybe a carson palmer comp for some of these where there was some great moments and then down and then great again uh so there is like a hall of very good part of it but

what are the chargers during that time without phil rivers what is atlanta without when you think about what those guys meant to how successful those franchises were for a long period of time i mean especially atlanta they were coming out of the mike vick thing. I mean, where are they at coming out of that if they do not select him? So there is that value above whoever you would have had otherwise, and they have to be some of the most valuable players of all time. It's just that, like you said, that standard has to be really, really, really high. And we're going to run into a lot of discussions here. I don't really think there's a conversation with Matthew Stafford,

but how about Russell Wilson? Russell Wilson has a really good case for the Hall of Fame. I'm actually interested, before we hang it up, I want to look at Matt Ryan's Hall of Fame monitor because I really like that on Pro Football Reference, if anybody has used it before it's really good so give me a second i'm gonna look this up i'm very curious what it says about whether matt ryan deserves to be in the hall of fame or not um yeah i mean this this says that he absolutely deserves

to be in so the hall of fame the Hall of Fame monitor gives him basically the dead average score for a Hall of Fame quarterback. Him and Phillip Rivers are right there as being deserving Hall of Famers. They're ahead of Eli Manning. They're actually ahead of Kurt Warner as well and ahead of Russell Wilson. So at least by those metrics, they do deserve to be in. I think Kurt Warner getting in, and I love Kurt Warner. I love the story. And the 2000 Rams were one of my favorite teams for a very long time because after the 98 Vikings, it was one of the first teams that I really got behind was those two teams.

And so Kurt Warner will always hold a special place in my football life. But I think him getting in is going to cause a lot of questionable arguments for quarterbacks in the future. Because, as you said, he had a very up and down career. It was very hot at the beginning. It went down for a very long time and then got hot at the very end. But other than that, he didn't really deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. He's a very, very good quarterback. But Kurt Warner getting in is going to give a lot of people some good arguments as to why quarterbacks that are just on the edge deserve to be in.

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I agree that when you put up Warner versus some other people and the championships, the Hall of Fame monitor, fair or not, it understands that when you win championships, it changes the narrative. And so that's what I like about it. It's not a measure of who's a better player. It's a measure of their Hall of Fame arguments based on how Hall of Fames have worked in, you know, in the past voting.

That's what it's based on. That's why I like it. And it says that kurt warner has pretty good uh well he's got the one super bowl but went to another one it's it thinks that he's got a pretty good case but is in the range of like a dan fouts ken stabler one guy who deserves to be in who isn't is ken anderson by this um but yeah maybe there's like a Boomer Esiason, Matt Ryan kind of thing. Like, I think that he just, there is a little bit of a smell test to it. And part of the Hall of Fame monitor is those statistics, those like big numbers statistics. And when you play for 15 years, you know,

that's part of it too. But I mean, Matt Ryan, not that I think Pro Bowls again are a great measure, but Matt Ryan made four of them. You know, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning made like 15. So there is that. And that's the other part of it too, is that when you have to compare Manning, Brady of the era, and Roethlisberger goes into this too, that makes it hard for anybody else to make their case. So in the same way that Kurt Warner, you can kind of compare and go,

well, I don't know, maybe this guy is better or just as good as Kurt Warner, but also does anybody deserve it compared to them? Probably not. I would lean toward Rivers and Matt Ryan of being hall of famers. I think that they are. I think that they were two of the greatest quarterbacks of an era who are just overshadowed by the two greatest players to maybe ever play football. So I think that they deserve. If we looked at wide receivers, is the third, fourth, fifth best wide receiver of an era in the Hall of Fame? Yes. I mean, we see that with Tim Brown. We see that with Andre Reid.

Yes, the third, fourth, fifth, sixth. I think Phillip Rivers would have been considered, or Matt Ryan, probably the fourth, fifth, third best quarterback, right? During that behind Manning Brady. It's just when you compare it to them, everybody looks horrendous when you compare it to those two guys. I think that, I think it's a solid argument because of what they were competing against in that era and how they still stood up to some of the numbers and some of the

stats that those guys did put up. Matt Ryan has what what did he finish his career as I lost my page on him but he finished with a ton of yards passing and that's in an era where obviously passing really took off but I mean season in and season out he was up there in the top five top ten of passing with guys like Brady Manning Rogers Roethlisberger, all in the same NFL. And so, yeah, I think that's a pretty solid argument that they deserve to be in because of what else was around them at the time as well. And when you play for 15 years, it's very easy to lose sight of how good the guy was at a certain part of his career, as opposed to how he ended his career. So anyway, well, good stuff, Jonathan.

And this is what summer is going to be like on Tuesday nights. We're going to get together, have some fun conversations, break down things in the news, things that are going on on Hot Routes. So hopefully you guys will continue to join us. Also, if when Delvin Cook does get released, traded, whatever, keep an eye on the channel as always for you know breaking news and everything else and everybody went nuts here on the channel for when zadarius smith got traded away so you people like breaking news and so do i hopefully i won't be taking a summer nap the next time it happens because i had to shake some

cobwebs off when zadarius text you a couple times to get you up to wake you up for that one yeah i know i know my my wife was like they traded zadarius smith like she wasn't like should i wake you up is that big enough like yeah it's probably big enough so by the way we gotta we gotta correct something here that you said in fans only a couple days ago about fast and the furious oh that's right. I forgot to bring that up. Yeah, you had a beep. So the other day on the show, I mentioned that every Fast and the Furious movie is exactly the same. And I did say with the exception of the first movie,

which as we have talked about before is a rip off of Point Break, but everything's a rip off of something else. So no big deal. The first one is unique and the rest are this just formulaic stuff blown up. Same exact story every single time. That's okay. If you love them and I know you do,

I love Bond movies. They're the same movie. Every Bond movie is the same movie. It's just some are slightly better than the other. I would say every Bond movie is the same movie, except for the Daniel Craig ones. Those ones feel a little bit different than the ones that came before it. And I would say.

Yeah, absolutely. There was more connective threads between those, the Daniel Craig movies than there was in any of the other movies, I feel like. But as for, as for your Fast and the Furious take, we got to count in two here. Two is not like anything else in the series because it is so garbage.

It doesn't deserve to be considered part of the series, but it is because it has the name and it has Paul Walker in it. But I think one, two, and three are very much different from everything after four because after four, it became it became copy repeat enlarge essentially because that's what we wanted to do is just continue to make the same exact movie but crazier and crazier we started off by driving through the border in four and then all of a

sudden in 10 we're driving down uh i think the Hoover Dam, if I'm looking at the trailers correctly. Or we're going to space like we did in 9. By the way, let's talk about the marketing for Fast X. How have we gotten to Fast in the Furious 10 or Fast 10? And the first time I hear the tagline, Fast 10, your seatbelts, is John Cena last night in a behind-the-scenes look on Monday Night Raw. What are we doing here? Why are we missing this golden opportunity to have the cheesiest tagline for the cheesiest movie series of all time? We have to lean into what Fast and the Furious is. You're taking this too serious if you're not having that as your tagline for every single

trailer. You know, I think a blemish on the legacy is, uh, that there's one called fast and the furious, and then there's the fast and the furious. Yeah. And someone needs to explain how that works to me. How, how,

how, why would you give it the same exact name? Except that was the reboot. So that was when they rebooted the series is, is fast and the furious or whichever. I can't remember the order. There's a lot of them at this point. There's 10 of them.

This is ridiculous. And I love these movies, but it's ridiculous. No movie series goes to 10 unless you're certain kinds of movies. And we don't talk about those on this show, but I mean, it's ridiculous that we're getting to 10 and there's still like two more, I believe to come.

This is insane. So really your beef is just that it's the first couple. We're not the same formulaic copy and paste giant explosions, but I'm also calling me depraved for watching them or whatever, whatever adjective you use for, for me. Cause come on. If this is six out of 10 or the same movie,

then I'm not wrong for saying they're all the same movie. I'm sorry. I, I did put the addendum and say like, all right, well, the first one was a little bit different i cannot tell you how much when i was in high school every person obsessed over that first movie just like quoting it constantly and styles of cars changed on the road because of that first movie ford changed the look of the mustang for like 10 years because of that movie. It,

yeah, it was, uh, I'm not going to say it was a powerful movie, but it was very popular. People liked it a lot when they should really just go back to, uh, watching point break,

which is an excellent movie. So anyway, uh, well, this was fun and maybe we'll find ways to work in. Well, we'll get your review after you see fast X. We'll definitely get your breakdown and we'll work in some other stuff that's fun because i know people have other silly questions

about what we think about stuff so thanks uh for your time thanks for everybody who watched and participated and uh we'll do it again very soon thanks everybody