Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Mark Bullock talks Sam Darnold, Curtis Samuel, Kirk Cousins and NFL free agency madness

Episode Date: February 16, 2021

Former Washington Post and Athletic writer Mark Bullock joins to talk about what the Washington Football team is going to do at the quarterback position and whether they will have interest in Sam Darnold -- and by proxy whether the Vikings should be interested in Sam Darnold. Mark also breaks down a favorite free agent target of Matthew's which is Pathers receiver Curtis Samuel and they talk about a Washington writer's perspective on Kirk Cousins. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Folks, do you feel like everything these days is go, go, go? It's nonstop from work to friends to family and a million pressing issues. Sometimes you just need to take a playoff and hit the reset button.

That's when you reach for a Coors Light. It's made to chill. Hey, it's that time of year in Minnesota again to get out on the lake, go to the cabin, sit back, watch the baseball. Coors Light is the perfect refreshment to chill during these summer months. There's only one beer out there that's made to chill.

The mountains on the bottles and cans turn blue when your beer is cold, and that way you know it's time to chill. Hit that reset button with some mountain cold refreshment. Coors Light is cold lager, cold filtered, and cold packaged. It's literally made to chill. It's crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies. Coors Light is the one you should choose when you need to unwind, when you want to hit the reset button, reach for the beer that is made to chill.

Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider presented by Scout Logistics. Matthew Collar here and joining me, a new member of our Substack Nation in this world, and also another, like, what can we call ourselves? Like, the Fired Ones? Maybe that's too aggressive. Mark Bullock, he's written for Washington Post and written for The Athletic and now has his own website, very much like me.

Mark Bullock, spelled just how you think it is, B-U-L-L-O-C-K,.substack.com. And, Mark, I just sort of recently became familiar with your work and it is absolutely terrific. And I want to talk to you about some of the film breakdowns that you've done of players that would be interesting to Vikings fans, but you were covering football team previously. And I just, can we just talk about that for a second? Like they just don't have a team name

all of a sudden and then they are they gonna like have one soon we don't really know the um the the new team president Jason Wright has kind of been a little bit on the fence about it he's been playing his cards very close to his chest um so the the thought was is that they would take the first year to really evaluate different kinds of names and do all the process of that. But now that we're getting into that, it's been a year-ish, or this off-season would be the first year. They're kind of suggesting that they might stick with just football team for maybe another year as they gather more information. I don't know what more information they need to gather, but it seems like they might stick with football team or maybe change to football club.

So that's kind of appeasing someone British like myself for being a football club, Washington FC or something like that. But it seems like that might be the route they go down, but we're not sure yet. They are keeping their cards very close to their chest. Okay. I actually like it. I like Washington Football Club or even football team,

but club does sound a little more classy. And, like, because think about this. Every name that I tell you will sound ridiculous like if i say like washington sharks is my has been my joke on the show like washington it's how it just sounds silly like is there some animal that is native to the washington dc area if it's like washington senators well that was the old baseball team so like congressman you're like well that congressman don't have enough power. So you don't want to say, hey, who's intimidated by that?

Like a bunch of old people in suits is what you're making yourself. So I can't come up with anything that doesn't sound just preposterous. Yeah, the thing that every fan wants to keep red in the title for obvious reasons i guess um and uh the the one that seems to be most popular amongst fans is is red wolves um or some people prefer just wolves like washington wolves as the alliteration of the w's um but some people but most people want red so um and red wolves are apparently a species of wolves that are somewhat endangered so there's some play with that um but i don't think they're native to dc or anything like that i think they're more west coast things so um yeah it's the the suggestions warriors has been another one um

um red tails after um there was a group of uh pilots that were called the red tails um so those have been the kind of three that have been thrown around but who knows how what they're going to go for i i know they've certainly acknowledged that they've heard those suggestions um whether they pumped for any of them i don't't know. I mean, Red Tails, okay. I could sort of – all right. Because of the historical reference, that's okay. Red Wolves to me is ludicrous. What's a random animal?

This drives me crazy about college football teams. Like, we're the Bulldogs. Like, why? Because we are stocky and aggressive. I don't know. Like, what? What about – I mean, OK, if you can't if your university came up with that in like 1880, fine. But I mean, if you're relatively recent, that was the best you could do was just like I mean, think about how many great names there are in college.

You have like the Albany Great Danes is one of them. I mean, the Maryland Terrapins. Now we're talking cool stuff. But Red Wolves, okay, random aggressive animal. Here we go. I would much rather have it just be. And the other thing, too, is it's a little bit of you got to wear it. You stuck with that name that you shouldn't have stuck with for way too long until you finally had to change it.

So if you have to be the nameless team for the next hundred years, you earned that fate. Yeah, I think that's probably fair. And I think there are plenty of people that are perfectly fine with being the Washington football team or football club or what have you. So I could see them, certainly I could see them doing that for the next year or so. But I think at some point they are going to go for a name.

I just have no idea what it's going to be. They've not really had, there's nothing that's been like leaked or they've been trying to get the trademark for this or anything like that. There's been stories of lots of people actually applying for and sitting on trademarks for all the different names just to hold it from the team and get money from them. So there's been no news whatsoever of that kind of thing. So it's hard to say exactly what direction they want to go in.

So I'm spending way too much time on it, but I'm also fascinated by it. Like that a team's name was so bad that they just had to be like, no name. You don't have one. And plus the nature of the team and how bumbling they generally are, that also adds to what a circus it is to not have a name. So anyway, let me ask you a broad question. Then we can talk about some of these players that are kind of crossover between a little Vikings intrigue and a little football team intrigue. But who's your quarterback? Who will be your quarterback?

Tell me. i would love to have an answer for that um obviously they've just signed uh or re-signed taylor heineke after his uh heroics in the playoffs um or the one game that he played um that they are expected to probably bring back kyle allen at some point as well. He's an exclusive rights-free agent, so they can bring him back pretty cheap. And Alex Smith is still on the contract, but I think he has a cap here of something like $24 million. So they probably – I don't think they'll keep him at that rate. I'm sure they would love to have him in the building because of the story

that he is and the leader that he is. But I don't think the money lines up on the current contract. So they've been linked with everyone that has been on the quarterback carousel. Obviously the big ones are Deshaun Watson. They were in on Matthew Stafford. They reports are saying now they're making calls on Derek Carr and Sam Darnold.

So it's hard to say exactly who they want to go for there. I think barring a huge swing for Sean Watson, if he were to become available, which I still think is extremely unlikely, and then you have the whole, he's got a no trade clause, so he can kind of pick where he wants to go. So I think that's pretty unlikely so barring a huge move for something like that i i think um probably the most likely

scenario is they they go for someone possibly like a darn old or a marcus mariota who have some upside and they could come in relatively cheaply and um if they hit great if not then next year they'll really go for uh make an aggressive play for a quarterback um so i just think that deshaun watson has probably had enough of that type of ownership yeah i don't want to deal with this again yeah exactly um you're right ron rivera does not have enough power to supersede dan snyder so he's probably not going to come there um now what i think is interesting about washington though um and i do want to ask you more about taylor heineke because former viking sure is that it's a great situation actually like you've got this defense that was fourth in the

league in points against last year that has been loaded up over a number of years you've got this defense that was fourth in the league in points against last year that has been loaded up over a number of years you've got a star wide receiver to start with you could certainly add more in a deep receiver draft this year um your offensive line is not a joke if you take marcus mariotta tell me if i'm crazy marcus mariotta to this team you're like a nine or 10 win team, I think, with Marcus Mariota, if he just even plays like average Marcus Mariota level. Sure. I don't necessarily disagree with that.

I think you're right in that I think it's quite an appealing situation for a quarterback. It's not necessarily as appealing as, say, a 40-hiners or maybe a Miami. But I think it's pretty appealing. As you say, the defense is pretty much ready to be good for a while. And obviously that's always nice for that to be taken care of for the quarterback. They've got some intriguing weapons. As you say, Terry McLaurin's a stud.

And I think with some better quarterback play, I think the league will really understand how good he is and see that he's really up there in terms of receivers in the league the offensive line they do need a left tackle but they seem to have found they kind of stumbled across

across a interior three and if they keep Brandon Sheriff who's a free agent then they can keep those three together and Morgan Moses on the right side has always been solid so they've got some good pieces in place they probably do need another weapon or two but it certainly is an appealing situation to quarterback and with the defense that they have the NFC East obviously being as weak as it is

then I could certainly see a quarterback like a Mariota or Donald or whoever they might wind up bringing in. If they can play just average quarterback level, then the rest of the team should be set up to be good enough for that to be a decent, as you say, sort of 9 or 10 win team. Okay, explain to me Taylor Heineke and how that happened. I covered a training camp with Taylor Heineke, and he lost a job out to Case Keenum, who, by the way, went on to lead a 13-3 season that year for the Vikings. So, you know, it's not like you should have these

major regrets if you're a Vikings fan of how that year for the Vikings. So, you know, it's not like you should have these major regrets if you're a Vikings fan of how that played out, that the backup quarterback was Case Keenum. But this guy goes from, and what a beautiful journeyman story, he goes from XFL where he's not even starting, he's bouncing around teams, he lands in Washington, and then he plays this one magical game and gets like four million dollars a year now it's I mean it's truly incredible and shows you sort of the desperation of teams to want anything

but also he did ball out in that game he really did play he really did so I don't know like should Vikings fans have regrets I don't think so but no I don't think so I don't think so. No, I don't think so. I don't think so either. It's one game, and it was an outstanding game, but it's still one game in the context of it. I mean, I'm sure Vikings fans are familiar with just how injury-prone Heineke is, and I think it was a situation where he was set up with nothing really to lose. He was coming in, as you say, off of the street. He was going into a system that he knew because he basically followed Scott Turner around

from being with the Vikings, then with the Panthers. So it was the system that he was most familiar with. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain in a massive playoff game. If he had done poorly, nobody would have been surprised. Nobody would have been angry at him. So it was literally just go out there and go for it. There's no downside for whatever you do. And so that was the situation for him.

And he played outstanding, and it was a lot of fun. It was probably the best quarterbacking performance that I can remember in D.C. for probably the last five years, certainly since Kirk Cousins left. So it was a lot of fun, and he earned his contract, and he will most likely be their backup quarterback. And depending on who they bring in, he might get a shot to compete for a starting role, but I think the injury history, as far as I'm aware, he's yet to complete an NFL game without picking up a significant injury.

Even in the playoff game, he did a shoulder injury of some sort. So I don't think you can safely go into a season going, yeah, he's our guy and we're going to trust him to be our guy for 16 games. I don't think you can safely go into a season going, yeah, he's our guy, and we're going to trust him to be our guy for 16 games. I don't think you can do that. Not only that, but he injured himself once in Minnesota, which I'm sure you've heard, by kicking a glass door and breaking his foot. Oh, really? I hadn't heard that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Check out his wiki.

It's always my favorite thing to go to Journeyman Quarterback's wiki and just see what weird stuff I run across. Through the years, you run across C mcnown's parking tickets at ucla and journeyman quarterbacks were in jail now all sorts of things it's it's worth it on a saturday if you're not doing anything is to do that while you're watching college basketball or something uh but yeah i know i i mean i'm i'm with you on tay Taylor Heineke obviously should not even really be considered off one game to compete for a starting job. They have to find somebody else. Now, this takes us to somebody who has, and I'm not going to say real legitimate crossover with the Vikings, but intriguing to me because the name came up and I thought, hmm, it's one of those like we love playing this game with Kirk.

Like, would you do it? Like, would you trade Kirk for whatever? And even though Kirk is not being traded, it's still such a fun game. Sam Darnold is one of the hardest ones that I've come across. It's like, would you trade him for Jimmy G? Like, I don't know, probably. Like, if they throw in a second or something. You know what I mean?

Like, here's why it's hard for me. Now, you watched a bunch of film. You wrote a great piece on your sub stack that's phenomenal, breaking down Sam Darnold. The only thing for me would be Adam Gase. I mean, right? Like, so he's playing for the worst situation. He's younger.

He might have upside. And if he doesn't, you could just throw him to the curb and get the next guy. That's always flexibility is always a factor for me. And not, of course, not that expensive right away. Again, not something the Vikings are going to do, but intriguing to me. And I wonder, do you think if he ends up in Washington, there's upside for him to go well beyond what he's done? Or would the limitations hold him back and you end up with um your next jason campbell or something yeah yeah i from from studying him for the past few days um

you see a lot of certainly a lot of the bad um and a lot of the interceptions were really bad and and there was some recurring themes with their interceptions where they were happening on the same type of concepts where he really it's a basic concept he should be doing better he shouldn't be throwing those kinds of interceptions which is worrying um but you see these plays where i think the book on on donald coming out of college was he's this guy that just has it you can't really put your finger on exactly what it is but he has it and and I was trying to define what that was and in key situations on third down uh two minute drills red zone fourth quarter um in those situations is often when he played his best ball um and and he would make his

best throws and he has this ability to scramble around and extend plays and and create explosive plays off of you know broken plays so that i think is is what intrigues me about him is is how he can create something from nothing and how he can make these throws in the big moments he's not afraid of the big moments to make those throws um now obviously there's only a limited amount of big moments when you play for the jets that nearly go undefeated without a win so you know it's it's hard to fully judge um and the offense he didn't have a lot of help out there the offense the scheme was often bad there was times where he had no receivers to check down to he was getting pressured a lot um there was times when uh they had receivers running routes to the opposite side

of the field is where he was meant to roll out to it's like it just wasn't the most well-designed offense but um there was certainly as you say there's certainly a lot of upside with him um and he's certainly a guy that i kind of felt at the end of watching him i thought kind of as you said you know if i if if i roll with him for a year you have a chance of hitting something that you know that he didn't fulfill his potential with the jets but there's still plenty of potential or you know you get rid of him at the end of next year and you probably end up going four and 12, whatever, and have a top five or 10 pick and you pick your next guy. Hey, everyone who listens to this show knows that I am an old school gamer.

So if you're still playing the games from the 90s, trust me, you're going to want to check out the new gear from SodaStick, football, hockey, and a Minnesota logo in the form of another famous video game logo. I'll just say that. If you use the promo code PurpleInsider, you can get free shipping. Go to SodaStick.com to check out the old school gaming designs on shirts, hoodies, all their apparel is screen printed here in Minnesota. That is SodaStick, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. Original Minnesota sports inspired goods.

Code Purple Insider for free shipping. Remember, we still have our giveaway going on with SodaStick, a $50 gift card. All you need to do is if you have not signed up for the Purple Insider newsletter yet, go to PurpleInsider.substack.com, and you're automatically entered. And if you have already subscribed to Purple Insider, respond to any Purple Insider email just with the word video games. That's all you have to do, and you're entered to win a $50 gift card from SodaStick. I wonder if they would take the let's do all of it approach.

And maybe not. I don't know but trade for darnold trade for mariotta bring back taylor heineke and just say all of you get in a cage and fight during training camp and whoever still survives is the quarterback i don't think it's a bad idea i mean it sort of would feel like how once upon a time the Seahawks got ripped for drafting Russell Wilson after bringing in Matt Flynn hey they've got their quarterbacks Matt Flynn they're all set and then you know taking multiple shots at it is probably the best idea and then heck draft Kellen Mond too and just bring them all in and give a shot there well you know that Heineke's

not gonna be your starter so if you had a rookie that you draft and two guys that you bring in via trade, the roster I think is strong enough to where, I mean, you're in a good position. It's not like, oh, my gosh, if we give up a third-round pick, the future is mortgaged, right? Sure, yeah. I think there's certainly merit to the argument of take as many shots at quarterback as you can. There definitely is something behind that. And we saw the Eagles do it quite a lot

in the division where they brought in Sam Bradford, they traded for Carson Wentz and they had multiple other guys on the roster. So I don't think it's a bad idea. The question becomes the cost of getting all those quarterbacks because you figure Sam Darnold, the Jets probably aren't going to want to just give away Sam Darnold. And, you know, Mariota could probably be had relatively cheaply, a second or third round pick, but he also comes with an $11 million cap hit.

So if you're bringing him on and Darnold, you're looking at probably best part of 20 million dollars um so yes there certainly is an argument to take as many shots as you possibly can absolutely go and draft a guy later in the draft and bring in a free agent or a trade for a guy absolutely i don't know if you go as far as going both darnarnold and Mariota and drafting a guy, maybe two of the three. Okay, fine. Fine, deal. Two of the three.

Now, you wrote about wide receivers, too, at your site. And this is something that really intrigues me because I have been sort of, I don't know, tooting the train horn of, like, number three wide receiver. Like, more playmakersmakers and I think what we see there's a million things you could take from the Super Bowl winners of like oh they won the Super Bowl so you should do this but one thing that never slumps is we got a bunch of dudes who are wide open that never slumps so you wrote profiles on Curtis Samuel, Will Fuller, Allen Robinson I think that for Vikings fans Allen Robinson is out of Samuel, Will Fuller, Allen Robinson. I think that for Vikings fans, Allen Robinson is out of the picture.

Will Fuller, I think, is going to demand a lot. Curtis Samuel, though, very interesting to me of this playmaker type of guy who started to emerge after a sort of slow start to his career in Carolina. It's not exactly the best situation in Carolina either, but with so many big names on this free agent market, I think he's a guy that could slip underneath the radar a little bit. Tell me just kind of like your opinion on him and what he should be at his best. Yeah, I like Curtis Samuel, and he's a guy that I watched plenty of last year

in 2019 because obviously Washington basically hired everyone from Carolina. So I was pretty familiar with him then, and he's a guy that's a bit of one of those Swiss Army knife type guys that can play a bit of running back, a bit of wide receiver. He fits in the slot, and he's someone that I think his best role is kind of having a lot of different roles within his role. So playing probably in the slot, he can be your guy that is your gadget play guy that does your jet sweeps

and your end arounds and reverses and all that kind of thing. You can motion him into the backfields and put your running back at a receiver and that plays around with the defense. How exactly do we line up with that? And he's perfectly capable of taking handoffs and running, certainly working outside the tackles and bouncing outside to the edge where his athleticism plays into it. And we saw it in Washington this year.

He had one play where he took a run that he just lined up in the backfield and took a standard outside zone run to the right and bounced outside. And Ronald Darby, the cornerback, came up to try to tackle him, and he just put on a ridiculous juke that cut inside and beat him. And Darby had no chance, and he was up the sideline for a 40-yard gain. So he's someone that can do a lot of different things. And he's gotten better as a route runner, and he's more reliable as a pass catcher. He's someone that he had a few frustrating drops, certainly in 2019,

not so much in 2020, but he had a few frustrating drops, and the other knock I had on him was he's inconsistent in tracking the ball, going deep, which I think people don't fully understand how difficult that is to be running at full speed 20 or 30 yards down the field and having to turn your head and locate the ball and picking up its trajectory and getting yourself aligned with the path of the ball to bring in the catch um let alone trying to be a defender to that spot. So it's something that I think he struggled with certainly, as I say, in 2019, but I still saw some of that last year as well. But he's someone, as you say, the gadget type plays,

he's very productive on those type of things. He's someone that you want to scheme touches into his hand. You want to get him on bubble screens tunnel screens um as i say end around reverses jet sweeps um and he can really hurt defenses that are flowing one way and he suddenly cuts back the other way um and that's the kind of player that the kind of thing that he can add to an offense i feel like the nfl should be in love with these guys. Like Cordero Patterson, same sort of deal, where Chicago's like, what are you guys doing with CP84 over there?

I mean, they're playing him at running back, which I think that there's some element of his game that he should be in the backfield sometimes, but not a running back all the time. And if he's in that role you should have him running you know bubble screens and motioning and all this is with the increase in the love for motioning by these playmakers i feel like and also you're you look at the yards per completion around the league and it's like 10 yards for completion everyone's throwing short passes and things like that um i just think that you have these guys who can create yards after catch on their own and you just make your

quarterback's life so much easier this is something the vikings did a poor job of last year give kirk cousins a two yard pass through the air and get 14 yards with Curtis Samuel. And they didn't do this very often with Justin Jefferson, even. It was a 50-50 split between him going more than 10 yards in terms of air yards. It's like, well, everything doesn't have to be down the field. And Gary Kubiak loves that, and that's his thing. But I feel like there's an opportunity for this team or your team in Washington, either way, but whoever, to sort of increase the value of this type of player. And if the rest of the league is missing it,

then you be the one that brings him in. Yeah, sure, absolutely. And the link to Washington is natural because he played for Scott Turner and Ron Rivera, and everyone thinks that that's kind of a nailed-on thing. I don't necessarily think it is because Washington has quite a few of those type of players. They drafted Antonio Gibson last year. He was a slot receiver in college, but they converted him to running back.

They signed JD McKissick in free agency, who was another receiver in college that has converted to running back, and he's kind of been switching between those two roles in D.C. So they have a guy called Stephen Sims, who was an undrafted free agent in 2019. And he's more of a slot receiver, but he's another one of those explosive athletes that you get the ball in his hand,

you scheme him touches and let him work in space, your shallow crosses, your reverses, jet sweeps, and that kind of thing. And you let him just in space, your shallow crosses, your reverses, jet sweeps, and that kind of thing, and you let him just beat people. And so they've got kind of three of those guys, and they've got them all under contract for less than $4 million this year. So in Washington, I don't think it's nailed on that they would go out and get Curtis Samuel in free agency. They probably want more of a traditional outside receiver,

but Samuel is certainly a very good component of an offense. And if you have those guys on the outside and you can leave Samuel inside in the slot and, as you say, make the most of his versatility, let him line up in the backfield, let him motion around, let him do the jet sweeps and have a legit threat to carry the ball in the jet sweeps, have a legit threat to carry the ball on the jet sweeps, that gives the defense so much more to think about.

It stresses the defense in a lot of different ways. So certainly that's got a lot of value, I think, in today's NFL. And if you can add that to your offense, that's a huge bonus. So I have a random question for you. And then I have a uh trivia that i think you'll be fine with like don't be nervous but it's okay it's a good one it's a good one don't be nervous it'll be good um the random question is and i just sort of thought of this as we were talking about um you know the supporting casts for quarterbacks and what they need to succeed

and all those sorts of things when kurt cousins was in his final season in Washington, the supporting cast really fell off. But every other year, it was very good in D.C. Good receivers, good offensive line. They've struggled in Minnesota to put together a good offensive line. But I wonder what the feeling was on Cousins as you were going kind of down the stretch of his career in Washington and it was becoming more clear that maybe this wasn't a long-term type of relationship with him there because there's this now a sample size of Cousins where you have similar type of records to what he had in

Washington I know QB wins whatever but like still you pay the guy to succeed and to win and and so forth you didn't pay him to show up and go eight, seven and one, ten and six and seven and nine. That's not what you were expecting. So I just wonder what that feeling was like. Like were you guys debating constantly about whether you should sign him and is he good and is he not good? And you had certain people who would be like, but this statistic says he's amazing. And then people would be like, I test. I see there's nothing in that guy's guts like was it the same stuff that i'm dealing with 100 that that is kurt cousins is forever going to just be a continuous constant

debate uh between fans and there's going to be the fans that see the stats and go well he threw for 4 000 yards and 20 touchdowns and 10 interceptions, and he was really good. And then you see the fans that are like, yeah, but those 10 interceptions came in big moments in games and lost you games. And the 4,000 yards, half of that came in garbage time. And he had stat-padding performances where they beat up pad teams. And all of those arguments that you're talking about bring back lots of He had stat padding performances where they beat up pad teams.

All of those arguments that you're talking about bring back lots of memories from when Cousins was in D.C. That's exactly what he is. He's forever that divisive guy that some people love him, some people hate him. And I think at this point in his career, given how he's constantly been that kind of guy, I kind of feel like that's all he's going to be. I think he's always going to be capable of being a very good quarterback. And when he's at his absolute best, he plays like a top five quarterback.

But he always is susceptible to once or twice a game making that one throw where you go, what was that? Where did that come from? Why did you do that? And that's just possibly cost of the game. And that's why I kind of feel like in a situation that's absolutely perfect, you have the best offensive line, you've got two or three receivers, you've got a good tight end, you've got a solid running game, and you've got a good defense.

In that situation, Kirk Cousins can win for you or not lose for you. But if you don't have that perfect situation for him, he's not someone that I would want being the quarterback of my team. Hey, everyone, want to remind you that if your business is in need of transportation of perishable, non-perishable, or fragile freight, and you want someone who has a 99% delivery rate and is trusted by Fortune 500 companies, then you want to give Scout Logistics a call. If you've been hearing about Scout Logistics here on the Purple Insider podcast and wondering how you can connect with them to learn more, or even if you work for a business with shipping

needs and want to kick it upstairs to the decision makers, Scout Logistics is just a phone call away at 855-217-2688, extension 232, or at scoutlogistics.com. Let's be honest. You do not want to mess around with transporting goods. You want the most reliable and the ones who go the extra mile. That's Scout Logistics. Plus, hey, they support this podcast, support the people who support us. So if you have shipping needs, check out Scout Logistics today. I just want to say that everything you just said,

there are people listening going, oh, my gosh. Like all of those things. And you're right about, and I kind of see where you view it through, but there's the other side of, well, they didn't give him this and they didn't give him that. Sure, absolutely. And that's the forever debate with Kirk Cousins is, well, he still played pretty well and there's a lot worse quarterbacks in the league.

And maybe if we just get in this or we just get in that, he'll, he'll do well and he probably would, but it's very hard to build an entire supporting cast for a quarterback and pay that quarterback $30 million, which is where i think i'm if kurt cousins is on a rookie contract and you could build the rest of the team around him or have the table set for him then i think you'd be able to win with him um but he's what is he now 30 something uh 232 32 and yeah Like he's not 23 anymore. He's the kind of guy where you're always waiting for him to take that next

step where he's not making those horrible mistakes that you just, they're just so frustrating because he could be so much better. And when you're at, when you get, if you're 23, 24, 25, you can kind of live with that and be like, well, he's still young. He can still improve. He'll get rid of that. When you're 32, 33, like, is he really going to get rid of that? Or is he just is what he is at this point?

I can just hear so many people on the podcast being like, it isn't just us. You guys went through the same exact thing. It was five years of nightmare every week. It was, he's finally, yes, this is it, he's the guy. And then the next week, no, get rid of him. God, we don't want to get him out of here. Every week it was a drama with he's either the guy or he's not the guy. And there was never any kind of comfort in, well, we've got our quarterback at any given point.

Yeah, and the thing about his numbers increasing here to some extent, I do think the 2019 season was really terrific for him and about as good as he'll be. But there's also the like, wow, he had a career-high quarterback rating. Like, so did everyone this year. I mean, right. Like the quarterback rating of the league sort of shot up and that is what happened. You were also one in five at one point. And it's like, you know, but then like you said,

it always circles back to, well, you know, but the defense wasn't good and it's, you know, it goes back. And well, you know, the left guard was really awful this year. And it's my thing is if you sign him, try to give him everything you need. Don't leave him without a left guard that you signed in free agency for $800,000. Don't leave him without a Curtis Samuel because you spent all that money already. You might as well push the chips to the middle of the tape. That's why.

For sure. I 100% agree with that. If he's going to be your guy then you've got to accept that he's going to make those mistakes and you need to give him everything the as much support as you possibly can and if you're not doing that then why are you signing it um i 100 agree with that tell you my favorite thing about kirk cousins then i'll give you the trivia sure everybody gets to be right. And everybody gets to be wrong. There's very few players in all the sports where it's like,

if you think Kirk Cousins is a really good quarterback, man, you get to be right a lot of times. A lot of great games, a lot of great numbers. And if you're someone who's very skeptical of Kirk Cousins as your quarterback, you also get to be right for those five games a year where you're like, what? Yep. And so every year you look at the PFF grades and there's like some way up

here and some way down there and not a whole lot in the middle. So, all right, let's wrap with this, Marty. It's been super fun. I'm really glad we did this. Eight quarterbacks in football team history have also been quarterbacks for the Minnesota Vikings. One of them is Kirk Cousins. How many can you name quarterbacks who also played for the Vikings? I'm going to be terrible at this.

My football history is not great. But obviously Taylor Heineke, he played for the Vikings. Okay, I need to adjust my number. I forgot Taylor Heineke in this because I was going through football reference and he played in the playoff game for you. So I'm only going by played in games. My buddy Sage Rosenfels was drafted by Washington and played for – so I guess there's even more than I think.

So, okay, Heineke, Sage, so there's even more than i think so okay heineke sage so there's even more than than eight but keep going um i'm trying to think of recent like how many are recent uh some are recent i'll give you one that you'd never guess is norm sneed like you would never guess but he was very briefly a viking but when you go back into the mid-2000s and the 90s, it gets pretty hot. I'll give you some hints. One is stole the job from Heath Shuler in Washington, like 90s, back in the day. See, 90s is border on when I started really getting into football was. And then he threw passes to Randy Moss for the Vikings in the mid-2000s,

kind of a journeyman backup. I want to say, like, Jeff George or something. Okay, Jeff George, bingo. But that's not who I was talking about. That's not who you're talking about. Well, he also threw passes to Randy Moss. So Jeff George is correct. I was going for Gus Farratt.

Gus Farratt. Okay. Has been on this show and is an awesome guy. If you ever need a podcast guest, Gus Farratt is the best. How about a guy who was a superstar in the league for another team, had a lot of success for a long time, and then he went to this team in Minnesota. No, wait. Then he went to Washington, and then he went to Minnesota. And both times it was just, what is left of this player?

Washington has had too many bad quarterbacks. Yeah, I know. This is hard. But, like, think of fairly recently within the last, like, 10 years where you just went, they made a big deal of this signing for this quarterback because he was a big star with another team. And then what the hell happened? See, the names that keep popping up in my mind are guys like –

I know this isn't the one you're referring to, but guys like Donovan McNabb. No, that's who I was referring to. Is it Donovan McNabb? Yeah, Donovan McNabb. Oh, okay. I didn't think that's who you were referring to. I was thinking McNabb did end up signing in Minnesota, didn't he? Oh, gosh.

Oh, man. Go look it up. I think he threw for like 38 yards in a game once. It was miserable. So, yes, he did. I'll give you a few more here. Brad Johnson is another one. Brad Johnson was another name I was thinking in the Jeff George kind of time.

Case Keenum would be another one. Oh, of course, Case Keenum, yeah. I forgot about Case Keenum. And how about Rich Gannon? Ever so briefly, Rich Gannon. Oh, really? Yep. That's very forgettable.

If you had gotten that one, I would have been very impressed. So, yeah, there is a long shared history of Vikings slash football team quarterbacks. There you go. I didn't realize they overlapped that much. Also, didn't Jeff George, I swear, in Washington, he played the first game of the season and then got cut in week two or something. They have a lot of stories like that in Washington. The quarterback carousel in Washington has been pretty bad for a while.

This is the thing. Brad Johnson went 23-17 as a starter for Washington. He deserves a statue. Okay. If you like Mark and you like listening to him, well, you can read him as well. And his great football analysis. Mark Bullock. That's B-U-L-L-O-C-K dot substack dot com.

And all your stuff right now is open. So anybody can go check it out. See if they like your work. It's not just football team analysis, but like a lot of really cool breakdowns that you do film wise you do awesome stuff and i wish you the best with the new venture man it's really cool let's do this again yeah absolutely thank you so much for having me on that was a really good fun