Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Official Vikings Quarterback Options Ranking List (Part 1)

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

Matthew Coller gives his quarterback ranking list and looks at a list of potential trade targets and talks about whether any of them should be interesting for the Vikings. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

everybody welcome to another episode of purple insider matthew collar here we are live on youtube presented by fan duel and uh plenty of room tonight on a monday for questions comments thoughts feelings and so forth but you know over the last couple of weeks we've been working our way through all the minnesota viking's quarterback options we've got former vikings quarterbacks chiming in i've had a couple of reporters on the show to talk about their different options and potential approaches. We've talked at least a little bit about almost every single potential quarterback that the Vikings could acquire to make for a quote, highly competitive quarterback room. And we've also discussed what exactly that means that Kevin O'Connell wants a highly

competitive quarterback room. And so after all. all sorts of reflection. I wrote an article today about one of these quarterbacks over at purple insider dot football. I've studied the analytics and the data of each guy and the way that they play, wrote an article about that as well, where they throw the ball successfully, the different trends, the ups and downs of these potentially available QBs. And I've settled on a ranking list.

So I'm not going to waste any time here. I'm going to get right into my rankings of the. top quarterback options for the Minnesota Vikings in 2006 and then we'll get your guys feedback. Also, I saw Greg Rosenthal and Bill Barnwell put out a list of tradable players and it's a very robust list and there's a couple guys that, you know, stuck out to me as potential Vikings options despite some of the limitations with, you know, salary cap and trade, you know, options for sending draft picks out and all that sort of thing. But we'll look at that.

as well, and I grabbed a couple of their NFL headlines that we can discuss throughout the evening, but I'm not going to waste any more time. Let's jump right in to the official Purple Insider quarterback 2026 rankings. Here we go. So there is eight quarterbacks, and I'm going to go through them one by one and why they are where they are on the list. And you guys can react. I'd love your top three in the comments, or if you totally dislike the list.

Please let me know as well. So we're going to start out with, I've made no secret to this one. The number one option, I think, for the Minnesota Vikings, the best quarterback that they could get from an age perspective and from a recent performance perspective. Now, this is really 2024, but recent enough is Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray. I think that he is a better schematic fit based on what he did in 2024 than most people would expect. he was under center about a quarter of the time. He ran a good amount of play action, and he is a good intermediate passer. He is not by the numbers, an elite deep passer these days, but at the same time, you know,

I don't know if he's had the best weapons when it comes to throwing deep, maybe in comparison to Justin Jefferson. But at very least, as Kirk Cousins once did for Kevin O'Connell, Kyler Murray could execute a lot of the intermediate passing to Justin Jefferson. He has previously worked the football like crazy to a number one wide receiver. And despite some concerns about personality, I would like to remind you that once upon a time, there were concerns about Kirk Cousins personality and certain former head coaches who maybe didn't get along the best with Kirk Cousins, who ended up being shaken on the

sideline by Kirk Cousins. And then by the end of his time in Minnesota, he was considered the leader of the locker room. So if there's anything that Kevin O'Connell can do, it's reach a quarterback and teach him how to lead a locker room. And I also thought, too, I don't need Kyler Murray to lead a locker room. I've got Jefferson, got Brian O'Neill. If you're the Vikings, you've got a lot of leaders in the locker room. You need someone to throw the football and someone to make some plays. A lot of discussion last year about the offensive line and the.

pressure that was created. But if you have a playmaker, they can mitigate some of that. So I think Kyler Murray has the highest ceiling of any of these quarterback options. I think it under the right circumstances with an excellent defense, with a good offensive scheme for him with a running game that clearly the Vikings are investing in. They just hired another coach that is going to be on the run side. And I think that they're going to draft a running back, sign a running back. Kyler Murray would have the best circumstances he's ever had, and he's already had in his career

two seasons where he is ranked by PFF in the top 12, including 2021, where he was a top 10 PFF quarterback. Not too many of our other options. We can say that about. So the number one guy, to me, as the highest ceiling, and that is former number one overall pick, Kyler Murray. And every one of these may come along with a bit of an asterisk. If you have to have, to trade for Kyler-Marie, that maybe makes it a little more tricky. And it depends. Will Arizona take most of that money? I think that Arizona has to take, if not almost all of it, most of it.

I also think that there's a good chance that most teams just wait out the Arizona Cardinals and do not make a trade for Murray. Rather, they will just make them release Kyler Murray. So if they do, he is the number one option for me for the Vikings. and in the worst case scenario that maybe he's just a mid-quarterback, you know what he'll provide you with? Some entertainment. You can feel something, some excitement, some exhilaration,

even if there's frustration that goes along with it. So that's why Kyla Murray is the number one option on this list. Number two on my list is Malik Willis. Now, I think based on a very small sample size of Malik Willis, and I also talked to my friend Jason Wildy today for an episode, that's coming out tomorrow, who covers the Green Bay Packers. He is a big fan of Malik Willis and the work ethic behind the scenes, the patience, and the way that he was able to step in for Jordan Love is stuff that is telling about what

he can be. The concern is sample size. He has a lot of the things that Kyla Murray has. He even has a stronger arm. He is a little bigger, elite running skills. And his performance, when he was thrown into the. the fire was very, very good. And so he wasn't intimidated.

He wasn't overwhelmed by the stage of being tossed in against the Baltimore Ravens on national TV. Looks like a pro quarterback. It is a very small sample, but it's also a small sample of phenomenal, phenomenal football play. And I think that he is not a guy that you would say, oh, well, you know, can he fit in a scheme or whatever? because he has the arm strength to make every throw.

And even though I wouldn't put him as the next Drew Breeze when it comes to touch, I saw such improvement from him to the point where he is right now in throwing the football with touch versus where he was when he first came into the league, where he was at the senior bowl, where he was at Liberty. And when we talk about sealing, that's going to be the focus of a lot of this at the top of my list is you could see Malik Willis because of his running ability, because of his development, becoming a very good NFL starting quarterback.

The complication here is how do you convince him to come here instead of Arizona once they get rid of Kyler Murray? How do you convince Malik Willis, hey, this is a better place for them, you know, for you to be than with Arizona where you're going to be the starting quarterback? So I think convincing him that it's not going to be a quarterback competition. That's another part of this. And the list has, well, we'll get to that later on. But the start of the list assumes that the Vikings don't want to start J.J.

McCarthy with jobs on the line. And Kevin O'Connell needing to go back to the playoffs and needing to get a playoff win, that he would not be willing to put that on a quarterback last year who performed. formed at the bottom of the league in almost every category. So every one of these has their own little, hey, would Malik Willis actually come here? Could you convince him that this is better than going to a team like Arizona that has not been able to help its quarterback? And then you have, you know, Lefleur connection there.

You have Miami with, you know, their defensive coordinator, Jeff Hathley, going there, although they seem like they're completely rebuilding their team. So there are other franchises that can make a good argument to Malik Willis, but those franchises do not have Sam Darnold recently playing there and that the location that he started to turn his career around. They also don't have Justin Jefferson, which to me is pretty compelling. If I flew Malik Willis in for a visit to Minnesota, I would just have highlights playing. When you walk into the lobby at TCO Performance Center, there's a TV. and sometimes when, like, say the Fox broadcast is there doing their pregame interviews and stuff, it'll say, like, welcome Fox broadcast.

I would just have Justin Jefferson's catch against Buffalo right there. You don't even have to throw it exactly right, Malik. So he's my number two option because I also think there's potential longer term for both him and Kyler Murray were it to work out. My number three option is Derek Carr. And this one also assumes that they're going to be. don't want to start J.J. McCarthy and they would prefer to have a veteran. If you look at Derek Carr's career, when he has had good circumstances, he has been as high

as a top five to ten quarterback at different points in his career. When he has had bad circumstances, he has been like the 20th best quarterback in the league. So he is a guy that is, it's going to be very dependent on what's around him. And the assumption still is in Minnesota that you, can give quarterbacks a lot around them, Justin Jefferson. I'm figuring Jordan Addison to be back. O'Connell's offense, a rebuilt offensive line that I would assume gets a center, and something that really stood out to me investigating Derek Carr's history is that he is very good at sack avoidance, which the Minnesota Vikings offense desperately needs because its

quarterbacks took a lot of sacks that they didn't have to take last year. But Derek Carr is very good at getting rid of the football. And I know that there's a narrative that he gets his wide receivers injured all the time. I couldn't find a lot of evidence of that other than Chris Olivae recently. But in terms of his history, I just couldn't find where his receivers were getting hurt all the time. And he also threw to Devante Adams, like 170 times or something when they played together. Adams went for 1,500 yards in 2002 when he went to the Raiders. So I just, and he played

like every game. So I don't know if that just happened once or twice. And Michael Thomas tweeted about it and then everyone assumed he just gets his receivers killed, but I could not really find that throughout his history other than this one wide receiver who had some bad luck. I think Carr is accurate. He has a very good arm. His deep ball is excellent. In 2024, he was graded second by PFF at throwing the ball over 20 yards downfield. And if you look at the offense that he came from with Clint Kubiak, the amount that was under center, the amount of play action, the success with play action is very similar to what the Minnesota Vikings do.

The big concern would be, well, one, again, you have to trade for him. It's not ideal. The big concern would be the guy's been out of football and he left football for a shoulder injury. And yes, there are Randall Cunningham comparisons, but also there are quarterbacks that are similar to him like Kirk Cousins, like Ryan Tannahill, guys who are always kind of in that fringed part of the top 10 that fell off in their mid 30s. And so does Derek Carr still have it? And also, if you bring him in, there's not really a long term element to that. Maybe there's two years of him. But it wouldn't be much.

more than that and is that got a ceiling that's high enough to bench j j mccarthy to go with derrick car to try to get back to the playoffs can you actually win in the postseason with him that one i think would be a little bit tricky to prove but he has had some good seasons before when he's been with good teams and when you go through his history man i mean he's had some bad bad breaks like he got hurt when he was 12 and 4 and couldn't play in the playoffs then Jack Del Rio got fired the next year. He gets John Gruden. He's playing very well.

Then Gruden's emails come out. They fire him. They bring in Josh McDaniels, who is not a good head coach at all. He goes to New Orleans. Doesn't really fit with the offense. They bring in an offense that works for him. And then he gets hurt after 10 games. So it's been some bad breaks.

I think Derek Carr could lead this team back to the playoffs. So he is my number three option. Daniel Jones is number four. I am going on the assumption that Jones will return to the Indianapolis Colts, but were the Vikings to make him the right kind of multi-year offer? They were really in the Daniel Jones business. If the Colts suddenly got cold feet, cold feet about Daniel Jones, then maybe the Vikings could swoop in and get him as their starting quarterback.

And with Daniel Jones, I think that you're still talking about a guy who would be on a short-term type of deal and it would be just going back in time almost to last year. The Achilles injury is a concern. Not all Achilles injuries are the same, though. I don't know to what degree his injury was versus what Kirk's was or versus Aaron Rogers. He is clearly younger than those guys. But I think Daniel Jones can get you back to the playoffs. And if you're not going to go with J.J. McCarthy and you need a real starting quarterback who

could get you to the playoffs and win a playoff game, Daniel Jones is in that list. Now, my number five on the list is the line of demarcation. Folks, you may have noticed by all of my old football references that I have reached the age where my friends and I are complaining about hair lines as much as we talk about football these days. But here's the thing. Why be down on yourself or frustrated when there are answers? Maybe back in my favorite era of football, the 90s, the hair loss product.

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oral monocidil and finestriide. Feature products include compound drug products, which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness, or quality. Prescription required, see website for details, restrictions, and important safety information. This is called the just stick with J.J. McCarthy line. Because anything below these guys, anything below Kyler Murray, Malik Willis, Derrick Carr, and Daniel Jones. Among those you have three proven starting quarterbacks who can get you double-digit wins in the right circumstances.

They've done it before. We've seen it. They know how to play in the NFL or Malik Willis, who I think has a pretty high upside. This is the line where I just don't think that the guys after this are doing a whole heck of a lot for you. So just sticking with McCarthy, meaning go get Marcus Mariotta, go get a regular backup, somebody who can like push him sort of maybe in a quarterback competition, but not necessarily someone who's truly competing with him. And if he were to lose out a quarterback competition to Marcus Mariotta,

then you have your answer on J.J. McCarthy. you're also in a lot of trouble, but still, you would almost rather just not even bother with the bottom of this list below J.J. McCarthy because it's hard to believe that either it's any sort of long-term option or that that person could get you back to the playoffs. So number five is just stick with J.J. McCarthy. Number six on the list is Mack Jones. Now, I'm not totally anti-Mack Jones. Once upon a time, this show, way back in 2020,

advocated for the draft of Mac Jones because I thought, well, you have Justin Jefferson and he's on a rookie deal. So if you put a lot of money into rebuilding the defense and he plays sort of like Kirk Cousins, then profit. And I think that that is still possible. But there is very likely a ceiling on Mac Jones that is not somebody who's very likely. It's always possible. Like, you know, guys have won playoffs.

games without playing very well. Didn't TJ Yates want to play off game at one point? And it's happened, but you would probably need a lot of luck and a really great matchup and everything to fall perfectly for a quarterback who is, I think, good, but not good enough to take you over the top with the physical limitations. He's not a playmaker. He's not going to get outside the pocket. What you see is going to be what you get and just numbers wise has been a very poor downfield thrower over his career just doesn't feel like something that is going to be a great fit unless they're going to go to this underneath crossing route type of offense which worked for him in san francisco i just have a tough time seeing it having any sort of ceiling in this

division that goes beyond maybe eight or nine wins if he plays okay i mean i i know they got nine this year. One of them was an exhibition game at the end of the season. You know, maybe you could get 10 wins with him. It's just very hard to see one of those classic Viking stories of, hey, this guy played for this other random team and then was really great. Like, I think Jones is very much a fringe starting quarterback in the league. So he is below just finding out more about J.J. McCarthy. Number seven is Aaron Rogers.

and for the story and for the entertainment value and for the attention on the situation and the Vikings franchise and everything else, the view count after every single press conference that Aaron Rogers holds, you know, okay, that's fine. He can still throw the ball. There's no question about that. But in terms of how you can deal with pressure, we saw that in Pittsburgh. the ceiling on that just does it just feels like another 9-10 win and then you're probably going to be eliminated in the playoffs.

Also, that's even assuming that Rogers has as much as he did in Pittsburgh. He took a whole other year of hits to go along with, you know, you, I think the body ages faster when you get into the late 30s and the 40s. Now you are asking for a guy to go into almost his mid-40s playing starting quarterback for the Vikings. it would just feel like they did it for the entertainment, they did it for the attention, they did it for a guy who could definitely get the ball to Justin Jefferson. There's no doubt about that.

But can he really take you any farther at this age? If you were taking me back, even a couple years with Aaron Rogers, I would say, well, yeah, of course you want to do this. I'm just not convinced that it can go very far. And option number eight is Kirk Cousins. the only reason why Kirk Cousins wouldn't be too bad of an option is if you told me that it is in earnest, not a fake quarterback competition, but a true quarterback competition with him and J.J. McCarthy. I don't know if Kirk signs without guarantees that he's going to be the starter because there's other teams that are so desperate for a quarterback that he could just go play somewhere else. and he's already on record at Radio Row, having said that he wants to play.

So if, I mean, I think he said I would prefer to play. But I mean, this guy can go be a broadcaster and make more millions of dollars broadcasting. Clearly, his tryout went really, really well with CBS. He could replace Matt Ryan and just go forward and talk ball like the rest of us. So if he's not going to do that, then that means he's going to play, right? I think that that has the possibility of going very poorly, considering that unlike Aaron Rogers, he was never an elite athlete to begin with. So were he to drop off even more, which he's already dropped off and through a ton of percentage

of his passes, 20% of his passes behind the line of scrimmage last year, wasn't really able to push the ball downfield in the last two years like he used to. And yet I still think he would win in training camp, a quarterback competition, because he knows the offense inside and out. And because if you watch him throw in practice, he's very accurate. We know that, you know, J.J. McCarthy can make progress, but he can't reach the level of accuracy of a guy who's 37. And I do think Kirk could run the offense.

He could get them in games. It's just very hard to see in this division, them being much more than a third place team with Kirk Cousins as their quarterback. And then what did you really gain from this season? So there you go. To recap the list, Kyla Murray, love the upside. It's very risky if it didn't work out.

But he's done it before. Malik Willis, there's a player who's on the rise and might have a case to come here. Derek Carr is the Randall Cunningham route. Daniel Jones is number four. Just stick with J.J. McCarthy. Number five. Six is Mack Jones.

Number seven, Aaron Rogers. And number eight is Kirk Cousins. So there is your official purple insider list of Vikings potential options at quarterback. Now, the thing that we don't know, just to add a little bit of, you know, context to it, the thing that we do not know is whether the Vikings want someone to be in competition with J.J. McCarthy or if they want another starting quarterback. I was going on the assumption that they want. that they want another starting quarterback for this list

and then working my way through that. And there's some other quarterbacks that someone asked about Tua, Tua's not coming to the Minnesota Vikings. I mean, if they did, that would be crazy considering that Brian Flores is here. No one is, they can't take that contract. So that would mean he would get released

and he's going to sign with a team where Brian Flores is. That seems pretty unlikely. So, all right, let me, let me duck first under the table here. and let's get your reactions. Let's see how you guys felt about this list here. Well, we'll scroll down a little bit to get there. But Rich says, let's face it, KOC doesn't run the ball. His offense is predictable.

I mean, we can't spend the entire season, the off season, just saying they'll never win anything because of their coach, who has twice put them in position to be legitimate contenders. So we just can't do that. And I also think that O'Connell is going to commit to running the ball. Now, last year, the thing about the Vikings running game last year is that it was fairly efficient. It wasn't unbelievable. It wasn't Adrian Peterson.

It wasn't Delvin Cook. It was at least above average in terms of expected points added in yards per carry. Now, I'm sure you're saying, well, yeah, but he didn't use it. I mean, that's true in some instances for sure. but I think that this year bumping up Keith Carter to the offensive line coach and going outside and getting some experts on the run side, they are going to commit to that. So all those quarterbacks go along with. And look, they succeeded, even in 2024, they succeeded with play action without having an effective run game. Let's see.

Janice says, do we know for sure that Kyler has offsetting language in his contract? I do not know that for 100% sure, the fella who works for over the cap.com, Troy Chapman, came on the show, did say that he expects that to be the case if they were to release Kyler Murray. And that's the thing. Like each one of these things comes with an asterisk in my ranking. If you're trading for Kyler Murray's contract, of course not. No way.

If you're paying Daniel Jones $45 million a year, no, of course not. No way. So every one of those and Malik Willis, same thing has that asterisk to it, that it has to be under the right circumstances. But, you know, I figured that was kind of obvious that that would be the case. Uh, oops, 61. Kyler's a trash quarterback and a locker room poison. Look, man, I every, people just say stuff about, I'm going to keep going back to Sam

Darnold. How many people when they signed Sam Darnel put in this comment. section, the guy who sees ghosts, the guy who sees ghosts, like you're the first one who's ever thought of it. I mean, first I would like to say, when you say trash quarterback, I keep going back to these stats and I just don't know that anybody listens in 2024, 3,800 yards, 24 touchdowns, 10 picks, 500 yards rushing, and ranked 12th by PFF. Now, was it inconsistent? Yes, it was. He had a game where they beat the range. 41 to 10 and he had six big time throws.

He had other games that were very frustrating that season. That's been who Kyler Murray is. He's had games like, man, against the Vikings in 2021. Go back and watch that game. Tell me he's a trash, Q, trash, keep, like great description, man. I mean, do we got any other thing that you can use to sort of show that with your hands or numbers or anything?

Or you just, you know, dismiss somebody. But it's the same thing that's happened to Sam, darn all this whole career and he's got a Lombardi. So I like to see when I look at these options, well, what would fit and what might work and what might make sense under the right circumstances because what I know is that the Vikings can give whatever quarterback a very good set of circumstances. And as far as the locker room goes, I'm glad to know that you were in the locker room with him, but I have not been able to find anything.

And look, I don't believe that the guy is John Elway in terms of leadership. I don't think he's Joe Montana. I've never said that. There's smoke and fire. There's truth to all rumors. I'm sure that there is truth there. But I also think that these narratives get out of control. Like one person says he's a bad leader or something and then everybody just buys it.

I mean, the reason for them to get rid of Kyler Murray is that they sign this huge contract, but they're not ready to win at all. the worst thing that Kyler Murray could do for them would be win eight games and maybe it was and then they had to go and uh you know tank this year by sitting it uh oliphant says zero interest in kioc isn't willing to change his plan of attack so this is my point he doesn't have to he actually doesn't have to and here's where i can show you some of this stuff let me switch my let me switch my screen here i will show you some of this stuff what i'm talking about because this is another thing that I don't think is really true.

So when we look at just for example, the play action passing for Kyler Murray in 2004. And we go look at 2004 play action dropback percentage. Let's look at Darnold. How often, so Sam Darnold used play action on 28% of his passes. And let's find Kyler Murray. And let's take a look at his performance. So Kyler Murray, oh, look, 29%.

They used play action on the same exact percentage of their dropbacks. And in terms of ranking for yardage using play action, Sam Darnold was number three and Kyler Murray was number five. They ran a lot of play action concepts with Kyler Murray. And when he used play action, he had a 101.1.4 quarterback rating, which was 15th in the league. So he had at least a fair amount of success. as a play action quarterback, which we know is what the Vikings are going to do.

I think it's pro football reference has the percentage of under center snaps, where Kyler Murray was about, I mean, he was a little bit behind Sam Darnel, but still way more than you would have thought. It was like 23%. Let's see. Let's take a look. He only ran screens 10% of the time. They actually had success with him.

Whoever did their screens come work for the Vikings. Let's look at passing depth. And this is 2024. So this is his passing depth right here. How far he threw the ball? When we look at intermediate passing between 10 and 19 yards, he had his highest PFF grade of 86.9 and his highest quarterback rating of anywhere throwing the ball on the field of 104.1.

So he was running a lot of similar type of stuff from a statistical perspective as the Vikings do, intermediate passing. And his deep passing was not great. but it also was not horrible either. The QB rating is, but the PFF grade was not. Short stuff was a little less effective for him, but the short game is not exactly short game, Kyler Murray. And when we look at intermediate in the middle of the field,

he is not thrown deep in the middle of the field much, but intermediate in the middle of the field was his highest PFF grade of throwing anywhere on the field. So when I look at those numbers, I think that all kind of matches up. with how the Vikings want to play, where they want to get Justin Jefferson the ball, getting their quarterback under center, maybe rolling him out and moving him away, like Sam Darnold did a lot. This year with Seattle, Sam Darnold, number one in the NFL in yards

when he was rolling out of the pocket. And so you don't have to always stand in there and whip it over the middle of the field. Uh, Kyler Murray hasn't won for a reason. Well, he does have at least one season where he's won. But, you know, when you look at like just for a win loss record, I mean, Matthew Stafford, when he went to the Los Angeles Rams, what was his win loss record? I think it was like 74, 90 and one or something like that. I mean, where is Joe Burrow? Well, you know, look, there's another asterisk for you because obviously Joe Burrow would be

the number one option. And we all know that. um kiler is only two inches shorter than case keatum and we should have sent he kept case keat um let it let it go let it go is that mahal let it go mahal let it go um i've always thought about that what if they had kept case keanum like would they have gotten to the playoffs in 2018 i don't know i mean maybe unless i mean if he fell off the face of the earth then no but maybe they would have grinded out some more more wins playing really conservative as opposed to trying to throw every play with Kirk. But they couldn't run that year because Delvin came back and got hurt and the offensive line was tough. I don't know. That's old news. DL.M. If you figure in feasibility, I think Murray and Carr jumped to number one and two sticking with JJ at third. Not sure they can pay Willison Jones. That's a very fair point. And that's why the list can only be made with information that I know or and we

don't know, like, how much is Indianapolis willing to pay Daniel Jones coming off the Achilles injury? Are they willing to make an investment? Would Daniel Jones require a hundred million dollars guaranteed or something based on a half a season that was good with Indianapolis and once upon a time making the playoffs with the Giants? Or because I was figuring that Daniel Jones would once again be signing a short term, like not super high money deal. That's why he's on the list. as a plausible option. And he has familiarity with KOC from things that Daniel Jones said about Minnesota. He really enjoyed his time and learned a lot from, I mean, he had mentioned that in interviews.

So it seems like he liked Minnesota. But yeah, I mean, to your point about feasibility, if Kyler has the offsetting language or there's a trade where they take 90% of his cap, then yeah. And Derek Carr, I mean, the same thing. Like the Saints, they're not going to keep him. They're playing Tyler Shuck. So they have to trade him for almost nothing and take a lot of the cap hit because otherwise no one's going to do it. And then he can force their hand.

So you're right about that. Malik Willis, I just have no sense for this. I was talking to Jason Wildy about that. Like, how much is the league going to pay for Malik Willis? And my pitch to Malik has been take less here to make more later. You go to the Jets. Good luck, man. Good luck.

you're going to end up with like three other teams. Mr. Mayor says Kyler and Malik are my preferred options. I think Kyler gets 4,300 yards, 30 touchdowns on the 2025 Vikings. And Malik has had two years of development in a QB factory with like six outstanding starts. Yeah, I mean, that's where my logic is coming from by putting those two at the top of the list is if Kyler Marie is healthy and he's locked in and he is motivated. by the potential of another big contract down the road. Let's not forget that the two quarterbacks who left the Vikings, Sam Darnold and Kirk Cousins,

they both got way more money than we would have expected before, right? Before KOC got there, if you're Kyler Murray, you're looking for the next $100 million contract. And, you know, maybe that's from the Vikings, I don't know, depending on how well it went. But, I mean, I don't think it's absurd to say that Kyler Murray could throw for 4,000 yards with this team with the way that they're going to play.

And if you go look at what DeAndre Hopkins did with him as the quarterback, Justin Jefferson's getting the ball. That's one thing you can guarantee. He throws with anticipation, a ton of anticipation sometimes. He's very accurate at times and very exciting at times. If you're in a situation where you need to start a quarterback, it's hard to do better than that when you look at the other options. uh she chison chison chison says uh aaron rogers will be the viking's quarterback and he'll retire

after a huge sack by the bears bret farv style it's inevitable uh let's see uh native res runner i love rogers because it could be a far of type of year i don't know it would be fun to see him in purple i'm an oldie though rogers was drafted when i graduated high school I mean, with Aaron Rogers, if you could go back in time, it would be incredible. Now, the thing about Favre coming here, people did think Farr was cooked when he got to Minnesota. And if you go back and watch the first game that he starts, I mean, it's mostly handoffs and his short throws and stuff. And like, you're not seeing the old Brett Fav until he made the Greg Lewis throw against the San Francisco 49ers. So it could come alive for Aaron Rogers.

there were times this year, there were games this year, where Aaron Rogers was fantastic for the Pittsburgh Steelers. But there's just not that many. There's just not that many times. And if we go take a look at Aaron Rogers and his numbers, I think the thing that I want to look at is just, like, how consistent was Rogers for the Steelers? And I know they're the Steelers. And this is my issue, even if you could only see the colors, you see a lot of green, But you also see a lot of red and orange in here being the bad games. So you've got some games where he plays really well.

And I mean, this game against Jacksonville where he averages 9.6 yards per attempt, three touchdowns. There were some good games in there. And, you know, a 68.7 PFF grade is, oh, no, I was looking at 2024. I'm sorry. I was looking at 2024. There's even more red in the 2025. There's a stretch where he had games.

of 35, 42, and 46 grades. I mean, that's just really tough. Baltimore was the game that he played really well, 88 pff grade. But this is one, two, three, four catastrophic games and an overall 68.7 pff grade, a very low average depth of target of 6.4 yards. Uh, that's, I mean, that's just, that's just really, really rough there.

I mean, it's, it's just hard to make the argument that Rogers has enough to play 17 games and be really good. If you could give me Rogers, he plays every other week. How about this? Rogers and McCarthy play every other week like Bill Walsh was doing in 1988 with Montana and Steve Young or something. Then I could see it. I shot you 99. I still don't see the intrigue with Malik Willis, Leflour, dumbed down the offense so much when he played. they don't trust Willis to throw the ball a ton.

I don't trust him to throw 25 times a game. I just don't agree with that. I agree with that for 2024. I do not agree in 2025. Those games that he played, especially the Baltimore game, that was not a dumb down offense. He was playing an entire offense in that game.

I did not see this simplified, hey, let's have them just, you know, sort of throw to first reads and everything else. I mean, that was real legitimate quarterback play to me. and the accuracy in which he threw the football. This is not just like a game or two. This is really excellent performance over, yeah, okay, a dumb down offense at first,

if you want to call it that or a simple offense. But then he develops over another year, comes right in the game. I mean, you, you think that they just changed the whole game plan in the play sheet when he came in in the game against Baltimore? or was it Chicago? Was it Chicago?

Well, he had to come into, did he have to come into both of them because he had to come into both because of injury, right? Or did he start Baltimore? But the game against Chicago, he had to come off the bench. It's not like they have a different play sheet. Oh, let's get the Malik Willis easy offense. They had to go with the game plan that they prepared everybody for. And he ran that extremely well.

So I don't know. I mean, after a couple years of development of really learning how to play, somebody with that much talent who looks the part, it's at least interesting based on the, the arm, based on the mobility. And I just didn't see what you're talking about in 2025. I did in 2024, where they kind of, you know, they just made it very straightforward for him. I think he was playing real quarterback after that.

Mr. Mayor, I think that the cards would listen if we offered a late round pick, even if it made them eat 80 to 95, to 90% of the contract possible. Definitely possible. Mahal, the team is over the cap. Don't have space for Willis. That's not exactly. I mean, okay, so that's true.

But they can also, they have one of the highest numbers that you can create via restructure. So they can create like $100 million by restructuring and extending guys. So they have cap space. It depends. And if you watch my episode from yesterday where I played around with the tool rebuilding, the Vikings roster. you can see where you can restructure all those deals you could make it work you could sign

him to a contract that didn't have a very high cap hit for the first year and then got a bigger progressively and built in some restructures or whatever it is you can you can make it work if you want to i think with this it depends on how much it's going to be though like there is a certain price where you would have to say okay we're not going to pay 42 million dollars a year for Malik Willis. But what if it was, what if it's two for 30 and the first year cap hit is like 10?

I mean, wasn't that Sam Darnold? That, that is something they could do. Chisin, watching Aaron Rogers in that last playoff game. I don't know. He looked shook and done taking those hits.

Yeah, that was that playoff game to me. I remember doing the show after that and just saying, look, this was a good year for. Aaron Rogers and it worked out for him in Pittsburgh. That was a good team and they were competitive and they made the playoffs. But that's the reason that I still think it was better for the Vikings not to have Aaron Rogers because it was always going to end like that. It was always going to end with him just taking too many hits and not being able to escape.

The mobility is completely gone, even if the arm is not. To me, he's like, to me, he's like a guy who. who should retire and then do a Philip Rivers when somebody else's quarterback gets hurt, come in and play like five games because he looked like he was aching. Like remember when he made a big play and his offensive tackle kind of jumped on him and he went to the ground and kind of lost his mind. Like, I can't take hits like that. I mean, he didn't want anybody touching him.

So the other thing with Aaron Rogers is, I mean, I think you can have your complaints about Kevin O'Connell's offense if you want about, you know, the running game and did he do enough of this or that? You know, we've been through all that. But if you're talking about like a passing game concepts, they work. We've seen them work. Do you want Aaron Rogers coming in and running his offense? And do you want him throwing the ball away?

Do you want him checking it short all the time? He's kind of done that to avoid hits over the last couple of years. So, you know, I think that it would be. maybe not the best fit. Mr. Mayor says, if some of y'all think that Kyla Murray is a locker room problem, then unironically want Aaron Rogers. Yeah. That's just so hard for me to know.

I have not seen distinct reporting. And if you have, you know, a link or evidence or whatever that says Kyler Murray and the attitude is a problem. It has been insinuated a number of times. And as I said, smoke and fire, truth to all rumors like, that's fair to say, hey, like, there's something going on with that guy and Kingsbury, although I heard so much less of it last year, Kingsbury, that relationship didn't seem like it was on point. Kingsbury comes back to the league. It's fired again in another year,

so I don't know how credible that is exactly. It seemed like Jonathan Gannon and Drew Petsing were on the same page with them in 2024. They actually went into 2025 with some people talking about, well, hey, you know, like this could work out. He gets injured. They lose some games. They decide they're going to tank. And we never really know. I just heard less of that, that buzzed last year with a different coach.

And I do know that those things can be circumstantial. Now, he might have some issues. He might have some problems with leadership. He might have some problems with preparation. I don't know. Now, that was one thing that, you know, Daniel Jones praised. about the Vikings was Kevin O'Connell's preparation. Can Kevin O'Connell reach him would have to be something that he needs to know before they make

a move like that. But we've also seen for a guy that has these issues, we've seen a very, very high level of performance over stretches of his career. Uh, did want to bring you real quick. The Fandual question of the day. So I want to look at shortly this list of plays. from Greg Rosenthal of NFL media and Bill Barnwell. They made a list of tradable players.

And I want to go over that and see if we think, hey, maybe the Vikings could. Apparently the list that they made last year, there were nine of the guys of the like 25 or whatever they made that actually did get traded. So we'll take a look at that. But here is your Fanduil question of the day. And we'll get back to your comments.

What's one move that you? you do not want to see in free agency or the draft for the NFC North, the rest of the NFC North. You do not want to see the Lions, Packers, or Bears do X. What is that move? And for the Packers specifically, I noticed today they are plus 700, which is third to win the conference for next year on Fandul. And all three teams are other teams in the NFC North are pretty high in the rankings there.

You know, of course, there's a long way to go. But what move do you not want to see the NFC North make is your fan duel question of the day? Okay. Let me get back to your questions and comments here. Diled up. There we go. Okay. Um, runner 87.

Am I blind to think that Rogers has magic left? No, I mean, you're not, you're not blind because when we were just looking at those games, there are some where he was good. There are somewhere he was legitimately good and he had that Hail Mary where he threw it like, I don't know, 70 yards in the air or something. The arm is clearly still there. But can you get him, think about the number of times that you saw Vikings quarterbacks sit in the pocket.

And this is why Sam Darnold was kind of perfect for Kevin O'Connell. Sit in the pocket. Here comes the pressure. This was 22, Kirk. Someone's breaking open. You have to hang out of the ball to that very last second. Then let it go. And boom, you get hit.

And Justin Jefferson gets 27 yards. How many times did we see that, even from Carson Wentz? Do you, I mean, do you think that Aaron Rogers is going to be willing to play that way to let these concepts really play out in front of them? I mean, I think you'd have to have an unbelievable offensive line. The Steelers did not have a good line, which may have caused a lot of the short throwing, and they were using D.K. Meckhaff as kind of a running back at times,

so you've got more route runners. Just seems like how much magic could there really be? That's, that is the question. Ron says, sorry, Matt, none of them. Well, one of the options was stick with JJ. J. McCarthy. I mean, if none of the, I don't, then I got nothing. I got nothing for you. Uh, then it's, yeah, I guess then you want Joe Burrow or I don't know. Like, I guess saying none of them is fair because all of them have their drawbacks.

Uh, Ron adds, Malik Willis is interesting, but not under KOC. I think, do you want to say it? Is it because he's like a runner? Is that why we say that? I mean, I don't. because it didn't work out for Josh Dobbs. Josh Jobs is not a starting quarterback in the league. So Malik Willis, watch those games. He played quarterback.

He dropped back. He hit the back foot. He released the ball. He threw at times with anticipation. I mean, if you watch those two games, that's a guy playing complete quarterback. That's not a runner. And I also don't think there's a system in the league where the quarterback is just a runner. Not one.

I mean, they use Allen that way. They use Jackson that way. Every quarterback has to stand in there and throw it. And Willis showed that he could. I mean, I know that like running the ball more effectively is fine. But also let's keep this in mind. As we talk for the entire offseason, I want everybody to pinky swear that they'll keep this in mind that the top average depth of quarter of target quarterbacks, like made

the Super Bowl or the NFC championship game. the guys who had the most explosive plays threw down the field the most effectively Drake May, Matthew Stafford, Sam Darnold, explosive passing, kind of always in forever. There's a reason KOC does it. It's not like he woke up someday and was like, you know what, man, I like when they go,

and throw it super far down the field. It's because statistically it wins. And everyone wanted quick game, but actually J.J. McCarthy's best passing was down the field. I mean, I don't think he's got that wrong. I really don't. And look, look, running is great. And it's awesome to be able to run to keep the defense sort of at bay.

It's still the passing efficiency, which is largely going to drive your success. So you need to have a quarterback that's going to be able to push the ball down the field, has the arm to do it and play off of a run game. Mr. Mayor would it be, would also be kind of fun to have Kyler and Wentz on the team since they grew up together as, or they grew up as Vikings fans. Oh, I didn't know that Kyler grew up as a Viking fan. That I did not know. Got to wonder if Kyler pushes that a little bit harder to bring a Super Bowl to his childhood team.

I did not know Kyle Murray grew up as a Vikings fan. That's interesting. I wonder if that was, is he old enough for that to have been because of Moss? I did not know that. Okay, that's funny. Henrim, we need to sign Super Bowl champion Drewlock. Hey, look, that's kind of option number five is just looking for a backup quarterback. Oak Dog says year off for cars, very high risk.

So the year off thing is weird because on one hand, a year off could be super high risk and the guy could come back and is just a rust bucket and it doesn't work out at all. I could also see another world where like it's actually good for him, because he's healthy. And these football players, I mean, they push so hard and they do so much to get their bodies ready every year. And they take so much punishment that sometimes like a healing year, I think it might be really helpful.

I think it certainly was for Randall Cunningham. There's been a few other players that were off for a year and came back and played well. I don't doubt that Derek Carr can still throw the ball and could still have a top 15 type of season. I think that's very plausible based on the way. that he was playing for the New Orleans Saints if he's healthy. It's just the only thing that holds me back on Carr is that it really feels like a one-year solution unless he's playing into his late 30s.

And it also feels like a one-year solution that reminds me of Kirk Cousins, 2022 or 2019 or like as this, this could be good. This could be team in the playoffs. Is there a next notch to that? I don't know that there is. Like with Kyler Murray, at least you could convince me. And I think that there's probably limitations there, but you could convince me based on his best moments that there's something there that he could get hot in the playoffs

and suddenly be unstoppable and win a playoff game and get you. And then you're like in the NFC championship or something like that. That seems like it's a little more possible. You could make the case that Carr would be a better fit for KOC's offense, especially with his ability to throw down the field. uh, Chison, Derek Carr wasn't that good when he was last playing a couple years ago. Oh, I mean, that's just not true, man. That's just not true.

Uh, Derek Carr, let's go to the numbers. Let's go find out. Let's go find out what Derek Carr was ranked in 2024. Let's see, all quarterbacks with 20% of dropbacks. Where did he rank? Derek Carr was eighth by PFF. Sam Darnold was 10th in 2004. So the last time the league saw Derek Carr,

he was great as a top 10 quarterback. I mean, I think that we just kind of forget these things if we weren't paying really, this is why I love to use the numbers, because if we weren't paying really a close attention to a team or a player, we just sort of assume whatever we thought before is what continued to happen. And here was my research on Derek Carr specifically. when he had tough years and then you went back and look like what happened it was always kind of the same thing it was like well didn't have an offensive line didn't have his number one receiver

or didn't have an offense that he seemed to fit in and then there are other years where things worked for him that his numbers are very good and i don't think he has elite quarterback in there but does he have 22 kirk in there oh yeah i mean he could play at that level and then you win some games at the end and you're a playoff contender and like that's you're you the vikings need to be looking to make a serious case for themselves with a great defense an offensive line that if it's healthy we know it can play what i expect to be a revamped running game and just Jefferson is that enough to win the super bowl i do not know i'm not going to be the person who says well last year you know the seahawks were 60 to one and no one thought they

could do it because usually the Super Bowl favorites tend to be the ones that get there over history. But there are instances of a complete team adding a quarterback and having success. And Carr is that kind of level of quarterback. I don't think he's quite as good as Sam Darnold, but I don't think he's, if you look at his career, I don't think he's 500 miles away from Sam Darnold. It's probably the most reliable option. uh, X, something. You've explained this one to me before, but I can't remember it.

Uh, is a trade for a quarterback out of the question not named Mac Jones or Derrick Carr. So I did see today that I think it was Todd McShay may have said that he thinks C.J. Stroud is available. But John McLean, who is the longtime reporter for the Texans, put the. cabosh on that like no he's he's not available uh and that is an odd one because shroud played so well early in his career and then just has never gotten back to that same level and it's hard to figure out why like he's had some injuries along the way that i wonder if they impacted him um does the is the offensive scheme is the offensive line he sort of plays like he's shaken all the time now

and doesn't really have those moments like he did in his first year. And it's clear that the NFL is figured out and the Vikings did in 2024, that some deception can throw him off. I think is also the other thing, too. Like, I don't know that he is the fastest at just taking the snap and seeing everything and identifying. Like, I think he needs time in the pocket.

And then if the throw is there, he can really make it. But Stroud, I guess is the only one that comes to mind. I don't know. of other too many other options that would be available via trade via trade except for you know of course Joe Burrow who is number one on the list if the list is being unrealistic. Mr. Mayor, how do you even consider signing Jones after his injury? Well, I don't know how bad the injury was. We just heard Achilles. So just an example. I mean, Brian O'Neill had a torn and came back the next season and was fine and played and it was all right.

Because it was not a completely torn Achilles. I did not see details on this injury and how bad it was or what degree. There's also multiple different kinds of surgeries on the Achilles, one of which has a much harder road than the other. And I mean, look, Cam Acres tore his Achilles and then tore it again and then came back and still played in the NFL as a running back. So it doesn't have to turn into what it looks like with Kirk. But as I know this myself from being kind of the same age as Kirk and Aaron Rogers,

the old body recovers a little slower when you're in your late 30s as opposed to when you're in your late 20s. So I think with Daniel Jones, the expectation is that he should be able to come back and at least be a pocket quarterback. I don't know how much the Colts really even used his mobility like the Giants did. it's it's worth considering because they know him there's familiarity there he's familiar with the offense and if he played like he did last year even remotely with the colts they could win games i think that's why he's on the list but he's not the highest on the list uh shison says or shy son is it shy son maybe it's chic like chicago son maybe that's it uh says i'll i'm going to call it that nobody talks about richardson on the colts he could be

So my thing with Anthony Richardson is definitely not against acquiring Anthony Richardson. If you were, I mean, how crazy would this quarterback room be? Let's say the quarterback room was Derek Carr, J.J. McCarthy and Anthony Richardson and Max Brosmer. And Brett Rippin, because of course, like Brett Rippin, Brett Rippin just biding time until he becomes a quarterback coach and then immediately becomes an offensive coordinator. That is Brett Rippin's future. Brett, just keep doing you and you will get there, I promise.

But I mean, that would be an interesting, very interesting training camp, a quarterback room. But the thing about Anthony Richardson is if they were, now, I know that he had the injury and then maybe he would have been eligible to come back at the end. So that's part of the reason that they went with the Phillip Rivers thing. But he can't throw the ball. And he had several years to make progress there. and just could not throw,

couldn't execute the short stuff, couldn't execute the on-time stuff. And I believe there is a world with Anthony Richardson where if he was like a Vikings backup, like Gino Smith, remember Gino went to New York for a while, Gino went, think about Gino's arm, right? And then went to Seattle and was a backup for like five or six years

and then got his shot. I totally believe that Anthony Richardson could do it. I just don't think he could do it anytime soon. So if you wanted to trade a conditional seventh for him and say, hey, we're going to bring you in. We're going to teach you how to really play quarterback over five years. If it can go on that long, then maybe because he is an absolute freak. But, I mean, he just developed none at all when it came to throwing.

And there's your cautionary tale. You know, people like to bring up Josh Allen improving, but there's a lot more Anthony Richardson's. But it's a fun idea and a fun conversation. also. I appreciate you guys, all of you, jumping in here and having a discussion, reacting to the list. I'll get you, very shortly, I'll get you that list from Greg Rosenthal of the tradable players, but just running through your reactions to my list. Let's see.

Just call you Heinz. Willis for sure, not even close. I like the Willis idea. When you guys hear this podcast, I've referenced a couple times when you hear the that the Packers reporter, Jason Wilde, talks about Malik Willis. I think you'll be more sold on the idea. It's just whether he actually wants to do it or not. But this is somebody who worked really hard to get to this point and did not let being put

into a backup position ruin his career. He struggled with Tennessee, but he just developed and got better and better. And there's a lot of quarterbacks throughout NFL history who have been a backup or who did not succeed right away, including Sam Darnold, that it had a click eventually. The one thing that threw me off a little bit about Malik Willis is that, and this is where you mentioned, hey, Matt Lafleur's offense, you know, was this or that when he was in there, did not really throw much over the center of the field when he was in with Green Bay over those two years.

And that is something that KOC is going to want is guys who can attack the middle of the field. Now, that doesn't mean he can't. He only threw like 100 passes. But there is a floor because of his scrambling ability. I think there is a floor to Malik Willis that's fairly high. Like, let's say his throwing ends up being only okay. But his running could be prolific.

So I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued. At least, like, there's only two guys on the list who you could say if they got them and it worked out. This guy could be here a while. And that's really Murray and Malik Willis. Those are the only two. uh, Rye guy says people are going to stop taking you seriously with the Kyler takes. Well, you know, look, here's what I remember from last year.

I remember people coming into my comment section and saying, people aren't going to take you seriously if you say Sam Darnold should come back. People aren't going to take you seriously if you say that Sam Darnold could be good here when he signs. I don't know. Look, I, here's what I do with no matter what it is. We just go with the evidence. We look up what guys did.

we try to factor everything we can, and then we go with the evidence. Kyler Murray 2024 played in an offense similar to what the Vikings have. He played under center a lot. He ran successfully with play action a lot. They moved him out of the pocket. They ran the football and played off of that,

which I know, you know, the Vikings don't do that as much, but they do play action off of it. And he threw very effectively into the intermediate areas of the field where the Vikings, especially with Kirk Couss, it's attacked the heck out of defenses. Think about all the times where Justin Jefferson is running a deep in-cut. And here's the football, hitting him right out of his break.

How many times did they do that with Kirk Cousins? He really threw the ball in 2024, a lot like Kirk Cousins did in 2022. And if you're going to tell me that you can look at what Vikings receivers have done for quarterbacks over their years and say there's no way that that could happen. for someone who's won 11 games before in the league, who has last year been a top 12 quarterback, 2024, you're telling me there's no way that could work. I don't know.

Maybe I'm not going to take you seriously if you think there's no way that that could work. I mean, because to me, that screams like classic Minnesota Vikings Reclamation project, but, you know, I don't know if they're going to have the choice to do it. I don't know if they're interested. I don't have any sense for what direction they're going to go, but the argument is there.

And that's what we do here. So I just, there's a lot of times. It's just funny throughout my entire career. There's a lot of time. In 2018, you want me to go through them with you? In 2018, I was on the radio, 1,500 ESPN when it used to exist. And I was doing the 2018 draft when they selected Mike Hughes. And I said to, I was on the air with,

and with Chris Long. And I said to them, do you guys think that the Vikings should have drafted Lamar Jackson? And I put out a pull. And you know what the responses said? No one's going to take you seriously if you're saying they should draft Lamar Jackson. Why would they draft Lamar Jackson? They just signed Kirk. I don't know.

Just an idea. Just a thought. Maybe that would have been okay for them. I don't know. He's a two-time MVP of the league. Maybe it was a good idea. I'm not sure. There's a lot of times where people have said that to me.

when I bring up different ideas. And sometimes it works out. Not always. Sometimes. DLM. Yeah. So I did an episode with Stick to the Model.com. If you guys want to go watch that.

And I kind of blew it. But I also did some things that I think would be quite helpful. I didn't know what to do with the quarterback position on there. You got them a bunch of cap space left over. So I did not. I used every dollar. I signed a bunch of guys. I signed a running back.

and drafted one in the second round, which was kind of a mistake, but I forgot that I did it. Mahal get Pro Bowl or Joe Flacco. Look, if they get Joe Flacco, then it's option number five, which is stick with J.J. McCarthy. Mr. Mayor thought our running game was fine last year. There were, there were several notable times where they kind of needed it and it wasn't there. There were several notable times where they forgot about it. Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, you know, the odd part, the odd part about the criticism for KOC and not using the run game enough is that most of the times that was true is actually when Carson

Wentz is playing. Like I was going back through the season and trying to find like where, where was it that maybe I was annoyed or you guys were frustrated with KOC not leaning on the run game enough? And most of the McCarthy games, okay, Atlanta was definitely one of them. that there is a few situations, one at the goal line where he fumbles the ball. The guy is wide open and he just fumbles the snap. But maybe you should just hand it off to Jordan Mason. There's another time where he gets strips act. They didn't block a guy.

There was a misunderstanding on the offensive line. He was going out of empty in a game where you're getting killed on the line. You could run the ball there. Philadelphia, second down and one. There was the deep shot on third and short that I thought was fine. but the third down stuff was problematic. Most of the time though, when McCarthy was in, they ran the ball fairly effectively and played off of it.

And guys were open and they either dropped the ball or were missed. And it didn't work out. But overall, it was a league average run game that they could have made a little bit better. Sean says I would swap the Joneses. Daniel has had major surgery, major back surgery and Achilles. Mack might be the 15th best quarterback at his peak. I think that that is a very very. fair take. I also feel like Mac Jones has been a backup for the Jaguars and a backup for the 49ers.

And well, you could say that Sam Darnold came from the 49ers as the backup. I think we all know the difference. And that's what's attached to the right arm or to the right side of the body and the arm. It's quite a bit different between him and Sam Darnold for talent wise, arm talent wise. it just feels like such a limited upside. Plus, you have to trade for him. Daniel Jones is a UFA. You have to trade for him.

And the 49ers might not be willing to give him up pretty easily. Are you giving up like, I don't know, two third rounders or something for Mack Jones? And it just feels like limited upside. Now, here's one thing that you could make a case for is that there would be a quarterback competition with Mac Jones. This list was, if I need, need a starting quarterback, then this is my list.

If I'm looking for, if I was making a different list, which sounds like a good idea, because that's kind of an offseason plan, I want to make a lot of lists to start the show and then get your guys reaction. If I was making a list of guys who are only competition for J.J. McCarthy, Mack Jones would be number one. If, if you're talking about guys who are just there to be competition for J.J. McCarthy. DLM says hated the Kyler Murray route,

but if we can pull him with the offset contract, he could be a, we could be a possible top 10 offense. I think that too. I don't think that he would be the number one. I think there's too much inconsistency there. But could, could you crack the top 10?

Certainly. If you can run the ball a little more effectively, you can. There will be weeks where you're like, what? But also with Kirk, there were weeks where you were like what? With Derek, car look at his look at his game log in my article i showed uh derrick car's best season in his game log

by espns q br which is a one to a hundred and it's like 90 10 50 90 10 like there's a lot of quarterbacks that are up and down but if you're a scrambling short quarterback who's up and down it really sticks out a lot more