Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Patrick Peterson leaves, Aaron Rodgers might be a Jet and the Vikings sign a blocking TE

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

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Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider live here on YouTube as things are fast changing. And this time I'm not going to try to rely on the comment section to let me know what's going on. I will be looking down at my phone repeatedly though throughout this episode because we have just got some breaking news as I was getting ready to go live here. I was going to talk about where we stand with Aaron Rodgers, but Patrick Peterson has signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers and already the Vikings have lost Eric Hendricks and Adam Thielen. And now Patrick Peterson will not be returning either. And of course, if you guys want to jump in the comments, give your thoughts on what's going on in free agency today. We've got a lot to discuss. I'm going to be on here for about the next hour talking about what's going on and then jump back on later tonight to kind of recap the whole day.

Prepare us for what's next because we have not seen some of the bigger names. I think the Patrick Peterson exit was more or less, you know, inevitable that it didn't seem like it was going to be a very good fit for the Vikings with Brian Flores. Although Peterson is apparently going to talk on his podcast at some point about what happened between him and the Vikings, but it just makes sense for them to get younger in the secondary, for them to maybe sign some corners that might be a part of the future for them rather than having somebody who is in their 30s that is not going to be a major future piece. It just kind of fits for both sides. He goes to the Pittsburgh Steelers and, you know, I've seen some people taking shots at him like, oh, well, is that really

a Super Bowl contender? We don't really know right now. I mean, the Pittsburgh Steelers certainly win a lot with their franchise and are in the playoffs a lot. So I wouldn't count that out. We're very early in the offseason and we don't know what Kenny Pickett is either. So maybe he thinks that Kenny Pickett's got a chance or he just wanted to go to a consistently competitive franchise. I don't know. I'm not going to criticize that. Just from the Vikings perspective, it just fits with their timeline to not decide to try to keep Patrick Peterson around. And if you look at last year and what he did really in his two years as a Minnesota Viking, it turned out to be a tremendous signing for them,

a tremendous re-signing for them. They don't win 13 games without Patrick Peterson. And from my perspective as a reporter, it was really fascinating to just have time around Patrick Peterson. I think what we really saw was his intelligence, his smarts, and what role that played in him continuing to be a really good NFL player into his 30s. And also, if you ever thought that playing cornerback, that it wasn't a high IQ position, I think Patrick Peterson showed you because there's no way that he had the same physical speed and explosiveness as he once did when he was coming into the NFL. And yet by the numbers, Patrick Peterson was one of the best corners in the entire NFL. I mean,

just remarkable from last year. If you look at his numbers, when he was targeted, his PFF grades, all those things, they match up to some of the elite corners. And that also tells you a little bit about how defense works because you had a great cornerback who played really well, intercepted passes, was rarely targeted, was put on some top wide receivers. And yet the Vikings had an abysmal overall defense because they just had too many weaknesses. And that's kind of the point about rebuilding this team and how it isn't a quick fix. It isn't just get a new defensive coordinator. It isn't just draft a corner.

It's really an accumulation that they need to build up probably over a couple of years without trying to say, we're going to sign this one guy and he's going to be the quick fix. So good for Patrick Peterson. He's continuing on a Hall of fame career into his thirties, which is very, very hard to do. And also for the Vikings, this opens the door to them potentially drafting a cornerback. Not that it wasn't open with if he had returned, but maybe it raises the level a little bit of desperation for them to find more cornerbacks

to go along with Andrew Booth Jr. and Caleb Evans, because right now those are the only two guys basically on the roster. Taye Gowen and Kalen Barnes are also on the roster, but I don't think either one of those guys is going to be an impact player and Duke Shelly still a free agent. I know a lot of people have talked about how that, you know, they'd like to see Duke Shelly back. That makes a lot of sense. But again, you're not talking about someone who is really proven over a long period of time to be a quality starter. You'd kind of just be rolling the dice and that's how they're going to handle this cornerback

position more likely than not. And we had talked about here on the show Cameron Sutton, and we thought we were being clever because it was like, hey, look at some of those numbers with Cameron Sutton, and he's got this connection with Brian Flores. So maybe those guys can get together. And then immediately today, Cameron Sutton signs a big contract with the Detroit Lions. And what you're also seeing that we will get into is, yes, the NFC North has money to spend.

And the Chicago Bears are going crazy as we expected them to do. TJ Edwards, Tremaine Edmonds, they signed a guard. They are going all in on free agency because they absolutely had to in order to get to the cap floor. So they're spending a lot to improve their roster and getting high marks as anybody would for going out with as much money as they had in their pockets to spend. And so they have completely redone their linebacking group.

They've improved their offensive line. And there is more to go. I'm sure I'm sure for the Chicago bears. So once again, we kind of have this situation where we're talking about a key Vikings, older player who is leaving and the other teams in the division who have taken the rebuild route. Well, they're, I don't want to say thriving, but they're able to do a heck of a lot more than the Vikings. And there's so many things that we have to get to. So be patient. If you're watching live, I'm going to try to work my way through all of our headlines, and then we can get

into some of the things that are being said. The Vikings did indeed sign a blocking tight end, Josh Oliver. Now the deal is being reported as $7 million a year, but it's only about $11 million in actual guaranteed money. The structure of all of these contracts always matters, but I think what this says, I don't really think it points to anything in the bigger picture, signing a blocking tight end for a kind of a smaller contract.

It's not a huge mega deal like we've seen handed out to some tight ends before. But I think what it says is that Kevin O'Connell really wants to improve what they did in the running game last year. Now, when I looked closer at the numbers in the running game, it pointed much more to the running back than it did to the blocking. I mean, pro football focus graded the Vikings very highly when it came to their blocking. And TJ Hawkinson is not a blocking tight end. I mean, the guy is basically your number two wide receiver. So adding a blocking tight end does make some sense.

And Josh Oliver was the highest graded by PFF blocking tight end last year. And I think what they want to do, and Kevin O'Connell said this when I asked him about it at the combine, because I asked him about their running game being inefficient. And he said that the big thing with him is getting to second and five, getting opportunities where they can tie the run in the past together. And we've seen this work. And one of the problems last year was that they didn't hit on a whole heck of a lot of explosive plays downfield. And if you remember 2019, 2020, the Vikings were one of the best teams in the league at

explosive plays. Being more multiple is a positive thing. If you could put out different types of personnel groups, have it look like it's going to be a run play and it ends up being a throw down the field or just running more effectively with better blockers. So I get it. I really don't think that it is any sort of restrictive contract. When you see the first signing though is, well, they signed a blocking tight end to how much money? I get it. I get why people would kind of go, why? What is the point there? And the point is that they want to run the ball better and they want to run off play action

better. The Vikings were one of the few teams in the NFL last year that was actually not better running play action in terms of yards per attempt than they were without play action, which is hard to do. Most of the time, Kirk Cousins has taken huge steps forward when he uses play action. His stats are way better when he uses play action. That was not the case last year. And Kevin O'Connell is a well-read fellow. And I think that he understands that, that they have to be way better in terms of the run and play action game. Now, who's playing quarterback? This is another one of our headlines to hit on. And we just got another update, by the way, that Cam Dantzler signed with Washington. So if you were wondering where he was going to end up. But another one is that Mark Wilf was on TV today. He went on NFL Network to start the morning and naturally talked about the NFL PA study. And that's, I mean, always available to talk about A pluses across the board, but that makes sense. And he was asked about Kirk Cousins. And Mark Wilf said that they expect Kirk Cousins to be very good

and a leader for their team in 2023. And there was no commitment or not even the slightest hint of commitment beyond that, which also matches up with a report from Mike Garofalo of NFL Network about how the Vikings, and I think Ian Rappaport also reported this, the Vikings and Cousins have not really made any sort of real progress toward a contract extension. And so as we all do what I'm doing during the show, which is refreshing Twitter repeatedly, there isn't really any expectation that the Vikings are going to be able to sign Cousins to an extension. The only real question is, would they trade him if they can't sign him to an extension, or would they just let this thing play out? And I don't want to use a blocking tight end as any sort of indicator, but if you're adding to the offense, I mean, it sets up for a really good situation

if someone else is playing quarterback. And you do have other veteran quarterbacks like Baker Mayfield who could fill the void if they wanted to do that. You could try to trade up this year to take someone like Will Levis if the other quarterbacks are going to be taken a little bit higher. And there is some relevancy there as well today with Jimmy Garoppolo signing with the Raiders. That doesn't preclude them from drafting a quarterback. The Raiders could still do that because Jimmy

Garoppolo's contract is not really a long-term type of deal with the Raiders. But if they do decide that they're not going to draft a quarterback because they signed Jimmy Garoppolo, that's one more team that's not picking a QB that could allow a quarterback to become more available. And every time we seem to expect going into the draft that there's going to be just a couple of quarterbacks taken in the top 10 and everyone's going to go high. A lot of times what you end up seeing is one guy drops. So is it going to be a situation where one guy drops and the Vikings take their chance if they get to draft time and there's still no contract extension? And the way that Mark Wilf was talking, the way that Kweisi Adafo-Mensa talked at the NFL Combine, it just doesn't seem like there's an extension. Sorry, guys, the camera malfunctioned there. It doesn't seem like there's

an extension that is at all on the way here. So I think that that's what we're looking at is the potential for the Vikings to look at quarterbacks this year to draft someone and to sit them for a year or the Vikings just letting it play out with Kirk Cousins taking a swing as best they can at next year and then going into that next draft to find out what happens so there's plenty of potential for what could happen next and yeah I don't know which way that's going to go, but it seems like the idea of them signing him to a long-term contract is just not really all that possible at this moment, especially the way Mark Wilf was talking. So of all the things, now we have Sam Darnold signing with the 49ers.

Of all the things to talk about, we've got to decide like which way we want to go here to spend some more time on to push out because those are kind of all the headlines. But I think the place is probably with Aaron Rodgers because, and you couldn't have thought it was going to be easy, right? For any Vikings fan that was waiting for the end of the Aaron Rodgers era and has been

waiting and waiting and waiting this offseason to finally get that tweet that says Aaron Rodgers has been traded to the Jets. That's what everybody's waiting for. And it still hasn't come yet. But Trey Wingo, who is really dialed in on this situation and has been from the very beginning, Trey Wingo is reporting that he's going to the Jets. Pro Football Talk reported that Aaron Rodgers is reaching out to other free agents to try to recruit them to the Jets.

Garrett Wilson tweeted out some stuff about he can finally go on vacation now. And CJ Uzama tweeted out some emojis that it looks like everything is coming together with Aaron Rodgers leaving the NFC North and going to the New York Jets. And I guess for the Jets, I wonder if this is going to turn out a little bit like it did for the Vikings when they signed Kirk Cousins, where last year was a little bit more of the peak of that team, but the quarterback wasn't good. And then everything might not go the same for them or Rodgers might not be as good. It could be a Favre redux or it could be a Favre and Minnesota redux and he's great.

I don't really know, but it is so significant for Minnesota Vikings fans. I was looking this up the other day and there's some insane statistics on this that over the last 30 years, the team that has won the most is the New England Patriots. As you might expect, number two during the regular season, the Green Bay Packers, the team that has thrown the most touchdown passes over the last 30 years the Green Bay Packers, the team that has thrown the most touchdown passes over the last 30 years. Green Bay Packers, team with the best quarterback rating over the last 30 years. Green Bay Packers. I mean, this has been a nightmare for the Minnesota Vikings who have run out many, many good teams over the years and always had the Green Bay Packers right there to compete with, whether it was Favre or it was Aaron Rodgers.

And I know that it's possible that Jordan Love could turn out to be a very good quarterback. He is certainly talented and a first-round draft pick. It's possible. And the jokes are already out there. I saw Bill Barnwell putting it out there saying, like, oh, I look forward to, you know, when Jordan Love 15 years from now has a Hall of Fame career and he's going to the Jets at the end and the Aaron Rodgers to the Vikings jokes are all out there. But even if Jordan Love

is just the 12th best quarterback, the eighth best quarterback in the league. I mean, that is such a massive change for the Minnesota Vikings. And now you look around the division at the opposing quarterbacks and there's question marks everywhere. You don't know what Jordan Love really is. We're still not sure what Justin Fields really is, although I think we'll find out. And it turns out that, and I know I'm just spewing news here at you, but Ryan Poles actually admitted to the idea that part of their trade down to get another first rounder the next year

was if it doesn't work out with Justin Fields, they can draft another quarterback. And so that's, again, more uncertainty for the Chicago Bears. The Detroit Lions are being talked about as a possibility to draft a quarterback this year. I don't know that they'll do that with high expectations. So Jared Goff, how far can he really go? That's hard to say if he can go deep into the playoffs with that

team or if there's limitations enough to Jared Goff, but they're going to have a really good offense in Detroit. How long though is he going to be the quarterback? He is a guy that tends to torture the Vikings also, but not in the same way of a Brett Favre or an Aaron Rodgers. So the door is much more open for the Vikings as they go kind of in this dip that they're naturally going to have to go in into the future. And they're not going to have anybody at this moment as what we can see right now, who you are saying every year, that person is the favorite to win the division. It's either Brett Favre or Aaron Rodgers. And now all of a sudden that changes, it changes in an eye blink. And we really don't have any idea which way that's going to go. So once that tweet finally comes that it's

official and that the Jets have traded for Aaron Rodgers, which seems in every direction, like it's going, I think you're going to hear the cheer from Minnesota in green Bay when that happens. And as much as, you know, I'm sure Vikings fans get annoyed at all the hype for Aaron Rogers and everything else. It's hard to say he was overrated or anything else like that. Like he was as great as a quarterback that's ever played in the NFL. And now the Vikings might not very well, might not have to face him again.

So that's that. Yeah, they could turn out to be by the end of this day, a really, really big day for Vikings fans. As far as just touching on some of the other things here. because that's kind of what we have to do on a day like this, is let me circle back to where they're at with signing Josh Oliver and the offense. And if they're keeping Kirk Cousins, then it makes sense to try to have a good offense and to try to win. There is a sentiment that they should tank. I just think they're too good on offense to tank unless they were to trade away Kirk Cousins and sign a McCown or something.

Case Keenum signed back with the Texans, so he's out of that conversation. But unless they were going to sign a really bad quarterback and just entirely waste this year and throw it down the drain, it does track to try to improve in some areas on offense that they can now spending even a little bit on a backup tight end it does kind of restrict even what they can do in other places can they sign a corner can they sign

a center does this mean that they're not going to be able to sign or will not want to sign Garrett Bradbury? I think that Garrett Bradbury, you look at last year where he played pretty well and ranked by PFF in the top 10 for centers. He's going to try to make the argument that he deserves a big contract over a long period of time that the Vikings can't sign. And they did rework Chris Reed's contract. I don't know if he would be in the conversation to play center or if they have to look for cheaper options or if they have to try to look in the draft. But that one becomes a little less likely now that they're spending money on a blocking

tight end. But it doesn't really preclude them from doing other things. But we don't know how much they can really do until they make more cap space. And we haven't seen yet reports that I thought I was going to see when I woke up this morning, which is why I waited until four in the afternoon to go live on YouTube. I thought I was going to wake up at eight in the morning today and see the Vikings have released dot, dot, dot, or the Vikings have traded dot, dot, dot. And yet we still wait for that.

They don't have to do this stuff to get cap compliance until the 15th. So they can sign people as much as they want for the next couple of days. They can sign your, you know, your Josh Oliver's or whoever to as many contracts as they like, as long as by the 15th, they end up getting under the salary cap. So that means that moves still have to be made. It means that they've got to make some decisions on these other players. You know,

it just, and I'm looking right now about what Patrick Peterson said about the Vikings. And it looks like everything he said was all positive. I'll just read you the quote from Will Raggetts. He says, I had the time of my life, the people I had the opportunity to meet, the organization, first-class, state-of-the-art facilities, stadium, locker room, everything was top of the line.

We had some teams calling today. Minnesota was one of them. We just weren't able to cross that line with them. So it appears that the Vikings did talk to Patrick Peterson about potentially coming back, but they probably didn't have the best offer for him or the best fit for Patrick Peterson either with Brian Flores. And that's kind of how we looked at it from the very beginning is that that wasn't going to be the best fit. So circling back though, if Kirk Cousins is indeed the quarterback until 2024, and then

that's it for him, and then he's done after that, then I think that they're in a position to do exactly what we were kind of thinking they would do, which is they're not going to completely tear it all apart and not going to lose on purpose. But they are going to lose all this talent and just be unlikely to be a great team next year. And when you look at their schedule and everything else, nothing points to them being good enough to compete for a Super Bowl, but they can have a good enough offense to be entertaining and also know that the following season, there's going to be a different quarterback. That's where it comes in. Can you draft one this year? Do you have to wait till next year? Right now, if they are going to move on from some other pieces, you'd be talking about this team maybe being in the eight win type of range, which does put you in the ballpark for a trade up or to draft the second or third best

quarterback. If that's the way that they're going to go is not over commit themselves to anything, including Kirk Cousins and let him bet on himself as it was indicated by Ian Rappaport, well, that seems about right. That seems about like the right way to approach it rather than signing him to another extension. I just wonder if somebody misses out on the quarterback market. And I don't know who at this moment, like looking around the teams with the Raiders having their solution, the Jets appearing to have their solution. I don't know who would be looking for cousins. If you guys in the comments have some ideas, let me know. But as far as trying to pull off a trade for him to send him somewhere else, I'm not really sure because those two teams would

have been at the top of the list. And I see Jonathan saying that the other quarterbacks, aside from Caleb Williams and next year's draft, aren't good. We don't know that right now. That's something I'm not really willing to accept is the idea that we know right now what the quarterback draft is going to look like next year. There will be quarterbacks, I'm sure, uh, of it. There's at least two, there's the kid from North Carolina and there's Caleb Williams that are known as pretty high prospects, but, uh, we didn't know that Joe Burrow was going to be a top prospect going into his final year. So, uh, I'm, I don't know. I think that they would probably

have a little better sense for that, but guys always, always emerge when that happens. So, but this year, if we do know much more about the quarterbacks this year, and if there is potential, then they would have to consider it. If the opportunity is there to trade up and get someone and you know, Steve in the comments brings up the 49ers for cousins. Well, they just signed Javon Hargrave today to a massive contract. And they just brought in Sam Darnold. I just don't see it. I think that they want to run back Trey Lance, Brock Purdy,

have a veteran. I'm not sure how they would trade for Kirk Cousins unless they were signing him to a massive contract. Houston is an interesting team because they were reportedly interested in Jimmy Garoppolo, which I don't really understand. They should be signing a quarterback. I mean, drafting a quarterback this year with the number two overall pick and then go forward with that guy. There is no reason to be looking at veterans, but that is a good point

that suddenly they kind of become a little intriguing. The same with the Colts. And maybe I'm wrong for having written in that the Texans and Colts were guarantees to draft quarterbacks because those are two organizations that are very volatile and you're never quite sure what they're going to do. And they might be looking to get out of the basement quickly, which Kirk Cousins will do for you. I mean, if you're the Texans and you've been horrific for several years in a row now, what is this? Three years in a row where they're an absolute joke. Maybe they would be willing to do that and then still draft a quarterback. Or maybe the Colts would be willing to do that and still draft the quarterback and get better right away and then have the bridge there.

But I'm not really sold on the idea that Vikings ownership or the head coach really want to trade away Kirk Cousins right now. I mean, I think that if they did, it would be extremely bold and it would be the right way to go based on looking at everything else with all these other players who are a huge part of their team leaving. That would be a good idea to move on and get started on the future. It's just how do you make that happen? And Steve, you make a good point that he has a no trade clause and that is going to be up to him. Is he going to want to leave and go to the Houston Texans or the Indianapolis Colts? Now, the answer might be yes, if they work out an extension with him, but neither one of those teams should be doing that. It's possible they could. I mean, Jim Ursae last year hired a guy who never coached before to be the head coach of the teams. I mean, Jim Ursae last year hired a guy who never coached before to be the head coach

of the teams. I mean, he's clearly calling the shots and they might just do something like that. They also did once trade a first round pick for Trent Richardson. They do some crazy stuff, both of those organizations. And if they look at these quarterbacks and don't love them, CJ Stroud, Anthony Richardson, Bryce Young, Will Levis, if one of those teams doesn't love them and would prefer to have a veteran and then they would agree to sign Cousins to a mega contract extension, maybe I'm going to say maybe like, I guess I wasn't thinking of those teams because it seems so obvious they should draft quarterbacks, but I really should have factored in how crazy those teams can be. But I think it does matter a lot that the owner of the Minnesota Vikings went on TV and gave no commitment whatsoever to Kirk

Cousins long-term. And I've also always felt that if you're done with somebody, just be done with them if you can. And again, that depends on Kirk Cousins and his no trade clause. If he's not going to waive the no trade clause, then it doesn't matter. But I also think that if you're Cousins, why do you want to be here? He's already been through this once with Washington. You're essentially wasting a year of your life. And right now, even though he is coming off a year that is not that impressive statistically, he did win a lot of football games. He did have a lot of clutch plays last season. And is his value next year, a year older, going to be higher than it is right now? I would say no. If they win eight games next year, his value is not going to be higher than it is coming off a 13-win season,

where, by the way, if teams go back and look at how he played in the playoffs, he played really well against the New York Giants. That's going to be the last impression. It does remain in the realm of possibility that they could come to an impasse with kirk cousins and he says why don't you guys just trade me or or if the vikings say why don't you go see if anyone is willing to sign you to a long-term contract extension so you know just trying to kind of parse through a little bit um you know you never know if that you know that trey lance man if someday i would tell you it's just crazy if that if that trey lance trade ever happens then all of you who have suggested it over the many years deserve all sorts

of uh kudos for that for for being on top of that one. I have always wondered, is that really something that they could make work on both sides, but maybe. Bradley brings up the Falcons. Yeah, I mean, the Falcons, I think that they might be committed also to drafting a quarterback or at least want to try this year. They might also be in on somebody like Baker Mayfield. But I mean, they announced for some reason that they were out on Lamar Jackson. I don't understand that. He made the most sense. But I suppose that if we're talking about in the NFC, if they were willing to trade him within the conference, that the Falcons could make a phone call there.

If Lamar Jackson does leave, it's a good point, CJ, that maybe the Ravens are calling Kirk Cousins. I think what the Vikings would be smart to do here would be just to wait, just wait and see. They're going to have to make decisions soon on other guys, but they don't have to make a decision on Kirk Cousins right this second. If they wait and see how these things play out. So Rogers leaves the division, Garoppolo signs, Mayfield's going to go somewhere and everybody else starts to kind of get their quarterbacks. Well, who's going to be left out of that party? And the, you know, the Bucks, you know, you guys are thinking of some good teams. So I guess that makes sense. I had really only a couple teams that would fit for him,

but I wasn't really trying to think too much of the NFC teams. But, you know, I guess we do know this also, that Kweisi Adafo-Mensa not afraid to trade even within the NFC North. So he definitely wouldn't be afraid to trade within the NFC in general. So that's kind of where we stand again with Mark Wilf talking this morning about how he expects Cousins to be the quarterback in 2023, but would not say anything more than that is a pretty big sign of where we stand that it's either going to be last year or next year as the final season of Kirk Cousins in Minnesota. And that is

a pretty big development. I felt like this was possible, but over these last couple of days, the buzz going up and up that there won't be a long-term extension signed. And you can always keep dreaming for all of you who have it in the back of your heads about Lamar Jackson. Lamar Jackson and Justin Jefferson would be pretty fun. And they just signed his blocking tight end. Hey, and what does Lamar Jackson run all the time, everybody? We're putting together pieces here. Runs with two tight ends.

Does he not? That's what you need for Lamar Jackson to run your offense. Just saying. So we can't count anything out with the NFL offseason. So that's kind of where we're at on Kirk Cousins and with Aaron Rodgers, with Josh Oliver, Patrick Peterson leaving. And now I think is a good time to talk about what is next for the Vikings, what they need to do next in order to get cap compliant. And this is where we're in speculation mode as well, but it's really something that there have been rumors and buzz about almost

everybody. I haven't heard anything about, um, Daniel Hunter and his situation. So we'll see on that. But as far as Harrison Smith goes, if they're going to have Peterson Kendricks and Phelan X's stage left then what is the point of keeping anybody over the age of 30 years old when

you've got an opportunity to create more cap space and further refresh the roster I think it would be very difficult for some people to see Harrison Smith leave and I don't know if Brian Flores is going to want to let Harrison Smith leave because boy if you took a job with the Minnesota Vikings as their defensive coordinator you get there and they tell you yeah actually the best player we've had for a long time yeah he, he wants to go. I mean, that would be a little bit of a gut punch, I'm sure, for Brian Flores, but it just tracks along the way that they have been going. And the more people that don't come back, the more sense it makes to let everybody go. And Bradley asking about Delvin Cook, that's another one where there seems

to be momentum for Delvin Cook to potentially be traded. If you're the Vikings, I think you do just kind of hang out and see if somebody will give you a reasonable offer for Delvin Cook. And then I wonder about where this all fits in the running game so by my analysis by the statistics by the rushing yards over expected the pff blocking grades and so forth everything kind of points to delvin cook wasn't the same running back last year that doesn't mean that their analysis agrees with that they might believe that uh delvin cook can still be a great running back for them next year. Again, I don't see any point to that. It would make so much more sense to hand things over to Ty Chandler and to go to free agency and see if you can get a youngish veteran running back who's maybe got

some good years in him. We know that age 28 is that fall off year. So if there's 24, 25 year old, maybe not 24, but 25, 26 year old running back who could be good for a few years in a part-time role for them to go along with Ty Chandler, Kenny Wong Wu, draft somebody in the later rounds, like all of those things just make so much sense. I mean, this is where a lot of teams will end up finding good running backs in the middle rounds. And I like you guys was also very impressed with Ty Chandler. This is never really added up to me for why they haven't made this move yet. Other than that, there would be conversations going on about a potential trade and waiting to see if, you know, how things shake out in the

first few days and if a good offer comes their way. I, you know, I did, yeah, I also saw that Marty, I saw the report that they're interested in bringing back Alexander Madison. He actually fits exactly the description of a guy I was talking about. He's not very old. He doesn't have a lot of mileage on his body and he's proven to be pretty good. But if Madison is part of a running back duo with Ty Chandler, they seem to not really like Kenny Wong Wu because they didn't use him at all last year. So maybe I shouldn't bring him into this conversation. But even drafting one in the middle to late rounds, this, like many other drafts, is being

talked about as being good for middle round running backs. And it usually is because there's a lot of players who are good at running back. But that to me, the paint by numbers approach makes the most sense. And yet here we are, it's almost five o'clock central time. And there has been no movement whatsoever. As far as it goes with Delvin cook that to me would suggest that they're having a lot of conversations about whether they can trade him or not. Uh, and I don't know if they're going to get a good enough offer to bother with. I, people have asked from time to time about, uh, why don't they just trade him for whatever? Even

a seventh round pick is better than nothing. And the reason is in part, because what you always have to do is keep good relationships with players that, you know, you don't want to just trade someone to wherever. If the player has meant a lot to your organization, the seventh round pick isn't worth that looking like, oh yeah, they'll just trade you for nothing or whatever. The player wants to be a free agent and wants to get his own place to go. And I think that that plays into those things is how does the relationship with the player matter? So if Delvin Cook had a place that he thought he wanted to go as a free agent. Then, you know, you release him instead of just trading him if he doesn't like the location. Expect to proven players.

And I think this team has now found it very important to have good relationships with their players. So, you know, I mean, that all kind of plays into it and matters to some extent as well. So we'll see how that plays out, but there's still more decisions to come. Zedarius Smith is another one that we do not have resolution on at all. And again, there was rumors about Zedarius Smith

and talk of Zedarius Smith potentially wanting to be released. And yet we have no movement on that. And I thought that that might've been one of the easiest ones for them to do, which would be, you know, just it would, it would be one of the easiest ones for them, for them to decide on. But yet here we are kind of sitting and waiting and still where they need to make these things happen. At some point, I see some of you asking about CJ ham. I look at CJ ham is not being all that expensive. Um, I know more expensive than some other fullbacks, but you could probably rework that deal, uh, and have it work out just fine. He's a big time special teamer for them. You don't

want to rob your special teams coach of one of his best players at that fine. He's a big time special teamer for them. You don't want to rob your special teams coach of one of his best players. That one's never been a big deal. Just a little bit more on Patrick Peterson that he's been talking on his podcast while we're doing our free agent update here and just said that he wanted to come back to Minnesota. And he said that there were no curve balls in terms of the negotiations. It just didn't work out. And he said that he felt like Minnesota was home. So if you thought that Patrick Peterson was going to burn any bridges on the way out, he definitely did not. And he was treated much differently here than he was on his way out of Arizona. So now they're in the market for a cornerback.

And we looked at some cornerback options, but a lot of them are signing for big dollars. I think the league has figured this out, that if you're going to look at the top corners, you're going to have to pay them a lot. Jonathan Jones is off the market. Cameron Sutton is off the market. And it would be more wise, in my opinion, for the Vikings to wait and see how the second wave turns out when it comes to looking for pretty much anything on defense. Because what you want is to be able to sign someone relatively cheap who can be a good find for you. If they spend all of their cap space on one player as a corner and that signing doesn't work out, then it's going to impact them down the road. And I think that's what they want to avoid is having things impact them for next season. It

just seems like everything is aligning for that. Josh asked about my best guess. I'm sorry. I've been looking in three different directions, so I haven't put the comments on the screen. I apologize for that. So Josh asked about the best guess for the next day's move moves. Delvin Cook traded Smith cut. I guess you could say both Smiths cut or restructured Kirk extension Hunter extension on all of those things. I would still guess that Delvin Cook is traded.

And I'm going to hedge a little bit on that and say, that's the one I'm least sure of. I think that Zedaria Smith, once it's out there that he's going to go, he's going to go. Harrison Smith is a hard one because he's seeing all of his friends that he's been with for a long time. Kendricks, even Patrick Peterson, Adam Thielen, he's seeing them all go. And it's hard for me to believe that he would look around that defense and say, oh yeah, this is a place that I think I can have an elite defense and win a championship with. He's gone through a couple of straight seasons that have not been very good defensively. And it's hard to believe that that's really going

to change by next season. I think if Harrison Smith wants out, then he will be let go. So I would guess that he and Zedaria Smith both end up not as Minnesota Vikings for next year. I don't think we're getting any Kirk Cousins extension. Daniil Hunter is very possible. I do think that Daniil Hunter will look to sign an extension with the Vikings. He just seems like he wants to stay here because there have been plenty of times where he has not played hardball with them, that he had opportunities to play hardball with them and he has not. So we'll talk for about, you know, five, 10 more minutes here. If you guys want to throw some questions in

to the comment section about what's next and what they've done so far today. And again, things are still kind of coming down as we're talking here, and I'm trying to keep up with them. But really, so far, uninspiring day for the Vikings at the moment. And again, I'm going to pop back in at the end of the night and do another live show to talk some more about what has happened because we're just, you know, the sun isn't even down yet. We have that extra hour of sun. So it's great. But when the sun goes down, there still could be moves that are coming on the way. And for you guys that are talking about Delvin Cook's value, as far as in a trade, it can't be very high. It truly cannot. We're talking about a guy who had his worst season.

Everybody has the data now in the NFL. Everyone can look at the rushing yards over expected. They can all go back and watch the tape and see not the same guy. They can look at the contract. And I don't know how, if you're another team in the NFL, you look at the contract and say, yeah, he's coming off surgery. He's got a huge contract. It was his worst season here.

Let me give you a second round pick. Like that's just not going to happen. Maybe a fourth, maybe, I mean, if someone's really crazy, a third, but it seems like teams are getting more and more intelligent with this sort of stuff. Oh, the other thing that I didn't discuss was the bears and what they did really going in on the linebackers. But we know that Matt Eberfluss' system is really important with linebackers. And it makes sense.

They go kind of crazy with TJ Edwards and Tremaine Edmonds, but getting really, really wildly athletic and young with Tremaine Edwards that he's 25 years old. So that's going to be a big piece for them for a while. And now what you see with the bears is when you can handle the salary cap like this, this is goals for the Vikings. Then you go in with a blank check and people want to sign with you. And this should be what the Vikings try to do for next year. Not that they're going to have 70 or a hundred million, but they will be able to compete for deals like this next year. So you have to make sure that you don't do

that, that you don't hurt yourself for this year. Let's see from B Young here, any steam, the Vikings have a quarterback they like in this draft. I don't know if it's going to be so much like as it is opportunity. I mean, I don't know. You know this from Always a Lesson, the Mac Jones to the 49ers buzz. You guys remember that? And then it turned out to be not true at all. Whatever buzz and reports you see about who teams like in the draft, they're never true. It's always somebody with an agenda who is looking to help their guy's case. It's not something you can ever rely on. They don't tell me, they don't tell the national reporters, they don't tell anybody else. However, I would say that if the opportunity arises and they do not have a extension in place for Kirk Cousins. It is not hard to put two and two together.

And if we're looking at Kevin O'Connell's style and who he had in Los Angeles, who does Will Levis remind you of? Kind of like Matt Stafford, right? Not the most perfectly accurate guy in the entire world, but also, you know, somebody with a massive arm, you know, I mean, that kind of matches up with Will Levis. And when you're talking about these other quarterbacks, Richardson having the incredible combine and Stroud also throwing the ball extremely well in the way he played against Georgia. Bryce Young has had number one hype for the whole time. I mean, if you think about just the way that that all matches up, if Levis is the guy that drops, he could be, you know, somebody that would make sense for them. Let's see. What would be an exciting cornerback to sign in free agency, in your opinion? Well, the guy who seemed to be the most exciting is off the board,

unfortunately. Certainly James Bradbury, if they could make the money. I mean, James Bradbury is a good man-to-man cornerback, very good with Philadelphia last year. He's going to be asking for quite a bit. Jonathan Jones got nine and a half per year and Cameron Sutton 11 per year. Bradbury is almost certainly going to beat that. But yeah, you know, he does kind of make sense. He's 30. That hurts his case a little bit. I guess I would want to know why Shaquille Griffin was let go by the Jaguars. He's another guy that you wonder about. When I look though at, I mean, when you're talking about exciting, that's the question. Some of those guys would be exciting. I think a smart

signing would be Emmanuel Mosley who did tear his ACL for the 49ers last year, but he's only 27 years old. So he could play over multiple seasons and you might be able to get a deal with him because he tore his ACL last year. Um, let's see. Uh, let's see blocking tight end yeah yeah yeah i know that uh that took everybody by surprise uh efelt says just blocking tight end question mark and it seems to be the emoji where the person is putting their hand on their face in frustration but i i just don't want to get too caught up criticizing a blocking tight end move. You got a guy who's known as maybe the best in the league at that also could offer, you know, I'm not like a downfield threat, but it seems like he can catch the ball a little. And I, I love where you guys are going with the speculation.

I'm willing to go there with you. A blocking tight end makes sense if you're trying to get Lamar Jackson. I just want to say, if you are doing the X-Files music, they did chase after Deshaun Watson a little bit last year. So I'm just saying, I'm just saying that if they're well aware that Kirk Cousins is not going to sign an extension, they should call Lamar Jackson and just text him a picture of Justin Jefferson catching the ball against the bills. That's a pretty good selling point. Is it not? I don't know. I mean, this is a team that once got Brett Favre. How can we count out anything? More likely than not, they just want to improve their run play action game. Yeah. They have needs at other positions and they're going to have to create cap space, but I don't, I don't hate it. I don't look at it like, how dare you? Because the price just isn't really all that much. You know, in the comments, one of the things

that always comes up is that, you know, people have opinions about quarterbacks and I get that Will Levis is no Matthew Stafford. We don't know that. We really don't. There's similarities in the way that they play, that they have huge arms and that they're not always the most accurate. Stafford was the number one overall pick. So if he does drop a little bit to where the Vikings can get him, I guess we could say

he's not as good of a prospect. That's fair enough. But Stafford was not a guy that just annihilated college football. It was really based on his arm strength and things like that. And also, I believe there's a connection with someone with the Rams. Was it the offensive coordinator who worked with Kentucky? Is that right? There was some connection that somebody brought up to me. So, you know, I, I guess you just, you don't know when it comes to the quarterbacks, but I think that you're looking for somebody, uh, who should, um, you know, want that, that, that should, should want to have a high ceiling. Uh, and every one of these quarterbacks does, and we don't know which

one's going to drop, but you have to look at them. You know, I know, Josh, you're bringing up Hendon Hooker, but that's not one that I look at as having a very high ceiling that based on his draft stock, it seems like most people think he's going to be a second or third round draft pick. I don't think that's the way they should go. If you're going for it, then go for it. Don't go for, Hey, maybe we can

get a developmental quarterback and kind of see what happens. Go big or go home with this. Don't go half measure. Don't go Kellen Mond, like really make a big swing for this. If that's the way you're going to do it. You know, I, I see that in the comments just about, you know, running quarterback. I think everyone's looking for a running quarterback there's no team that should be saying oh this quarterback runs because most quarterbacks now have mobility as part of their game if not a very big part of their game and you don't have to look all that far to find it than last year's super bowl um so you know i think what they are looking for is an answer with a quarterback

that could potentially win them a Super Bowl. And as much as Kweisi Adafo-Mensa may regret saying it in public, he did say it about last year when he brought up Kirk Cousins and mentioned that the great quarterbacks win Super Bowls and Kirk Cousins is a good quarterback. That has to

stick with you about someone like Lamar Jackson, who has won an MVP that you could pair with Justin Jefferson. And I'm sure that some people would question it because the price would be crazy high and because he has gotten hurt and so forth, but he's proven to be a very good passer in the NFL too. If you're still saying that he's not, then, you know, obviously you've just been caught up in his draft evaluation and never really paid much attention to him winning an MVP and being a tremendously successful NFL quarterback. If they were to do that and pair him with the best receiver in football, it would be, it would be really something. It would be really something. It would be like a Dante call pepper and Randy Moss being connected again.

I think, I mean, call pepper is an incredible passer, but you know, with Lamar Jackson, can you throw to Justin Jefferson? I think a lot of quarterbacks could. So yeah, I mean the quarterback conversation, it just remains totally central to everything that they do. When we talk about Delvin cook, we talk about Harrison Smith, they're going to keep these people. You're going to move on from these people and things like that. I, you know, everything kind of revolves around what they're going to do at quarterback, because if they were to sign Cousins to an extension,

it would deal with a lot of their salary cap issues. They could create $15 million, $10 million in space and go from there. And with them digging in their heels, at least at this moment, and not bending to that, it really still remains. After a blocking tight end signing and several players that were key parts leaving. It remains far and away. The most important thing that's happened this offseason is them not bending to sign

Cousins to a contract extension. And what comes next, I guess we'll see. And in the next few hours, we could have more answers to this, but a lot of stuff happening. And I will be here just like you guys looking at Twitter, refreshing Twitter the whole time and reading and reacting and trying to read comments and tweets and talk at the same time. So I apologize if I lost my train of thought at any point through our discussion here. It's a lot of fun. It's a great time of year with this happening.

And you can see the league changing right before our eyes with these days. So we'll have a lot more to discuss later on this evening, planning on unless something big breaks, planning on maybe like nine 30, 10 o'clock. So if you joined us here, make sure you're around later and we'll do another kind of recap of what happened the rest of the afternoon.

But you got a player signing with the Vikings who's going to help them run the ball better. It's probably good for them because they weren't good at running. Patrick Peterson is a stealer. Aaron Rodgers, probably a jet. Looks like he's a jet. And no commitment to Kirk Cousins. Interesting, interesting day so far far so much more to come thank you guys for all tuning in and uh there's going to be a lot of this a lot of this going live on youtube a lot of podcasts popping up in your feed because we're on top of

all of it so thanks everybody for watching and commenting and we will see you very soon