Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Patriots are 'open for business' (part 2)

Episode Date: April 21, 2024

Matthew Coller talks with Vikings fans about the Patriots being a potential trade partner and other ideas for the draft Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. This is part two of my conversation with Vikings fans on the YouTube live stream. Enjoy! Scott says NFL draft for quarterbacks kind of like real estate. Location, location, location for landing spots. Really excited to see how this class develops. I agree. I agree. And that's why, you know, Daniel Jeremiah was talking about that on his conference call. Just the agents want their guy to land with the Vikings. Who wouldn't?

Jacob says, what player would you add to the two first? That's a good question. Jordan Addison, Louis C. Okay. Obviously Louis C would not get, would not get any value back, but Jordan Addison is a bit of a stretch for me because this is another guy who is going to be very important to this succeeding. And number two wide receivers are hard to find this. I mean, you could say, well, look, you've already got your elite guy, Jefferson, just go find another one. They had to spend a first round pick to get it. They thought it was so valuable and so difficult to find last year that they spent a first round draft pick to get Jordan Addison. I would not want to give away Jordan Addison along with two first round draft picks to get up to number three

because I need that player to help my quarterback succeed. Maybe long-term that's foolish because you know, you can find other wide receivers and you've already got your mega star. It's just, that is a lot. That's like giving a whole nother first round pick. And then some that's worth more than a first round pick, because the only reason first rounders aren't even worth more is because of the uncertainty of what you're going to do with it. But now you get certainty that the guy is a really good player. I'm going to say I would not do that. Uh, not Kevin O'Connell.

Appreciate you changing your name says, uh, how bad does the Vikings pick have to be to not work on the rookie contract? Can you give a, uh, let's see competitive, um, or a comparable level of competency? Yeah. That's a tongue twister there. Not Kevin O'Connell. Yeah. Um, that's why I bring up Carson Wentz from time to time, because I look at that Carson Wentz 2017 season as here's what we know about Carson Wentz. He was about a 500 quarterback when he wasn't playing with great stuff. And that one year when he was playing with great stuff, he was not the guy who got them to the Superbowl, but he put them in position to get to the super bowl was i think 11 and 3 maybe or 12 and 2 whatever it was as a starter before he ends up getting hurt and he's got them looking like the best team in the nfl by far when he's the quarterback and

competing for an mvp what we really know about carson wentz was that he was just okay and you know in the longterm, he's made to look much worse than he actually was for some of those other years where he was going nine and seven, where he was just okay. Even the year with the Colts, he was just okay. Wasn't terrible. Uh, he was, well, he was up and down, but that's what an average quarterback is going to be. That is the baseline level. And Baker Mayfield as well, because they were a drive away that if you draft that guy and he's not that great, but is a 500 quarterback in like an equal or neutral situation, then I think with the Vikings, there would be a

chance where he would have at least one year where he could give you a legit shot at winning or going to the super bowl in the same way that brock purdy jimmy garoppolo is another one that you could say is baseline of competency jimmy garoppolo with the 49ers was a great fit he's a really good quarterback but i think we all know that he was not a great quarterback won a ton of games alex smith would qualify for this, didn't reach a Super Bowl, but somebody who was very, very good, not totally great, and still won a ton of games and put them in great positions overall. I mean, what was, I mean, Alex Smith's career record is something crazy because he was good. He was talented and then played for really

good teams. That's kind of what you're looking for. And then hoping at some point that's the worst you want is that you're hoping at some point you have that one year where it comes together. But I would say that's a successful draft pick. If you have at least that one shot. Yeah, I think so. I think so. Is it a full year or are we talking about maybe 10 weeks, 12 weeks of Sam Darnold? I think so. People would get itchy for sure. If Sam Darnold was out there struggling to get the ball to Justin Jefferson. Yeah. It wouldn't last the whole season if it was a struggle. Now, if Sam Darnold was doing okay, if the Vikings were, let's just say five and four after nine weeks, six and five after 11 weeks, seven and five, eight and seven, if they're win one, lose one,

most of the way, then yeah, you can deal with that. And after a bad loss, you would definitely hear people saying, well, it's time to bring him off the bench. Here we go. If it was going very badly, if they were two and five, then we all probably agree. Yeah. It's just time. And one thing we know from Kevin O'Connell is he can want that quarterback to sit. He's going to play that guy if he gets frustrated, because we saw this from Jaron Hall last year. Jaron Hall was not in a position to play in the NFL, but Nick Mullins threw all those picks and he was like, nope, I'm out.

Bring me Jaron Hall. Give me somebody else, anybody else. And that worked out very poorly, actually actually for Jaron Hall and everyone involved. So I don't think that, uh, Kevin O'Connell has the patience to go a whole year. If Sam Darnold is struggling, but Sam Darnold as a Carolina Panther and think of what an atrocity that was, he went eight, nine. If he goes eight, nine for the Vikings, can you tolerate that for a season? You'd be in the hunt and you would for sure after bad losses think, is it time? And we'll talk about it. We'll debate it. I'm sure. But you're not sitting there saying, oh my gosh, I just can't watch this football anymore. So I think the answer is it's very dependent. That that's what I would say. It's very dependent that that's what i would say it's very dependent drummer dave good to see

you buddy nicks or pennix stay put or bust okay so does that mean that you uh you want to stay at 11 i think that's fair i i mean i really do this is what's um this is what's tricky about this draft class is that everybody who makes their case to me, that isn't, I know this guy's going to be a bust. So any other argument I can usually get behind, I honestly can't, I honestly can usually get behind anything else except for, I know this guy's going to be a bust. Well, okay. Nobody knows who's going to be a bust. So I can't get behind that. But if you tell me, if you make your case to me and you say, look, I am not convinced that the odds of JJ McCarthy at four are any different than the odds of Bo Nix at 11 for success. You think, well, history is kind

of on your side there. So there is that. And if you said, look, Nix is a better fit than McCarthy because he gets the ball out he's more polished he's more refined you don't have to sit him a year you can bring him in you can start playing him right away get him into the offense he he's he's already worked his mechanics out over the years that's why he took that big step ko sees all in like okay all right well that makes sense to me you'd prefer not to give all that up so you know that's where when you, all right, well, that makes sense to me. You'd prefer not to give all that up. So, you know, that's where, when you say, all right, stay at 11 and take your favorite between those other two guys, if they're taken at the 11th overall draft pick, their chances aren't that

different from somebody who's taken with the fourth overall pick when it comes to historically with quarterbacks and the great example, one of the great examples includes the Minnesota Vikings where Akili Smith was what number three overall Dante call peppers number 11. Their, their odds weren't that different. Oh, good question. I forgot to bring this up. Where is Jaden Daniels on the draft board? I apologize for that. I think I skipped right to, I was excited to talk about where JJ McCarthy was. Jaden Daniels was number eight on the consensus draft board. Of course, this doesn't predict that he'll go number eight. It just means that there are more questions about Jaden Daniels within the

draft community than there are about Drake May. That is the best way I could describe what that's telling us is that all the people who watch, there are more questions, more people out there who do the draft who think, you know, I don't know about Jaden Daniels than there are about Drake May where everyone thinks that he is a top tier prospect, except for whatever. Was it Merrill Hodge? Welcome back to the limelight for that one week Merrill Hodge but yeah like except for Merrill Hodge everybody who actually studies the draft thinks that Drake Mays top five pick and belongs up there where there's more dissension about Jaden Daniels only by a little still top 10 but by a little and then there's a lot about JJ McCarthy where there's much less

belief that he belongs in the top 10 miles. If we miss on our guy in this draft to Kwesi and Kevin O'Connell, keep their jobs to go shopping next off season with massive cap. Well, we're not going to know in a year whether they miss their guy, unless you mean if they miss on any quarterback at all, if they miss on any quarterback at all, and then they don't make the playoffs. Yeah. We could be talking about, um, somebody else doing the shopping with all that cap space. That's true because they'll look totally incompetent. If we go through all this, this is why I'm, I'm 98% certain certain we're talking about a quarterback on draft night. Because if they did all this talk, the way Kevin O'Connell was talking the other day,

you would think that the quarterback was in the building that they had. He was talking with such certainty about how you make the guy succeed and everything else and fit that it was like they had already drafted a quarterback. So they'll draft quarterback. I don't have any doubts about that. But we won't know after one year. We were just talking about the possibility of that guy, not even starting for a year. And in my previous research, I was looking at Gino Smith last year and trying to figure out how long it takes before you really know about a quarterback in the draft.

And I thought year three, I mean, look at Justin Fields and the Justin Fields debates that went on even through this year. And I think it wasn't until the end of this season where we were really sure, okay, Justin Fields is not good, but there were times along the way, it takes three full seasons in what my research kind of suggested. Of course, there are guys who pop right away and there are guys who are so terrible right away that you're pretty sure, but even look at someone like Jared Goff, miserable in his first year and then gets a lot of help and ends up pretty good. If they brought in Bo Nix and they won five games because he really struggled in his

first year, there's no way that they just fire them unless it turns into a total bleep show. But with these guys, it doesn't. It won't. We saw last year they went through a lot of adversity, and it did not turn into some sort of total disaster. Habre says if they trade up for Harrison, would anybody be mad? It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to me to get a wide receiver when they already have, when you need someone to throw them the football, but, uh, yeah, I don't think

that that's on the, that's in the cards. This is a quarterback. They've been planning this to be a quarterback since the moment they got here. I mean, period. The moment they got here, they looked at the timeline and they said, we're drafting a quarterback in either 2023 or 2024. And last year they made phone calls about moving up. They got rejected. And this year they're in the driver's seat. So they're going to do it. Let's see. Brent, would you trade this year's

two first rounders and a first rounder for 2025 and swap a first rounder in 2026 for a second rounder? If you could get number three, very creative of you, Brent. I like that. Let me think. So you don't have to give away the pick. You just have to swap. Hmm.

So you'd be dropping back. Well, by 2026, you're hoping it worked and you're thinking you're dropping back. I mean, if you're thinking that it worked and you're consistently competitive, then you'd only be giving up the 25th pick or something. This is your thought process. And maybe you're getting this, the middle of the second round in a best case scenario. If you're making this trade with New England, I would do that. Yeah, I would do that. I don't want to give up another first because I think that's completely crushing to the franchise's future unless the quarterback is absolutely excellent, but a swap do not, do not dislike that idea. I think that's actually quite clever. Brent. I like that idea. If that's

what they do, I'd say, all right, it's pretty wild, but, uh, it's, it's certainly all in and maybe a little much for my taste, but that's what it took to get it done. Then that's what it took to get it done. Um, see, I don't look at this. So Drew is saying, look at the dolphins punishment is a, is a case study. Um, you know, yeah, the, I mean the dolphins and the tampering was crazy. That was, they had already worked out a deal for Brady to have a piece of the team, but then make a comeback, something like way over the top. This was not phone calls or texts with assistant coaches. That was very different from what happened with the Vikings and Falcons. So I just, I'm having trouble believing

that there's going to be some sort of crazy punishment for the Dolphins. Matt B, if they stay put at 11 and draft a quarterback, think they trade down from 23 to pick up some day two draft picks too much of a gap until the fourth round. Well, that really depends on what everybody else behind them is looking at. If you were in a case where another team really wanted to trade up with you to take whatever player, maybe they really love Johnny Newton, just throw out somebody that could be there. If they really loved him and they were giving you a fairly early second round draft pick, then I, then it's worth it. The way

that I've always looked at the draft is I know, and it is true that with every pick you go down, right? If you look at the, your odds of success, it goes down, but just in my brain from covering it, that's probably all of draft history in the entire history of the national football league. But over the last, whatever number of years, I look at it as the very top of the first round has a lot of the superstars. Naturally the best players in the draft become great hot take. Then at the back end of the first round it's a lot of raw players a lot of this guy's a physical freak but hasn't put it together yet and in the second round it's a little more safer picks that might not have the physical freakish skill or might have some

default that somebody doesn't like or whatever whatever it uh, some demerits against their game that people doesn't like. And so you can often get good draft picks in the early part of the second, but then it usually Peters out. It gets to the middle of the second and toward the back of the second into the third, you don't get much. And then after that, it's just total, total crapshoot from there. So I think that if you are moving back to do what you're asking, you can't move back that far. You can't go from 23 to all the way of the back end of the second round. Is it possible to move back into the early part of the second? Because somebody wants to jump up, then yes, they should do that. And they should try to acquire more draft capital. If they've already got their quarterback at number 11, they can do whatever the heck they want. Like

that's, that's the goal right there. And I wouldn't care that much about almost anything else. Get a defensive player, get a guard. I don't care. Do whatever, trade back, whatever. You got your quarterback. You're good to go. Let's see. JJ is probably pounding the table for Jaden Daniels. I don't know. I don't know. Could be. I mean, the LSU connection, really hard to put yourself in Justin Jefferson's shoes. The way that I think of Justin Jefferson is that whoever the quarterback is, he's going to want football because he wants to be the reason that they win, and he usually is. So whichever quarterback can get him the ball on time and accurately, he's going to like the most. And then if you can add playmaking, he's going to like it.

But if you're Justin Jefferson, your biggest frustration is that you haven't won, right? He's put up all the numbers. He's going to get the contract extension. But your big issue is I have no playoff wins. So whether it's Jaden Daniels or it's Drake May or JJ McCarthy, whoever it is, it's get the ball in his direction and win more games. And that's what he was going to make him happy. That was that whole thing out there of, well, is he going to wait and see? Well, yeah, I mean, I guess so, but usually these contracts get signed later in the summer anyway, and he won't know when the

guy gets drafted, if he's going to be great or not, is he's not going to have any idea until he really gets out there on the field with him. So yeah, I'm sure that he would absolutely want Jaden Daniels because he's such an exciting quarterback and is so good at throwing it down the field. But does that mean if he sees Michael Penix, who just took his team to the national championship, he's going to go, Oh no, no, I quit. I'm playing no more football. See you guys. Uh, E L Hassan, it is supply and demand. The Vikings have prepared for this class and the supply is there this time around. That's, yep, I agree with that.

There is a premium to pay if we trade up. I'm confident with Kweisi's background in analytics that it helps. My only concern with Kweisi Daffamensa and this whole situation is that because he is so analytical and because he does look at the world through this has that value that he might miss the forest through the trees a little but they've been

preparing for this for so long that i don't know that that could be possible right and the person who's going to have the final say i believe believe is Kevin O'Connell, not Kwesi Adafo-Mensah. It's Kwesi Adafo-Mensah's job to make it happen if he can. But O'Connell is going to put down, here's the guys I'd be comfortable with. Now try to get them for me in order. It's just, would he not go one more, one more draft pick because, all right, that's my line in the sand.

With everything else, Kwesi Adafo-Mensah has drawn the line in the sand. With everything else, Kweisi Adafo-Mensa has drawn the line in the sand and said, I will not pay X number of dollars for Zedarius Smith to come back or for Eric Hendricks or Delvin Cook to come back or for Delvin Tomlinson, even though we knew he was a good player. I'm not paying this number of dollars. That's where I draw the line. That's how he's done his business. And of course, the biggest example is Kirk Cousins that I'm not going over $40 million. Just for example, with this situation, you can't be that rigid. I think that you have to be willing to put one more chip in or to go one more draft pick to get your guy, because that's just the scenario that you're in. But I think he knows that, right? He, I think sometimes analytics people are painted as, well, they have no common

sense or something. There's common sense in this one that Kweisi Dapomenta has to understand, right? That the guy can take you to places that other teams can't go because you have your guy and anything less, you're not going to succeed anyway, most of the time. So folks, we all have smartphones and we know that they are pretty amazing, but they can also be amazingly distracting, especially when we're around other people. So U.S. Cellular wants us to reset our relationship with our phones by putting down our phones for five. That's right. A company that sells phones wants us to put down our phones and see what we can find.

Learn more at uscellular.com slash built for us. That's uscellular.com slash built for us. Michael says, I think they should try to make the trade with the pats for may. And if they can't trade up to four, uh, go for pennix. Yes. Pennix you get who you really want. Yeah. I mean with pennix and Knicks, we just don't really understand how they feel about those two guys. The consensus draft analysts do not like them as first round draft picks. That doesn't mean the Vikings don't like them as first round draft picks. So your walkaway price, and this is what I'm talking about. Could he throw one more chip

on the table? Your walkaway price has to deal with how much you like the other guys. And Kweisi said something very similar to that, where the price is the other options that you would walk away from the table. So if the Patriots are saying, look, we're only doing it for what Brent was bringing up earlier, where we're talking about three firsts and a pick swap later on. But Kevin O'Connell says, look, I've got Drake May and Michael Penix only this far away. So why don't we just take Penix instead? And we'll just go from there because there's no other way to look at this other than it has to be somewhat of an economics problem because we just don't know based on the guys, whether they'll succeed or not. If these were already NFL quarterbacks and they had five years

of playing, then you could look at their resumes and go, all right, well, I know exactly how these guys play and I'm willing to pay a little more for the guy who's better. So this would be like Russell Wilson versus Kirk. Clearly the NFL thought nothing of Russell Wilson and a lot of the way that Kirk was playing because they have samples of watching them in actual NFL situations with this. You're talking about, well, maybe Drake may with his skills has a whatever percent chance to be great, but Michael Penix has this percent chance to be at least good. All right, well, we're going to weigh that. So that's kind of how this decision has to go down. I think not Kevin O'Connell says,

according to recent history, you win the Superbowl by either having Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, or having a quarterback on a rookie contract. That's right. And there's really easy examples to look at in recent history because they've made the Superbowl these last two teams. Now Stafford is a bit of the exception there, but Stafford also had numerous Hall of Famers on that roster. Aaron Donald, Jalen Ramsey, Vaughn Miller, Andrew Whitworth. I mean, that team was unreal stacked and kind of got a nice little bounce when they got to face the Bengals and not the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl. But the last two teams that went to the Super Bowl had quarterbacks that were making basically no money.

And that's a big factor. It really is that they were able to build those great teams around their quarterbacks. And Mark says, we continue to not win Super Bowls, which we have been doing forever. Scared of what? We've never won. Well, that's what I was talking about with the mentality of Kweisi Daufel-Mensah,

where this franchise has never won. And usually you get one shot at being a GM. I think there are a few GMs who have, you know, popped back into the league. Tom Telesco got fired and then shows back up with the Raiders. Very strange. Not sure why, since he was not good at his job with the chargers, but usually you get one chance to be a general manager. And I don't think that Kweisi Adafo-Mensah wants to use his one chance at drafting a quarterback and his one

chance at general manager to take somebody that he's really not sold on. If it's possible, that's the one thing that gets in a way if it's possible, because the Patriots might not be open for business. They might not be, uh, available for a trade and it might not be possible to truly get your guy. And then you got to believe in the rest of your plan. That would be the part that you have to quote settle for is that you didn't tank. You didn't trade away to Neil Hunter. You didn't play whatever Sean Mannion and lose every game. Instead, you won some games and you lost out on your chance to be where the Patriots are. So that's something that you have to deal with. But when it comes down to, if you've got that last, you know, that last draft pick to throw in, because this is your one shot at this quarterback and your one shot as a GM, then I think you're going to do it because you're aware of, again,

the gravity of the situation is we all know that you usually don't get multiple quarterback draft picks. JP, if we end up with anyone but Bo Nix, we can consider it at least half a win for us, specifically if we don't trade up or don't lose that much by trading up. But if we had a shot at May, let's get them 100%. So you're not into the Bo Nix idea. I just, just go back and watch a little Bo Nix. So I just want you to do that because this is what I try to do. I do this throughout draft season. I've done it every year, but I've really done it this year just on a daily basis. So I've been doing a lot of work on this draft guide, purpleinsider.com sign up for the

newsletter. It's great. I write almost every day. So, uh, I've been doing a lot of work on this, this draft guide where I'm putting together a bunch of stat stuff, background, um, little essays and things like that about the draft. And so I just in between doing that, when I'm taking a little break, I'll go back and watch a game from any of the quarterbacks, except for Caleb Williams. Cause I don't think there's any chance they do that. So I'm just, I'm just jumping in and going, all right, let me just go back and watch Bo Nix for a game or two. And I watched him back and went, I don't get it. I just don't get why there isn't at least some more appreciation for this quarterback with the way that he operated this offense.

It was just fantastic. And it wasn't like he was doing it with knuckleballs. I mean, so I just, if you're really down on one of these particular guys, I guess just, just go back and watch a little bit more because I think you come away with, this is just a very good class. And I don't think I'm taking crazy pills after what Elliot Wolf said and what the Vikings have said. Not Kevin O'Connell. JJ McCarthy is only going to be 22 in 2025 when our Superbow Bowl window is supposed to open. Can we waste a few years waiting for him to get older?

Yeah, that's a hard one because I do wonder about the age factor and how someone like Bo Nix is ready to go right now and ready to get that ball to Justin Jefferson. And so is Michael Penix. Michael Penix, you know, with his health, who knows how long he's going to play if he plays eight years in the league or something or, or less. Um, but they are much more, uh, mature prospects by a lot by three years and more ready to go. I also think that it happens within those first couple of years that the guy gets to that place. So if you're 20 years old by 23, you might be a franchise quarterback. And I don't know how

old was Josh Allen when they drafted him? Was he maybe 21 or something? And how old was he when he was considered a franchise quarterback? Was he 24? A lot of times it does happen pretty fast and you are asked to be that guy, which McCarthy maturity was not really his issue. I guess you're talking about bringing all the skills together to be a franchise quarterback. I don't know. I mean, it's a fair question of, is somebody that young going to be able to handle the whole franchise on their back in a Super Bowl window that's supposed to open up really quickly that you don't have three, four, five years, or at least we don't think that they do in order to get this thing up to

where it's Super Bowl pressure. But I don't know. If it was year three, if 2025, they're in the mix, and then year three, they've got a real serious chance to win a Super Bowl, and he's 23 years old, you're looking at it as the window to me is the rookie contract. So how old is he through the rookie contract? 22 to 26 through the rookie contract? That's okay. That's coming into his prime at that point. If you have one chance at really competing for the Superbowl and the rookie contract,

you've won the draft pick. Can you get that somewhere within JJ McCarthy potentially if he's developing along the way? Yeah, I think you can. Uh, EL Hassan, do you think thatikings have already sent their best offer to the patriots elliot wolf strategically putting pressure on the vikings to raise the price i don't think that they've sent their best offer to the patriots their best offer will be when washington picks and takes the guy the vikings don't want and then they pick up that phone and say okay actually here's our real offer. What I would guess is that there is an offer in place for the Patriots right now.

And the Patriots are saying, well, we have no reason to take this right now. Why don't we wait? And when he says open for business, then all right, well, that's maybe, Hey, other teams, if you can top the Vikings offer, we're listening. But who can top the Vikings offer? Really only the New York Giants. Maybe the New York Giants are the sleeper team of this thing and want to put together that package. And maybe it was a message to the Giants. Hey, the Vikings are on the board here with our best offer can you top it wink

wink or it could be as you said a message to the vikings why don't you just up that price a little bit then we'll consider it um or it could just be that nfl people always say sure we like all the quarterbacks sure we could trade out i'll say whatever you want because I'm not telling you the answers. That could also be it. Uh, AJ Brown was the rumor of the day. Drew says, Hmm. So I saw AJ Brown tweet that he was watching the Patriots documentary. So he put Tom Brady in his bio or something. And then everyone thought he was going to the Patriots. That doesn't really seem like a rumor. That just seems like the internet being really silly at a lot of times. Let's see. I mean, you guys are really fascinated by the Falcons thing.

We'll just have to see if they do anything about it. Even when we asked Kweisi at Alphamensa, he was sort of shrugged his shoulders. Like, I don't know. I guess we'll see. It's up to the league. Sue says, Patriots cannot draft quarterback at three. They're open for business because they want to see if there are any other offers besides the Vikings.

That's probably right. Everyone knows it is not a secret at all that the Vikings are trying to trade with the Patriots. So, yeah, I'm sure that part of this whole conversation is them saying, come on, let's up that offer. Let's make this a little bit better somebody, and then we'll consider doing it, but we're not going to do it now for what you're offering. And that's, that seems reasonable for sort of picking. If we're picking it apart, that seems pretty reasonable. Jeff, if we stick and pick at 11 and 23, it's because it's the plan.

It could be plan B or C, but it's a plan. I agree with that. Yeah. And everything is a, if we look at it like a road and off ramps. So how about this? When I drive to green Bay, there are only a handful of places. If you've ever made this trip, you know exactly what I'm talking about, that you would safely get off the highway to go to an Arby's or whatever.

As you're going through this stretch of insane darkness and scary deer dodging from Minnesota to green Bay to cover those games at Lambeau field, it's always very dicey going through there. And there's only a handful of exits where you can actually get your Arby's. So what you have to decide is which exit you want to take, which one is the most favorable. If you go and you're driving along and your first exit has a really nice Arby's right off of the highway and it's open and you're like, okay, let's get off. That might be trade up to number three with the Patriots. It's the first option.

The lights are on. Everybody's good with whatever. The price, there's no construction. But if you go and you're driving and you see the Arby's is closed, they're not trading. All right, now it's on to option B. But all of it was on the roadmap, right?

There isn't, you're not driving in the dark going like, I don't know, do we turn left? That's not what this decision is going to be. It's going to be exit. Number one is Drake may exit. Number two is stay at 11 and take Bo Nix or maybe JJ McCarthy. That's my hot take is that they'll pick McCarthy at 11. That that's how it's going to be done. And all of those roadmaps are being finalized. I think now over these last couple of days, and they'll go into next week with their complete map, choose your own adventure.

If this happens, or in this case, it's other teams choose your adventure for you, which is the, maybe the hard part about this, really the only super hard part about it for them is that other teams are choosing your adventure for you, as opposed to you getting to be able to say which you want, but that's the draft that's sports. Uh, Jimbo two scenarios to discuss first is a three team trade with the Cardinals and Patriots cards get 11, uh, 23 and the Vikings 20, uh, 25 first Vikings get three, the Patriots cards get 11, 23, and the Vikings 25 first. Vikings get three. The Patriots get the fourth overall pick, and then 20, 25, third and fourth to move

down for McCarthy. So that was complicated, Jimbo. But what you're saying is a three-team trade that would involve, if I'm following the Cardinals ending up with 11-23, the Patriots moving back to four, and the Vikings getting three. I could see it. I could see multiple movements. I could see them dropping back, the Patriots dropping back to number 11

and then moving back up to number six or something. If they're not going to, if the giants are not going to make that pick, I just think with Arizona, they should just pick Marvin Harrison jr. Right. He's the number one player on the consensus board. He's talked about as one of the best receiver prospects to ever come out. He's just take him. It's the chargers who could get an offensive lineman later. It's the giants. It's the Titans. All these teams should really want to move back to get offensive lineman.

Not a twerk says, uh, what happens to Jaron Hall practice squad? Probably QB three. Jaron Hall. If he has an NFL career, it'll be a huge win for him if he stays in the nfl that's what happened last year against the packers was a guy who was way in over his head and

kevin o'connell tried to be positive about that but i think we all knew that look he was just weighing over his head in the nfl he's going to spend an entire year trying to prove that that's not the case. But I think from a physical perspective, he's just not good enough to play in the NFL. Doesn't have the arm, doesn't have the speed, doesn't he's okay at all these things maybe to get drafted, but it's just not going to be a thing. So it was fine. I wasn't a huge fan of the pick to begin with. And it would have been nice if he had worked out. Cause then you have your backup quarterback, but there's no ceiling on a player who's 25 years old, undersized without a big arm and doesn't have a difference making athleticism as he found out in Atlanta. So if he's your backup, then okay.

But like number three, maybe a backup over a couple of years. It just, that's a pick that just didn't work out. Uh, Aubrey says, uh, how are the Vikings going to Vikings this draft? I don't know about that. Um, I don't know because they've drafted quarterbacks in the past. Some of them have worked, some of them not. They haven't drafted a ton. They don't have a huge history. The most Vikings-y thing that could happen would be they draft a guy and he tears everything in his knee in the first week of minicamp or something. Sorry, I'll knock on wood on that one.

That would be the most Vikings-y thing. And then Sam Darnold takes them to the NFC Championship. There you go. That's the most Vikings. The thing is that they trade everything for Drake may and Sam Darnold takes them to the NFC championship. That would be it. All right. A couple more here. You guys have been awesome. As always, uh, EL Hassett says Vikings are going to have a bunch of third round picks. Uh, that is what they should use to sweeten the deal yeah yeah that if they throw in another

third round pick i don't care that's fine if they need to do that it's really about adding another first rounder to where you end up with three years of firsts going to new england to get your guy versus just taking another good prospect chris is it such a bad thing if they decide to draft ter and Arnold and chop Robinson or Newton build a bully defense and stick with Darnold? Yes, that is a bad thing. Yep. That is a, that's a terrible thing. Sam Darnold has as many interceptions as touchdowns in his career. There's no turnaround that you can find outside of maybe Vinny Testaverde ever for somebody starting their career this bad and then actually becoming a potential Super Bowl quarterback.

No, not into that. Not into that. Nope. I agree that they need these defensive players for sure, but you need to have really, really, really good quarterback play. If you're making the Super bowl, there's lots of good defenses in the world over the years. And a couple of them have reached the super bowl ever. So yeah, I mean, would it be better to your point to split the difference, which would be all right.

11 and 23 defensive player, shutdown corner, defensive tackle and quarterback. Yes, but no, Sam Darnold is not an option here. In fact, you wouldn't even know he exists when we do the press conferences with Kevin O'Connell. You wouldn't even, he doesn't, his name doesn't even come up. So yeah, no, I it's, you can't, you can't have him be an option. I, yes, I understand all of the, I'm not down on Sam Darnold, by the way, I'm only at a, like, look, this is not the guy. This is not the guy it's like Aaron or, um, Sam Darnold is at best a serviceable quarterback to continue you on a competitive rebuild. If you need him to play the whole season because your quarterback isn't ready, then you can, and you can compete for a playoff spot maybe, but you're talking about in the best

case, Sam Darnold scenario, he gives you what Gardner Minshew gave the Colts last year. That's what you're kind of looking for. And yeah, you know, they bring up Baker Mayfield. It's actually quite telling where, who was this the other day? One of the Vikings players brought up Baker Mayfield as an example of, Hey, you know, Sam Darnold bounced around, but he could be like Baker Mayfield. Baker Mayfield went nine and eight last year. Is that what we're looking for here? I mean, he went, he's this great magical story of someone who revived their career and got his team into the playoffs and won a playoff game against a totally broken Philadelphia Eagles team. Baker Mayfield went nine and eight. I mean, that's not what you're going for. And that's like, that's a best case situation. I don't think so. So, you know, I just, I don't look at that as any sort of option for them. They're drafting a quarterback. It's just who they're going to draft is really the question. And that I do not know. Still, we're all the way this deep into this process. And I still don't know who the Vikings are going to draft or if they're going to trade the house or what is going to happen.

Let's see. Drew says most Pats fans want Drake and for him to sit for a year. But there are some crazies out there. Well, and if we're still adding up all the scenarios, the most likely still is that they are going to stay there and pick at number three and the Patriots are going to take their quarterback. I guess the one question is, would it be, you know, Drake may, or would it be the guy who reminds them of Tom Brady and JJ McCarthy? How, how real is this McCarthy hype is what we are going to find out? From a national perspective, not just us, that has to be

number one on everybody's list of most interesting thing, right? For this draft, is this McCarthy thing real or not? Alhassan, do you know what our offer was last year to get Anthony Richardson? That should give you an idea of what they were willing to pay. I do not know what their offer was. I know that it was reported shortly after the draft by Ben Gessling of the Star Tribune that they had put together something significant to try to move up. And then later that came up from somebody else and it sort of made the rounds because aggregators, I guess, rule the universe. But, um, I think that Kweisi Adafo Mensah, a lot

of stuff gets out there of, well, the Vikings had this conversation or this, whatever it sounds to me from the way he talked the other day is that he's on the phone a lot and he's asking questions a lot and having ideas a lot. Hey, what would it take for us to move up to number four was probably the question for Anthony Richardson, or maybe it was Stroud or maybe it was Bryce Young. There were all, you know, somebody that they would want to build around and sit behind Kirk for a year. Although Richardson made the most sense there. So I'm guessing that it was likely three firsts. I mean, three firsts was the bar that was set by Trey Lance for that trade for the 49ers. So if you're going to do something similar, that's what you

have to do. They were trying to go, this is different though. So it won't really tell us because a, there's more quarterbacks and they were trying to go from 23 to the top five. That doesn't make any sense at all. I mean, that would have taken insane, insane capital to move up to do that. Just a Superbowl bike. Get it. If you can, if you can't, it's not worth it.

I assume you mean the pick from the Patriots get Get Pennix or Nix at 11 or 23. With this roster, with Pennix or Nix, you'll get your pick's worth with this roster being the way it's built. Yeah, that's what I think. Where a lot of you are really locking into, this is my favorite thing. And if they don't do this, then I'll be disappointed.

But when you watch these quarterbacks, you could, I think, very easily envision them having success with the team that the Vikings have. The one argument that I think may win that debate by a hair is, all right, well, look at the quarterbacks in the division. How are you going to beat them? Well, all right. I mean, that's what makes it a little bit harder. Do you need someone who's really special to beat them? But then again, Brock Purdy and Jalen Hurts were in the super bowls last two years. Neither one of them, when they came out in the draft, were thought of as being special. That's another part of it as well, that sometimes we get this idea about guys and what turns out to be the best thing is how they fit with the actual team. That was the case that was

being made by Kevin O'Connell the other night. So anyway, um, uh, we've gotten to the point so far after nine o'clock that you're on crack has entered the conversation, the discussion, not directed at me, I don't think, but that's probably where it's a point from huge boy. Good to see you says, uh, why do we never talk about having an elite head coach or general manager? If our current head coach and GM aren't elite, we should dump them. And Kyle Shanahan and Howie Roseman built contenders despite not having an elite quarterback. Well, they got elite quarterback play. So there is a difference there, right? Just not having this. Well, this is kind of the point about bone X or pen X or whatever is Jalen hurts and Brock Purdy played at MVP levels to be able to get them to the Superbowl. So just cause you don't think they're elite and maybe they won't be elite for 10 years. Doesn't mean they weren't elite in that year. So you have to find a way to get great, great quarterback play, which does tie into the coach and the general manager.

It is a good point. So with both Kevin O'Connell and Kweisi Daffel-Mensah, I have been in the camp that we just don't really know yet on whether it's going to work out with either one of them. I like a lot of the things that both of them have done. So it matters a lot that the NFL Players Association survey, the players are giving Kevin O'Connell an A plus. That matters. That Kirk Cousins had a relationship that he did. That matters.

There are downsides to O'Connell. I'm not sure he manages the game the best because he is so in that play callers mindset. I think he gets cute sometimes a little bit. Don't think he understands the run game very well. Maybe Aaron Jones can help him with that this year. There are deficiencies, but this is going to be his third year as a head coach. So maybe we'll see some of those get sharpened up, but there's going to be strengths and

weaknesses of every coach. Andy Reed runs trick plays on every third down and short. So I don't know. Andy Reid for a long time, couldn't manage a clock until he had Mahomes and then suddenly he was better at it. So I don't know. But what I call O'Connell an elite coach, he's going to have to prove that. And for the way that the Philadelphia Eagles and 49ers rosters have been built, nothing short of genius. I mean, the way that they've put together the playmakers, the trades that they made. I was very down on the Christian McCaffrey trade. Totally wrong.

Great trade. I mean, he stayed healthy, which is a big deal, but that was a great trade for them. Picking a random quarterback at the end of the seventh round is a great idea too. Kind of got lucky there, but they've built total, total, complete, great rosters. Their use of assets that they have has been tremendous. And the coaching for Kyle Shanahan is as good as it gets in the NFL. So that's who you're competing with. That's a good point. We're going to find out. We don't know right now, and we've got to give it a little more time before we know, but I think the signs are good. The signs point to, if you hit the right quarterback, could you win with this head coach and GM? I think the answer is yes. And more than anything, they followed exactly the plan that

they laid out and they executed it. That's the most important thing for me, believing that they're competent is that they did that. Plans don't always work, but are you competent or are you just haphazard? They've seemed both of them competent to better. So anyway, well, great stuff, guys. Great stuff. Super fun. Uh, I'm just going to ask if you're hanging around and you enjoyed this, that go over to purpleinsider.com. You can scroll down. There's a bunch of articles there. You click on any one of them. You can sign up for the newsletter, can sign up for free, can sign up on the contributing side as well to unlock all the content there. But you'll get articles very regularly too, if you're on the free side or like half of the mailbag or something, however it works out. So that's a great way if you want to support the channel, but also on Monday,

drop in the big draft guide where it's got all sorts of essays, columns, information, whatever. So go over there, purpleinsider.com, check that out. And look, if you're joining for the first time, you're enjoying it. Welcome. Thank you. And draft night, half hour before the draft, we're going to start right here. We're going to go through the first round, breaking down everything that the Vikings do. So yeah, the super chat idea. So the super chat idea comes up all the time. I would love more if you go sign up for the newsletter.

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So thanks again, everybody. We'll probably do another one of these, at least another one of these conversations before the draft night and then live coverage draft night, all sorts of guests, trying my hardest to book a very, very special guest. So we'll see trying to work that out for next week. Anyway, thanks everybody. And we'll catch you next time.

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