Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - PFF draft analyst Mike Renner makes the case for the Vikings to consider a QB in the draft

Episode Date: February 15, 2023

PFF's Mike Renner breaks down the NFC North outlook for the offseason and NFL Draft. Are the Chicago Bears going to stick with Justin Fields? Renner has serious questions about his future. Who might trade up to No. 1? Will the Packers move on from Rodgers? How do we know what Jordan Love is going to be? Will the Lions try for a future QB or go defense? Is there an argument for the Vikings trading up to get a quarterback? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and joining me, Mike Renner returns to the show, PFF Draft Analyst, and I have open in another tab, so if the video is not working and it's jogging and freezing, that's because the PFF Draft Guide is out and literally from the moment it drops until probably two weeks after the draft, that thing sits in my open tab. And you know what? I've got to say, Mike, every year it gets better. And this year it's whimsical.

It's magical. It's beautiful. Like the amount of work that you guys have put into the design of it looks so good. And I'm just happy to have it now sitting on my computer yeah we try so we try to make it better every year some way shape or form and since like we didn't collect any more information or have any new more like stats or graphs to throw at you guys this season unfortunately we thought you know how do we make it better we want to look good and so like I think this is the first time where it looks like very well crafted and it's like usable the clickability of a lot of stuff for

you know pdf we still don't have quite uh made it into a fully online guide hopefully next year knock on wood but the pdf is like a wholly usable pdf it's not like you have to control after search you can just click qbs find your guy who you want to look at. Very easy. Well, and something that I love about it too, is that the last, I think two years you've put it in. So it's almost like the Madden with the strength, like with quarterbacks, the arm strength, the accuracy, things like that. So really kind of visualizing your opinion of particular players strengths,

which I think is a, it's just a great way to be able to explain like what a player does well yeah truthfully like you don't need to read scouting reports if you just have like you said those like madden ratings if you go through and have a kind of rating about each trait that a guy could possibly have for a given position and now we've kind of boiled it down to six or seven, but maybe there's more so in that to do. If you just give them all that,

well, then you don't need to hear me drone on and on about the actual, you know, how I feel about those traits. You can kind of make your own decision about what you want to prioritize or what looks good in a prospect to you. So that's what we try to do is just take basically me and my bias out of it and give whoever the reader is, whoever is consuming

it, all the tools to kind of make their decision on what they think that guy's going to be. Yeah. And I basically just let you do all the draft work for me when it comes to figuring out what the Vikings did, what they're going to do, who they should take a look at. And so this is my, this is my beacon that I follow. But here's what I want to talk with you about though, because we haven't gotten to the combine, which is where everything starts to shuffle out, and we get a much better, much sharper idea of where guys are going to go. We all listened to Daniel Jeremiah for a couple of days,

and he talks about his insight, which is usually very helpful to understand what's next. But I want to talk about the NFC North, which is just going to be really impacted by the draft with of course the chicago bears with the number one pick so i want to start there talk about aaron rogers maybe we could shut the lights out and do some sort of darkness podcast for rogers um and talk about jordan love a little bit and of course the vikings but uh let's let's start with the bears mean, this is the question every single interview you do

up until something happens or does not happen with the Bears. Are they going to trade fields? Are they going to draft Jalen Carter? Like what's going to happen with Chicago? What should they do? So there is the report that they are committed to fields, right? And I think it was from Albert Breer. I feel like he's fairly strongly connected.

I tend to believe that report when it comes out this early on that they're going to do that because i mean you have seen like bryce young hasn't played a game in a month well levis hasn't played any football c.s shroud hasn't like that if you've evaluated these quarterbacks and decided you know i don't think any of them are better than fields i don't think uh you know gifting them down interviewing them is going to change at this point if you looked at their tape and decided that. So I tend to believe that report. And, you know, Fields was dynamic last year.

For whatever you want to say about him, he led probably the worst group of offensive talent in the NFL to an average offense. Like they exceeded expectations based off of the offensive line and wide receiving group, the offense as a whole. And so obviously a lot of that comes back down to just field so it's not crazy to pin your hopes to him now there's still a lot to be desired from him as a passer but again as a runner he's the level of dynamism that kind of raises the floor so they're they're committed to him my opinion there's zero reason for them to stick at number one overall and while there's two great defensive line prospects

in this draft the defense tackle georgia jalen carter the edge rusher from alabama will anderson they are you know blue chip prospects ever since the word athlete production whatever it's all there they're still good quarterbacks they're still franchise quarterbacks that other people are going to covet and one defensive line prospect one position player will never come to the sort of value proposition that you can get when you hold that lottery ticket that people want in a quarterback. So I think they're going to be able to get a haul. And in my opinion, the one I just keep pointing at that there, I think they're going to trade with the Indianapolis Colts. Because, as I mentioned, you want Jalen Carter, Willie Anderson. After those two, if you're drafting in this draft class, there's a massive gap in how good I feel about the next prospect being, you know, a high-end NFL starter.

And so if you go down to number four, with obviously the Colts would come up to get a quarterback, Texans aren't going to roll in with Davis Mills again next year. They're drafting quarterback in this year's draft. So at that point, you get quarterback, quarterback. Well, hey, you're still getting Willie Anderson and Jalen Carter. So I think that's the plan, ultimately, what we end up seeing for the Chicago Bears. I think it just makes the most sense for them. Do you think that there's going to be like four quarterbacks taken in the top six?

I mean, this is really an Anthony Richardson question. And if you say anything bad about Anthony Richardson, I'm ending the podcast right away. I mean, you know, with quarterbacks, who knows, but I really enjoyed watching him play this year. And he's sort of like, he's, he's got some guts and he's got a lot of skill. And I kind of think that, you know, maybe in years past, we would have called them a project, but I think as a society, we've advanced past that and we can look at those skills, but he's the guy that would make it like quarterback number four probably and is is anybody going to reach to kind of go there and when you look at the teams that need quarterbacks there's a lot of them in

the top 10 to 12 picks yeah i tend to think richardson's going to go higher than people think because if year three, he's still, let's just say he's just squirt, unplayable. He looks like Zach Wilson, let's say. You put him at tight end tomorrow, and he's probably one of the, like, five to ten most dynamic tight ends in the NFL. Like, he'd be a top 50 pick if he said, I wanted to play tight end in the NFL because you're not finding a guy 6'4", 240, who runs like a 4'4".

Those guys just don't exist. And who's that coordinated and that athletic and that can move like he does in space. So I tend to think he's going to go higher. Now we were sitting here last year debating, you know, where these quarterbacks are going to go. And then all of a sudden, like all the quarterback spots get filled. Right. So I, I obviously it's kind of a, you know, two way street here. The need has to be there for anyone to pull the trigger on anything

Richardson. And we could be looking at saying Las Vegas got a quarterback. Carolina got a quarterback. The Jets got a quarterback. You know, all these teams that maybe need quarterbacks, maybe they all get one by the time the draft comes. And so then the quarterbacks get pushed down. But I think as it stands right now,

I think you're going to see Indy take one. I think you're going to see Houston take one. And I think you're going to see Carolina take one. It I think you're going to see Houston take one. And I think you're going to see Carolina take one. It's just, is Vegas going to get a QB? Is Detroit going to pull the trigger on a QB of the future? Is Atlanta ready to pull the trigger on a quarterback of the future? I don't know, but I do think that someone like Atlanta would be really intrigued by Nathan Richardson to pair with that run-heavy offense that Arthur Smith runs, run-heaviest

offense in the NFL. So I do think the floor for Anthony Richardson is probably somewhere around like 18 to the Lions. I think that's like the back end. I'd be really surprised if he goes any later than that. Yeah, I really like the idea of Atlanta. I mean, they've been drafting some weapons, Kyle Pitts, Drake London,

and I mean, Desmond Ritter's just not, it's not it. I mean, I think Desmond Ritter could probably be a long, long time backup. I'm very proud of my comp last year when I watched Desmond Ritter. And again, not a QB expert, but I thought like, this guy looks like a McCown. Like he just, you know, like the limited sort of ceiling, but you know, good footwork and can probably do a lot of NFL things. So maybe he'll eventually have a 14 year career and become

an offensive coordinator or something. And they're both like super high end testing athletes, but then you watch them on the field and you're like, what, where they just like, don't play up to that, but they are right. The, the relative athletic scores, which we all love, just was, is obsessed with Josh McCown. It's got him as one of the highest scoring players ever. And there's highlights of him as like a 40-year-old dunking basketballs and stuff. But he never, like you said, never really played that way. Anthony Richardson absolutely does.

He is a monster. And his team at Florida was garbage. And yet he was always finding ways to kind of grind them into games. But not to overly focus on that until we get to the Vikings. And I want to ask you about maybe their connection with quarterbacks. But as far as Chicago goes, what are they going to get if they trade down? Because like is the is Trey Lance like the standard of trades now where it better be like multiple first round picks, even if someone's only moving up a couple of spots.

Yeah. I don't think it's going to get to that point just because Indy was bad this year. You know, I think the 49ers were multiple first round picks because it's like, we're going to the playoffs next year. You know, if Jimmy G was healthy, we'd be, we would have been the playoffs already. So it's like, that's a little different story because those multiple first round picks got really discounted by the fact that you thought 49ers could be good.

Whereas if the Colts give up their first round pick next year, that might be number one overall. You know, that might be a Denver Rams scenario here that we're seeing where they both gave up top five picks unknowingly. So I do think it's probably going to be like four to this year, which would be, it was at 35 overall Indy's next pick.

And then I think future two or future three is probably where that ends up. If it is Indy, if it's someone like the Raiders who really want to get up there and get that number one overall pick, well then you might see a future first. They're a little better roster. I think they're a little better roster in position to compete, but yeah,

I don't think for that small of a gap. And especially when, as we just talked, well talked well four qbs go in the top 10 especially when there is that like that uh positive through that that just uh new the numbers game basically there are options if you don't get a bryce young that the desperation won't be quite as steep i'll say yeah and uh chicago might be looking to recoup a number two because they um sent it into space when they traded for chase claypool and i don't know if it's ever coming back down it's going to get shot down like a chinese balloon um but uh anyway uh so with justin fields though i yeah i i i i would love your opinion on just Fields, though, because having seen one game of him in person, he has decided that his legs work.

And boy, do they ever work. And it was actually against the Vikings where it was like they figured out, you know, what we should do is have Justin Fields be real fast and run that way. And yet the throwing, though though was still underwhelming. But how am I supposed to know whether that was because of receivers, offensive line, so forth? I think it's really hard to pick these things apart. And when I was researching quarterbacks and just like looking for, was there any hint of Geno Smith could have been better than he was or something? One thing I noticed is that through two years, we still don't know a lot of the time. But also it's concerning how often he gets sacked, how low his PFF passing grade is after two years.

Like how is Chicago supposed to know? Yes, this is the guy to build around or no, they should have. Because I feel like there might be regrets if they end up passing on quarterbacks and then Justin Fields doesn't turn out to be any better than he's been. Yeah. I think, you know, for everyone that wants to make the jail and hurts comparison, there's some things that I would be worried about in terms of like that actually coming to fruition. One is like, you saw hurts now.

No, we barely saw him as a rookie, right? We saw him like three games or something. But really looked like he didn't belong at all. Bad. Really bad out of the gate. Year two, improvement. Like it was better. Fields as a passer, year two was worse.

There is nothing to write home about for him as a passer this past season. It was higher turnover-worthy play rate. He had a higher sack conversion rate, pressure to sacks. Like the things that people criticize him for that he's bad at or was bad at, you worried about, have not seen improvement whatsoever. And now, again, no supporting cast, but like you could have mitigated it. It just should look a little better in some ways like that. And I do think the offensive line, to a degree, got overblown. They played a lot better in some ways like that and i do think the offensive

line to a degree got overblown they played a lot better towards the end of the season and he was still taking a lot of sacks like he's just a guy who is going to take sacks that's kind of his play style and so yeah he's so dynamic with his legs and obviously the more talent you have a wide receiver the more layups he's going to get. But I do worry that you just have not seen improvement as a passer. You've seen just such stark improvement as a runner, pretty much responsible for their whole increase in efficiency offensively. And all they did was on the backs of his legs. So that's a little worrisome because they've already kind of bought in to that aspect of his game. There's no more meat on the bone to get unless he improves as a passer. Right.

And when you're talking about a guy who's having games where he throws for 94 yards or something, I mean, that's just not going to take you anywhere. That's like he's – you mentioned Jalen Hurts. He improved every year of his career, like even through college, and then just kept getting better. And the way that – I was always impressed with the way that he went from Alabama to Oklahoma and then was just like a monster that kind of takes us back to that whole debate over Jalen hurts at the draft, but with fields, we just haven't,

we just didn't see that at all. And I, and I think that if you're, if you're throwing interceptions or something, okay, well, that might be able to be fixed, but even like the big time throws and stuff, they weren't even there as much as they were the first year. And it seemed like he wasn't even taking risks with his big arm. And one of the biggest things that I think just destroys a quarterback as far as their chances to make it is if they can't see things. And so like watching Kellen Mond in training camp practices was just sad because he clearly could not see what was going on in the field and didn't know where to throw the ball.

And there's a lot of that with Justin Fields where it looks like he just doesn't see it. And if you don't see it, then you're not going to be able to do anything with it, even if you have good wide receivers. Yeah, I mean, Bears fans hate me, but I've said like, I draft Bryce Young in a heartbeat. I wouldn't even think twice about it because of that right there. Like, I just don't

see, I guess I don't see the next step coming for Fields as a passer. There's been no signs to basically point that direction other than the only thing you could say is his support of Gassibad. That's the only thing you could say to really, you know, differentiate him as a pastor from Zach Wills, you know, they just have not a route. Folks. I'm dealing with that lull that we all have when the holidays are over and

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from your supplement routine, then Athletic Greens is giving you a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. Go to athletic greens.com slash insider. That is athletic greens.com slash insider. Check it out. Right. And you've already kind of burned a couple of years of their rookie deal. Um, but I think that we don't have to operate in a world where if we trade away, Justin Fields and Bryce Young is a bust that we all get, that would get fired. Like we can just be like, oh, how about that? But Ryan Poles, you know, would be, you know, just in a lot of trouble if that happened. But I think that there is a really great argument for it.

And I think you could also say that coming out like Bryce Young is a better prospect than Justin Fields is. And if we're still talking about, is he going to be X, Y or Z? And we don't know, I'd rather take the younger guy who's going to be cheaper for longer, who you can build around. But I think Chicago will ultimately stay there and rebuild. And look, if Fields is horrendous, they might have a case for Caleb Williams next year because the team isn't going to be way, way better if he's horrendous. Now, how about with Green Bay? We don't know at this moment what Aaron Rodgers is going to do.

Nobody knows. Maybe not even Aaron Rodgers until he has hallucinations or whatever. I saw a jet in the darkness. That's me. But how do you think that plays out, though? It feels to me like he's going to be a New York jet or a Las Vegas Raider. Truthfully, if Brett Favre had not gone to the New York jets,

he would be a New York jet already in my mind. Like, I think he's too prideful to want it to be like, you know, I'm following Brett Favre's exact footsteps, which he is. And it's amazing to see, but like that to me is the only hold holdup I do think he wants out.

I mean, he's not a dumb guy. He sees this roster. He knows we're not going to get to where we want to go. I think he said as much in press conferences towards the end of the year. He's just like, you know, we didn't have enough. Straight up didn't have enough this year offensively. And I don't think he wants to go out like that, where it's kind of just a dud season.

The offense was the problem. It ultimately falls back on him to a degree that I think he wants to go out with a supporting cast that's high end. I think he wants to be in the mix. I don't think he wants people to ever be like a laughingstock. So I do think he still has a lot in the tank. And I do think a lot of their problems offensively were the fact that they didn't have reliable receivers.

He didn't trust the receivers. It was not a good group of talent. So I do think ultimately both sides are going to come to the conclusion that they're both better off on different, you know, parting ways because this package roster can't improve without really the picks to get that they're going to get from moving them and can't do much with cap space that he's eaten up the next few years. Yeah. And I, having seen Garrett Wilson in person in a game against the

Vikings, which, you know, a lot of people had good games against the Vikings, but he made some spectacular plays. Like he looks to me like the real deal superstar wide receiver out of the box ready to go for Aaron Rodgers and that team is pretty stacked I think Robert Sala knows what he's doing like it's a pretty good situation aside from Aaron Rodgers in the New York media would be a fun weekly battle with that if he doesn't like being criticized while he's in Green Bay welcome to New York but. But, you know, I think for them, it makes a lot of sense too.

Zach Wilson, there's just nothing there. There's no reason to think that that's going to turn into anything. And if Rodgers is a New York Jet, the only downside is Buffalo is there in Josh Allen. I think Miami is going to continue to be good. Probably the Patriots will be mediocre, but it's a really tough conference to

try to win maybe he likes that but the afc is just i mean i mean mahomes and herbert's you know still still improving probably and we'll be better with kellen moore and like geez there's just so many good quarterbacks in the afc that i wonder if that would even be a consideration like yeah i could probably win the NFC easier. Well, the package had said though, you know, we're not dealing them to an NFC.

We're only dealing them to the AFC. So I, as much as he could want it. And he did say, he didn't want to go to 49ers. I do think that the Packers would not be open to that because they think, you know, they still think they're going to be in the hunt next year,

even with Jordan love. So we'll see about that. But man, you are right though, about the SC QBs. You talk the sheer amount of talent and the fact that in this year's draft, the top two are probably going to the AFC in the Colts and the Texans. Like the one division that doesn't have elite QBs yet. You know, you got Trevor Lawrence, but you got really no one else.

Shit, they're getting their two guys now. Like they could be within the next three years. So it could just be an absolute gauntlet the next decade and a half they're all in the afc they really are it's probably over the top 10 what now two like if aaron rogers goes there who's in the nfc that's the top thing could be dad it hurts but like hardly you know comparatively right yeah and uh brock purdy maybe i guess i mean i yeah it's it's it's kind of like um you know like mid-2000s there with uh the you know rex grossman can make it in the nfc and in the afc it's like manning brady you know and so forth and jake delomes over there in the nfc matt hasselbeck Like that's kind of what it reminds me of.

Those sort of, you know, those days of the same thing with Mahomes and Allen and so forth that we're going to see every year. So I don't know if Rodgers would have that play into it. But if you're the Packers, you got to want them gone, right? Like you just, we've run to the end of the road and they just can't want to do this anymore. They can't want to do this with they can't want to do this with all the weird stuff that he's into and I mean if he's going to not go to OTAs and training camp because he's like in the Himalayans finding himself or whatever like last year I thought that he came in unprepared underweight like just you can't do that when you have a bunch of rookie

wide receivers and maybe that's the difference between winning one or two of those early games and getting yourself in the playoffs. I think if you're the Packers, you're just kind of done with the act. And if he's not going to be God QB anymore, then you could just have Jordan Love and figure it out. But how are we supposed to have any opinion of what Jordan Love can be? No, I 100% agree. And I was honestly banging the table last off season.

I, because I thought the trade value was so immense, you know, you could have gotten, you could have had the, you know, could have gotten what the Broncos gave up for Russell Wilson and then some last off season and really been set up for long-term success, you know, with a deal like that. But instead they chose, you know, one to two years of Rodgers thinking that the Superbowl window was still there when I just didn't see this roster getting that much better. You know, they're obviously in the mix,

but I didn't think there were a clear cut Superbowl team. Like they weren't that level of good where it's like, Oh, we have to run it back. We have to take our chance. It's going to be, you know, we'll be right there at the end of the season. And obviously, they weren't even close at the end of the season. So I thought it made sense last year, but it 1,000% makes sense this year. There's just no improving this team to the degree that it needs to be improved without it. And I guess, like, Jordan Love in the very, very tiny sample size did not look like a disaster, like preseason and a couple of times he came in.

So, yeah, right. I guess we but I think when you spent a first round draft pick on him and he sat there and developed and Rogers is always the prime example of a guy who sat there and developed as we continue the synergy with the far and everything else. I mean, I think it's very possible, even though they've wasted a lot of the rookie quarterback deal, that he could at least be a functional quarterback for them for the future. It's just that they've made their cap situation harder if he does turn out to be good. But in my mind, you have to find out. You can't go an entire guy's contract just like hanging on to the past knowing that rogers is never going to drag you back to a super bowl no i 100 agree and it's because i mean the fifth year decision whatever i think they're going to pull that trigger and do it just because of it's not that they're obviously like in such a bad gap space anyway like it's not crazy you can't risk the chance of him being good

and then have to dump a ton of money on him all once the next year. But you can't go into the fifth year and that's his first year as a starter and then have any idea what you're going to get out of him. So I do think the timing all points to it. If he comes back as a Packer next year, I'd be very, very surprised. So I was just going gonna skip over the lions but then you dropped like hot take lions could draft a quarterback uh do you think that that's that that's actually possible i mean uh you know jared goff is middling and expensive but also just led a top five offense yeah it's more the i said i think

i called that the floor for richardson at 18 i don't think pick six is super in play i i think they're going to have a choice of a really good defender at that point and maybe not an elite one but like a prospect that this defense was you know the sore spot of this team they have problems they have problems at corner that problems that defensive tackle problems at linebacker like all three levels they could address and so pick six feels like it's probably still going along that defense side of the ball but pick 18 like i said if a quarterback's sitting there they do have to think about the future because golf's not cheap you know golf's costing you a lot to perform at the level he is and if we've learned anything from the Rams, it's like golf often tends to be fool's gold, right?

Like you can look good over a sample and everything is perfect, but lose a little bit here and there. And they're lucky that Ben Johnson came back, their offense coordinator, because if they lost him, I think that would have been one of the first sort of dominoes to fall. But like that domino falls, maybe you, you uh what offensive line has injury issues whatever it is uh i i do think that this sort of hot streak from jared goff just we've fallen for it before and i'd i'd be floored or i i just i don't know if i as a decision maker as an nfl for an office would want to back myself into that corner if having to then after this season sign a long term yeah it's amazing how different of a quarterback he is well under pressure um i mean it's like or or just even if they lose a offensive guard or something for a couple of weeks and then jared

goff is just a different player uh i i think alex smith is the only other guy that i've seen be that bad at throwing off platform like if he just has to take like one step, the ball just goes directly into the ground. Yeah. They can't throw on the movie. Can't throw the move. Right. So he has to like have everything sort of set up for him.

I mean, I agree with you. I think it would be the right move, but I'm sure after the way last year ended, they're going to think we need players who can help us right now on the defensive side, which kind of does bring us to the Vikings, where I think that there's a lot of people who are sort of praying to the draft gods, like somehow be a quarterback

that drops. And I don't know how realistic that is, but I also think that they are in the exact type of same position that Kansas City was when they got Mahomes. It's hard not to make that comparison because Kirk is a Alex Smith type player and can only get you so far. And the year they drafted Mahomes, they won 12 games before that. But they also lack in draft capital. Would it be crazy if Anthony Richardson made it outside the top 10 for the Vikings to cobble together everything they could get and try to trade up? I don't think it'd be crazy at all because I think as you hit the nail there, that's like you do your calf with Kirk Cuss. You have kind of a ceiling. And now I do think they could still add to this offense, but it's like you have to, to compete with, and they're lucky they're in the NFC, but like to compete with the elite quarterbacks of the world, the guys with high end tools and the guys that bring that rushing element to, to the table.

You better have a lot of pieces offensively, you know, you better have damn near perfect situation. And that's just unrealistic to expect from a team building standpoint that you can give that to a guy. And they've done pretty well already with, you know, with Justin Jefferson, with their offensive tackles. Like they've they've really put a situation around them that is able to succeed. And obviously we saw the results this year. But one 24th overall pick and one, you know, second round pick, whatever it is to get up there in the fourth is not the difference between this team and the Super Bowl. They're a little bit farther away than that, in my opinion. So, Anthony Richardson can take you there. Yeah, not having a second makes it hard, too,

like having traded that for TJ Hawkinson. But, I mean, the argument to me is just too strong to ignore. And if you're Kweisi Adafomensa, you're at this crossroads where you have to decide whether you want to tie yourself to Kirk Cousins. The last couple of organizations who have tied themselves to him got fired. So you only get so many years in a contract. And Richardson seems like the perfect type of prospect that could sit behind. But is there anything there with Tanner McKee in your mind? I really like Tanner McKee.

Now, I haven't seen a ton of other people go to bat for him, but I think he could be a little bit better version of Daniel Jones in the NFL, which is not like saying a ton. But a little bit better version of Daniel Jones is like a Kirk Cousins. It's like that range of quarterback. I think he could very well end up there. Cause he's very accurate. Uh, I think he's very NFL ready in a lot of ways. And I think he, you know, has kind of takes a lot of boxes physically that you want to see and like makes really good decisions with the football. Uh, so I don't think you're getting high end. And I think that's why he's not getting a ton of hype.

But the QB on the rookie deal is one of the biggest advantages in the NFL. Kirk Cousins at $35 million, you take that off the books, that's three starters right there, three quality starters that you can add to a roster that if you can get comparable levels of play from a rookie, whatever, you're in the mix. So now not having the second, obviously, is he worth pick 24? Debatable. I think he ends up probably somewhere in the second round if I were to guess

where he gets drafted, but I think he's better than that. I think he's a better prospect than that and worthy of more consideration than that because he just was not working with any talent around him at Stanford. Also, I mean, this joke is a little bit in the weeds, but if we go back in time and he has to play in the 1990s, he'll know the offense. Oh, yeah. He's got a 1990s West Coast playbook that memorized at this point.

My wife does play-by-play broadcasting with Mike mike golic jr who you know and they did a stanford game this year and i of course would watch the game and listen to her broadcast and stuff and i was like what is this am i am i watching like old nfl films like uh bill walsh or something like what is going on you get like every route on the outside just not knowing her play they just you got a slant and then you got a post and then you know the back side's like a slant and then an out and they're just like not even you just got to guess right yeah so i think that he was held back by that and it's hard to kind of tell with his skills um so last thing for you just on the vikings which is more likely than not they

don't draft a quarterback i just feel like if we're being realistic, that is a little bit of a long shot, but corner and defensive tackle, maybe even edge rusher, considering where's the Darius Smith and Daniel Hunter stand. Like all those are very reasonable picks for mock drafters, such as yourself. What are we looking at for late first, if that's what they're going to do? Or I should even ask like early second, because I wouldn't be surprised if Quasey punches us all in the gut on draft night and trades out of the first round or something. But in that area of the draft for defensive players like that, that they clearly have needs at. Yeah, I think the corners I would expect to go kind of in that range. I would expect Deontay Banks, the Maryland corner.

He's like a longer, twitchier corner, like a high-end athlete, maybe a little bit more of a project, but all the physical tools kind of guy. And then kind of on the other side of the spectrum, Cam Smith, who's like the opposite, who's like high-end football player, great slot corner when he's played there,

not really super athletic. Those those are probably two guys that expect to be back into the first type of guys dt i don't think it's a great dt class um the guys at the defense tackle position that might come off the board in that range i'd say are probably kalijahik Hansi, the pit defensive tackle, super undersized. So I don't know what Vikings defensive line standards are for size-wise. But he's 6'2", but he's a high-end pass rusher. I think he'd bring a ton of juice to that pass rushing unit. Him and probably Brian Brzee, the Clemson DT, who had an ACL tear a year and a half ago. Didn't have a great year this year,

but he was former number one overall recruit in the country. He could come off the board in that range. It's really not a good DT class, though. If you're drafting any other DT in that range, honestly, it's probably a reach. Did you hear Aaron Donald was undersized? I don't know if you know that.

And what's a pit, like Kansi. The cops write themselves. I think he actually might wear Donald's number, too. No a pit, like Cancy. So the comps write themselves. I think he actually might wear Donald's number, too. No, no, no, he doesn't. He doesn't wear Donald's number. Well, I did hear about that on draft day after the Vikings picked Jalen Twyman. So, you know, I'm just saying. They are different ends of the spectrum athletically.

I do think Cancy is going to come to the combine and run like a 4'7". He is one heck of an athlete it's i can see why now i didn't like do the draft when donald was coming out but it's like when you see a guy who's that freaky but he's just like doesn't look right size wise i get being antsy about those guys it's just like you don't know but i i'm willing to bet on him or just guys to that level of athleticism, even if they are undersized, just because that's how you get by. It's still tough to deal with those dudes. Yeah, there's probably a threshold.

You have to be this tall to get on the ride where you become a good player. It can't be Hercules Mata'afa, who I know is a great college player, but a little bit too small. Who is the weirdest player in the draft? Like weirdest, weirdest name, weirdest size, weird, like who's, is there like, there's like at least seven guys in college named Squirrel. Like what's, what? The weirdest player in the draft. He's got a weird name. It's not the weirdest name, but Lucas Van Ness. It's iowa defensive lineman truthfully he could go anywhere off the board in my opinion anywhere from like top maybe like fifth overall pick all the way to like the late 20s depending

on it just the tape if you ever watch i mean i i usually don't watch like every snap of a guy but he really hadn't played that much this year. And I was so like enthralled after watching a handful, like some of this, like what we call key plays, which are as great to plays after watching on his greater plays. And I'm just like, what's this,

what's this guy's deal. Because every single snap, he does the exact same thing. He does not. He just charges forward and bull rushes like no matter what, because he is like six, seven or like six, five to 75. And like can play lower than I've ever seen a dude at that size play. And so he'll just like bull rush and he bull rushes fantastic,

but he does nothing else. Like legitimately nothing else. Didn't even start at Iowa because of like, he's a weird body type and a weird like uh kind of tweener build that he was like playing nose tackle doing that exact same thing and I'm just like I don't know what this looks like at the NFL but I'm very very intrigued so Lucas Van Ness is the weirdest prospect in this class because I've never seen tape like his uh never really seen a profile like his very excited to see how he tests but But whoever is drafting him is going to have to have quite an imagination because he is going to look a lot different at the next level.

This is one reason to love draft season, is that there's always just strange prospects with some really weird tape sometimes. So I'm going to be following you, of course. And people should go to pff.com if you're not subscribing to pff already then like are you even football uh but you know download the draft guide everything else it is absolutely tremendous your work is phenomenal I know how much effort you put into that thing uh to get how many like what is it like 250 prospects or something crazy? 700? Right now it's 250. I think by the end of this year we'll get to 300.

Wow. Yeah, that's a lot of work. So I appreciate you and I appreciate all the times you come on here and we'll definitely talk again before draft season, Mike. Thanks a lot for your time, buddy. For sure, Matthew. Thanks for having me on. Go Packers. on.