Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - PFF's Doug Kyed breaks down whether the Vikings will see Trey Lance and Justin Fields this year

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

Matthew Coller connects with PFF reporter Doug Kyed to talk about the early preseason returns from rookie QBs that the Vikings are expecting to face, including Trey Lance and Justin Fields. Will the 49ers and Bears be pressured to start them from the very beginning of the season or will they have to pick the right time? Plus Doug has done a lot of reporting on the Packers... what will the offseason drama in Green Bay mean for the Packers this year and for the future with Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams. Doug also ranks how interesting the Vikings are among NFL teams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collard here and joining me new to Pro Football Focus, he's their NFL reporter, Doug Kide, and a former Nesson guy. Now, Doug, I grew up in Buffalo. That's where my career started. So I saw a lot of New England Patriots beatdowns of the Buffalo Bills. Yeah, I actually did too. But now that might flip, I guess, heading into the 2021 season here. It obviously already started to flip last year, but yeah, it was not always pretty between the patrons of Bills over the last 20 or so years. Yeah, it really was. It really was like 20 years. And then, you know,

Bills fans finally see Tom Brady go and then he wins the Superbowl elsewhere. And it would have been really sort of funny if the Bills had ended up playing in the Super Bowl last year and playing against Tom Brady and lose to Tom Brady again. Like you just can't escape this man. But I guess, you know, Kansas City was the one that ended up with that fate. So what I wanted to bring this year, there's always this year. Yeah, no, that's right. I mean, that's that's two teams that could very much end up in the Superbowl this year. The reason I wanted to bring you on was I wanted to touch on some things that are around the league that are relevant to the Minnesota Vikings. I hope for your health that you didn't watch the Vikings preseason game the other day, 33 to six, it wasn't very good. But you've been writing about a lot of different things around the league that do pertain to the

Vikings. So let's start with the Patriots and Mac Jones. Here on the show, I think people are still upset with me for saying the Vikings maybe should have drafted Mac Jones, but I think that that take looks better now that the Vikings first round left tackle has not practiced a single time yet, and Kirk Cousins upset everyone in the organization during training camp. And it's sort of clear that this might not go beyond this year, but for that take to play out in my favor, Mac Jones has to look decent. So what, what have you heard being there in Boston about what is being said about Mac Jones and training camp so far? Yeah. I mean, first of all, I agree with you. I think it probably

would have been smart for the Vikings to take Mac Jones because yeah, I mean, first of all, I agree with you. I think it probably would have been smart for the Vikings to take Mac Jones because, yeah, I mean, I'm even hearing it. This could ultimately wind up being Kirk Cousins' last season with the Vikings. I know it's tough to get out of that contract. They'd have to trade him, but that's at least out there right now, I would say. As for Mac Jones, I thought he looked decent in that preseason game. The Patriots played not perfect. He was throwing a lot of short passes. They made it pretty easy on him. But I did think that he was better than Cam Newton in that game. And in practices, from what I've seen so far, it's been pretty close. And the Patriots are at least giving Mac Jones first team reps, which is something that you're not seeing with other teams. I don't think that Justin Fields has been getting first team reps. Trey Lance has got like that one famous

first team rep when it was a design run player or whatever it was. But I think that just the fact that the Patriots are putting Mac Jones out there with the first team offensive line against the first team defense, and he's not the first one taking those reps, that's Cam Newton. But just the fact that he's on the field with those players shows that the patriots view this as a competition that mac jones could potentially win ultimately i think the most likely scenario is that cam newton at least starts this season as the starter but there's two more preseason games to go patriots are currently having joint practices with the eagles after that they've got joint practices with the giants so there's a lot of evaluation that's going to be going on over these next two or three weeks before the Patriots

actually have to decide who is starting week one. The Mac Jones thing was so interesting during the lead up to the NFL draft because a lot of people compared him to Kirk Cousins, which I thought was unfair because he's actually a much better athlete by his numbers, like his pro day numbers than Kirk Cousins is. And Kirk Cousins was kind of like a middling college quarterback where Mac Jones is like Peyton Manning last year in terms of the numbers that he put up. So that was part of the opinion of look guys, like not every single quarterback has to run a four, four, like Justin Fields to be effective in the NFL if they have the rookie contract, which Mac Jones's rookie contract, if he starts, allows the Patriots to sign all these other

players and build out their roster around him. And here we are with the Vikings watching in preseason as their second unit can't play and just gets run off the field by the Denver Broncos. It's like, well, one of the reasons your second unit can't play is just gets run off the field by the Denver Broncos. It's like, well, one of the reasons your second unit can't play is because so much money is being put into cousins. And I mean, I don't know how it will play out. It wasn't, it wasn't like I thought, oh, I'm scouting Mac Jones and I think he's going to be the best quarterback ever. It was just the guy has the baseline of a first round quarterback who could be your Jimmy G or your, your Jared Goff or something that you can build a huge roster around a really talented roster. And now the

Vikings have this uncertainty with quarterback in the future. I think if all of this was going on with Kirk cousins and they had Mac Jones, you'd be going, well, you know, oh, well, like, oh, oh, well, everyone in the organization is mad at him over this press conference and not getting vaccinated but oh well like because this is it now with kellen mond he's not the future quarterback unless he takes these huge leaps forward otherwise you would have had mac jones yeah and it's interesting that you bring up the athleticism aspect because he was actually making some good plays on the move in the last practice that I watched which was a fully padded practice he was kind of getting out

of the pocket directing guys around the field throwing to them for for touchdowns or for big plays and that's something that you know we saw at Alabama he just didn't look the part you know and he's not a guy who's going to run a 4-4 but one thing that was kind of interesting is that when him and Trey Lance were coming out of high school, Mac Jones actually ran a faster 40 than Trey Lance, which, I mean, clearly when you look at them on the field, Trey Lance is much more athletic. But it's not like Mac Jones is Kirk Cousins from an athleticism standpoint. And yeah, I mean, the conversation around Kirk Cousins back in 2012, I actually went

to the Senior Bowl that year. And he was an afterthought in that Senior Bowl practice all week. He wasn't really impressing that much. Obviously, fourth round pick, and he's kind of built himself up from there. But yeah, it's a good position to be in where drafting that quarterback in the first round, like you said, does allow you to plan for the future by building around that quarterback and you kind of saw that this offseason with the Patriots where they put together a lot of contracts where guys are only have they only have like a one million dollar salary this season or something

very low this season and then it builds up from 2022 and beyond and you can't do that if you do have Kirk Cousins or a veteran quarterback whose salaries and cap hits keep increasing over the years. Obviously, Mac Jones cap hits will increase over the years, but it's a baseline. It's still a small number and they aren't committed to another quarterback who's making a lot of money. So, yeah, I don't know. Like I said, I'm not sure what happens with Kirk Cousins next offseason. Definitely not a guarantee that he's in Minnesota. The issue there clearly is that they would have to trade him because they can't really release him and take on that $45 million dead cap hit and still put a good team around whichever quarterback is out there. So I had this debate actually with your boss, Neil Hornsby. I was having this conversation with him about

whether someone would trade for Kirk Cousins after this year. So give me your opinion, because I think if somebody traded for Carson Wentz, that there's always going to be a team that says, well, look, you know, I mean, this is if the Vikings have like a 500 season, right? We all acknowledge that if they go farther than that, then Kirk Cousins probably stays here. But I mean, what Neil's point was, was like, look, if he goes 500 this year, it's going to be basically six seasons of him starting in the NFL or seven.

And they're all 500 seasons. Who's going to trade for that? Like, well, somebody just traded for Matt Stafford and gave up two first round picks or whatever it was. And, you know, he hasn't had any playoff wins. Kirk has more playoff wins than Matt Stafford. So I think that they would, and I'm not trying to call out your boss, Neil Hornsby. I just disagree with him. I just disagree with him. I think that there would be someone who would be interested in trading for Kirk Cousins, because we always know that there's going to be a team that says ah the final piece is Kirk we already saw that here I think it's it's tough because Carson Wentz's salary I was just looking it up

well while we were talking here his salary for this season is 15.4 million so that's what two and a half times less than Kirk Cousins salary of 35 million next season. So I think for a team to trade Kirk Cousins, he would have to play ball. He would have to sign some sort of extension that's heavily loaded with incentives and lower that cap hit quite a bit because it's also fully guaranteed. So it's not like, you know, the, the Vikings will take on the, I think they would only take on a $10 million cap it. If they did trade Kirk cousins, this would be an easier conversation. If the 49ers were potentially involved because we know how much Kyle Shanahan likes Kirk cousins and who knows, maybe, you know,

they're still looking for someone to compete with Trey Lance next season. We have no idea how that's going to go. I don't think Jimmy Garoppolo is going to be there next season. I think that, you know, the Texans or some other teams might be in play for Jimmy Garoppolo. But yeah, it's not out of the realm of possibility that the 49ers could want him for a year or some other team. I do think that Kirk Cousins would have to play ball, though, like I said. Right. He would have to sign a contract extension as part of it. I think that's what Alex Smith did when he was traded to Washington, that he immediately signed a contract extension. So there are some moving parts if they did eventually want to move on from him, which I think is sort of how the organization feels right now. Now, let me ask you about a couple other guys that are going to impact this Viking season, instead of just saying I'm right about stuff, Doug,

sorry for that start to the show, but okay. So Justin Fields and Trey Lance are both going to go up against the Vikings later in the season. And I think the way that I viewed it when we were picking our little W's and L's next to each Vikings game was I'm expecting Trey Lance and Justin Fields to be the quarterbacks by the time that the Vikings face them. Now, watching both of those guys the other day, there was a little bit of great and there was a little bit of, wow, you're definitely a rookie. And but both of those teams expect to win. Like they got Andy Dalton in Chicago because they want to win football games and the same thing with keeping Jimmy Garoppolo and Garoppolo is taking his team to the Super Bowl before and done nothing but one when he's been healthy.

How do you view both of those situations and the odds that the Vikings will be facing the rookie quarterbacks when they face them in the second half of the season? It's really tough to say. I think the fact that they really aren't getting first team reps right now lets you know everything about both of those teams' plans for the start of the season, because we're less than a month out at this point from the start of the season. If they want those guys to start, then time is running out before they actually get those first team reps. So I almost think that it becomes less about Trey Lance and Justin Fields, and maybe more about Andy Dalton and Jimmy Garoppolo at this point, where if they falter, then the bears and the 49ers hoping to win this season would basically have no choice, but to flip over to Justin Fields and Trey Lance. So I would say that there's a pretty good chance

on both sides that those guys will start games this season and could be those starters by the time they play the Vikings, simply because Andy Dalton, not very good. Unless he really has a career resurgence, goes back to the way he was playing in whatever it was, 2015 or whatever, then I do think that at some point Bears fans and the Bears organization will be like, all right, it's time to see what we've got in Justin Fields. Because before the draft, I mean, Justin Fields, like you said, there was some good, there was some bad in that preseason game, but all in all his athleticism, his ability, he looked like he could, you know, continue starting heading into the NFL. Trey Lance is a little bit more behind just because he really has only played obviously the one college season and Jimmy Garoppolo, I think is a better quarterback than Andy Dalton but there's the injury issue so you know if Jimmy Garoppolo gets hurt Trey Lance

goes in and he's good Jimmy Garoppolo is never getting that job again and if history repeats itself Jimmy Garoppolo is going to get hurt at some point this season so I would say there's a pretty good chance that you'll see both those guys, but it almost has to do, like I said, more with the current starters than really their play or their development. What do you think they should do, both of those teams? Because I think there's a really good case for just saying, just put those could go to the Super Bowl this year with their roster, even with Jimmy Garoppolo. They're very much like the last year of Alex Smith in Kansas City, where like that's a legitimate contender. Chicago, you're bringing in Jason Peters at the last minute because your offensive line is so bad. I'm not certain that their defense is ever going to be what it was in 2018. Again, they're much more of a team that I think should just play the guy. But it's such a hard decision when you draft someone that high for San Francisco and you trade away as much

as you trade for them to go up to number three and then to say, no kid, you got, you got to wait. But at the same time, the guys played one football game since 2019. I think so. You almost kind of have to look at, I'd say the head coaching situations are really the, the job security that those coaches have. Personally, I would probably put both rookie quarterbacks out there. You might as well see what they have. You know what Andy Dalton is at this point.

You have a pretty good idea of what Jimmy Garoppolo is at this point. And you might as well just plan for the future, put them out there. You might as well see what they have. You know what Andy Dalton is at this point. You have a pretty good idea of what Jimmy Garoppolo is at this point, and you might as well just plan for the future, put them out there, let them develop on the job. That being said, from Matt Nagy's perspective, it probably does make sense to put Andy Dalton out there for a year because then, you know, there's always the chance that it can get better when you put Justin Fields out there. There's always the promise of the future there, better when you put Justin Fields out there. There's always the promise of the future there. Whereas if you put Justin Fields out there, you still go, you know, six and 10 or whatever it is, then there's a possibility that Matt Nagy could be looking for a job. Kyle Shanahan should have all the job security in the world out there in San Francisco.

So he's got a lot more flexibility with what he could do. You know, he could, Trey Lance could go three and 13 for them or six and 10 for them or whatever. And Kyle Shanahan would continue to have a job. And so would John Lynch and things would just keep progressing because of the way that they trust them. So that's almost the way that I would look at it, where for Chicago, personally, I put Justin Fields out there, but if Matt Nagy wants to keep his job for the long-term, then he'll probably want to wait to put Justin Fields out there for as long as possible. Do you think Matt Nagy is a good coach? I think he is. Mitch Trubisky was a terrible quarterback. The fact that the NFL, the whole NFL decided this guy is a backup worth $3 million

after he was done starting. And your other option was Nick Foles that you traded for. I mean, Chicago had a deal in place with Teddy Bridgewater and then told him he'd have to compete with Trubisky at Bridgewater when I ain't doing that. Cause you know how that's going to go. It's the same thing with Denver. It's like compete with Drew Locke, but they're going to pick their guy and give them one more chance. But if they had gone with Bridgewater last year, they're probably like a 10 win team. And instead they go with Trubisky and try to sort of finagle that thing but clearly Trubisky does not have the talent to be an NFL starter and they

dragged two playoff appearances out of it and just the games that I've seen against the Vikings up close Nagy has kind of owned the Vikings so I guess I wonder if the league thinks like Nagy if this doesn't work out this year is going to fired, kind of like John Fox with the first year of Mitch Trubisky, or if there's more credit for Nagy around the league. I think that I think I also think that Matt Nagy is a good head coach. I think that there's certainly potential there. I think what the Bears could do. I'm not saying it's a certainty that, you know, Matt Nagy would get fired if they turn to Justin Fields and still falter I think there's a possibility that you know they could Ryan Pace could get fired and then you or I mean obviously like Ryan Pace getting fired or that that plays into this a little bit gives Matt Nagy a little bit uh more of a leash so I think that yeah I think that he could have a longer leash just given what he was working with there in Chicago. But I don't know. It's still NFL teams flip overhead coaches so frequently that if it's

another year, I don't know. I just I think that there's a strong possibility that it could be the last year there if it doesn't go well for them. I mean, I think that you're right. I just think that would be a mistake. And, you know, the other thing too, with these teams is they always think the next guy is something different and they change coaches and they change coaches and you end up going from Jim Caldwell to Matt Patricia. And then you go, whoops, like, Oh, Jim Caldwell, you can't get as far enough. The same thing with sort of Matt Nagy, like, Oh, you know, you're just not good enough. You go nine and seven or whatever. And then you change to the worst coach in the NFL and you just lose for three straight years. And I think that there's

maybe sometimes these teams believe in themselves too much. And this sort of comes back to Mike Zimmer in a way too, because there's a lot of pressure on Mike Zimmer. I think what you're seeing it in every interview that Mike knows how much pressure is on him. And that's why he's shredding his second teamers after the game. But my argument has always been, if you have a baseline of this guy's a professional head coach who can game plan and who can, you know, manage players and all those things at an NFL level, you're already ahead of like two thirds of the league because the other two thirds of the league are just like turning over coaches that don't know what they're doing all the time.

No, it's true. And I think that head coaches do take too much of a brunt of the blame. A lot of the time when clearly they can only work with, with what they're given. And in this case, it has been, you know, Matt Nagy, what he's been given by Ryan pace. So I do think that the fact that Ryan Pace has been somewhat maligned there in Chicago, like I said, could help Matt Nagy in the future. If Ryan Pace does get fired, then they stick with Nagy for a year. But no, I think that some continuity does help in the NFL with their head coaches. And obviously Matt Nagy was such a hot offensive coordinator or like when he

got the job, he was so hot that it would seem like, I mean, the next guy that they would be going to would probably be another red, hot offensive coordinator. And that's like, well, what are you really accomplishing here? Because if you look back to, to what, you know, how Matt Nagy was viewed when he was hired, this is the same thing that you're doing now. I highly doubt they would bring in some defensive-minded head coach

to pair with Justin Fields in the future. So if you believe in Matt Nagy, and if you believed in Matt Nagy when you hired him, then yeah, it's probably a good idea to keep believing in him at this point. So I don't know. I think it, this year is going to prove a lot because you know, Ryan, Andy Dalton, as much as, you know, I give him crap a few minutes ago,

he is also clearly better than Mitch Trubisky. He is a proven NFL starting quarterback. So there's certainly possibly, and they probably will look much better than they did last season with Andy Dalton at quarterback. And that would help Matt Nagy. But if they still can't get it going with Andy Dalton, and if they still can't get it going with Justin Fields, then I guess I could understand from a team perspective just saying, all right, let's blow it up.

Try this all over again. Get a new GM head coach combo and keep it moving here. I think that Nagy, unless things go tremendously bad, which they probably won't, there seems to be a baseline, like that team's going to win like eight games, no matter what, just because they have good enough coaching and Khalil Mack. So they're going to win eight games. I think it would really have to blow up. I think they're going to give him enough time to see what he and Justin Fields are together. And that's probably the right way to go. And from a Vikings perspective, it's not a great break that you're going to see Chicago late when Justin Fields has had time to get in the game and potentially be comfortable playing NFL football

by the time you play him. I think it's in week 15 and 18. So that's not a great break potentially for the Vikings, especially when they lost to Mitch Trubisky a number of times. Now, you've also done a lot of reporting on the Packers situation and Aaron Rodgers. And I wonder what you think just the, just of this year in general for green Bay, because it was just dominating everybody's off season. We spent a lot of time on this show, obviously talking about what was going to happen with Rodgers. I never believed he was going to retire and host Jeopardy because he just wasn't a good enough Jeopardy host. That's why. And then the producer hires himself for Jeopardy. What? That's a tougher competition than Jordan

Love. I mean, if you're going up against the producer, then yeah, that's tough. Right. The guy doing the search hires himself. What in world so uh well anyway so what do you feel like uh this year sort of means to that green bay organization because i know it's in the contract that they can kind of work it out after this year if he wants to stay but it just doesn't seem like that it seems like this whole thing is broken between rogers and green bay and he's taking sort of the route of this is it last dance. That's what he tweeted out. And I think that that is super interesting because is Rogers going to be like just as motivated as last year, extra motivated, another MVP, or is it going to be everybody can't

get on the same page because of all of the off season things that went on? I actually think the Packers are going to be really good again this season. I think that Aaron Rogers is going to be really good again. I don't see him taking a step back down. He was playing a few years ago. I think that he will continue to be that MVP Rogers, because I think he looks at this as the Packers clearly not appreciating him enough. So he wants to prove at this point that he is as good as he was last year,

that he deserves to have a, you know, five year guaranteed contract or whatever it is that he is as good as he was last year that he deserves to have a you know five year guaranteed contract or whatever it is that he's looking for that they shouldn't have drafted Jordan Love and all these things so I think that it works for the Packers favor this season but I also at this point would probably be pretty surprised if he was on the Packers in 2022 I just I think that things are broken there and And, you know, he gave that very long press conference, you know, laying out everything that has an issue with, and then that kind of disappeared for a while, but now you're seeing all the Packers players begging to sign

Clay Matthews, Brian Gukun saying, yeah, we haven't talked to him or whatever it was that he said about the situation. So clearly Aaron Rodgers is still trying to throw his weight around. And it feels like the Packers will have to basically just like acquiesce to all of Aaron Rodgers needs for Aaron Rodgers to be happy there. And from the Packers perspective, I'm not sure if that makes great long-term sense. I mean, you know, the players that Aaron Rodgers was saying that he wanted back in Green Bay, a lot of them haven't done that much since they left Green Bay.

So maybe he's a much better quarterback than he is a general manager. That being said, obviously you want Aaron Rodgers, you want him to be your quarterback, but you also can't just turn your entire team over to him. So it just feels like an unsustainable situation after this season where the two parties, obviously the Packers want to make Aaron Rogers happy, but there's only so much you can do. But I do think that they're going to be really good this year. I think that Aaron Rogers is going to be really good. I think Devante Adams is going to be really good too.

I think that those guys are really out to prove something. And if they have to do it to spite the Packers, then, hey, it's going to work out pretty well for Green Bay this season. I wonder what your opinion is on when it comes to player empowerment. You see this used all the time, that sort of term. And Aaron Rodgers is sort of pushing that to the extreme, right, where he's saying, like, how empowered can I be? And the answer is, I guess you can try to get Clay Matthews signed,

but these teams trying to manage their star players and their wants and needs, because they know these are the guys who run the league. Like if you played Jordan Love the whole season this year, maybe you go nine and eight because it's a decent roster. And that's sort of best case scenario, even if he's decent. So they know how much Aaron Rodgers means to them. At the same time, if you roll over and sign every player that Aaron Rodgers is buddies with or goes on vacation with, then you're I mean, you're probably not going to win because of that.

I think it's creating some very uncomfortable situations, especially when football people forever have been like, we're the guys in charge. You go out there, put the pads on, throw the football. Like that's how this works. And I feel like even Rogers and then what Stefan Diggs did last year, they're sort of like pushing this a little bit more and more. And I wonder how it impacts how players view their power in the future. I think it's it's tough in the NFL just because of the size of rosters. I think obviously it works a lot better in the NBA because they're smaller rosters. That being said, we just saw it work with Tom Brady and the Buccaneers where he had a major say in bringing in Antonio Brown and a lot of the things that they have done the last couple of years in Tampa Bay. But similar to the Aaron Rodgers situation, that wasn't working in New England. Because if you bring that player up and if, you know, Robert Kraft and Tom Brady have had

a relationship for 20 years, it's a lot more awkward for Tom Brady to have to ask the Patriots at that point, hey, I want to say in these things, hey, I want to go up against Bill Belichick for all of these roster moves. It doesn't really work when it's an existing relationship. I think that that's somewhat what we're seeing with Aaron Rodgers as well, where it's an existing relationship.

So you can't just all of a sudden turn your entire franchise over to that player based on all of the disagreements that you've had in the past, the things that Aaron Rodgers wanted you to do that you didn't. I think that for it to work for Aaron Rodgers now, similar to Tom Brady, I think he would have to move on to a new team and then start a new relationship with that GM, with that head coach, where it's kind of that three-man power structure to give him the empowerment that he needs. I just don't see it happening with the existing relationship that he has in Green Bay

for the same reason that it didn't work for Tom Brady in New England. I think that it's just, it's not, for some reason, that does not work for a player on the existing team. I think it has to be a new, fresh relationship with no issues in the past, no baggage or anything like that, because that only really just complicates matters. Hey everybody. It's just about time for the regular season and fans are going to be back in the stands. So you've got to be ready with the best Minnesota football gear. That's why you have to check out soda stick. There are so many designs

that you can get on hats and t-shirts including the john randall design which is extremely cool i saw that one at training camp a couple of times there's also the straight cash homie randy moss homage the can't stop the feeling hats and a personal favorite the old video game designs that tecmo fans will appreciate check them all out at SodaStick.com. That's S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. Everything is screen printed here in Minnesota. And I can tell you that the shirts are comfortable and they last because half of my closet at this point is filled with SodaStick gear. Again, that's SodaStick.com, Minnesota sports inspired goods, and keep your eye out for our soda stick giveaways as well. Kind of reminds me of like with your parents,

when you go away to college and then you come back and they're like, where are you going at 11 o'clock at night? And you're like, I'm 20. So I can go, I can do that. You know? And they're like, wait a minute, but you have a curfew or something. You know what I mean? That's how it feels like I raised you. Exactly. I can tell you what to do. So I made you exactly right. Seriously. I mean, that, that's the way it is. The Packers and Aaron Rogers, they've made each other over the last 15 years,

same thing with the Patriots and Tom Brady. So yeah, it's, it's tough. Obviously for the Packers, it would be great if they could somehow figure that out. But the fact that Aaron Rogers is really pushing buttons here to get Randall Cobb, to get Clay Matthews, to air out all of his grievances, it doesn't seem like a sustainable situation. How do you think this impacts Devontae Adams? Because he has absolutely mauled the Minnesota Vikings in past years.

It's tough. I think that, you know, it seems like talks broke off between the Packers and Devante Adams. I think that Devante Adams wants a ton of money. I think that he wants, you know, more than Deandre Hopkins on a per year basis. He wants to be the highest paid wide receiver in the NFL. That being said, there's a lot of different ways to do that. There's a lot of different ways to make him the highest paid wide receiver in the NFL, whether it's on a per year basis, total guarantees, you know, guaranteed at signing just the total value overall. So there's a lot of different ways for the Packers

to figure that out with Devante Adams. But I think it would be smart for him to read the tea leaves on the Aaron Rogers situation, because if Jordan Love isn't all that he's cracked up to be, then you don't necessarily want to be tied to Jordan Love for the years coming up. That being said, Devontae Adams has signed his deal. It would have signed his deal at that point. If he can get that highest paid wide receiver money with the Packers, go ahead and do it. But from the Packers perspective, I can also see their side of saying,

all right, we drafted you. It's a similar situation to what we were just saying. We made you. So now we don't want to give you that $30 million per year or whatever it is that another team might be willing to do. So I think it's the same. It's a very similar situation to Aaron Rogers, where at this point, I'd say it would be slightly surprising if he's back in green Bay next season.

I think the most likely solution is that he leaves, but there's definitely a possibility that Packers say, okay, we don't want to lose Rogers and Adams. So Devante, take your $30 million a year. We'll give it to you. We need the top weapon for Jordan love moving forward. Right. It's so interesting that sometimes the player has the best chance of getting the most money from his team. And other times they could be sort of undervalued by their own team in comparison to the market. We've seen the Vikings overpay guys

that were their guys because they drafted them. But then you see in this situation, maybe they wouldn't. But also, you know, they need multiple wide receivers. I think this is Roger's biggest beef. They've got to realize that at some point that they can't just have one wide receiver that's supposed to carry them all the time. Before we wrap up, let me ask you this. It's sort of always weird for me to ask someone who covers all the teams on a Vikings podcast, what you think of the Vikings, but what you think of the Vikings, Doug? I mean, it's been a weird time because I think that we started training camp. Everyone thought, well, this team can really compete.

And we're a few weeks in and they've just taken some serious punches here with missing Kirk and the first round draft pick. And then just even the preseason game, it's not that huge of a deal, but it's also like you got murdered. So that's not what you wanted to see. And with Zimmer coming out and dunking on everyone all the time, you wonder about like the friction that is happening here, but still a good roster. So what's what's your feel? It's it's tough. I think the offensive line clearly could be an issue if they don't get that left tackle position settled.

If Christian, you know, Darisaw can't can't play early in the season, which it looks like at this point probably wouldn't happen because what he could be back for week one but you're probably not just gonna thrust a rookie out there um I guess the option right now is Rashad Hill at left tackle which clearly is an ideal kind of some moving parts at right guard as well so that offensive line seems like it could be a problem at least early in the season which is not great. I also think that, I mean, you pointed to it earlier. I think that depth on this roster is a bit of an issue where if injuries start piling up beyond that offensive line, then yeah, you could run into some issues.

And even, you know, you look at some of the pass-catching weapons. Obviously, you hope that Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen will stay healthy and that Delvin Cook can stay healthy. But, I mean, if one of those top wide receivers goes down, you're in some trouble there at wide receiver. There's barely even, you know, a top candidate for the number three wide receiver position at this point. If you're having to move whatever the number three is up to number two, then that certainly becomes an issue as well. So I do think that they've got a talented starting roster as long as they get the offensive line figured out, but injuries will be a major issue for this Vikings team this season. And they really need

to figure out a way to build up their depth and improve their depth before the start of the season, which is tough to do to really ensure some sort of insurance there. But I don't know. I wouldn't say that I have the highest of hopes for the Vikings this season. I think that, you know, even Kirk Cousins kind of caps their potential a little bit. And they, like you said earlier, they probably should have addressed that quarterback position a little bit earlier in the 2021 draft. But it's it's a team that if everything goes well i think that they could be competitive they could be a playoff team otherwise probably another sort of middling season for the vikings this year is how i'm looking at it that's and that's sort of the

vikings history it's like if everything goes well they can go 13 and 3 to the nfc championship game and if it doesn't then you end up somewhere with nine or 10 wins. And I don't have the math off the top of my head. I looked at this in the off season at one point, how like almost 70% of their seasons in the last 30 years are like between six and 10 wins or something like that. It's kind of crazy. I will rank them this way for me then Doug, because you're following 32 teams. Now you're not just a Patriots guy anymore. In terms of intrigue, let's say that your Tampa Bay Bucs trying to repeat with old Brady is the elite and the Aaron Rodgers storyline is the first tier interesting NFL stories.

Where do the Vikings end up on that sort of spectrum of national intrigue? That's a good question. I do think that the Kirk Cousins situation is interesting. I think that his future with the team, the entire COVID situation that just happened, all of those are headline worthy things. I think that the fact that Justin Jefferson clearly looks like he could be one of the best, if not the best wide receiver in the NFL down the line is is a major element as well. They've got some really talented pieces on defense, but I don't know, I'm like a I'm like a scale out of 10. I'd probably put them like a five or six out of 10 as far as intrigue goes. You know, it's certainly not at the bottom of the barrel or anything like that, just because it seems like there, there could be some drama there. Mike Zimmer has certainly made things interesting already this summer, but certainly not know on the level of, of the,

the Packers or the box or, or even the bills. But yeah, there's a lot of those teams that are kind of in those, those middle ranks as far as intrigue goes. And I would, I'd probably put the Vikings in there. Yeah. Right. And the way that I would put it is prove that you're more than that I mean like you have the talent to do it you have the coach to do it you paid the quarterback like he should be able to do it prove that Doug should pay more attention to you I did have a question for you before I get out of here yeah what what is happening with Jake Browning what is the future for Jake Browning on the Vikings because I'm actually a University of Washington fan I've got some sort of Huskies helmet back here somewhere I see it I guess yep there it is um he was good as a rook as a freshman

at UW and then just never improved so so how how is he looking I guess so far for the Vikings let me put it this way um tim boyle was the backup for green bay last year right i think that's probably where you're talking about it's it's a guy who completely gets it like personality wise he's got everything you want he's self-aware he's extremely hard working he's quiet he's not going to come to the podium and talk about how great he is or anything like that and everybody roots for him he threw a touchdown the other day in practice just in practice and everybody celebrated with Jake Browning that hasn't always happened at all this camp with Kirk Cousins or Calum Mond really like the way they respond to him is really good physical

talent though I mean it's just not there so I think that the ceiling would be like a Case Keenum who maybe gets a chance but you saw it the other day that if the accuracy isn't great and the arm strength is is like Drew Brees end of his career level I just don't know how you become anything more than somebody who sort of bounces around and you're a just in case break glass in case of emergency kind of quarterback and I always think of the great journeyman backups as guys who can win half of their games you're Matt Moore career record 16 and 16 you're Gus Farratt I think he's like 50 and 50 I think he's below that I don't think he's quite of that level if he becomes

that someday I think a lot of people will be very happy for him. And that's say, if you're a great guy, you can stay around forever. If you, if you could learn the offense and be great to deal with, you could stay around for a long time. It's just hard for me to see him being anything more than that. Yeah. He'll, he'll have a 15 year career, but yeah, I probably agree with that. Yeah. Even at UW, I mean, he struggled throwing passes to the sideline. The, the arm strength was definitely an issue. So yeah, I just wanted to check in on Jake, but yeah, thank you. Chase Daniel. If you could be Chase Daniel, you, you play five games over 10 years and you make 30 million bucks or whatever. That's, that's the way to do it. Doug Kide,

you can follow him on Twitter at Doug Kide, which is K Y E D by the way. And I thought about all the different pronunciations because I get collier sometimes or cooler, which I think is kind of like, how did you come up with that? But K-Y-E-D, I mean, that just offers like a lot of ambiguity. Absolutely.

And if I'm like on the phone, I'm like with like JetBlue or something and they ask me my last name, I just spell it. I don't even bother pronouncing it. Just K-Y-E-D. I started doing that in like second grade where it was like collar C-O-L-L-E-R. Like that's how we do it. So, well, Doug, I'm glad you're part of the PFF team now, and I'm following you and your work on a daily basis covering the entire NFL. And I'm really excited to see what you

do this season. I know you're heading out to LA, right. To cover their training camp soon. So exciting stuff, man. I'm happy for you in the new gig. Thank you very much. Yeah. I'll be checking out the Rams and Raiders joint practices and the charges and 49ers. So definitely interesting stuff coming up here. So yeah. Thanks for having me, Matthew. This was great. Yep, for sure. All right. We'll catch you next time on purple insider.