Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - PFF's Sam Monson talks us into the Vikings having a top notch defense this year

Episode Date: July 26, 2022

Pro Football Focus's Sam Monson joins Matthew Coller to talk Minnesota Vikings, starting with Matthew's challenge that Sam has to say something that's never been said before about Kirk Cousins. Then they play a game of talk me into, including talking us into the Vikings having a top-notch defense and the offseason play to keep the team together working out for the best long term. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. Joining me on the show, a longtime member of the Purple Insider tour of guests from Pro Football Focus, Sam Monson. What's going on, Sam? How are you? Doing well. How about you? I need a better name for it, I guess. Well, hey, the right-hander out of the bullpen, or are you left-handed?

Are you left-handed? No, I'm right-handed. Okay, right- hander out of the bullpen. Are you left handed? Are you left handed? No, I'm right handed. OK, right hander out of the bullpen. You are trying to throw 60 miles an hour. I saw on Twitter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We we did, you know, the PFF NFL podcast has been doing this sort of charity drives over the last year or so year and a little bit raised like 20 grand so far for various different causes one of the ones we did was you know how fast can steve former minor league pitcher who had like a 95 mile an hour

fastball back in the day what can he hit now you know and more to the point can i hit it uh so we did that a while ago that was kind of fun and then just randomly talking about it at the combine i think we were we just pulled up the idea of like, well, what can I throw? Right. If I roll out there tomorrow, having never been a baseball pitcher, what would I hit on the on the radar gun? And we're kind of annoyed because we had the radar gun for Steve saying that we never did that at the time. And some of the numbers that were being pulled out by people were disgusting. Right. And I was like, was like no look i can hit 60 right that doesn't feel like a particularly high number i understand like people have been

sending me information about what their you know 12 year old kid is able to pitch and all that kind of stuff if steve can hit 74 and i was standing in front of that watching that come down at me that's not fast if he can hit 74 i'm giving him a whole 14 miles an hour to get 60. So that's our next charity drive is to see if I can hit 60 and we'll raise some money to do that. Well, I wish you the best of luck. I saw an article recently about a reporter who is more of a baseball person than you who made it their goal to throw 80 miles an

hour by the age of 40 so i mean there's that we have the technology use the data use the uh that i see this guy on twitter tweet out where it's like digital um like uh replications of what you're doing that can show you where your inefficiencies are i mean i feel like you need to use every tool at your disposal no matter how much of your own personal money has to go into this to reach 60, just for your manhood. I also feel like it's not that high a bar. No, it's not. I think a lot of these things are, you know, when you see all those first pitches

and it's people like throwing it off into the stands that way or into the dirt five feet in front of them, it isn't that hard to throw a ball like 60 feet, right? It just isn't. And, okay. I've never been a baseball pitcher, but I've played like other sports that involve throwing things. It's not like I have no concept of how the arm works to throw something from here to there. So I'm, you know, I'm quite, I'm confident. Okay. Well, I, I believe in you. I believe in you. I did not believe you were going to hit Steve, but, uh, well, that was back when we thought Steve's fastball was still a thing, you know? Yeah, I believe in you. I believe in you. I did not believe you were going to hit Steve.

Well, that was back when we thought Steve's fastball was still a thing, you know? Right, right. Yeah, I mean, it's been a while. It's been a very long time. So if you don't keep that arm in shape, yeah, you're going to lose it. He's not like, I don't know if you're familiar with Spaceman Bill Lee, but he was like pitching in games until he was like 60 or something as a former kind of crazy kooky pitcher. Anyway, well, yeah, every once in a while, the catcher will throw back to the pitcher and the radar gun in the stadium accidentally catches it.

And it's like 58. So, you know, it's just he's just lobbing it back to him. You know, you should be able to do it uh i want to start though uh aside from this can you play baseball talk um with a challenge for you and then we could play a little game okay uh the challenge is to say something no one has ever said before about kirk cousins because i was reading the athletic the other day as everybody was when mike sandoz piece about the quarterback tears comes out and i knew exactly which tier to go to and the lead to it says kirk cousins is in the tier three hall of fame like well there you go uh and he's 15th as he always is i think 17th last year 14th

when espn did the same exercise and i feel like i still see people on the internet debating Kirk Cousins, but everything that human beings can say about this man as a football player has been said until today. When you say something different right now, that is your challenge. Hmm. That is, that's difficult because you're right. The man has, everything's been covered. And in particular, I think if you try and go into anything football related, That's difficult because you're right. The man has – everything's been covered. And in particular, I think if you try and go into anything football-related,

the only things that are jumping to mind are things that I have said in the past. So that doesn't work. Okay, Kirk Cousins has one of the best beards in the NFL. Coverage, you know, like direction, actual sort of curated manicuring of it. It's a top five beard. You know, the man really understands. As someone

who is team, like, I don't want to say fat face, because that seems rude to myself, but just like uh a puffy face he has a really impressive jawline i've never said that about him but i mean that means that man is in shape there's no question about it i it is so hard i mean i've been doing this for a very long time now i've covered the entire kirk cousins era and. And at one point, I think I even said, like, this is just not interesting anymore to talk about.

Like, I don't know how some people have the energy to still be like, it was the defense's fault. And you're like, okay, I don't know, whatever. You don't get wins for that. I will say, though, that I found, I can't remember who wrote the article, but Kevin Seifert retweeted it yesterday and i read it somebody's article on quasi's quasi generally um and he made some really interesting comments about kurt cousins which not because they're like new right it's the same stuff that other people

said but because he's the one saying it so i i don't think I've ever really seen an NFL general manager that's tied to a quarterback so definitively articulate how much that quarterback is not Tom Brady. Right. And it's obviously true. Right. It's not like that's breaking news. Like nobody is out here saying that Kirk Cousins is in the Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady kind of category. But if you're the GM that has that guy and is tied to him for a while, usually they will at least either argue it or not say he isn't. But Quasey's just out here saying, no, we don't have Aaron Rodgers. We have a good quarterback. And the question is, how much can you win with a good quarterback? And is it good enough?

And articulating what everybody else has been articulating for a long time. I just thought that was very interesting that the guy who's in charge of the whole thing has no problem saying that out loud in front of, you know, a reporter knowing that'll get back to the guy, right? It's not like that's, that's going to remain secret.

Like that's, that's unusual. I mean, everything sort of screams, we're not committed to you with this entire deal like they did an extension to lower his cap hit but the shortest possible extension humanly possible and not only that but even though the no trade clause was in there it's not entirely clear what kind of no trade clause it is. Is it a full no trade clause or is it, Hey, here's eight teams that you can pick. I mean, it'll leak out that it's a no trade

clause either way, but a lot of times it's sort of, we'll let you pick your destination if we trade you. And, uh, you know, even then, like you look at the way that they set up the roster, a lot of things are set up for sort of this year and potentially next year if they sort of like how it works out, but that's it. And Cousins' first comment that we had heard from him since he signed his extension, which is a very normal thing to have no contact with the quarterback after he signs an extension, like no press conference. Just, I think he did one radio interview. That's it, huh? Seems like you're really celebrating it. And he said something like, I guess I have to earn being a Viking for life. And I mean, yeah, well, the franchise would like to win at some point. But I thought it was just like a recognition from him.

Like, I know they're not really buying into me. And even like they explored Deshaun Watson, they explored potential trades, which under the same circumstances, Matt Ryan said, then trade me, trade me somewhere else. And instead cousin signed a one year extension.

I mean, think everything sort of signals this and yet they're trying to argue, no, we're the Kirk lovers who are going to get more out of them. It's like, well, which one is it yeah it's an interesting exercise in kind of you know sitting on the fence and saying well we're

not a hundred percent uh sold that he's the guy we don't we're not even trying to make out that we're 100 sold right the way that normal franchises would be like okay we're kind of stuck with this guy and everybody knows that that's not a great scenario, but we're stuck with him, so we have to talk him up as being, you know, absolutely capable of winning a Super Bowl and the guy that's going to take us where we need to go. It's like, no, we're just going to put all this out in the open and say, we know you're not Aaron Rodgers.

You know you're not Aaron Rodgers, but we're all going to pretend that you, you know, we're just going to see how well that can go, not being Aaron Rodgers, but we're all going to pretend that you, you know, we're just going to see how, how well that can go, not being Aaron Rodgers, like how we're going to maximize the ability of winning for that caliber of quarterback. And it's just, I just think that's a pretty interesting dynamic that they're currently pioneering, I guess. That's not usually the way it goes. Well, it does give some confidence to the idea that they get it, that they didn't like look at his pro football reference stats and say man this guy knows how to do a box score we should really go all in um it more reeks of our owners told us we couldn't lose this year so we didn't really know what else

to do and we had right i mean that's what it is and it is different to the sort of the initial um comments coming from them because you go back to like the combine and stuff it was much more of the the usual toe the line yeah we've got a really good quarterback you know kurt's under misunderstood he's a really good you know passing quarterback it was sort of focusing on all the stuff he was great at now it's a lot more unvarnished and honest, I guess, which is I think you're right. It's more encouraging than, you know, the sort of the blind optimism stuff, which even if you know it's not true, it's just it's not reassuring. Right. Hearing stuff that everybody knows is not the case. Like it doesn't it doesn't fill you with

um optimism that everybody knows what they're doing even if you know you know that they're not really buying into it but also what a way to start camp i mean just like with the quotes from the gm that's like well you're not brady bro which like you said i mean i don't i think kirk likes some kirk but i don't think he's ever insinuated that he's in the same air as Tom Brady. But, you know, I mean, it's just like, oh, thanks, guy. I can't wait to get out on the field again. It's just like he takes a shot right off the bat of his GM kind of saying, oh, well, we'll see if this mediocre quarterback can win.

And the other thing that was great, though, from the athletic piece was you had Kirk at 15th and at 16th is Jimmy Garoppolo. And it's like, and this team is getting rid of their quarterback. And it's like, and there you have it, folks. There's your situation. I also think it's worth taking a shot on the idea that, you know, putting that kind of chip on his shoulder is beneficial, right? If it isn't, it doesn't really affect you because you're probably not buying into him long term anyway. You're already sort of examining what the future looks like. But there is the chance that that, you know, motivates him to go out there and say, oh, you think I'm not that good?

Well, let's see. Right. And maybe you do get a career year out of Kirk Cousins in addition to whatever benefits you think Kevin O'Connell's offense is going to bring him. Like, I think that's a shot worth taking because there's not much downside at this point. It's, it's sort of like with, with cousins,

whenever we talk about the things that could do something to make it a little bit better to get it to where you're legitimately competitive, it feels like trying to change the weather by doing a rain dance or something where it's just like i don't know that this works i don't mean to offend anybody's culture i don't think that this works by dancing i think it just does what it does like and the weather's pretty much always the same and you don't really have any control over it it's on the other hand you know when you're that kind of when you're that in need of rain you might as well give it a shot you know what i mean that's a really good point yeah so uh i want to i want to play a game that is a very common game here on the show but it always tends to work out uh called talk me into so i ask you

to talk me into something and then you ask me to talk you into something and then we go back and forth until we get tired how's that okay so here's where you have to start, naturally. Because you failed the challenge. You didn't say anything new about Kirk Cousins. I'm sorry. That's the way anybody else has said his top five beard in the NFL. Talk me into this working. Talk me into them being a legitimate contender this year

and the offense being better with Cousins and it all coming to fruition and surprising the masses. I saw even like it's amazing how things pop into your feed and it's like, oh, this ranks Kirk 15th. Oh, this thinks that the Vikings are going eight and nine. Good times, everyone. So talk me into it not being eight and nine, it being much better. Well, it doesn't, it being much better. Well, it doesn't need to be much better. I mean, that's the thing.

In order for them to be contenders, what the Vikings need to do this year is to kind of catch the high end of variance, right? And they're somewhere – over the last few years, they've been in that 8-9, 8-9-10 win kind of range. And in the NFC this year, 10 wins can get you into the playoffs it can make you one of those wild card spots remember there's an extra one now um they're not in a particularly tough division everybody everybody's jumping on the detroit bandwagon at the moment you know this is detroit are going to be better this year they're going to surprise people they're the the kind of trendy pick to be um you know a a bet and overcome their preseason win-loss number,

that kind of thing. But a lot of that for Detroit in particular relies on the guys that they invested in a year ago, those young players that haven't really shown anything yet, taking that jump year two, which is entirely possible. It's obviously in the plan, right? That's why they drafted linemen a year ago so they get that extra year and they develop and blah blah but if they don't you know if they just missed on those players which would be very detroit you know let's not remember this is not a team that has a tremendous track record of drafting really good players for an extended period so if those guys are just not good players they're not going to take that giant jump year

two they're not they still have jared golf a quarterback there's still a lot of pieces that are not in place for this lions team to get better so if detroit isn't better chicago looks like they have the worst roster in the nfl top to bottom their rebuild only just started and it started with like stripping this thing back to bare metal they haven't begun you know putting it back together yet um so that's half the division might be garbage um the other half is you know minnesota and then green bay we don't have any wide receivers okay the last time that happened for aaron rogers it's you know you get this thing and in that athletic article people are still talking about aaron rogers has never been given

that first round wide receiver it's like yeah but the only reason he hasn't been is because he's gone from Donald Driver to Greg Jennings, to Jordy Nelson, to Devante Adams in literal sequence. Like the guy has had an elite number one wide receiver from day one to now, with the exception of 2015, when Jordy Nelson tore his ACL in the preseason and they didn't have time to find a new number one to plug in there. That year was the worst PFF grade of Aaron Rodgers' career by a distance, and it was like 75, something like that, and the two seasons either side of it were above 90. So the last time Rodgers had a receiving core this bad, we saw the worst Aaron Rodgers we've ever seen. If you get that again, maybe Minnesota splits the series with Green Bay.

Maybe Green Bay doesn't tear off into the distance. That NFC North is likely to not be a particularly tough division. The NFC generally is not as good as the AFC. It's a conference where you can sneak into the playoffs. And if you're in the playoffs, last year Arizona collapsed once they got there. Dallas wasn't playing the same once they made the postseason late in the year like the superbowl champions are the superbowl champions because they went on a run you know four or five games where matthew stafford played above where he typically plays and that fundamentally was why

the minnesota vikings grabbed kurtins in the first place, right? Not because he's dramatically better than Teddy Bridgewater or Case Keenum in the same situation in a really good roster, but because he was capable of doing things that those guys weren't for a limited sample size. And that really is what you're shooting for, is if they can just, you know, stumble their way into the playoffs in a bad conference, all you need is four good Kirk Cousins games. And that's a run. And that's how, if the Vikings are winning this year

and winning, you know, in those terms, that's how it's happening. It's not because, like, this roster is actually way better than we think it is. It's because it's good enough to get you just about there and then it's good enough to go on a run of four games folks training camp is here and there's no better way to represent your purple fandom by going to sodastick.com and checking out all their minnesota sports inspired goods the best football designs in my opinion are randy

moss's disgusting act and the purple people eaters look but look there's lots more for you to check out at soda stick.com s-o-t-a-s-t-i-c-k.com t-shirts hoodies hats whatever you're looking for use the promo code purple insider at checkout for 15 off your purchase. Well, I'm not entirely talked into it, but I think you, I think you made a great effort there. And so I would say that it kind of starts with their schedule though,

because the division is not super impressive, but then they also play the NFC East and the AFC East and the AFC East of course has one great team but the rest I mean I guess I'll believe it when I see it if Tua is the most accurate quarterback in NFL history or whatever Tyreek Hill is saying about him I think actually this offseason has made me think I don't know if it's going to work with Tyreek there because he seems like unhinged that's usually not good for wide receivers but you know like zach wilson uh you know we'll see and you know whether belichick is going to coach another 12 wins out of new england i don't know um and the nfc east you could talk yourself into all the

teams being either as good or better or you could talk them into them being all the same like oh carson wentz gets hurt they're playing heineke again who cares you know kind of you know stuff like that or the Giants it's still Daniel Jones playing for them so there is an argument to say it could be like a 2019 season and where your schedule really helps you out you win all the games you're supposed to win and you're in the playoffs even if you aren't super special and then you get a chance uh at that point the problem is just believing that kirk cousins can go on a run against good teams in the highest pressure situations which is where they have flailed in the past so i'm not entirely talked into it but i think you did you took the right avenue the right avenue isn't they're gonna run more uh slants up the

middle or you know over the middle like that's not the right avenue for't they're gonna run more uh slants up the middle or you know over the middle like that's not the right avenue for this i don't think because he's been doing it for so long it's really that this is a year that's set up where you could have good matchups and i think that might have played into them saying like if we tank and then like our schedule is super easy we're gonna be really mad about that yeah yeah no i think that's i think that's true like in if they were looking if they were in the afc they might have taken a completely different approach to this, right? And particularly the way the AFC has gone this offseason's blow it up. Let's start over. And then a couple of years' time when two or three of these or a bunch of these teams have flamed out after this arms race, that'll be our time.

But in the NFC, the talent has been going the other way, right? It's the flow of talent has been going from NFC to AFC, so the conference got easier this offseason. So I kind of can see why they would look at this and say, yeah, well, let's just sort of stay around. And if it does look like it's easy enough, we're positioned to win games now. Yeah, I think the problem they run into is that there's just enough really, really good teams in the NFC still.

If the Packers don't fall off the rams didn't really lose anything tom brady until he's uh wearing a gold jacket in a booth somewhere i'll still think he's going to win the super bowl right so there's like if there was only one or two but there's more like three or four and then we don't really know what trey lance is going to be um you know that then there's a lot of teams in their category and it's like the more teams that are in your category, the more chances that one of them also has the same thing happen. It's also about what, what actually constitutes success, right? So we always talk about it in terms of, are you going to win a Superbowl at the end of this?

But if you make the playoffs, win a game and then get annihilated by one of the actual good teams, is that, is that a good year? You know, does ownership look at that and go, you know, it was pretty good, right? That's full stands. That's everybody being happy for the majority of the year. That's like, you know, that's pressure off. Okay, we were never really in contention for winning anything,

but like that's a win for us. Yeah, and I think that the new coach thinks that and the new GM thinks that and the owners think that, but they haven't been in the same seats as the fans who have gone through this year after year after year of saying exactly, of making all these same exact arguments. Well, if we just get in and Kirk gets hot, right. It's like, well, yeah, but these people have been hearing that since like Rich Gannon was here. So, you know, I think that, I think that becomes a little bit more, more difficult to not be like pointing that arrow toward the Superbow here. So, you know, I think that becomes a little bit more difficult

to not be like pointing that arrow toward the Super Bowl. What would you like me to talk you into? I would like you to talk me into the idea that with a completely new regime coming in and, you know, tired of the old regime, right, this coercive and plotting for the same period of time. The ownership decided to get rid of those guys, bring in somebody in Kwesi who is fundamentally different from pretty much every other front office person in the NFL, right?

A completely different background, a therefore completely different take on everything, and essentially then chart the same course that everybody else has been charting for the last however many years. Why is that the right move? Yeah, this is a tough one to talk you into since I have been raging against it for the offseason. But this is the game. This is why the game is challenging. By the way, the one Irish word that you still have, like your accent, is regime. And you say regime. It's so funny that you have adopted living in America for long enough.

Yeah, like 90% of everything you say sounds just like an American now, except for that. I was buying time to try and think how I'm going to do this let's think of it this way that they essentially set themselves up to have a window to convince justin jefferson to stay hear me out and a window to potentially hit on a couple of draft picks and be very, very competitive and, and swing for the fences over this year and next year without doing anything really crazy to ruin their cap for the future. I mean, some of the stuff you would argue is crazy, like dead cap in the future for players who won't be here, but, but, but like not trading away all your draft picks or anything else, gathering more draft capital,

hoping that you have a big draft. So guys can hit this year and next year in this small Kirk cousins, the window, you're going to draft a quarterback probably in the future, but you can't have just a Jefferson leaf. So you have to get him, his records, his yards,

everything else, and then sign him to a long-term contract extension. Then you can draft a quarterback because Jefferson has to stay. So even if that quarterback doesn't work out, he's under contract. He's getting his guaranteed money. He's a happy man. And it gives you a little more wiggle room or a little more space. And they've also potentially set themselves up for whatever miserable quarterback could potentially be out there. Oh, we signed cousins to an extension,

angry quarterback, Lamar Jackson or Kyler Murray or whoever you're good. Why don't you come play with Justin Jefferson? That'll be a lot of fun, right? Maybe there's something that, or Aaron Rogers, right? Ends up because just. Or Aaron Rodgers, right?

Ends up just following the Favre route. Ends up showing up here. That's not a compelling case either because that's not going to happen. But I think if you're making a case for it, it was your owners, it sounds like, said you can't really tank. So what are you going to do? And it was like, well, we'll build up the defense we'll give Kirk another shot we'll give him all we can give him offensively and we'll try to build through trading down and getting extra draft picks the younger bones of this roster to 2023 where we have maybe a real chance if some things go our way and then after that you take out the quarterback put a new quarterback

onto a roster with justin jefferson and a bunch of players that you've just drafted with all of your draft picks and tried to develop to create sort of a window where you didn't have to go all the way down to the bottom but now you're placing the new quarterback onto a good team. That is the best I can do. Did I do okay? Yeah. I mean, so I think that the point that you make about the ownership is the most compelling one in terms of why it happened. And I think that's starting to become more and more interesting to me generally is we all take it as a given that a lot of times you need to blow this up and start over in order to get good from where you are. But the ownership might not buy into that, right? Like they have different motivations than everybody else. Sure,

they'd like to win a Super Bowl and have a championship and that's great for everybody, but they also have bottom line considerations and they want the sponsorship to stay where it is and all the business sort of reasons for not stinking are relevant to them. So, and also, you know, when you're a billionaire, you tend not necessarily to be open to the reasonable arguments of people below you for the lack of success, right? So, whereas a normal person would sit there and go, oh yeah, I can see the logic of this thing's a mess. We need to just detonate it and start over. If you're a billionaire, you'd be like, yeah, but I want you to get good from where we are right now. Why can't you do that, right? If you can, I can go hire one of these other guys that's going to

tell me I can, right? Billionaires are great at finding the yes man that will just tell them they can do whatever it is they want to do. So if they want to go from mediocre to great, they'll find somebody who goes into that interview and tells them that's exactly what they can do from day one. So I'm kind of fascinated by what those meetings or what those interviews actually look like in terms of what the ownership is telling these guys needs to happen, right? Like, these are my set of criteria. Can you do something from there?

And then, you know, that's presumably the tactic the interview actually takes. But I think that's probably the realistic answer, that they're just saying, find a way of getting from where we are to a Super Bowl without going through the period of being terrible, because that's simply not acceptable. Now, there is a point here, too. I mean, the Wilfs are not like super football geniuses. And the players met with the Wilfs and gave their entire spiel about why it was Mike Zimmer's fault.

And I think if you're the ownership and you have, I'm just going to throw out a name, but so like Eric Hendricks and Adam Thielen explaining to you why the culture that was created was so poor and how, if they just had somebody who was better culture wise as a coach, that they could perform better. And you're saying, well, we did a win eight.

So if we perform a little better and we win 10, then we're in the playoffs. And then then you know maybe things go our way right like i think it is hard when you own the team to just you like you would much rather talk yourself into it yeah then you would say nah eric kendricks you don't know what you're talking about like get out of here actually we're trading you for a fourth like i mean that's a tough thing to do these are players that are meaningful to the organization. Whether it works out, you know, I guess your confidence meter isn't super high,

but I think I could see it if I'm in their shoes, if people are telling me that. And I think, well, I'm not really the football guy, but all the football guys are telling me this. And then even more so, you see more things coming out of like, well, Mike Zimmer really didn't like Cousins and everything. So, well, maybe if our guy likes Cousins. I just like to say that he didn't pick Cousins at random not to like. There were reasons for that.

But how about you talk me into this? Because really fundamentally, they can be a much better football team if their defense is much better. Let's say they finish 12th in offense. If it's 10th in defense, you're like a playoff team, right? So Ed Donatel, Louis Seen is on the scene. Zedarius Smith, talk me into the Vikings defense, not just being okay, but being very good.

I think it's possible. You look at that defensive line, like remember, Danell Hunter is still some absurdly young age, despite being in the league for half a decade and missing the last couple of seasons injured. If you get Danell Hunter back playing at the best of his abilities, and the last full season we saw from him, he basically led the league in total pressures, was by far the best pass rushing season of his career. And he's still right in the middle of his prime. Now you're pairing him with the guy that edged him in terms of total pressures that one year. They were one and two, Z'Darrius Smith and Danell Hunter, in terms of pressures the last time we saw Hunter play.

So, again, Z'Darrius Smith is a guy that basically missed the entire season as well. So there's a risk with injury. But if those two guys can stay healthy over the course of the year, they should legitimately be one of the best pass rushing duos in the league. And then the secondary, there is potential there. It's not like that secondary has zero talent, particularly with the players they drafted. Again, they've kind of rolled the dice a little bit with injury risk, and a guy like Andrew Booth. But Booth has so much talent when you watch his tape. His footwork, his fluidity of movement is at a crazy high level. And when you watch his tape, he's on the ground a lot in terms of losing his feet. But that's a coachable thing. That is something you can get fixed with a little bit of technique work, and a guy like Patrick Peterson can probably help that along

in terms of being around him and sort of helping him with technique and fundamentals just through osmosis. But his ability to actually track receivers, to play coverage, his ball skills are great. Him, Patrick Peterson was not a bad player last year as much as he was sort of emblematic of the mediocrity of that secondary and I think took a lot of crap because of that from people like PFF, right, who Patrick Peterson is not what he once was,

but he's still a capable starting corner. And then the guy that's perennially been in the Mike Zimmer doghouse, Cameron Dantzler, is still a talented corner. Okay, he might have a level and a ceiling because of his size and just the limitations physically. But again, he's another guy that can cover. All of a sudden, you look at that secondary scene coming in to be a kind of heir apparent to Harrison Smith,

but play alongside him for a couple of years before that happens. There's talent there. The pass rush will make a big difference to the secondary by actually generating pressure and forcing the ball out quicker and all those kinds of things. And then, you know, Eric Kendricks didn't have a good year last year at all, right, along with the rest of that defense. Kendricks is one of the few linebackers in today's NFL that has demonstrated the ability to change the way quarterbacks play the game,

to shrink passing windows, to change where quarterbacks think they can actually target because of the plays that he can make and the range that he has in coverage. You add all that together, there are the pieces for that defense to be a very good unit if everybody stays healthy. I think you did a good job there. I think that was solid. But the problem is that last sentence, of course, which probably was true last year, right? I mean, if Michael Pierce plays the full season, Everson Griffin and Daniel Hunter play the full season everson griffin and daniel hunter play the full season you're probably pretty good uh but that's hard to do the peterson thing is funny because he always says stuff like yeah pff hates me or whatever and you're like uh patrick

you might want to check out your pff page because it wasn't bad last year and then when you look at his career like i think they think you're one of the best players ever, man. But also he would like, I did this a couple of times where he would pull out like a random play and be like, ah, they put this one on me.

That's not my coverage. Cause here's what I'm supposed to do. Right. And you're like, yeah, but at the same time I can go find the exact same play and the exact same coverage for this guy over here. And instead of getting beaten into the hole

you know behind you this guy stayed in there and shut that window right it's not like this is the problem i think generally with zone coverage right is people treat it like it doesn't really count the only real coverage it counts is man-to-man zone is some kind of witchcraft you know communism coverage doesn't really we don't count that in the numbers, but it's just a different way of playing. And you don't get to absolve yourself. Because the point about zone coverage is there's therefore holes in the zone and that's where offense is target.

But it's not like defensive coordinators and coaches just look at that and go, well, that was uncomfortable. Like nothing we could do there. Like there's something that should stop that play. And generally speaking, it's somebody's responsibility, and these are not like mythical things that you can only know if you're inside the head of that defensive coach. They're fairly standard adjustments or responsibilities

that apply to these coverages, and you can literally see the same play where somebody else is making it, Patrick Peterson isn't, right? And you don't get to just sort of say, well, that wasn't my responsibility. Like, you know, nothing I could do there. Because it's like, well, I can literally look at a bunch of plays over here where it may not have been that guy's responsibility, but he's making that play.

So if you're going to be one of the best corners in the NFL, those are plays that you need to make. You can't just shrug your shoulders and go, zone, not me. Right, right. Or when you were making these plays earlier in your career and they were grading you really well, what happened? Did they just decide they were hating? I mean, at the very minimum, yeah, at the very minimum,

you used to be making those plays. You're no longer making those plays. So either you were doing dramatically above and beyond your responsibility in the past in which case credit to you but like that's the difference between being a great corner and being what you are right now which is fine right and when you look at his numbers from last year what you see is there was that one 77 yard touchdown against arizona where i think he this was one he debated of whose fault it was and so forth, but it was kind of a lot of people's fault.

It looked like, and it was also Kyler Murray's fault for like making extra space in the pocket and things got discombobulated. If you kind of, and I know you can't take this out, but if you take that out of his numbers specifically, his numbers look really good. Like that play hurt him,

but I think he only allowed like two 30 plus plays the entire season. He he had good numbers and i think that a lot of it rests on him a lot of it rests on booth and specifically lewis scene because i looked at core or at uh safeties the other day rookie safeties recently and there have been some great performances from rookie safeties in recent history and i think if they get something similar to that, that it's going to be a higher level performance than the Anderson Dayhos and the Anthony Harris's. And if you have Harrison Smith still at a high level and Lewis seen wreaking havoc in the best case scenario, even if some people do get hurt,

they could have a good defense. It's like hard to see it being like number one, but that guy is a huge swing player i think to this defense yeah it's very difficult to you know isolate the performance of any one individual from that georgia defense because everybody was insane right so by definition everybody is being helped out by the other 10 guys in that defense being incredible and for some reason uh nicole b dean the linebacker seems to have been the chief victim of this, right?

Like everybody's just decided that he was a product of everybody around him, even though there's plenty of evidence of him just being an incredible player. But, you know, Louis scene had the same kind of environment in terms of he's making a ton of plays and, you know, some great reads and incredible athleticism of big hits and all those kinds of things. On the other hand, it was very little in the way of like traffic making that problematic, right? And that will probably be different at the next level. But if he's able to replicate what he

was doing with Georgia, I absolutely echo the idea that he can be a transformative player for this defense because he was an incredible safety for them. Look at us, look at us. We've talked, we've talked ourselves into the Vikings elite defense. Okay. Give me one more real quick and then I'll throw one more at you real quick. Okay. So you were talking about how the entire approach for the next couple of years is designed around, you know, securing Justin Jefferson long-term, right?

How about talk me into the idea that Justin Jefferson is great now, but his value is being cheap. And the second Justin Jefferson actually, you know, demands or earns or is due for the big $30 million a year contract, that's the point where it's no longer surplus value. And actually the way wide receivers come into the NFL these days, just get the next one. Okay, this is quite the challenge because just for the record,

I don't think this. I think that you sign Justin Jefferson and do not let him go anywhere like some of his predecessors who have been elite receivers and left. But, yeah, I think that one of the things that pff has discovered through uh extreme data science is that a lot of times when it comes down to the biggest games it's not do you have an elite receiver because probably everyone in the playoffs has an elite receiver it's how many receivers you have that are good and that can get open at any time for man coverage. And if you signed Jefferson to a contract that puts him number one in the cap hit in the NFL, which at some point he would, he would be,

then you could spend that money on free agents. You could spend draft capital to replace him and receivers are coming into the league more prepared to play in the NFL than ever. We just see more and more being drafted high. Their development is starting younger in their lives. The college teams are preparing them better for the NFL and also offensive coordinators are doing a better job of finding ways to get them in space, making.

So it's fewer catches that are just based on how good you are. Like back in the day, it's how good are you? Maybe Jerry Rice changed this a little bit. Like receivers were just, can you run faster and can you jump higher than the other dude and catch the ball? And now it's, can you line up in the slot 70% of the time and run a slant and then run after the catch?

Yes, you can. Not insulting Cooper Cup, but that's like a lot of his catches. So can you have a coach that can scheme receivers open if you can give multiples of him? Plus, you have to also consider the return in a trade. The return in a trade for Justin Jefferson would be obscene. He's a better receiver than Tyree Kill. He's just as good as Devontae Adams.

If you're getting to a point where you have to rebuild this thing because phelan's gone harrison smith is gone eric kendricks is gone and this is only the talk you into this is not what i think but how's three first sound to you right how's 30 million in cap sound to you it would be super sad but it's not insane to trade him away and try to get multiples of receivers that are good through the draft or free agency and then build up all the other areas around your new quarterback hey spend the money on right guard huh how's that that work? That was a pretty good effort, yeah. I tried. You convinced? No. I'm of the same opinion as you

as a default starting point that there's a threshold of talent beyond which I'm just not trading the guy away, right? I don't care what position he is or what has happened in the past or what the current landscape is. I'm just not letting certain

players leave voluntarily right and if it ends up you know a messy divorce after years of franchise tagging them or whatever then so be it but i'm not letting a guy like that walk away just because it's economically sensible or whatever like they're just too transcendent a talent i think jefferson looks like he's on the way to being in that bracket. The most compelling argument to me is that you might just be in a situation in a couple of years where it makes sense. Right. Institutionally, like this whole stay the course thing didn't work. You now need to hit that hard reset button. And if you're doing that, it doesn't really make sense to then sign a wide receiver to a $30-plus million a year contract and take up a giant chunk of your salary cap. That's your best asset.

You're not going to get a better price. That's the guy you should ship to get all those first-round picks and to try and start this rebuild. Yeah, I still think it is because rebuilds don't last that long if you do them right. And so, you know, we see teams go to the bottom and then whoop, slingshot right back up. And then a year or two later, you're going, you know, we could really use as an unbelievable, unstoppable human being at wide receiver. So even if he had to suffer through a bad year or two, if you do it right and you hit on everything you need to hit on you'll be back pretty quick um but i tried and i think we made a compelling argument for it it's just just can't see it uh okay uh let just we'll finish on this i want this is this is this is players choice here i want you

to take your hottest offseason take from the pff nfl podcast and talk me into it. Just your hottest one where Steve Palazzolo is rolling his eyes. Your producers are falling over. They can't believe Sam said blank. Talk me into it. I don't think I've had any utterly insane ones. What are you doing? And what are you podcasting for? If you haven't had a hot take,

I mean, look, there's a reason we're not earning the, the skip bail of Stephen H. Smith kind of money, right? It's because we're not out here saying absolutely batshit insanity. Let me think.

What's the most ridiculous thing? So the thing that Steve pushes back on the most when we podcast is I think that there are certain situations where you do not want to upset the apple cart in the quarterback room right he's of the opinion that you just draft as many quarterbacks as humanly possible until you hit on a patrick mahomes but i think there are situations and the carson wentz blow up in philadelphia kind of shows this where you're like it isn't worth upsetting the guy in the building or there are situations where that is not worth it and so we had this discussion recently that look he wants if if you can't find a trade partner for jimmy garoppolo keep him around um because that you maximize your chance of winning right you give the starting job tray

lance and tray lance stinks you can go back to jimmy g if he gets injured you've got a better backup quarterback all these things are good um i think that you can't possibly keep jimmy garoppolo around looming over trey lance's shoulder uh for those reasons because that it's not the kind of like look the it's not simply a case of like well if he can't handle that pressure he's not a good quarterback right because there are guys that are out there that can be very good quarterbacks, but there's no point in increasing the pressure they're under when you need them that much, right? And the 49ers desperately need Trey Lance to be good because they traded three first round picks for him. And he's the guy they

have a quarterback. They've determined that Jimmy G isn't the answer. And even if he was, he's only under contract for another year. So they were losing out on him anyway, right? So they need Trey Lance to be good. Why would you voluntarily increase the pressure on him by keeping around the guy that he didn't win the job from, who has brought them very close to a Super Bowl, who reportedly does have a lot of support within the locker room? Like, he's a popular guy in the locker room.

If Trey Lance starts badly, there will be a large percentage of the 49ers, the playing personnel that are asking the question, why would we not go back to the other guy who's actually good enough for us to win games? I just don't think, I don't think the benefits that you gain from having a better backup quarterback is worth all of that possible negativity looming over the guy who needs to be good for your franchise to head in the right direction. So I agree with you.

I am talked into this. I don't think you can have that, especially if you start like 0-2. And then everyone's going to want Jimmy Garoppolo. Hey, he took us to the NFC Championship last year. He's been in the Super Bowl. The other part is they literally can't afford him also. Like, that's another problem. But I think they can make that work.

But the everybody wants the backup thing, like that's one thing when it's just the media and the stuff you have to deal with during the week. But when that extends to the locker room, like that's a problem, right? If it was just Kyle Shanahan has to spend the entire week, you know, batting questions about when are you going to bench Trey Lance? When is Garoppolo going to go in?

Like that's part of the gig, right? The head coach is responsible for that. He's got to deal with that. But if that extends to like there's 20 guys in the locker room asking the same question, whether publicly or, you know, just in a small little clique or whatever that looks like, that's a problem. And I think given the reports of, you know, how liked Jimmy G is, given how close they've been, given the fact they haven't really been bad while he's been the quarterback, I think that would absolutely be the case. And that's where the problem starts. You know, back in the day, teams used to have two quarterbacks all the time it's kind of common

like it would be um you know just jim harbaugh and mike tomzak or something and they would be start wade wilson and tommy kramer like who's playing better just throw in that guy but uh that was in the 80s you know the same thing Steve Young, Joe Montana. That's the example. That caused enough problems for those guys to overcome. And they're two of the greatest of all time. And that was the 80s. So I don't think you can really do that in today's game. Yeah. If you go back and kind of research the things that Bill Walsh was doing with quarterbacks, it's crazy. It's a miracle that any of it worked. Like his idea of easing Joe Montana into the starting job was to basically have him as the red zone quarterback, right?

Right. If Steve DeBerg or whatever would get them to the red zone, and then they'd send out Joe Montana. Because Walsh's logic was, well, it's easier down in the red zone. Like we've already got him to the to the shadow of the goal line all he needs to do is to get the ball in score touchdown and you know take the the acclaim of the players and the fans like it's like the exact opposite of the reality in today's nfl which is the closer you get to the goal line the harder it is to play quarterback because the windows are shrunk and the timing is different all those kinds kinds of things. But like that was his approach to just like get Joe Montana's feet wet before you get to the Steve Young and Joe Montana drama. And as you say, like those are both Hall of Famers and it's still almost broke, like tore down the entire thing. Right. Buddy Ryan throwing in Randall Cunningham on third downs, taking out Ron Jaworski.

I mean, they used to do crazy stuff with these quarterbacks. You can't really do that now. And plus, I mean, you have the social media element. You also have the players, you know, they will force their way out if they're unhappy. And if you're Trey Lance and you play two games and you lose and then all of a sudden there's a lot of

pressure and it's just an uncomfortable situation like how happy is that guy going to be if you need him to be your franchise quarterback? You need to kind of just live or die with that you made that call so live with it and if it doesn't work then oh well then you made the wrong call but uh yeah no i i'm i'm on the same page i am talked into it uh so did you have fun this is with the talk me into a game yeah hey it was good i i've never come across anybody who hasn't had fun with the talk me into a game. Sam Monson, the PFF NFL podcast. As you already know, I listen all the time on my jogs.

And you and Steve are two of my favorites, as you know, but I'm telling everyone else. So thanks for your time, as always, Sam. Great to get together. We will do it again. And until then, keep those wheels turning on things that no one has ever said about Kirk Cousins. And if you get another one, let me know. I'll have to think of something. Apparently the beard thing wasn't acceptable.

I'm sure it's been said. Somebody. It is a nice beard. Very, very. Top five. Thanks, Sam.