Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Post-2017 redo, Fran Tarkenton, JC Tretter and a crazy Justin Jefferson scenario (A Fans Only podcast)

Episode Date: July 16, 2022

Matthew Coller answers questions from Vikings fans, from the players who would be selected to a post-1990 Vikings team, to whether Fran Tarkenton is a top eight QB of all time to whether they could still sign JC Tretter after Week 1 to the wildest Justin Jefferson trade scenario you have ever heard in your life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here and this is another fans only podcast. You know why? Because when you guys heard that i wanted more fans only questions you sent a lot of them which is fantastic and i can't wait to dive in to all the new fans only questions i have i'm gonna have a bunch of these episodes coming out because there are so many good questions and i'm always so impressed by the way we have had had no information basically since the draft that's been new about this team and yet every fan's only question seems to be unique

and different and interesting and so I can't wait to get into these and start breaking them down I also have a timer with me because I promised that I would keep the answer shorter. And then I was listening back and I realized I gave like a 14 minute answer on something. And I know I have that problem of going on and on sometimes when someone asks a really good question. So I actually have a stopwatch to talk for exactly five minutes so we can get through a lot of questions and make sure that you guys get to hear your question on the show. So as always, let's open the Diet Dr. Pepper and get right into it. Okay, I'm setting the timer right now. I got my phone out. I'm hitting start on the stopwatch.

And when it gets to five minutes, then I will try to wrap up and move on to the next question. If I talk for a little longer, I cannot be held responsible. All right. Let's start right off here with on Twitter at my stuff. I mean, I'm not 100 percent sure if that's exactly how you pronounce your Twitter name, but let's get to your question. Only fans question. It will not be a short answer. But what would you pick as the ultimate roster for the Vikings from 1990 until today? For example, how incredible would it have been to have Randy Moss, Justin Jefferson, Adrian Peterson on the same team?

And what would be your picks? OK, so the quarterback is actually probably the toughest answer here, right? Like I'm not going to go through every offensive lineman since there haven't been that many great ones in recent years. You remember the good offensive lineman, but if we start at quarterback, it's like,

can I give an individual year? Because either 2004 Dante Culpepper or 1998 Randall Cunningham are the years I think I'm picking Dante Culpepper as the quarterback overall but there were some really good quarterback seasons in there for going from 1990 like Warren Moon's in the hall of fame do you take old Warren Moon come back Randall Cunningham, Dante Culpepper, what Teddy Bridgewater would have been? I mean, you've got a pretty good debate. Or what Sam Bradford would have been had he stayed healthy in 2017.

Can you imagine? I don't know how often you guys think about stuff like this. My guess is a lot. But can you imagine if Sam Bradford had played healthy for the entire 2017 season with Pat Shermer as his offensive coordinator, a guy who he got along with extremely well with digs and Thielen at the peak of their powers with a great running back duo, Delvin cook for the first part of that season, the best offensive line, the Vikings have had pretty much, or had in the, in the Mike Zimmer era.

I think we would have, we would have been talking about somebody completely changing the narrative about their entire career. If Sam Bradford had stayed healthy throughout that season. Um, I think that you have to pick though, probably Dante call pepper just because the upside was he was playing side byside statistically with Peyton Manning. And there are not too many people of that era who could say that. They also, in Dante's time, didn't exactly have the best running game. And the running game was half just Dante running over linebackers and stuff.

So he was not a perfect quarterback. The Vikings have not had a perfect quarterback essentially since Fran Tarkenton but I think you have to take Dante and as far as receivers go yeah I don't I don't know that there's any other choice I mean it's got to be Randy Moss and Chris Carter first and then Jefferson and probably either Diggs or Thielen depending on if you want Jake Reed in there but that has to be your pick. So those kind of are pretty easy. And Adrian Peterson at running back is not a hard choice though. If you want to really throw back Terry Allen had sometimes, but I mean, it's, it's, that's a pretty simple one. If you were drafting the defensive side, you're probably saying,

you know, Chris Dolman was a little late eighties and then early nineties. Everson Griffin would probably make this list. Harrison Smith, uh, from recent players, maybe Orlando Thomas would be one for a playmaking safety that gets overlooked among really good, uh, Minnesota Vikings players that you would draft. I mean, those nineties teams were very, very good and they may would make the playoffs all the time and they couldn't get over the hump which I know sounds familiar but there were a lot of good players that you could choose from on those teams so if I had to pick as far as like the guys that I would definitely

select yeah I mean Jefferson Moss and Chris Carter would have to be at the top. If you're asking me about Jefferson versus Carter, I mean, Carter is getting the nod there. He's got the gold jacket for sure. It's just that there's not a whole lot of debate when it comes to the offensive side of this pick, but if you were able to combine them, you would have one heck of a team. And isn't that amazing to think about the number

of players on the offensive side of the ball at the skill positions, even a tight end like Kyle Rudolph, a very good tight end. Steve Jordan, you know, great tight end back in the day. Even Vasanti Shanko had his time. And then some of the great receivers in history one of the greatest running backs in history and you know that quarterback situation always being up and down they've never been able to get over the hump but you know you can say the same thing for the defense with great linebackers Ed McDaniel the offensive line if you add it all together you you have an unbelievable team. And I think that that is maybe the most frustrating part for Vikings fans is that you've never been short on players to root for. You've never been really in the complete depths of hopelessness in the NFL.

I think probably the closest that got was the final year of Les Frazier, but then Zimmer comes in and shows hope right away, a new quarterback. So there's never been like a five-year stretch where Vikings fans are saying, at least since the early 90s, saying we just couldn't possibly ever win in this league. You're always being given a reason with certain players, especially your most exciting. And I would throw Percy Harvin into this mix too. If we are going to put the crown on Justin Jefferson after two years, you also have to say, Percy Harvin is a player that you would consider drafting. Um, if I get four wide receivers, I think I would pick him. So yeah, you combine the present group and that group and my gosh, um, you know, you know, you've really got an incredible, incredible amount of talent there.

All right. To Oliver via the email. See, I stayed to five minutes there. You all should be proud of me. All right. So resetting the clock and this. Wait, scroll down. OK, there it is. Oliver via the email, after the 2017 season,

what roster improvements would you have made compared to Rick Spielman's? For example, do you think we should have kept Case Keenum and acquired a left tackle and continue to improve the defense? Well, left tackle, I think they were okay. I always thought that Riley Reif was a good player, and he was fairly paid. He was not like, he was not an elite left tackle and he was not paid as an elite left tackle. So he gave you your exact bang for buck. And plus he was a guy that team teammates really liked

playing with, um, a quiet guy, go about your business type of guy that I think that people appreciated in the organization. And before they drafted Derrissaw, they wanted to bring Riley Reif back, but because they had given him a pay cut before he said, no, I'm going to go sign with Cincinnati. And then unfortunately for him, he got hurt and, um, you know, didn't play for Cincinnati last year, or it didn't, you know, play down the stretch into the Superbowl. But, you know, they, I think that the left tackle situation was totally fine where it would have been for me, the quarterback situation we've talked about a little bit on the show, but I would have looked more at Alex Smith than Kirk cousins as a good fit for Mike Zimmer, just from their personality and their playing style, as far as maybe trading the draft pick and trading a player to try to get Alex Smith.

Improving the defense, I don't know that I would have gone much in that route because they brought back everybody. I mean, they added Sheldon Richardson and then drafted Mike Hughes and brought back pretty much everybody on that defense. And really, for the next two two seasons were a very good defense, if not an elite defense. I mean, in 2018, you have to subtract like 40 points that the offense gave up in pick sixes and fumbles for touchdowns

when you look at their point total. Overall, though, that was a very good defense that had one horrible night against the Los Angeles Rams but got it together mostly for that season I think it does come down to the quarterback decision that there was a better route and of course we all know now that drafting Lamar Jackson would have been the best route for the Vikings I think at the time you could have maybe seen that coming that there would be one of the five quarterbacks that was available. But I also understand why the Vikings saw it as their Super Bowl window and they thought Case Keenum won't do this again, which they were right.

I mean, you can always go back to that decision and say, I get why you did it. I think it was the, a lot of the choices that they made after, I mean, you can go to hiring John D Filippo and completely changing your offense is not really something that they should have done. Um, getting rid of depth players that were valuable to them was problematic just to be able to afford the quarterback and to be able to afford Sheldon Richardson, but it was really, I can't go hard on a lot of the decisions before 2020. To me, 2020 is where you can question a lot because in 2018 and 2019, you could still make an argument that they're in their winning window. And the fact that they beat new Orleans in the superdome and the fact that they had a chance to win the division had they beaten green bay and played hard to the end of that season as opposed to playing sean manion in the final week

in 2019 they would have had a chance to win the division so it was a team that was good enough to do that that lost i mean even just some close games, like one out in Seattle that was costly to them, but it wasn't really those decisions that were so problematic. I think maybe adding another wide receiver that wasn't Laquan Treadwell at some point between 2018 and 2019 investing there, um, a little, being a little smarter on the interior of the offensive line, knowing who your quarterback is, you can critique those things and say, yeah, those might've helped, but it's really 2019 to 2020 where the dream is dead. Everyone Linval is leaving. Xavier Rhodes is leaving Trey Waynes, Mackenzie Alexander, Terrence Newman had retired. Like the defense fell apart. Everson Griffin left.

There wasn't a lot left to work with. And instead of trading for Yannick Ngakwe, and instead of making desperate-seeming moves, really trying to reset and, of course, extending Zimmer and Spielman and extending Kirk Cousins, that's where you could have foreseen that something had to be different. And that's where the ridiculous, desperate moves come in. Drafting a center in the first round,

trading for Curry Vedvik, trading for Chris Herndon. That's where they started to kind of lose their minds a little was to try to pry that window back open when essentially nature had said, no friends, it's over. You are not allowed to have a great defense anymore.

So I can't, I can't go super hard in questioning a lot from 2018. The 2019 pick of Bradbury was definitely a bad one, especially when they knew that digs already had issues with Mike Zimmer and with the offense that at that point you have to consider drafting a wide receiver of which there was Debo Samuel, AJ Brown. There were other guys on the board there that they probably should have considered. And that's where the mistakes start to begin though, is really going into, um, you know, that mode of we have to keep the window wide open. And they were unable to do that and then just slip into mediocrity with a decent quarterback,

but a roster not good enough to legitimately compete for something. OK, resetting the timer. I went maybe a minute too long there. But Oliver, that's a that's a really interesting question to kind of relitigate the post 2017 decisions, because I think that there were some of it that was foreseeable. I mean, franchise tagging Anthony Harris was another one where he just went, I don't get it. Like it's Anthony Harris.

I really like Anthony Harris. And I mean, he's a tremendous human being and a great story, but like what? He's not worth $12 million or whatever it was on a franchise tag when you could really just reset that position and develop someone else. Okay. Restarting the timer. I'm going to try to stick to this. Okay. Let's go to, this is from at Skull Actuary.

Fans only question here how much should the vikings fans be bummed that we drafted kellen mond over davis mills in the 2021 draft mills is at worst a low tier starter or high tier backup does this change anything at all for the vik Vikings in 2022. Davis Mills was, I believe if I'm not mistaken, the number one player or something like that coming out of high school, but just didn't get a lot of opportunity in college. I think he got hurt and then COVID and there just wasn't a whole lot of tape on him. But you could have had the sense

that if there was any player in that area with upside it was not Kellen Mond and it was not Kyle Trask because those guys had bigger samples of playing and were not the caliber of high school prospect necessarily that Davis Mills was however I'm not really buying that Davis Mills is going to be someone that the Vikings should deeply, deeply regret. But let's say they do. Let's say that Mills has a great year this year and we all go, wow, what a pick by the Houston Texans. Who saw it coming? What they're going to regret most is caring too much about mobility. Now, mobility, I think, is important. And the way that Patrick

Mahomes escapes the rush and creates throws off balance, the way that Josh Allen can take off on third down, Lamar Jackson is clearly a special all-time talent with this stuff. But Kellen Mond was not special as a runner in college. Not really at all. I mean, he ran a really impressive 40 time and had a great, uh, you know, workout and stuff, but he was not a running quarterback and he wasn't a playmaking quarterback. I also think when you look around and you see someone like Joe Burrow, again, that's not a guy who is going to run for more than 200 yards a year. I think he was like at 150. And Matt Stafford is a pocket quarterback with physical tools and mobility. And I think that the Vikings, because they were so

frustrated with Kirk Cousins, and this is why they're, they're hard to figure. Sometimes they were frustrated by Kirk Cousins, lack of mobility and playmaking. So they draft a quarterback that they think is going to have that because he had an impressive workout and is fast. But again, that doesn't mean you are a mobile quarterback. Like Josh McCown is incredibly fast, but he's not a mobile quarterback. That is true. By the way, Josh McCown is incredibly fast, but he's not a mobile quarterback. That is true, by the way. Josh McCown is incredibly fast. And so I think they made that mistake in valuing that too much. And even, I mean, even in that draft night, I remember Rick Spielman talking about it and it sounded very passive aggressive, like he was kind of taking jabs at cousins like,

yeah, this guy can, you know, move around. But in the NFL, I think, you know, there are quarterbacks who that's a major part of their skills and talent, but it's not completely necessary to win. It's not like you, if you have the guy in a rookie quarterback contract, a Jared Goff, a Carson Wentz, like those guys teams one with someone who could just distribute the ball, make some throws downfield, be accurate enough, have a little, I mean, in Wentz's case, a little bit of playmaking in Goff's case, really good execution of the offense. Like it's not a one size fits all. You must have this quarterback who runs around like this other quarterback to win. And I think that they

maybe value that too much rather than picking the middle round guy that might actually have some upside. However, none of this probably matters. I would be very, very surprised if Davis Mills is suddenly the next Joe Burrow, or even if he's a Carson Wentz level player, I think we're probably talking about a Gardner Minshew level player where you go, yeah, that guy would make a great backup. And that's great. Like, sure. That's good to have. It's good to have on your team, but it also doesn't matter that much of having a great

backup. It's really nice. It was super for the Vikings in 2017 and in 1998. So the history of this team favors the backup quarterback. Hey, and shout out Gus Farratt as being a great backup quarterback that came in for Tavares Jackson in one games. But I don't think you should be losing sleep over the Vikings picking Kellen Mond over Davis Mills. It's more of the Kellen Mond pick in general. Like that could have been a player who helps you and who develops. And they went after a very low percentage draft pick that didn't have a whole lot of upside because he was a guy that had played

a lot in college. And if that upside was going to show up, it probably would have at some point in college, you would have had a great season, but instead it was a lot of just, you know, just okay. It's like good quarterback play for a college team. So I don't think you should be heartbroken that they didn't take Davis Mills. Uh, but you know, if you're talking about the logic of picking a third round quarterback and hoping the guy becomes the next franchise player. Yeah. The, the odds were always going to be pretty low there. But I will say that if Davis Mills absolutely lights it up, we will remember it. Okay, this comes from our next question. I have been so good on being right around five minutes for each question.

We're going to call this like the, the rapid fans only, uh, rapid fire. So, okay, here we go. This comes from at Demp Dolph fans. Only question is Fran Tarkenton, a top eight quarterback of all time. Well, let's look up our hall of fame monitor first because I've become obsessed with the hall of Fame monitor. I absolutely love it. Where does Fran Tarkinson, excuse me, where does Fran Tarkinson rank in the Hall of Fame monitor? Let's take a look. Well, let's see.

Brady, one, Manning, Rogers, Favre, Unitas, Montana, Breeze, Elway, Marino, Fran Tarkinson? The answer is fringe, like right on that area for the Hall of Fame monitor, which again is on pro football reference. What it does is it takes statistics, how much they were worth, kind of like a weighted value of the player compared to the era that they played in, the Pro Bowls, the championships, the all pros and, you know, Tarkington of course made a bunch of super bowl appearances. I think that he is. And one of the things that I like to look at when I try to figure out how good was a player, it's not to add up their stats because stats are forever changing. Think about this. We have 17 games now. Stats are forever changing. But what you can look at is what the landscape looked like when they

retired, like how they compared to their peers of that era in a lot of different categories, the success, sorry that it matters. You, the anti QB wins people. Okay. Like tell, tell it to giants fans. Are they going to, they're going to give the championship parade memories back to you because you think that the wins didn't matter for Eli Manning. Like, you know, I'm not saying you have to put Manning in the hall of fame because of it, but, uh, winning matters when you're trying to decide who the greatest players are of all time. And Fran Tarkenton did a ton of winning. I mean, you know, same with Jim Kelly, where I wouldn't say just because he didn't get a ring. It's like the guy took his team to multiple Superbowls, four Superbowls. He deserves to get a lot of attention for that. Uh, and then just, you know, played for a really long time. And when Fran retired, he was

like the guy, I mean, with all the records, I know that throwing for 3000 yards now is like, what did you get hurt halfway through the season? But back then, if you were throwing for 3000 yards and 25 touchdowns and had a quarterback rating of 90, you were the man. And, you know, I mean, the football looked like it weighed 100 pounds and it just like they didn't play on turf and you could absolutely murder the quarterback. There were so many things that were working against quarterbacks. And for Fran to change the game in terms of mobile quarterbacks at that time, he was one of the very, very few that would run around and make plays and to be as efficient as he was and

successful as he was to make nine pro bowls, all pro and, uh, you know, have the incredible statistics that he had when he retired. I think that top eight is not crazy. He's forgotten because he doesn't have a super bowl and he's forgotten because of the purple people leaders. And those defenses were great. I don't know that they were actually the best versions of those defenses in every year that those teams went like they were still good. But the Joe cap version was probably the best that the purple people leaders ever were. And then Fran Tarkenton came back and just put up incredible numbers for the time. So there's also a way to look at this, which is like, and they do this on, on baseball reference was called like the dark ink, which

means how many times did you lead the league in stuff? And just pulling that up, like Fran was an MVP. He was the most valuable player. Uh, actually, you know, when he played for the giants one year in the entire league by approximate value, um, he led the NFL in touchdowns in 75 and pass attempts, even in his final year, led the league in passing and passing yards per game. I mean, yeah, I think that Fran has a very good case for being one of the 10 to 15 best quarterbacks, uh, to ever play. And of course that list is ever changing as more great quarterbacks come into the league. But, um, yeah, I mean, you know, there were, I think a lot of people would put him behind somebody like Terry Bradshaw or behind somebody like Roger Staubach.

But it's funny because in the Hall of Fame monitor, he's actually ahead of those guys for the formula that pro football reference has. So you could say that he's underappreciated maybe when it comes to comparing to some other quarterbacks, especially ones that won Super Bowls. If you were wondering, by the way, Eli Manning actually has a pretty good case on this, on the Hall of Fame monitor, that he is very similar in his score to like Kurt Warner, Dan Fouts, a little ahead of Ken Stabler and Joe Namath. He's got a pretty good case. He's like, he's like fringe for being a hall of fame quarterback. It's not easy. There are, there are very few, um, great hall of fame quarterback. So good question. I like it. All right. Uh, onto the next one. That was five minutes and 35 seconds. So let's get on the, onto the next one here. Reset my, my stopwatch. Um, okay. Who does this come from? Let me scroll up. Uh, okay. This is from

clan to storm on Twitter or strong clan strong. Okay. Sorry about that. Uh, with the consistent chatter that the Vikings should sign JC Treader. I was wondering if they're interested, but approaching this strategically, that is, if the veteran guarantee still goes away after week one, could it be they're waiting until that time? You know, I don't think that's a very good idea. If that is the case, that is a very bad idea because it's a center and a center has a really difficult job intellectually. I mean, the number of blitzes and rushes and assignments and blocking schemes and all those things to change teams is so difficult.

If you start off in OTAs, I mean, you really have to work at it to get on the same page with the quarterback and to understand how they handle all the different pass rush schemes and everything else. I understand he's a veteran, but if you're signing him week one, he probably can't play till like week five. I think that that would be a penny wise pound foolish to have a guy sitting out there and not sign him during training camp because you're afraid of some guarantees. The Vikings have shown no fear of hurting themselves on the salary cap down the road, by the way. And the Wilfs have shown no willingness or whatever it is, no, uh,

need to be cheap. Like the, the Wilfs have been fine with giving out big contracts and guaranteed money and things like that. So I would say don't be Pennywise pound foolish. If that's the thing, the best theory that I've heard about JC Treader, if he's not injured, which he played a lot of snaps last year, if he's not injured, is that it's not a surprise that the NFL PA president is having trouble getting a job because the teams don't want that guy who has been. And of course it has to be very outspoken against the league and against things that they do and fighting for players and their rights and things like that. Uh, it's not the first time it's happened that somebody ends up as the NFL PA president and then struggles to find a gig. Uh, so I think that there's that theory.

And then there's also if Cleveland cut him, did they do it because they knew something medically about JC Treader, which could be possible. I mean, does the guy have degenerative knees or something? And there's thought that he won't hold up for one more season. I don't know. But if the reason has to do with his NFL PA status, that is absolutely foolish to not sign him. And I think that it's not a smart idea either to wait because of guarantees because then you're setting yourself behind and then you have to play an inferior player for the first four or five weeks of the season and at that point you've already played several of the NFL's best interior defensive linemen I mean I think if they're looking at a late signing right before camp. There's just nobody better than bringing in a big upgrade

on the interior of the offensive line. This team is already going to be questionable at the other two positions. We don't know if Ezra Cleveland is getting a lot better. We don't know if Chris Reed, Jesse Davis, Ed Ingram, or Wyatt Davis is going to make for a good right guard this year. And we do know that Garrett Bradbury is probably not getting a lot better at this point. I mean, Garrett Bradbury, I believe is 27 years old. He wasn't drafted that long ago, but he was 24. He came out as a finished product. So whatever you got in your first and second year, that was what he was going to be. So maybe the scheme will help him a little bit, but JC Tretter is an elite pass blocker. To me, it stands to reason that if he's healthy, they should put anything else aside and do it. But that's not always how it works in the NFL. As we've seen from a certain quarterback who remains blackballed, like once these guys

decide that they don't want you in the league because you did X, Y, or Z to them, uh, you know, that means that that player's not coming back. So I hope that that is not the case with JC Treader. And if he doesn't get a job in training camp, I'm really going to wonder what is going on there. Or if he's getting low ball, he can't get a fair offer for somebody who has been a terrific pass blocking center I think it's going to look a little fishy so good question we'll see what happens with JC Tretter and if there's a chance he ends up here I think that there is they have enough cap space to be able to do it and it makes a lot of sense

and how many teams can offer you a starting position all right this one comes from mike via the email assume that arizona and kyler murray cannot come to a contract agreement extension so arizona trades kyler to jacksonville wow okay we are in the weeds here jacksonville needs a dynamic receiver for Kyler Murray. Would you trade Justin Jefferson for Trevor Lawrence? If yes, what else, if anything, do you think the Vikings would need to include in the trade to get Trevor? Project then what the Vikings would do with Kirk. Wow.

I mean, wow. There is a lot going on here in this. So they've traded. So Kyler Murray is a Jaguar and Trevor Lawrence is getting traded and the Vikings are considering trading Justin Jefferson. This is some maddened stuff. Now, Mike, you understand me like this is a person right here who listens to the show and just gets it like totally gets what fans only is all about preposterous trade scenarios is like it's like in the definition it's like hardcore Vikings questions number one about the roster players futures ridiculous and insane trade scenarios because this is the NFL and we have seen, you know, the like.

I think that the problem with this scenario in terms of answering it is unless this is happening today, you would have to make this happen like after this year, unless it's happening in camp. If it's happening in camp, that's wild because then you have to make a bet on Trevor Lawrence and then you have to somehow trade Kirk Cousins. If, if we're doing it today and let's say, I don't know, Seattle wants Cousins. So there's at least someone to trade him too. I think that the answer is probably no. I don't think that you can trade Justin Jefferson for Trevor Lawrence right now because you saw enough flaws in the first year that if you give away one of the great wide receivers, when you could just draft another quarterback next year and have equal chances at that player being great, or still a high amount of chance that he could be good enough and be cheap enough to build the roster around him.

If you trade Justin Jefferson for Trevor Lawrence and Jacksonville with Kyler Murray and Justin Jefferson wins a Superbowl or something, and Trevor Lawrence turns outville with Kyler Murray and Justin Jefferson wins a Super Bowl or something. And Trevor Lawrence turns out to be a bust. You are Herschel Walker 2.0. It's like one of the worst trades of all time. If you've done this now, I get it though. I get where you're coming from though, because you're talking about a quarterback on a rookie contract who is one of the great prospects to come out of college. And last year you could throw out a lot of what you saw because it was such a mess in Jacksonville. And even the people who have gone through the film with the fine tooth comb have seen a lot of things with Trevor Lawrence where they went. I mean, if Doug Peterson just cleans up X, y and z with the offense and they catch the ball this is another thing that's that's crazy

is how many drops Jacksonville had last year why do you think they signed Christian Kirk to like a billion dollar contract because they kept dropping the ball like crazy uh they were one of the top teams in the league in that category. So if you brought Lawrence here, but the issue then is you could give them Thielen, Irv Smith and who? And I mean, the offense with Kevin O'Connell, I mean, that's presumably favorable. And maybe you draft a receiver next year with Trevor Lawrence. You could, you could also with his cheap contract, you could go out and try to get one. I mean, there's a, there's a case for it for sure. I don't want to shoot it down flat and say no way, but when you have a top three player in the

league at his position and the position is that valuable. And we've seen a number of times how a supporting cast can drive a player's success, i.e. Matt Stafford or a number of other guys we've mentioned, including Jared Goff running a number one offense, Carson Wentz. It's not that the bar is lower for quarterbacks. It's just that when you can draft one and put greatness around him, your chances are probably just as good as if you have a great quarterback without greatness around him. If that makes sense. I think that's a very, very fascinating trade of like who in the league, the entire league, would you trade Justin Jefferson for like how many players? And if we're talking about including quarterbacks it's like what josh allen patrick mahomes it's

like maybe two other quarterbacks because you wouldn't do it for brady or rogers because they're old maybe i mean burrow you would do it for him and there's very few others that you would do it in the entire league and whether you include trevor lawrence really means how much do you believe what you saw from trevor lawrence last year and how much do you believe what you saw from Trevor Lawrence last year and how much do you believe that he will be in the future? I think it's too risky to do, but, but I can see it. I like that, Mike. That's fun. That's a good one. Uh, okay. Let's go to Shane via the email. Okay. Well, this is, I didn't even look at this, but the very next question is, is there a scenario where you would trade Justin Jefferson?

Well, there you go. It's a little bit of a different question though, because it's not just like who in the league would you, it's, is there a scenario? And yeah, there is a scenario. And this scenario is realistic. It's not, I don't think it's that plausible, but it's possible, which I, you know, are two different things. The scenario is this, they play this year, they go eight, eight and one, and Justin Jefferson comes to them and says, I'm sorry, guys, I only want to play for the

Cincinnati Bengals with my old friend, Joe Burrow. And that's it. I'm not signing a contract extension with you ever. I will only get traded to Cincinnati. No extension. I'm done as a Minnesota Viking. And you guys can try everything you want to try. You could franchise tag me. You can this, that, and the other thing. But here's what we know about the world in 2022 is that if an athlete wants out, then that athlete will get out because they'll put too much public pressure on the team, just like Stefan Diggs did. And then the offers will come in and somebody will give you enough. So let's just say that it's after this year cousins, go i'm sorry uh jefferson they go to him and they say look justin we'll give you the most money in the league and we're moving on from kirk or keeping

kirk whichever you want and we're going to draft another quarterback and we're going to rebuild and we're going to chase a championship and jeff says, meh. No, I'm good. I'm good. I'm sorry, guys. Trade me. Trade me to Cincinnati. I want it to be Jefferson, Jamar Chase again with Joey B. That's it.

Trade me. And Cincinnati says, you know what? We will give you three first round draft picks for JJ. I mean, you have to think about that. You have to think about that. I would not want to do it, but if the player is not going to sign a long-term extension, then you can't let that run to the very end. You have to trade him and trading him while he still has a cheap year before his fifth year option kicks in or before an extension kicks in is the way to get the absolute most value.

And this is kind of what they did with Devante Adams, where it was like Devante Adams said, I'm not signing an extension. So Green Bay said, okay, then we're trading you for an absolute haul. And with Tyreek Hill, same deal, Kansas City. Well, if you're not going to sign an extension and, uh, and the extension you want is absolutely insane to stay here, then I guess it's time to go. I just don't want to play fear monger with this though, because it's a very much cross the bridge. When you get there, the Wilfs have been so, you know, willing to give out all the

dollars that anybody wants. Plus Minnesota is a great place to play. Like it's got a great stadium. It's got a great team facility. And if you like the new coach and the vibes, and you feel like he's going to be here for a while and there's stability, then, you know, I think that there's a good chance that he stays, but Jefferson's going to want to know what's the quarterback situation long-term. Am I going to have to deal with a rookie quarterback after, you know, 2023 do like having that uncertainty may be a factor. So I do think that there is a scenario. I just don't think it's a likely one considering that the amount of money that the Vikings can put down, uh, for Justin

Jefferson. All right. Next question. Here's a friend of the show. I know you guys love that, uh, at head coach 21 for the fans only. Do you think the 2003 Carolina Panthers were one of the most underrated NFL underdog stories of the last 30 years? So, yes. I mean, that's my snap reaction is yes. about a team that went 11-5 and ran through that division, or ran through the NFC, beating Dallas, St. Louis, and Philly in the playoffs. So that would be, let's see, that Dallas Cowboys team, that was coached by none other than Bill Parcells, although Quincy Carter was the quarterback, but he went 10-6 that year.

Mike Zimmer was on this coaching staff, by the way, and Carolina beat them in the wild card round. They play the St. Louis Rams who by 2003 are 12 and four and still have great quarterback play at that point in Mark Bulger putting up, uh, he wasn't, he wasn't perfect that year, but, um, putting up 250 yards game. He went 12 and three as a starter. Like Mark Bulger was great that season. And then Philadelphia where you have, you know,

I believe we're talking about Donovan McNabb era here. And they went 12 and four too. I mean, my gosh, like they, yeah, it was Donovan McNabb. They had as tough of a run to get to the Super Bowl as you could possibly have. And they did it with Jake DeLome, a quarterback and a little shade of Rodney Pete. Like that was who they had playing quarterback for them that year. And how about this? This is a crazy stat. Jake DeLome, regular season, seven gamewinning drives in that year. Steven Davis, 1,400 yards.

Steve Smith, who belongs in the Hall of Fame, 1,100 yards receiving. What a team. Jerome Wiggins was there for you deep-cut Vikings fans. What a team. Mike Rucker, Julius Peppers, Chris Jenkins. I mean, yeah, no I I do think that yeah I mean I think that the the only reason I would say they get lost a little bit in the shuffle I mean of course is because they didn't finish the job and they were right there at the end of the game and had a chance to beat the

Patriots kick the ball all the way down the field and maybe you beat the Patriots. But that era that like end of the nineties and into the two thousands and early two thousands, I feel like that was the last frontier of old school football. And there were a lot of like weird results and quarterback play was in a bit of a strange place and running backs were kind of dominating and defenses were kind of dominating. I mean, the, the quarterbacks who went to super bowls in the early, that early two thousands, right after, um, right after the greatest show on turf versus when it was Warner versus Steve McNair, you had Trent Dilfer versus Carrie Collins. Tom Brady versus Kurt Warner was amazing in 2001. But then you have Brad Johnson against Rich Gannon, a couple of former Vikings.

Jake DeLome and Tom Brady. Donovan Maynard and Tom Brady. Ben Roethlisberger and Matt Hasselbeck. And then Peyton Manning against Rex Grossman. And Eli Manning against Tom Brady. Like there were a lot of instances in that little stretch that people hung on to for a long time. If they didn't have a good quarterback where they'd be like, well, I mean, Jake DeLome and, uh, Trent Dilfer, it just kind of was the league in flux a little bit that opened the door to some strange results.

But yeah, I mean, that is Jake DeLome, not kind of like a rich man's case. Keenan, I think he I think he kind of is. It's such a unique team to have gone to the Super Bowl and really sad that they didn't get the job done because that would have been one of the coolest victories. The other thing is too, that we've talked about how on the show that the really the biggest predictor of will you reach the Superbowl is just how many points your offense scores. Imagine they were only 15th in scoring. They only scored 325 points all year long and had an expected win loss of eight and seven, nine and seven. That was their expected win loss. They were 15th in offense and 10th in defense. Everything says that the

O3 Panthers should have just been like a pretty mad team. They were plus 6,000 to make the Super Bowl and an over under of seven and a half. Hey, you know what you should do? You should go tell your friends. Oh, what's the Vikings over-under? What's their odds to win the Super Bowl this year? Well, remember the 03 Panthers? Why can't we be them?

How crazy is that? No, that's a great observation, man, because that is a wild team. They need a football life on that team and Jake DeLome. That's what Jake DeLome's career looked like. 56-40 as a starter. Good for you, Jake DeLome. Although Cleveland Brown Jake DeLome, not the best. But it was actually a surprisingly long run for Jake DeLome.

I did not realize this. Did everyone else know this? That after 03, they had a down season. They went seven and nine, but he had two other seasons where he won 11 and 12 games. That's amazing. And two seasons where he had at least four fourth quarter comebacks, Jake Delome, everybody, a forgotten, a forgotten journeyman goat. So thanks for reminding me of that, man. Like, it would be a whole podcast in itself. I have so many podcast ideas from time to time. A whole podcast in itself of just, like, forgotten legends. Like, they're not in the Hall of Fame, but they're just super cool.

And Jake DeLome is one of them. So thank you for reminding me of that. I really appreciate that, man. This is another fans-only episode. And I hope that the frenetic pace kept everybody going. I really enjoyed it. I've got a lot more questions to get to in the future. If you want to send them to me at purpleinsider.com,

the top right corner is a contact us. Hit that up. Or on Twitter, feel free to DM me or just send me a tweet. I usually see them. Uh, just let me know you want it for fans only. I'll put it in the file and we'll keep rolling. Appreciate you all listening. This was a really fun episode and we will talk soon.