Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Preseason COVID changes and 'What Happened There,' Vikings edition

Episode Date: July 6, 2020

How difficult will it be for young players to crack lineups if they don't have a regular offseason or preseason games? Do we think football is actually going to start on time?  In What Happened There, a look at the Vikings' crazy kicking history, a look at why Troy Williamson and Laquon Treadwell didn't work out and many more odd NFL events.  Read Matthew Coller's written work at PurpleInsider.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Hey everybody, Matthew Collar here. Make sure you're paying attention at the end of the show to hear an exclusive trailer for a new podcast from Blue Wire Studios called Golden Goal, Stories of Soccer Legends. It's narrated by Blue Wire host Brandon Kelly, and each Monday, two new episodes will take a look at some of soccer's biggest stars and the moments that define their careers.

From Messi to Rapinoe and many, many more, each episode will focus on the historical plays and personalities that make the sport great. So stay tuned after the episode and listen to Golden Goal, stories of soccer legends, wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's start the football talk. Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with former NFL quarterback and journeyman correspondent Stage Rosenfels. What is going on, Stage? You doing okay? You spending your time wisely here during quarantine?

Not at all. Who is? I wake up, I have coffee, and I stare at my phone for way too long. There's so many things that are sort of going on in the world. Very little have to do with football, which really stinks. You know, the Cam Newton story was like a quarterback sign for basically the minimum, and it's like the massive story of, you know, the last three weeks in the NFL. We did look like we cut out two preseason games.

Is that a for sure thing? Yesterday or something? So what's going on not a heck of a whole lot um i am taking my kids up to minnesota uh next weekend or this weekend in a couple days here so i'm excited about that renting a house on the lake and getting some social distancing i bought a boat right which was you know people say is a terrible idea of course not minnesotans but people that from the omaha where we have no lakes barely here, you know, we drive, I drive an hour to get a decent lake over in Lincoln, which is just decent enough to sort of drive my kids around in a tube. I don't know, that's about it. That's about it. I'm very lucky, I don't have to

have a job. So I'm just sort of hanging out, hanging out with my kids, you know, mowing my yard and, and, you know, probably have to spend more time getting rid of more clothes in my closet that I realize I never wear because I'm sort of wearing the same thing every single day. So that's sort of what's going on with me. Yesterday or the other day when we talked about doing a podcast together, we haven't done in a couple of weeks, I don't think, I said, you know, what's going to happen if there's no sports this fall? Like, it's a possibility.

And seeing these numbers in Arizona and Texas and Florida that all have football teams, seeing these college guys get it, I don't know what's going to happen. I hope there is, but I don't know. I don't know when, if a football player in college dies of COVID-19, which I saw an article yesterday that some guy just based off statistics, especially with BMI, the body mass index, you know, a lot of, you know, 20 year old kids who really should weigh like 230 weigh 300 pounds. That's just the thing. I have all these college football teammates, former teammates, who are now in their 40s, and they weigh like 220. They weigh 230. They run marathons.

They were 305 pounds when we were in college. I can't believe that's very healthy. So you have a whole bunch of those guys. And anyway, this article basically said they expect between four and seven deaths amongst FCS or whatever, FBS, whatever it is, FBS college football players. And that's really scary. So what's going to, I don't know what's going to happen with this thing. So anyway, when I came to you yesterday, feeling like, you know, I don't know if it's going to happen this

fall or sports in general, what are we going to talk about in this podcast that people will want to still listen? We're not going to be doing daily the Vikings signed this player or this guy's heard of practice. And what's good? That may not happen. But how can we do a show or you do a show and me come on occasionally and maybe talk about things that people still want to listen to? Might be old stories. Might just be random thoughts from all sports, might be a little more sort of entertainment than football-y, you know, dive into the details, because there

may not be many details. So your show might get interesting, and you might have to make little pivots here and there to keep it fresh for the audience, and that's what I'm thinking that we're going to do today. Yes, I've got a couple of ideas, but I wanted to ask you first, before we get into the game that I wanted to play or the bit, is what you think this offseason being as wonky as it was and not having preseason games potentially, there is some debate over whether they'll have any.

The NFL says it's cutting it down to two, but some of the players from the Players Association are saying, hey, look, I mean, if these games don't count and we don't get paid for them, then let's just forget them all together if they're going to be dangerous at all. I wrote on Purple Insider about 10 players on the Vikings who would really be sad about not having preseason games, guys who could get themselves in the mix with some really good performances. Somebody on Twitter said, hey, ask Sage how much he thinks that this offseason would impact young players, especially trying to make the team and things like that. So what do you think?

This is the worst year to be a rookie in the NFL in a long time. The offseason is so important. And you don't realize when you get drafted usually the first thing there is is a rookie mini camp before you're ever around the veterans uh and sometimes i'd be at the facility working out or something but they'd have this rookie mini camp going on now they weren't all rookies sometimes there were guys that maybe had been the league for a year had a cup of coffee uh you know we're on somebody's practice squad the year before, but weren't signed, and you could have these mini camps, and they basically, and it would be super simple football, simple defense, maybe three coverages, simple offense, you know, maybe 30 plays,

but they would, and that's huge, right, and then after that, you have all the OTAs, and the workouts, and the meetings, and they're having the meetings, but all that workout stuff and all the coaches, teaching players, all these things in that summertime for those rookies is the most important. You learn so much. It's just such a more complex, detailed game in the pros compared to college. And then to not really have a full-on training camp, you know, yeah, it's a terrible, terrible year to be an undrafted free agent trying to make the football team. Especially if you didn't have top-notch coaching in college and you're just like a raw athlete, you know, trying to make it happen. So it's going

to be veteran driven. So as we talk about, you know, if there is a season, we talk about you know if there is a season we talk about who do you expect to be good this year more than ever you have to go with veteran coaching staff with veteran quarterback combination I think the Vikings have an advantage there I think you know seems like the Packers have an advantage there but but where the the staff has pretty much remained the same the quarterbackers remain the same has been there for a while, you have a veteran, that's going to be a huge advantage for those teams. Yeah, no, I agree, and especially with a team like the Vikings who is bringing back their starting quarterback

who's been around for a very long time in the same exact system with the same coach, and most of the players on the offense have worked with Gary Kubiak before last year. Almost everybody, except for Justin Jefferson, that's going to play a big role, was around. Where I would feel for certain guys is someone like Alexander Hollins, who got onto the active roster toward the end of last year, played in week 17, caught a couple of passes, and I don't know what's there with Alexander Hollins, but sometimes guys take a big jump from that first season to second season, and you find your Adam Phelan, who you never would have expected.

A guy from Mankato goes from practice squad to being a really good NFL player. Well, if you're that guy right now, you might never get your chance because think about in a shortened offseason with no OTAs and minicamp, the practices are going to have to be really focused on first team, second team. I mean, the number of reps that your Jake Browning and Nate Stanley are going to get even in practice are minimal. And I think that a lot of teams will approach those two preseason games if they play it that way by getting starters out there and getting them some reps on the field rather than, hey, let's get them out there for one series. I think they're going to try and stuff all the series they would normally want into those

two games with starters. And that means no fourth preseason game for those young guys to get their looks. I remember Holton Hill, part of the reason he made the team, this hasn't really played out, but he got a chance to kick return and showed that he could kick return. And they thought, well, okay, he's got that extra tool in the bag that we like. That happened in the fourth preseason game. So there's a lot of stories of a guy barely makes it with a great performance who was a third stringer the entire preseason. I just don't think we're going to see many of those. I think right now, if you made out a 53-man roster, you could get 52 of them

for the Minnesota Vikings. Now we won't get too many surprises. Yeah. You know, those draft picks, of course, they just have a little bit more investment in them by the GM, the coaches. And so they absolutely, they have a much better chance of making the team but find those diamonds in the rough you know and I was the Giants in 2010 and 20 um yeah 2010 we had Victor Cruz and Victor Cruz had blown it up in the preseason before I got there had played really real I think he had three touchdowns in that you know there's always the Giants Jets game and I think he had like three touchdown catches and and one of the first like the second week of the uh um of the season um he's like the fourth or fifth receiver pulls his hamstring he's going to be out for a month and they put him on i and they put him on ir like he's done for the year they shut him down because they didn't

he wasn't victor cruz yet just like you're saying about adam feeling right and so um those young guys you're gonna you might miss some of those guys this year. There's also going to be a thing of, you know, all these, there's going to be positive tests. So then, like, how, haven't they increased the practice squad, I believe, from eight to maybe 13? But I can just see, like, the Vikings, if they play a full 16-game season with playoffs,

going through like 100 players this year, you know, guys that have been on the street. I think you might see a really interesting season. But during the summertime, those undrafted guys, those guys trying to make the team, those guys cut by somebody else that, you know, the team really hasn't seen face-to-face, they're going to have a hard time making this roster. I don't think it's official yet, but there was a thought of enhancing it to maybe 16 players on the practice squad from 10.

And I mean, that's more opportunities for more guys. And even, you know, I think they were already planning on increasing the practice squad to begin with, and then they're going to make it even more for this year with the strange circumstances. But there's also a part of me that says, man, if you're planning on having so many people go down with COVID that you have to have bigger rosters and all that, like maybe hesitate a little bit on playing.

But I think that they will push forward. So anyway. Well, we really should – we don't have to just sit on and discuss the COVID situation. But I don't know if anyone really knows the plan like the nfl obviously they have their plan they're keeping it under wraps though like what is the plan when one vikings player gets it does uh you know his position does somebody else have to quarantine just the player i mean everyone's getting tested every day i'm assuming

that's what it sounds like um and i imagine that's i don't know how expensive that is for the team but um you know there's there's older coaches too i know these are young athletes in the prime of their lives but you know gary kubiak is near 60 uh and has had some issues in the past with, like, high blood pressure and different things, had that fainting episode in Houston in about 2010, 2011. And I'm sure there's other coaches on the staff and various staffs that are not always in great shape. Tony Sperano just recently passed away, I believe, of a heart issue.

So there's, you know, there's a lot of complexity, all this. And I don't know if anyone really knows that plan. What happens if Kirk Cousins tests positive? Does he have to sit out two weeks, three weeks? You know, how is that all going to work? And I find that interesting that there's all these discussions going on, but the public really doesn't know. It's almost like we're just going to, when it shows,

when it happens, it happens. And we're all going to be like, okay, these are the rules and have to live by those rules. The Patriots will probably cheat and still have everybody play despite the fact they tested positive because it's all about winning, baby, you know, or something. So that's something that really fascinates me is what are the rules going to be? And if that's the case, because as of right now, the general rule of thumb is if you are in close contact with somebody who has tested positive, you're supposed to quarantine until you test negative. And even in that case, like, let's just say you and I are, you're my center and I'm the

quarterback and you test positive. Well, I may not test positive for like four or five, six days, I believe. Right. So there's that in between time and then the people that I'm hanging out, you know, it's like, then there's the next center that I'm getting snaps with as you're quarantined and I'm not, you know, until I test positive. So it's like, what are these rules going to be? And I just don't know how you play this sport with all the contact that it has without just constantly spreading it around the team. I've felt the same way, and you're not able to create bubbles like you are. There's just way too many human beings that need to be in these facilities.

And even if they limit the number of people coming in and out, even if you take the most safety measures you possibly can, all it takes is one guy deciding that he's going to go out to a nightclub or something. No, all it takes is for one of the players is, you know, five-year-old daughter who's hanging out with the neighbor kid who ends up contacting it and giving it to the player who then gives it to her. That's all it takes.

Right. It's a domino effect here, and it doesn't take very much. I worry, I mean, yeah, the players could get it from going out. I think very few players are going to sort of go out. But unless the players are completely separated from their families and completely in a bubble, there's just no way to do anything nearly 100%. I do my best with my kids, and everyone has their different ways of doing it. I have friends who basically barely leave the house. I have friends who act like there's basically not much going on, you know, and all in between.

There's just no way to police everybody into perfection on this thing for a, you know, five- or six-month period. Yeah, even training camp, when they put up everybody in hotel, they're still visiting with their families and so forth. And that's where I wonder how they're planning on approaching that if you're mid-season and one team has 30 players test positive, or even if you end up with one of the best players in the league getting really severely ill from it, would you shut it down at that point? The NBA, when Rudy Gobert got it, they just shut down everything. Isn't that amazing?

We're at Rudy Gobert tested positive. The NBA shut it down. 37 Clemson players have tested positive as of last week, which starts the question of do college coaches try to get everybody to test positive, you know, and then there's, I'm reading articles about that these antibodies, a lot of times you may test positive, but your antibodies aren't strong enough a lot of times to where you can't get it again, so that's not really a thing you'll want to do, because you can get it multiple times, it sounds like. So, yeah, there's a lot of questions out there.

And but the NFL will and college football. I just read an article that USC is asking students to not come to campus if possible and just do online learning from home. You know, it's like, but they're going to have football guys, you know, wrestling with each other on the football field for two hours a day. You know, it's like, I just're going to have football guys, you know, wrestling with each other on the football field for two hours a day. You know, it's like, I just don't know how this is going to happen. The football mentality is always to just push forward through everything and next man up and all that. And, of course, there's a lot of cash that is pushing everybody to want to do this.

Basketball can probably do it mostly safe. WNBA, NBA, hockey's got a chance to do it safe. It's a close contact sport, but they're creating these bubbles. The NFL, college football, that's where I would really be concerned. And college football, especially. A lot of those states are hot spots where the big programs are. And there's also the element of a lot of these coaches just seem to be like, no, it doesn't exist. Football, let's go. And I am very concerned, as you are, of whether we're going to play, but just is everybody going to stay safe if we do?

Because I keep having the feeling that we're going to play and then they're going to have to stop, that half the league is going to get it, and then we have to shut down the whole league for a couple weeks and then pick back up and we end up with a 10-game season or something like that. Yeah, it's going to be the asterisk of all asterisks seasons, I got to think. Yeah, we just have no idea. You know, we talk about injuries in the NFL and it's like, you know, the teams that have a quarterback who consistently plays generally, it's one of Kirk Cousins' strengths is that he doesn't get hurt very much. So he does play a lot. It's the old Bud Grant, your greatest ability is your availability scenario.

So you have, you know, some team with quarterbacks and these certain, you know, important players, they might be out for half the season, for all the season. You know, we really have no idea. You know, what happens if Giselle gets COVID-19? Does Tom automatically have to sit out for two weeks, right? It's a great question, though. If one of your family gets it.

I know I'm supposed to be an analyst and have answers. I have none on this. I have none on this. I do know this, that the United States, and I'm not going to get into, I'm not going to get political here, but the United States does have this thing of we want to have our cake and eat it too. We want to get things up and going now. People don't want to wear the mask.

People are like, eh, people want to throw parties up at the bars. You know, all these states have had bars open in, like, Texas and stuff. They don't want the government telling them what to do. I understand that. But then you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't have that. And then also expect that like, you know, to go to football stadiums in the fall. Or it's one or the other.

You got to make sacrifice now for later. It's like you have to plant the seed now. It's going to take some time. But hopefully you enjoy that fruit later. And I'm concerned that since we're not doing those sacrifices like it seemed like a lot of these European countries have done. I just saw that, is it Arizona maybe? Arizona has more cases, 7 million people, than all of Europe currently. More active cases than all of Europe, which has like 400 million people or something like it. And Arizona has 7.

I mean, we have not done a good job on this thing. A lot of times you can't always judge somebody on their performance unless you judge it compared to the other performances. And we're in last place, folks. We're in last place. And it ain't close. It ain't close. But yet we still want to have our football in the fall.

And I just don't know how that's going to happen, because we're less than a month away. We're three and a half weeks away, and we'll see what happens. European bubble. That's what they should do. They should send all the teams and create a European bubble. That's the only safe way where we can have NFL

football. Roger, call me. We'll work this out. That might be it. Genius, right? Send everybody to a place where they're doing a great job. Except for they won't want us. They won't accept us probably, I'm guessing. Yeah, well, all these things are very frustrating because I think when sports

first got shut down, we all felt like, okay, let's quarantine for a little while and so forth. And we'll just flatten this curve right out. We'll have baseball back by June 1st and NFL right on task. And then when we're setting these records for daily cases, it does not speak to, well, I mean, people's intelligence, one, for still taking a lot of risks. But also the other point just being that how much do you love football, everybody? If you love football, there's an easy solution here. Like, don't get COVID. Do your part, yeah.

Right, yeah. America does not do patience well. You know, patience. We don't do discipline all that well. You know, and it's interesting being a former athlete, being a former football player in general. Discipline, that word, doing the right thing all the time, time and time again, consistently all the time, it's ingrained into you. And patience as well. You know, you're working hard, but what you're trying to get to might be something off years from now. You know, the way you work out,

the way, you know, the season's a long ways away when you're working out in February, getting ready for next. Patience, you know, our country does not do that well. Patience and discipline. And, you know, we'll see how all of that affects the fall this fall. Yeah, but to your point, the very key part of this is they must have a plan. We just don't know what it is. And maybe they would look at, okay, these states are in the blue, the cold area. These states are in the red and the hot area. So let's try to, you know, have neutral site games or I don't know, but they're not really

revealing it for the NFL to come out and kind of say, well, you know, we expect to have fans in the stands and things like that. It really makes you wonder what's not being said. But well, if you have no plan, your plan was never wrong. Yeah, there you go. Put that on Roger Goodell's bio. If you have no expectations, you're always content. You know, if you just lower your standards enough, you'll always be happy. Roger Goodell's era as commissioner could say that.

But you mentioned that we do want to try to have some fun here. And every once in a while, you just have to sort of rant about COVID because it has thrown all of our lives for this massive loop. And it is very frustrating. But when you ask to do something fun on the podcast, the first thing that came to mind was a few weeks ago, I had a couple of Detroit Lions podcasters on and we ran through the mess of the Detroit Lions, the Barry Sanders, the Calvin Johns, and all the things that have gone tremendously wrong, and I just asked these guys what happened there. So I think we should have a Vikings version that we could do all the time on the show called What Happened There.

I wanted to start with, for Vikings, what happened there, kickers. What happened there with Vikings kickers? Now, things were what happened there with Vikings kickers now things were going along fine with Vikings kickers you had Fred Cox way back in the day all-time leading scorer on the team and then you had your your Fouad Ravais who was good in the 90s so yeah Vikings kickers have a little going back to Gary Anderson like the one of the great seasons in NFL history, but at the moment of truth, at the biggest moment of the year, misses the biggest kick. Maybe the biggest kick in Vikings history?

Biggest kick in Vikings history? Oh, yeah. Hands down because you go to the Super Bowl if you make it. The Super Bowl, right. It's one of the biggest misses ever. I mean, the fact that he made every single kick I mean that one is an I mean it's like Scott Norwood Gary Anderson right next to each other well we give Blair Walsh a hard time for his 28 yard field goal now yeah we also must remember that wasn't a great

Vikings team that was a good Vikings team you could even say a very good team. They were in the playoffs, and they were going to win that game. It was also negative five degrees outdoors at the Goulter Stadium. Gary Anderson was in the dome in perfect conditions on a great football team. That had so much more on the line. A 37 a 37 yarder 28 yarder in the domes is pretty much the same thing and he and he missed his two so yeah that's uh added added pain and suffering for the vikings fans for one of the best kickers in history and uh i i think that he belongs in the hall of fame if morton anderson is in the hall of fame then if we're going to do that and probably put adam venetarian then, then Gary Anderson belongs for an unbelievable career, which he kept kicking

until like 2010 or something. He kicked for a very, very long time because he was so accurate from that range in particular. And that kick is the one where you would say, all right, that's an incredibly improbable thing that happened. But to have Blair do almost the same thing in an even shorter kick, I know it was cold outside, but an even shorter kick, that's where you think haunted, that it must be haunted. It has to be jinxed. There has to be something that the organization did wrong to the football gods to make this happen because it just doesn't make sense to have those two kicks. What are the odds? I mean, Gary Anderson from 38 is like a 95% kick and any kicker from, you know, the range of almost an extra point that Blair Walsh was kicking from, again, it's a 95-plus percent kick.

So you used the word haunted, right? The Vikings are only one of 32 teams. If you asked all 32 fan bases, which do you believe your team is haunted by the kicking situation, like the history of it? You know, are there a lot of these Blair Walsh, Gary Anderson scenarios? I would say only a few would really say. I think everyone would complain about our kickers, but those types of clutch, clutch kicks, playoff kicks, missed short kicks, championship game kicks.

I don't think all 32 teams can say they've been haunted by the kicker situation at the most crucial times in their team's histories. So then you get to Ryan Longwell, one of the great kickers in the history of the game. And after that, though, it has been almost consistently disastrous from the kicking position. You have your Blair Walsh not only shanking in 2015, but then subsequently falling apart following year maybe they make the playoffs if he was kicking well you have Kai Forbath make one of the best kicks in Vikings history in the Minneapolis Miracle game only to get cut for them to draft Daniel

Carlson and he is immediately cut after missing field goals in Green Bay and then you get Dan Bailey who was great last year, but in his first season was not great because they didn't have someone who could properly hold for Dan Bailey. Vikings kickers, what happened there? They've had a run. We haven't even talked about the fifth-round draft pick they traded. Like for, what, two weeks' worth or a month's worth or whatever it was last year.

Corey Vedvik, you mean. Yes. The punter slash kicker. The punter slash kicker. A fifth-round draft pick is not like – that's not just a – that's not an ice cream sandwich here. This is not just a throwaway – fifth-round draft picks, as we all know, those can be very, very viable.

And that was – how long was he on the team last year a couple weeks I feel like I believe he played in two preseason games and was really bad in both of those games especially culminating with the fourth preseason game against Buffalo in which he acted as the punter and had a punt return for touchdown and I think also missed the field goal I will never forget standing Mike Zimmer does his interviews in a golf cart in training camp, which now this year who knows how that will be. But that's how it's always been. Him sitting in the golf cart talking about how Corey Vedvik might be their kicker

and punter. And he wasn't good at either one of these things. And then he goes to the New York Jets. They sign him as the kicker. He misses field goals in the first week. They lose to Buffalo, and I think the Bills made the New York Jets. They sign him as the kicker. He misses field goals in the first week they lose to Buffalo, and I think the Bills made the playoffs because of it. It's just a never-ending domino effect of Vikings kickers. It really has been a little bit of a run the last couple years at that position.

I'm going back to Chris Cluey at the punter position too who was pretty consistent but got on the wrong side of a lot of things with the team and was I think outspoken would be a nice way of putting it amongst a lot of things and it's been you know a little bit all over the place sometimes punting wise too. Before we get back to the conversation I have to tell you about a great new item from our friends at SodaStick. For all of you who grew up going to the Metrodome, you have to see the Hormel Roll of Fame wiener winner shirt. What better way to celebrate memories of the dome and hopefully for you, memories of winning dome dogs back in the day. Visit SodaStick.com, that's S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com

to see the shirt and to get all your gear ready for baseball season when it finally gets started here. They have also unique gear from every Minnesota sport. You'll have to check it out, including shirts, hats, hoodies, and much more. Use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping. Especially not New England, who, by the way, might not have a couple of championships if they didn't have such great kicking.

I can only think of one Steven Gostkowski missed extra point in 2015 that was bad luck for them. They get the field goal in the snow against the Raiders, the game winner in the Super Bowl by Adam Venetieri, Gostkowski putting an end to, I think, right, like last year's Super Bowl, or two years ago, the Super Bowl, putting an end to that game by making a nice field goal there. So they've had great, great kicking as part of their success for a long time. So certainly not them.

Well, you know, by the way, speaking of, when they signed him after Vinatieri left, I think they drafted him. And after about a year, I was like, are you kidding me? It's like Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers. They went from one great kicker in terrible conditions, Vinatieri, to Gostkowski, and he was making kicks in the snow and the sleet. I'm like, it's unbelievable. How does Bill Belichick find these guys who are clutch in terrible conditions?

Now, he hasn't been as good. He wasn't as good the last couple years. That's why I believe they let him go this offseason. He signed somewhere else maybe. But he has struggled recently. But before that, for a long time, 10 years maybe, he has been consistently good. And it seems like half the games in New England, mid-October on, are crappy weather games.

And that's one of the reasons Brady's been so good, because he can throw well in those conditions. A lot of other quarterbacks can't. And same with the kickers. The kickers kick well, it seems like, in those conditions. And other teams go to those situations, and the kickers don't know what to do. They just don't know what to do because they're used to kicking indoors in perfect conditions. I don't know how many other teams.

Maybe the San Diego Chargers, who had Nate Kading, who's one of the best kickers in the league, and then I believe he blew two different playoff games in those teams' prime where they should have made a Super Bowl with LaDainian Tomlinson, Antonio Gates, and Phillip Rivers, just a really good defense, and they missed a couple of key ones there. Even Buffalo, though, would not say they were haunted by kickers because they had one of the best ever, Steve Christie,

and since they've had a lot of good kickers. But the Vikings can never seem to pin this thing down, and I like the Kai Forbath story as well. Imagine being a guy who gets called in to replace Blair Walsh, so even if you're just like, okay, you're still clearing the Blair Walsh bar, but he comes in, and he's great, except for extra points. He seems to have some hitch when it came to the extra points. But he's nailing every field goal, gets into the biggest game, nails the biggest field goal. But then they have a miracle play right after that,

so he doesn't get to be the hero, even though he nailed a 52-yarder that put them ahead late. If they get a stop against Drew Brees. We're talking about the Minneapolis miracle game. If they get a stop against Drew Brees on that next drive, then the hero is Kai Forbath. We're building a statue of him, one that we could actually leave up. And then this poor guy goes into the offseason,

and they have to compete with a fifth-round draft pick with a big leg who then melts down right away. And then Forbath has never really pinned down a job. He's been with a bunch of different teams since, but he's never pinned down a job. And I always felt bad for him. Like, this guy was really good, and they just obsessed over the extra point thing. Like, I'm sure that he'll figure that out. The rest is the hard part, the hitting the 52-yard field goal in the playoffs.

So even when they had an answer, they sabotaged themselves, and that's why it's haunted. So that's the answer to what happened there, haunted. If I can just haunt it kicking-wise. Well, I have what happened there, and I have maybe a bag of Brad Childress' what happened there. Okay. I'm going to start off with this, and I have a couple of them thatress or what happened there. So, okay.

I'm going to start off with this and I have a couple of them that we could talk about today. My first one is this. He goes to the playoffs in 2008. He leads his team. Well, one, they are, I believe the Vikings were they nine and seven and they fired Tice and they

hired Childress first year, six and 10. So this is like the lovey Smith in Chicago. They go 10 and six, they fire Lovey, then they're terrible. Like there's, there was no reasons for that Vikings team to be a six and 10 team. They had good players on that, on that football team. So sort of like what happened there with the signing? Like, ah, maybe not. Anyway, they, they build up this roster of having some great players.

They get Adrian Peterson, super lucky in that scenario. And then they go to the playoffs in 08, obviously 09, the magical year. But even in that year, the ownership, they had to know, Rick Stillman, they had to know things were not all great within the team. This was not like a perfectly clean Sean Payton-Drew Brees scenario with the quarterback scenario. Not everybody was on the same page. There was a lot of disgruntled people for us being a great team, a great team.

If you look at that roster 2009, man, Pro Bowl after Pro Bowl, All-Pro, Hall of Fame, all sorts of guys on that football team. If you look at that roster 2009, man, Pro Bowl after Pro Bowl, All-Pro, Hall of Fame, all sorts of guys on that football team, but it was not a smoothly running operation. So after we get to that championship game, which everybody knows, had a heck of a lot more to do with great players and Brett Favre being amazing than unbelievable coaching. Midway or early in the next off season or in the next training camp, Chile gets an extension. He gets a contract extension and nine months, nine, nine weeks later,

he's not even on the team anymore. Like what happened there? Like how did they go all in and then, you know, all out in a three monthmonth span or something like that. Absolutely incredible. Now, my understanding, you would have a better perspective on this, with Childress is that he really wanted to do things his way and exactly his way. And there wasn't a lot of flexibility there, like where you hear of a lot of coaches, let's just say Andy Reid, where kind of lets players be who they want to be, and you adapt to players' skills and

specifically what they do well, as opposed to just saying, hey, it's my system, and we're going to play my system. Gus told a great story, Gus Farratt on the podcast, of when he worked with Tice, how Tice allowed him to call in the plays to Dante Culpepper. And he said he couldn't get any other coach to ever let him do that. But they both loved that to have another quarterback saying, hey, here's the play. Watch for this coverage or something like that. There was some benefit to it. But some coaches didn't want to give up any type of control. And I always wonder when they're like that, like what happened there with you thinking that your system is the one that's so genius and not maybe the guy who's wearing number

four? Yeah, there was, that was the hard part. I remember during training camp and during my press conferences, because before Brett showed up and I was doing some press conferences that they would ask about the offense. my only thing I could think of was what would make Brad happy which is to say I'm going to do whatever Brad Childress tells me what to do I'm going to run plays exactly the way Brad Childress wants me to run plays that was my answer because I knew that's what he wanted there wasn't um there wasn't a lot of like hey what you guys do in Houston to have one of the best play action bootleg teams and then ask the best play action bootleg team the National Football

League how'd you guys get Andre Johnson the ball 120 times like there was none of that there was not player input and that is a recipe for disaster especially quarterbacks especially veteran quarterbacks you You want input. It doesn't mean that they get to call all their own plays. It doesn't mean they get to design their own offense. I'm not talking Peyton Manning and now probably what Tom Brady is doing in Tampa here. I'm talking like some plays that I liked, you know, and some plays that quarterbacks have a history with.

But there wasn't any of that. It was we were going to run these plays that he had learned from Andy Reid in Philadelphia. And that was that. And that was that. And there wasn't a lot of openness to sort of be yourself on that roster, which it seems, it does seem like time and time again, Belichick has these failed assistants a lot of times, but Andy Reid does too. It sort of shows that Andy Reid's the magic and Bill Belichick's the magic. But the assistants go, well, he learned from them. It's happening in Chicago right now. You know, anything that Chicago's good at, it's not the offense.

It's the defense. But, you know, they hired a guy who's the offensive quarterback group. No, Andy Reid's the offensive quarterback group. That's really the thing. And it seems like those offshoots are never quite as good. They're like the VHS copy, and sometimes it's a VHS copy, and the tape that you copied it on was a bad tape to start with. But what happened there of the Vikings signing Brad Childress to that extension

and then so quickly falling out of favor after that. That is 100%. It's their money. It's their money they gave away, and that's fine. But they had to have known some things were going on before that that weren't totally smooth within that football team. I also can't think of a worse combination between a control freak coach and Brett Favre, who just drove even coaches that were not control freaks insane. I mean, Mike Holmgren, I watched his Football Life documentary, and he talks about trying to do the same thing, find the strength.

He talked about when he worked with Steve Young, or maybe it was Montana, that they would go over all the plays that Montana liked the most, and they would just put them in. And that was his strategy. And Favre even drove him crazy. So to have somebody that was even more controlling with Favre, I think it speaks to how great Favre was that year that the team was as successful as it was. Well, really, and when you have a quarterback who's been in the league for a long time, and not a lot of teams do.

A lot of teams out there, as we bounce around the league and look at all 32 teams, they have starting quarterbacks that are in their first year through five, six years. And you know some about football during that time. You know some about college when you go for four years. But when you go for, like, 12 years and you have your Ph.D. and you're a doctor and you've just been diving in for a longer and you've been like, and you've just been diving in for a longer time. So that was Favre at that time, 17 years he had been doing it. But yet we did not want to use all of that knowledge he had as a weapon, as an advantage,

to our advantage to sort of get to all these plays that we could get to because why? Well, he might try to be too aggressive he might try to do something that we can't control and maybe he's going to be wrong sometimes but I just couldn't imagine not at 10 times that he would change the play that year or do something different not at 10 times it was right and it worked and it worked better than whatever the original play was called and every once in a while it was off um but not not understanding that you're getting a lot more good than bad out of more responsibility on your first ballot Hall of Fame quarterback the day he retires type of guy to not use that.

What's up with that? What happened there? What happened there? We're going to get T-shirts. What happened there? I've got one more before we wrap up. One more what happened there? What happened there? We're going to get t-shirts. What happened there? I've got one more before we wrap up. One more what happened there. Vikings first-round wide receivers.

Like, what happened there? Troy Williamson replaces Randy Moss. But, of course, like, Randy Moss. So you get Randy Moss. Hold on, seventh pick in the draft, I think? Yes, seventh pick in the draft. Like, not even like a 28th pick. Seventh pick. So you get Randy think? Yes, seventh pick in the draft. Like not even like a 28th pick. Seventh pick.

So you get Randy Moss in one of the luckiest draft things that's ever happened to anyone, that they were concerned that he wore one pant leg up and had some weed thing in the past. And then you get like one of the five greatest human beings to ever play football just dropped into your lap. And so you think, oh, well, we know how to draft wide receivers then. Troy Williamson can't catch footballs. You draft Percy Harvin, who I think is one of the most talented football players over the last 20 years to step on a field. He can't stay healthy. He has off-field issues, and you end up trading him away. Then you draft your next first-round receiver is Laquan Treadwellwell who has one reception in his

first year and what a reception it was but one catch in his entire first year a press conference I will never forget Laquan acting like he had just won his first championship after making that first catch and then by the way why receivers are supposed to be the position supposed to be the position that you can play well right away. Like it's always the talk of the closer you are to the football, the longer it takes to develop, you know, centers. There's lots going on, quarterbacks, a lot going on. Tackles, you sort of physically, like,

can you block that Jared Allen guy or not? Receivers, like, run routes and win. You know, like you don't have to deal with all the complexity of the game. So normally you would think wide receiver is a position that you could play right away and have success and not miss on those guys. The Vikings have, again, another position of just a bad history there. Like we're just sort of cursed. The kicker, the kicking scenario and first round

draft pick wide receivers well i want to tell you troy williamson's uh combine results this is really something he's six foot two 203 pounds so that's big for a wide receiver but skinny skinny yes but but you know on the taller side above that's even above average weight for a wide receiver is a little over 200 pounds for 3 240 which is in the 96th percentile and 37 inch vertical jump which is in the 71st percentile i mean that guy was terrible at football in the nfl that guy so when people criticize the well well, Laquan Treadwell, you drafted a slow guy. What did you think you're going to expect? This guy was really fast, about as fast as you could possibly be,

and he could not do that important thing where you catch the ball. Well, that is, yeah, that's like, that's the number one thing, right? That is the number one thing. That's a hard thing to sort of teach and get better at. It's like drafting a 6'5", 3 in the NBA and going, well, he's not a good shooter now. He's never been a good shooter, but, like, we'll give him some time. He's going to become a better shooter.

No, he's not going to be a shooter. Like, that's not going to be his thing. So if he's going to be an NBA player, he better play some defense or something else. You probably shouldn't draft him in the first round if he can't shoot. While receivers that can't catch, can't catch. It's a hard thing to get better at. Treadwell, some of his, and I, again, I'm not in those meetings. I'm not, I don't know, I don't know really much inside information on this, but watching games, it seemed like he was the guy who consistently lined up wrong, consistently would like, not consistently, but would occasionally run the wrong,

like you can't run the wrong route. You can't line up wrong. That is like a self-inflicted wound. You know, I know we're trying to do things that are some complexity to make it harder on the defense, but we know where we're going. That's just understanding the playbook. And it seemed like he, more than any other wide receivers over the course of the last 10 years, lined up wrong and had missed assignments missed blocking assignments where you can tell his

job's probably supposed to dive down in there and get that safety he's out there blocking the corner safety makes the tackle I can see that's his responsibility and he did have a lot of mental errors MAs they call them uh in in his-so-illustrious Vikings career. Before we get back to the conversation, I want to remind you that there is no shortage of action going on right now at our exclusive partners at betonline.ag. Sports are slowly making their way back, and BetOnline is leading the way with the best odds and lines for all UFC,

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What's really weird about Treadwell, too, is how many opportunities he was given for somebody who couldn't get it right. That in 2017, he's the number three receiver. He's out there. He's playing a lot. And in 2018, oh, my gosh, they would throw him the ball. Like, in key situations, in two different key situations in big games, one against New Orleans and one against New England, Kirk Cousins is out there targeting Laquan Treadwell on fourth down. Like, why is he out there, for one, and everybody that they tried to replace him with, Stacey Coley,

Rodney Adams, Kendall Wright, they would just bring in these people that tried to replace him with, Stacy Coley, Rodney Adams, Kendall Wright, they would just bring in these people that didn't replace him. And for some reason, they picked keeping Treadwell over Jarius Wright, who was actually a decent NFL player. And all these attempts to replace Laquan Treadwell never seemed to work. And he always found a way out there and was one of the least efficient wide receivers in the NFL. I want to circle back real quick because one of our favorite things, you and I, is to look at people's Wikipedias, and this is a gem right here in Troy Williamson's Wikipedia. I just want to read this to you. After the 2007 season, Williamson was traded for a sixth-round pick to the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Vikings ended up using that pick to select Jamar Johnson.

Williamson controversially stated that he, quote, wants to duke it out with former Vikings head coach Brad Childress, adding that they could, quote, meet at the 50-yard line and go at it, period. The Jaguars released Williamson September 4, 2010. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. What happened there? What happened there?

I tell you what, and then it seemed like, you know, after when Childress had left the Vikings and gone to a couple other teams, when I would see him go to these different teams as, like, a special assistant or whatever it might be, I always would think to myself, I bet their offense is bad. And sure enough, it's like he was in Chicago the last couple years, you know, helping with that offense, and their offense was terrible. The quarterback didn't develop.

Like, it's like the last person that you'd want to have on your staff. For whatever reason, things just don't seem to go all that well, unless he's with Andy Reid, which means it's just Andy Reid, right? So, yeah, what happened there with all the teams that Chile has ended up, you know, coaching with? I was thinking, by the way, what happened there? You know, we have the Rust Belt in this country, right? I don't know what the exact area you call it.

The Buffalo, definitely one of those, part of the Rust Belt, going through Cleveland to Detroit. Yep, Pittsburgh's in that mix, yep. Over to parts of, you know, Gary and into Chicago. But the Rust Belt has seen some awful football over the course of the last, you know, 30 years. Like, not a lot of, thinking about that, like, it's already a tough place to live because they've lost jobs, you know, Flint in the water. You know, they're called the Rust Belt for a reason.

But now on top of it, some of the best football fans, most passionate fans, they love the game. It fits their personality of grit and toughness. But they have just, you know, the Cleveland Browns. What's up with the list that you see on the Cleveland Browns when people put jerseys of the quarterbacks on the back and it's like 25 people long it's absolutely incredible how they miss time and time and time again this could be the time it magically uh switches I think Baker Mayfield might be the guy I think Stephanie Ensky might be the guy that works well they have really good quarterback play

or good quarterback play but man we have seen some struggling football in that Rust Belt for three decades now, and it would be nice to see one of those teams become a top-tier franchise. If you don't include Pittsburgh, then it is just a sadness belt is all it is when you're talking about those teams. Cincinnati is probably, you know, part of that. St. Louis doesn't have a team anymore. So, so you know that was a part of the Rust Belt too I do want to ask you what happened there with Cleveland quarterbacks but I dug up a quote from Laquan Treadwell that maybe the Vikings should have known after he said this quote so he had

his pro day and he ran the 40 at his pro day because he had that terrible leg injury and he wasn't 100 back to run the combine so after he runs it, it's terrible. It's an absolute abomination. It's like 4-6-3, which I think there are quarterbacks who run 4-6-3s pretty regularly. And here was his quote to the media after he ran a 4-6-3-4. He had a pro day, which, by the way, is so much worse than at the combine. Like pro days, they just have everything laid out for you. Combine is very different.

He says, I didn't run what I wanted to, but it was fun. I'm proud of myself for what I did run, most importantly. I'm just a playmaker. When I get into the game, it's a different feel than a 40-yard dash. Him saying that it was fun to run a tremendously bad 40 should have been like, it's maybe a little awareness issue with this fella let me just hey I tried real hard out there so that's fine it was fun I had a great time all 40 yards were fun the first 10 I was doing okay second 10 I felt like I

was going real fast out there what a a joy. Wind in my hair. But this is Treadwell. This is a guy who said after 2018 that he believed he was a 100-catch wide receiver. Like, what? In what universe would that be? You can barely get on the field. He doesn't lack confidence, though. And maybe that's what they went off of. They went off of his confidence.

I will say, at Ole Miss, he was a heck of a player. When the Vikings drafted him, I was like, man, I think the Vikings may have found a legit wide receiver. He was a playmaker. He was making big catches in big games there and then just never made that transition. It is amazing how often that happens. I have one more, and it goes way back. Now it goes back in time. And

it's not the Vikings one. This is the Miami Dolphins one. And just because I was on that team and Rick Spielman was there. And I, you know, and you know, I, I, I don't say bad things about Rick. I have a ton of respect for him. I think he does a good job. I think he more often than not does a good job. There's always misses all team. Bill Belichick misses on wide receivers. One of the best front offices in the league, the Vikings. I think so. It's been consistent. It's been consistently good.

They consistently have a good defense. They always have a pro bowl or an all pro style defensive end. You know, they're consistently good. But when you make a mistake, and it's so obvious that the mistake is, in 2003, maybe it was four, I think it was 2004, we had no first round draft pick because we'd given up two first rounds for Ricky Williams a couple years before, which sort of like the Jared Allen pick, I think was worth it.

He had run, Ricky had run for like 1,800 yards, okay. We desperately needed another number two wide receiver. We really didn't have a number two wide receiver. We had Chris Chambers as our one. We had had a round at Gadsden, but he had gained a whole bunch of weight and was injured. Mike McKnight was a super fast guy. I saw a Troy Williamson, like a track guy really, but was not a number two,

just a fast guy. So we really didn't have a number two. And Quan Bolden was available. Okay. He's also from, you know, he's from Pahokee, Florida. He's from the state. A lot of Florida State, you know, coverage in South Florida. You know, the people, the fans really do, Dolphin fans cover.

You know, they love the Canes, the Gators, the Seminoles. So he's like a local guy, and we need a number two. And he has just been incredible at Florida State. I don't know if he was there for three or four years, but it was just time and time again the guy was just the stuff. But he wasn't the fast guy. He was like a 4-6-5. That was the knock on him.

But we weren't drafting the first round. We need a second rounder. So I'm not one of those guys who constantly, you know, gets into the draft or wonders who we're going to draft, you know, when I was on these teams. But we all knew we definitely need a wide receiver. We drafted Eddie Moore. Now, you've never heard of Eddie Moore.

No. Because he only played 18 NFL games. He was drafted out of Tennessee with that second-round pick, and he played in a total of 18 games. And when we drafted – and, like, this is special teams, right? By the way, he was 237, and he ran a 471. So it wasn't like he had some numbers that jumped out and you go, wow, this guy, you know, I know he's like, and he wasn't a big-time player.

Like he was an honorable mention all SEC or something like that. It wasn't like he was a first-team all SEC guy. And at the press conference afterwards, Wanstead, of course, you know, they have these press conferences after those days, excuse me, at the draft, he said, and we were loaded linebacker Zach Thomas Jr. Sayow you know a couple other guys and he said Eddie's going to be in his first year a heck of a special teams player for us and everyone's like a special teams player we need a wide receiver and sure enough he ends up not being a good player and and Quan Bolden plays for what 16 years or something

like that and was just clutch time and time again for these various teams that he was on. And what happened there? How did you not see that mistake, Rick Spielman? Anquan Bolden in college at Florida State, which around this time Florida State was money. I mean, that's one of the best programs in the country at this time. 23 games, 118 receptions, 1,800 yards, 21 touchdowns in maybe like a season and a half there of college football.

Probably should have drafted Anquan Bolden. Yeah, that's one of those deals where, like, if a guy is super productive, there's a good chance he'll be productive at the next level. And Eddie Moore wasn't that productive in college. And those numbers did jump out at you. So I just have – that may have been the most confusing of all drafts. Other than the Packers drafting Jordan Love this year, that's up there. Not only that, them not drafting any sort of wide receiver,

that's – what happened there, you know, over there in Green Bay. I thought you guys were the ones that are building their draft. And I love Alan Lazard, and I think Alan Lazard's a two. But we all know they need another wide receiver for Aaron Rodgers, and they did just the opposite. They literally are going to take the ball out of his hands. They drafted a running back, a receiver. But the teams that that there's some head

scratchers and the eddie moore anquan bull and pick for me in my career of all the the you know 12 different drafts i was a part of maybe the biggest head scratcher of them all first of all i knew you would love what happened there uh and i do and second second there are what happened there's where you could have seen it coming. Like what happened there with the, you know, cutting a kicker who made a 52-yarder for a rookie who's never kicked in the NFL before? Oh, he missed a bunch of kicks. That what happened there, you could have seen it coming.

This is the same way. When a receiver at Florida State has that type of production and you pass them for somebody no one's ever really even heard of, that's a what happened there you could have seen coming just like you mentioned the the Browns and some of their quarterbacks like Brandon Whedon hey he's 30 years old already you could have seen that coming that he wasn't going to be that great like that's what happened there the guy was 100 years old and you weren't drafting for potential.

You were just hoping that he could go from a wide-open offense in college as a guy with an AARP card and all of a sudden step in and be a good NFL quarterback. Like, yeah, maybe that one. Treadwell, though, I still think, even though there's that goofy quote about him having such a great time running 40 yards. I mean, me too. I guess running is fun.

But he was so good in college. I still say it's a justifiable draft pick because he was so good. It's not like you picked a guy from know-nothing state who had no catches. You picked somebody who really dominated in the SEC, and it just didn't work out because maybe he didn't have the mental capacity to handle it. I will say one more thing since we really crushed Laquan Treadwell, really nice guy, like one of the nicest guys that you'll ever talk to,

always willing to talk and everything else and just, you know, tough break. Like I don't feel great about it. Since we're on Cleveland and what happened there in 2014, you know, Kyle Shanahan was the offensive coordinator. And you look at Brian Hoyer, who started almost the entire year. What happened there? Why would you draft Johnny Manziel? Those runaround guys, they have not done well. Those guys who are just playmakers in college, they just don't do well in the NFL. Lamar Jackson's different.

That guy is special. And Johnny Manziel did not have that type of running ability or throwing ability. Kyler Murray is a great runner. But, man, that guy can really throw it. Like, he's exceptional. I think he's probably a top-ten thrower in the NFL. Quick release, accurate, you know, rarely misses a throw. But they had Brian Horry, Johnny Manziel, and Connor Shaw,

and they had Kyle Shanahan as the coordinator, and they let him go. I mean, talk about in one year, in a 365-day time slot of drafting Johnny Manziel and having and both letting go Kyle Shanahan all in the same season, that is cursed. That is cursed from the quarterback position. And, of course, Cleveland never has a good offense, much less a quarterback, but they just never have a good offense in general. And some of that is – it was sitting there. It was – you saw what good offense was.

It was when Kyle was there, and the offense was actually pretty decent, and they had Brian Hoyer start for 13 games, and they still let him go. There has to be a 30-for-30 on Johnny Manziel. Now, he was a really, really good athlete. He ran a 4-6, and he had great like three cone quickness all those things but the one thing that they missed is like you said he would just run around which you can't do in the NFL no matter how athletic you are and Lamar Jackson played in a pro style offense where he had to sit in the pocket and go through reads and then he would take off and run or a lot of it

was designed for him Manziel would just try to be like run around back there and so forth. Ryan Leaf had the same. That was Ryan Leaf's problem is that at Washington State, he was this big guy, had the big arm, but he was sort of a run around playmaker guy. He was not Drew Bledsoe by any means. And it's just unless you have serious specialness to you like Lamar Jackson, Michael Vick, it's just you can't do it.

You can't do it consistently for a long time. So you never draft a quarterback who that is their number one thing is their playmaking ability. Just don't do it because it just never ends well. And Lamar Jackson in college, I watched enough of his tape. He made a lot of really good throws. He would throw the ball on time. That offense with that coach, I can't think of his name.

Petrino, Bobby Petrino. Petrino. There's a what happened there also. There's a what happened there 30 for 30. But his offense was very pro-style looking compared to a lot of these really spread offenses. He actually even was in the NFL. So he had some of that teaching going into it.

Manziel, as you said, just to play Mercury. He had beat Alabama, which was a huge deal out of Alabama. But, you know, I know for a fact Kyle was not on board with that pick. Classic Cleveland, you know, have one of the best offensive minds in the game. Not draft a quarterback. They were happy with Brian Hoyer. And, you know, Kyle leaves after that, goes to Atlanta, of course has tons of success with Atlanta,

now has had unbelievable success with San Francisco, and is maybe the top, you know, two, three, four coaches in the national football league. Yeah, put him up there with Belichick. Of course, doesn't have the history of Belichick, but it seems like every – if New England right now could be like, you know, I'm starting to tire of the Belichick thing and we get Kyle Shanahan in a trade, New England would take that.

Robert Kraft would take that because he knows Kyle's going to coach for another 30 years. Yeah, and to your point about Manziel, there's another lesson. It's not just that. Don't pick a guy who just runs around and plays in a spread offense. Unless he's Patrick Mahomes. Unless he's got an all-time great arm, I guess. But that was the big Mahomes criticism is that he played off schedule a lot.

But, again, Mahomes is very different. There's another point, too. But his arm, like Lamar Jackson, his arm is magical. Yeah, all the time. Right, right. But the other point is, too, that maybe Manziel could have been a good NFL quarterback if he wasn't a jackass. And when someone is a straight-up A-plus jackass in college, that's probably not a guy who's going to do super well in the NFL at the quarterback position.

Maybe you could be at another position and you could sort of just get, you know, okay, you do your job or whatever, and you're annoying potentially. But at the quarterback position, even Baker Mayfield, if Johnny Manziel was an A-plus jackass, Mayfield was like a B jackass. And it's been a problem for him, like not being able to handle criticism and going off on reporters and saying things about his teammates in the media last year I thought this is this is going to be a big problem when he mentioned Duke uh Duke Johnson's contract in a press conference like you don't do that you don't go talking about somebody else's contract like there is a professionalism level

required that you have to meet that bar or you're going to get eaten alive in the NFL. And I think that Manziel found that and Baker Mayfield certainly has too. And we'll have to learn a lot from that if he's going to be good and break the curse. I do think Kevin Stefanski might be the perfect for him. I think that might be the curse breaker for the franchise because he will help Baker Mayfield become a true adult NFL quarterback. By the way, he married a girl from Omaha. I just wanted to throw that in there. Random stat heard that the other day. Who's that, Baker?

Baker. Baker's wife from Omaha. Westside High School girl. That's a good thing? I guess. I don't know. Just a random thing that I found. Hey, better don't know, just a random thing that I found. Hey, better than she was a cocktail waitress in Vegas is my,

no offense to cocktail waitress in Vegas, but sometimes that does happen to players. Can you tell me in the history of the national football, in the last 20 years, where a college quarterback or quarterback in general was known to be a partier and ended up being a good quarterback. Right. That's the guys who don't, like, have a couple cold ones or whatever, but guys who truly, like, really like to party.

Like getting arrested level party is what you're referring to. Yes. Yes. As the sort of the, you know, I know college is not the pros and you don't really have a franchise. But you are, you know, Brock Purdy in some ways is the face of Iowa State. Like it sounds crazy, but like more people around the country know who Brock Purdy is than they know who the president of Iowa State is.

I don't know the president of Iowa State University, right? I don't know his or her name. But I bet you, you know, and of course the football coach too. But to be that immature in college and consistently get in trouble, those guys don't make it in the NFL. And I think Stefanski might be – Stefanski is the ultimate adult. When I met him, he was 25 years old, maybe younger than that. And he was, you know was had the maturity of a 45

year old then that's how he was raised or whatever just a very mature guy Freddie Kitchens maybe the last guy that Johnny that Baker Mayfield should have been dealing with so I do

hope that for the Cleveland Browns and they're very loyal fans, top five loyal fan bases in the National Football League, and a part of that Rust Belt, that Kevin Stavansky will become close to maximizing Baker Mayfield's potential. And he has a ton of it. He does have real playmaking ability. He does have a strong arm. He can make some really accurate throws.

I sort of like his swag and his toughness and his competitive spirit. I think he can be magnetic on that football team. I like that he has personality. I always see a quarterback who has personality or like real personality, strong over one who's more laissez faire um and i i'm hoping kevin stephanski is the guy to make baker mayfield break the stretch of deshaun kaiser cody kessler robert griffin iii josh mccown johnny manziel brian hoyer jason campbell brandon whedon uh thad lewis colt mcc, Seneca Wallace, Jake DeLome, Brady Quinn, Derek Anderson, you know, going back.

Charlie Fry, Trent Dilfer, Jeff Garcia, Luke McCown. The guy Seneca Wallace. I'm going back. Gradkowski was on that team. I mean, it is a – it actually is a fishbowl of great journeyman quarterbacks. It is. It really is. How many teams have great journeyman quarterbacks. It is. It really is. How many teams have had both McCowns?

It's incredible. Yeah, Luke McCown. And it's just absolutely, you know, going back to their 1999 when they started, they drafted Tim Couch with the first pick of that draft, and he lasted a whole five seasons on that five seasons on that football team and he was gone so that's a miss if he's the first overall picking the last five so but ever since then man Jeff Garcia, Trent Dilfer, Charlie Fry, Derek Anderson, Brady Quinn, Colt McCoy, Brandon Weed, Jason Campbell, Brian Hoyer, Josh McCown, Kylkoi Kessler, Deshaun Kizer, Baker

Mayfield, Baker Mayfield that is the most starts per team in order since that year when Tim Couch left in 2003. That's amazing. Every year, it's absolutely incredible. I do think Baker Mayfield is the guy that's going to be a quality quarterback, if not a very good quarterback in the future. Real quick, real funny story about Thad Lewis, who you mentioned through all those things. The Buffalo Bills were in search of a backup quarterback one year,

and right before the fourth preseason game, and I mean on the day of the fourth preseason game, they flew in two quarterbacks to try and win a backup quarterback job behind E.J. Manuel. One was Thad Lewis. The other one was Matt Leinart. Matt Leinart starts the fourth preseason game having never been to the team facility before that day. He comes in.

I think his first pass was a pick. It was just a mess. Horrible Matt Leinart stats in his fourth preseason game against the Lions. Thad Lewis comes in, runs around a little, makes some plays, and as the second quarterback in the fourth preseason game, this might be the only time that's ever happened in history, makes the active roster for the Bills and ends up getting in some games and actually winning a couple of football games for the Buffalo Bills, having beat out Matt Leinart on the fourth preseason game. I want to

say that one of those years they also had Vince Young in training camp too. So how many teams have had Vince Young and Matt Leinart both not make their team, which is also fine. What a year, you know, those two quarterbacks in that national championship game, you know, you don't always want to draft a quarterback, it seems like, that has loaded talent around them in college. Yeah. You know, Ken Dorsey, he never had a big arm. I think he was a seventh-round pick.

But, you know, those Miami teams that he had loaded in college. And you do that with Leinerts. Those USC teams loaded in college. Those Texas teams loaded in college. And those guys end up a lot of times not being great in the NFL. So, yeah, the quarterback's draft in the top ten picks, it is amazing the misses that occurs in those scenarios. So much what happened there.

Well, I'm glad that you enjoyed it. I hope everyone listening enjoyed that as well. And I think as we lead up to the season, this is going to have to be a regular thing. And let's just hope that there is a season. And if there's not, there's going to be a lot of what happened there on this podcast. Sage, always great to have a lot of fun and catch up with you. And we'll do it again soon, man. Sounds good.

Thanks for having me on. This is Brandon Kelly, the host of Blue Wire's new podcast, Golden Goal. From Lionel Messi to Marta to Pele, our show takes a deep dive into soccer's superstars. Two-nil, and he's... What a welcome for Megan Rapinoe. From Zlatan Ibrahimović's brash confidence with the play to back it up to Megan Rapinoe's heroic outspokenness and World Cup flair,

each episode examines a personality of the world's game. We'll dig into Maradona's hand-of-God performance and subsequent downfall, the teenage trio at Dortmund thataled the next generation of superstars. And that infamous headbutt that slung Zinedine Zidane from glory. Golden Goal. Soccer stars and the moments that made them. Premiering this summer on Blue Wire.