Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Reacting to JJ McCarthy, Bo Nix and Michael Penix Jr. throwing at the NFL Combine

Episode Date: March 3, 2024

Matthew Coller talks with Vikings fans about what we saw at the NFL Combine in the quarterback throwing sessions on Saturday afternoon and goes through the buzz from Indy, including quarterback rumors i.e. that Baker Mayfield may not be returning to Tampa Bay, wide receivers blowing up the Combine, defensive linemen shining and the running back market now that Alex Mattison is no longer a Viking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, back in the Minneapolis studios. So I did the same thing as you guys, in terms of the Combine events, which is I watch them on TV and listen to what Daniel Jeremiah said, which I think is probably a better idea than me going to it and trying to figure out what the heck I'm watching. So I spent the entire day sitting right here watching all the drills and of course, every throw from the quarterbacks. And even just now went back to YouTube and looked through the quarterbacks throwing again, because they cut

them up. So you could see every throw from each quarterback, as opposed to them rotating in and out with some guys that probably won't be drafted or won't be drafted very high so i was able to take a look then review take another look so i can have some takeaways and i made a huge list of all the things that i felt like i believe now coming out of indianapolis and i think the biggest thing that everyone probably wants to know is exactly what Alexander is asking me to start this live stream, which is where is the Kirk meter now coming out of Indianapolis for Alexander? It's 80% gone, 20% back. And I feel like I'm about the same, maybe 60, 40. I think I'm probably a little more safe than you are,

or 70-30. But Kevin O'Connell was on television today with Andrew Siciliano, and Siciliano tweeted out the quote where he basically said, Kirk has earned the right to be a free agent. And when we sat down with Kevin O'Connell, he talked, as always, about how much he likes Kirk Cousins and how much he cares about Kirk Cousins. And I think it's clear and honest that Kevin O'Connell would like to have him back as his quarterback. But also every time anybody talked about him, it was, well, there's going to be a negotiation and well, we'll, we'll see about, you know, what happens with Cousins and free agency and so forth.

And when you talk to people throughout Indianapolis just about the feeling on Kirk Cousins, the name Atlanta kept coming up so often with everybody that I spoke to. And it does feel like Kirk Cousins wants to check on the market and wants to find out if there's another team that is going to buy into him more than the Minnesota Vikings. And someone suggested to me about the amount of praise that Kevin O'Connell has heaped on Cousins as if, well, we can't praise you with money, so we'll praise you with words. And that actually did make a lot of sense to me, to be honest with you, that one of the reasons that they've gone so over the top to talk about how much they want Cousins back and how much they love him and care about him could be that the offer they think're not going to go crazy. And if Atlanta comes in or Denver comes in with a higher number, that the Minnesota Vikings are going to let them walk. And Kevin O'Connell, when we were talking to him in our sit-down,

did get pretty excited talking about this rookie quarterback class. And I felt like the way that he was talking about it was, well, this is better than some of the classes we've seen in the past, or at least guys that they could actually get their hands on. They couldn't get Anthony Richardson last year. They couldn't get C.J. Stroud or Bryce Young last year. But this year, with so many quality quarterback prospects, which we'll talk about in a second with how they performed, you know, if you're Kevin O'Connell, if you're Kwesi Adafo Mensah, you could look at this situation and say, we're likely to get a very good prospect if we take one in the first round. And I was even thinking over the last couple of days, especially watching the defensive linemen maul the NFL combine, the top defensive linemen

had great weeks, chop Robinson,ared verse dallas turner these guys looked like stars that there is a possibility that the vikings could still draft defense with the number 11 pick and then trade back into the first round for a quarterback depending on which guy they like the most how they view the risk of someone like Bo Nix, who's on the older side, or Michael Penix, who's had the injuries that he's had. And Ian Rappaport did report that Michael Penix passed the physicals that they put him through at the combine. And what that means, it's hard to say, right? Is that coming from Penix's side and saying medicals were fine?

Or is that coming from the NFL side? Someone's telling him, no, actually, the medicals are okay because they're planning on drafting him. That's what's hard to figure out around draft season. But as far as today's performances, I'll just go through the quarterbacks who threw. And I will say I was disappointed that Drake May decided not to throw. Maybe he's confident, and Jaden Daniels. Maybe both of them are so confident

that they're going in the top that they decided they didn't want to do it. And I don't think it's any sort of red flag or anything like that. I just really wanted to see it. I just really wanted to see what Drake Mays arm talent was going to look like in comparison to these other quarterbacks as we're all trying to figure out what is the order who is the nfl going to like and yes i completely agree right here with from abre that throwing is overrated i assume you mean at the combine and you're absolutely right that i fully agree with what steve palazzolo from pff tweeted, that the throwing at the combine really doesn't matter that much outside of if someone is terrible.

If someone completely fell on their face, then you would go, what's up with that? Or if someone's mechanics were a total disaster. And I know a lot of the teams like to get a closer look at someone's pro day than even the combine, because usually they're throwing with their own wide receivers they can get a little bit closer look at the footwork the mechanics and also try to judge how much that guy has advanced since the end of the season so yes

this is not anything and everything all here at once at the combine, the throwing session that determines who's going to be drafted in what order. It's the entire body of work, of course. And I got the sense from Kevin O'Connell that the most important thing to him was sitting down with these guys and taking them through the X's and O's, taking them through a little bit of their tape and really getting a sense for their personality. He said that you can get a feeling right away from somebody is this guy a competitor what's he actually like when you sit down in a room with him you can feel it kevin o'connell said and i tend to believe him that this is a guy who has been around a lot of great quarterbacks throughout his career including a super bowl winner and matthew stafford yeah, all right, I buy that.

And of course, we're not privy to those meetings inside of the combine. I would love to if Kevin O'Connell ever wants to invite me. So instead, we just work with what information we have, and we'll talk about each guy and go through them and then where we're at. And I'll answer all the questions that you guys have about what I took away from spending the entire week in Indianapolis. And to be honest, I'm pretty exhausted from Indianapolis because usually the day starts pretty early and ends pretty late at night from hanging out a lot of different places there. But I feel like I gleaned a lot of information, had a lot of great football talks with people from around the NFL. So it was a fun time of being there. And I was really curious to see just how today worked out.

So let's start with Bo Nix. I felt like Bo Nix was really good at some of the routes, the deep out routes. I thought his timing looked good, his footwork. And look, I'm not a quarterback technique analyst. The only person that is, is Daniel Jeremiah. So I was listening close to him and watching myself matching up with what he said versus what I saw. And Jeremiah talked pretty confidently about liking the way that Bo Nix's footwork was going in that drill. But when was throwing it deep that's where you saw I think one of the weaknesses in Bo Nix's game is that he does not have a cannon and when you compare that to Michael Penix throwing the ball it looked like it took a little more effort from Bo Nix and it wasn't that ball explodes off of the guy's hand he throws throws the first deep ball is very nice. And then the

second and third deep ball were very underwhelming. But as far as a lot of the throws, the out routes, those corner routes that they ran, I thought he looked fine. I mean, if you expect Bo Nix to absolutely blow you away with his sheer arm talent, I don't think that that's what he really is. I think what Bo Nix's strength is, is an operator of your offense. What you would expect from him is to kind of be a field general type who's going to make some plays with his athleticism off of schedule if he's needed to, but he's an offensive executor more than he is a Joe Milton that's going to blow you away with his arm talent, which of course, not surprisingly, Joe Milton threw the ball about 70 yards in the air and had the fastest speed and everything else. But that guy's probably not getting drafted because he's just not a good quarterback. So it is not any type of contest, you know, who could throw the ball the fastest and hardest. But I thought that for the most part, Bo Nix looked exactly how I thought he would look and had a fine workout.

And again, is it amazing or terrible usually matters. And I didn't think that Bo Nix was either. Now, as far as JJ McCarthy goes, the velocity on his football is extremely impressive. It truly is. When he drops back and lets that thing loose, it has, I think, a lot of jump on it. And that was never my question about J.J. McCarthy. I think you could see that very clearly on tape that when he rears back and lets that thing go, it really fires. I mean, it's got great velo on it.

There were some throws early in his workout that were pretty wild. And then for a guy with such arm strength, his deep ball is not really accurate. And it wasn't in college and it definitely wasn't at the combine but how much can that be improved with somebody who is on the younger side which J.J. McCarthy is and you can train certain things to a guy but you cannot create that type of velocity on the football and I think also you know there are quarterback comparables that are really good in terms of velocity, but are not perfect with their accuracy. And Jared Goff would be somebody I think of with that,

where sometimes Goff's ball placement is a little off, but he throws it so freaking hard that it gets in there really quick. So that was, I think, a real shining thing for J.J. McCarthy, even though the precision was not perfect, I didn't think throughout his workout and with McCarthy overall, he just had a really good week. I mean, he ran the three cone super quickly,

which I think is another thing you could see from him on tape that when someone's rushing him, he has quick feet and he can scramble away. And you really saw that when it came to McCarthy in his workout, but also the way that he's able to throw on the move. We didn't get to see in that in the workout, but I would have liked to see some bootleg, see some throw on the run, clearly a strength of his. So you understand why NFL people are talking about his tools and the potential of him being drafted

pretty high. And the other note about JJ McCarthy was when he was on the broadcast, he was talking about meeting with the Minnesota Vikings. And I'm not surprised by that. I'm sure that Kevin O'Connell wanted to meet with anyone, but that is important to mention that he did meet with the Vikings. And I guess the question now is, how much do people buy into McCarthy? Is it as much as the hype because of those raw tools? Are the rumors going to be true that he could go all the way up as far as the top 10? Or is he going to be much more of a middle round pick or a second round pick?

I mean, I think that there's a very wide range of potential options, but one thing I did notice about JJ McCarthy, well, he also, when he weighed in, by the way, he weighed in at almost 220, which is, I know that sounds almost a little silly to talk about quarterback weight, but think about how much quarterbacks get whooped throughout a year and how many injuries there are and so forth. I mean, having that much extra muscle, it's something to bring up at least that, you know, I think that people thought he was going to weigh in at like 200 and he ends up weighing in at 220. So, you know, there is that, uh, I liked the way that he handled himself throughout the week for what I saw a bunch of different interviews. I liked the way that he handled himself throughout the week for what I saw, a bunch of

different interviews. I tried to watch every single one. He did say he would like to throw to Justin Jefferson. And I also noticed just on the broadcast how confident he came across. He was asked the question about not throwing the ball very much, which as you guys probably know, has been a question of mine about J.J. McCarthy. And he brought up, hey, look, this is about winning, right? Not about how many passes I throw. And I thought that's the best and probably only way to answer it. But he didn't answer it in a defensive way.

You saw him, I thought, relating well to the other players. So if we're looking for anything and everything, every little shred of evidence, it couldn't have been a better week for JJ McCarthy. And a lot of people around Indianapolis were talking and I tried to ask everybody that I could. And there's a lot of range of opinions on McCarthy. There are people who think McCarthy is more of a second round pick, but there were more people than not that believe that his upside is a very high quality NFL starter. So as always with McCarthy that I've said from the very beginning, even if I have questions about him

and Knicks and Pennix, which we'll get to Pennix in a second, but even if I have questions about him and even if I wonder about certain things about his game, if the Minnesota Vikings were to move on from Kirk Cousins and land JJ McCarthy, it would be a massive win for them going forward. And they can build around him the same way we've talked about for a long time about drafting a quarterback and building around them. So, you know, I think some of you have suggested that I am a hater and I, you know, okay, I guess that's fair. I mean, the way that I look at it is more of, if you watch JJ McCarthy's games against the tougher competition, he was rarely used and didn't perform that great. He didn't have a great national championship game. He didn't play that

great against Iowa. He didn't play that great against Alabama. And I, it's hard not to wonder about the precision of his passing the deep ball and whether some of these things can be corrected or if that athleticism is really truly going to translate to somebody who's going to be an above average type of starter. But again, these are just questions. If they draft him and Kevin O'Connell is all in on him, then there you starter. But again, these are just questions. If they draft him and Kevin O'Connell is all in on him, then there you go. Like that, then I'm good with that. Then I think that's a great pick and that's exactly what they should do. I guess the one thing I was wondering is now, wait a minute, uh, is, is now he going to go in the top 10? I mean, after he showed off this arm talent and I will say that three cone score

does matter a bit because if at 220 pounds, you can move that quickly. Like that's relevant for JJ McCarthy, that he does have that level of quickness. But, you know, I think it's worth asking questions about, you know, his game and so forth, but with the performance that he put on, is there somebody who is going to now jump in and say, actually, look, this is our top 10 pick, the New York Giants. Would they go with him at number six and then four quarterbacks? Or is somebody more sold? And this is the thing we really don't know is somebody more sold on the personality and the winning of JJ McCarthy than Drake may, for example. And that's why I guess with Drake may and Jaden Daniels,

to some extent, I mean, there's sort of an assumption that they are the guys at the top, but historically what we know is that the mock draft community has not always been super accurate when it comes to this stuff. So I wonder if someone like Drake may did a little bit of a disservice for himself, not doing these drills, or if it doesn't matter at all. And the league has already figured out the order of these guys, but I wanted to talk more about McCarthy because I thought it was a really good week for him. Now, Michael Penix,

look, there's a lot of, he's old, his knees don't work, he's had other injuries and so forth, but it's going to be hard to knock me off the Michael Penix thing after watching him throw today and listening to Daniel Jeremiah talk about Penix as somebody who is in the range of Vikings, Broncos, Raiders in that ballpark of the second wave of quarterbacks. Pennix, I get it. He's not super young. I also think that what Kweisi Adafo-Mensah said was relevant and smart, which is we have to treat the quarterbacks who stayed the extra year like

it's a minor league type of year, that these guys were allowed to just have more development time, more time on task playing quarterback. And it's right and smart for Michael Penix to stay longer than he did because this has given him an opportunity to show what he can truly do and be more NFL ready. If we're also looking at the rest of college football, there are a lot of players who are going to be a little bit older these days and quarterbacks often don't come into their prime unless you're an absolute freak like CJ Stroud until they are a little bit older, 25, 26 years old, that we all are praising the Green Bay Packers for taking their time on Jordan Love.

But if a guy comes out of college a little older, we say, oh, well, he can't get better. He can't improve. Like, I just don't really buy into that idea. And look, the last older quarterback that was taken was Joe Burrow. And the same thing, well, he can't improve this or that. And Joe Burrow is just fine. I would take him as my franchise quarterback. Michael Penix has an awesome, awesome arm. And I think he showed every bit of it at the NFL Combine. There were all kinds of tremendous throws that he was making. The deep balls were really excellent. The deep outs were excellent. The touch on the

football, the placement, even the jump balls looked good. Everything that Michael Penix did at this throwing session was fantastic. And somebody who was there inside the building at Lucas Oil Stadium texted me and said, Penix crushed this thing. And somebody who was there inside the building at Lucas Oil Stadium texted me and said, Pennix crushed this thing. And I thought so too. And again, not that we didn't know this already. The guy threw for a million yards and he took Washington to somewhere where they've never been before. And by the way, Michigan sent more players to the combine than any team ever has. So losing to Michigan in the last game, in my mind, was not that not as big of a deal. You'd rather he win that game. But his team was so much outmanned

in that game that I would look more at other games that he played with similar competition as opposed to the way better Michigan defense that destroyed everybody all year long. So I look at Penix as still a very good prospect. He didn't run. I wanted him to run. I I'm kind of interested to see what he does run at his pro day. I saw Jordan Schultz, who is a NFL insider say that he had heard Penix and his practice runs was going to go faster than people thought. I kind of wanted to see that. Just the playmaker element of it has been lacking, except for what we saw in that Texas game where he did make some plays out of structure. So some of the things with these guys are going to be stuff that we don't know,

can't know coming out of this. But if you were high on Michael Penix before, you're still very high on Michael Penix now because of the way that he threw. Yeah. Aubrey asks, how would Caleb and Drake have fared against the Michigan defense? Well, neither one of those guys won every game either. So I think they probably would have struggled as well. So, you know, I mean, with each one of these quarterbacks, they showed a lot to like is the point that Kweisi Adafo-Mensa told us that this is a quarterback class that they have had their eye on for years. That was his exact words. And you can see exactly why. And if the Vikings took any of them I think that they are getting a player that they could potentially build around if you were to rank them coming out right now of the combine where I

think they'll go maybe not even necessarily my personal opinion but where I think they'll go I still think it will be Caleb Williams number one I'm starting to wonder if it's Jaden Daniels, number two, but we'll see. It's either May or Daniels, number two, three, probably May 1st and then Daniels, but I wouldn't be shocked. I mean, Daniels has unbelievable tools. So one of those two, but we'll just go with it for now that May and then Daniels in some order. And then I think it will be McCarthy, Pennix, and then nix that nix's upside is probably the lowest and you heard daniel jeremiah make a similar comparison to one that i made on the show which was to jalen hertz where jalen hertz had a longer college career and he had a tough time at his first place and then went to another college,

put up massive numbers, and there were still lots of questions about him coming out. And he turned out to be a quarterback that can get a team to the Super Bowl when he has a great supporting cast, which the Vikings will be able to give to whatever quarterback they take. I would probably have Penix ahead of Bo Nix right now after what we saw. And it's hard to say what goes on behind the scenes with interviews, but Michael Penix is such an impressive person.

I mean, to overcome those injuries, to take that team to the national championship. And also, I think it was Stacey Dales who was on the sideline talking about Penix's recall and his memory and how he understands and sees and envisions the game. That could all be very important to Kevin O'Connell. So I've thought really from the outset that Michael Penix would make a lot of sense to work with Kevin O'Connell. And if the only thing we're worried about is medicals, then I can't tell you exactly what those said. The Vikings would know better than me, but any of these quarterbacks, I think you could make a very strong case that they would be good picks for the Minnesota Vikings. So that's kind of my takeaway from the week that nobody came out of the combine with me saying, Oh, I don't think so, man.

I don't think so. And I got a couple of tweets that said Nix's arm looked weak. And so I went back and watched the whole thing. And I'm like, yeah, no, it's not a cannon. It's definitely not a cannon. But I also thought that his feet looked good. The mechanics looked pretty smooth. So, you know, I just I think that if you are trying to come up and I know the chat

is doing this with all the quarterbacks coming up with a blazing hot take of this guy's not good. This guy's the best way better than the other ones. I just think that I'm not seeing what you're seeing, that you can come up with criticisms of every quarterback. In fact, the other day I wrote an article where i went through the nfl.com scouting reports for every successful quarterback how about this you guys were talking about in the chat the velocity where they posted the velocity numbers on jj mccarthy and it was pretty similar to sean Mannion and about 10 miles an hour faster than Lamar Jackson.

So I don't think that some of this stuff is, is really all that relevant. It really shows you that a lot of these quarterbacks are at this level are just an ink blot test because, you know, it's brought Marty brings it up that Chris Sims is high on Knicks and Kurt Warner was tweeting about how he likes Knicks. And then other people think that he can't play at all. And I mean, look, a lot of it is, can the guy execute your offense? Can he get into and out of the huddle and make the right reads and deliver the ball to the right place in an accurate and timely fashion. That's what 80% of the game is. And then can he make a play outside of structure? And I don't think Pennix has done a lot of making plays out of structure. McCarthy and Bo Nix have, and so has Drake May. So has Caleb Williams. So is Jaden Daniels. I mean, look, every one of these guys has made their case to be a first round quarterback.

I think that maybe Knicks is the most likely to go second round because somebody has to put all their eggs in that basket to be a first rounder. And I don't know if they do. You never heard of test driving a phone network. I did not make this up. It is an actual thing. And US Cellular is letting you test drive their network for free for 30 days. You can try out U.S. Cellular wherever you have

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award-winning network for 30 days. U.S. Cellular, built for us. Terms apply. Awards based on open-signal, independent data. Visit uscellular.com for details. Yeah, I think that when it comes to trying to figure out after the combine where guys are going to go, it's extremely difficult. And if you look back, I mean, what, Hendon Hooker didn't even work out at the combine last year because of his ACL, but apparently had these great interviews and certain people said that

he was going to be a first rounder. He was a third rounder we've seen in the past. Hey, look, Patrick Mahomes was not loved by a lot of the draft analysis community. He was bumped way up from the draft from where the consensus mock drafts and big boards had him. So we really don't know as always. And I think it's important to mention that just reacting to what we have seen here over the last couple of days and the buzz, but not talking definitively, I think about any of these quarterbacks just yet. I think my takeaway is just I came in thinking this is a really good class where the Minnesota Vikings can get a starting quarterback who has the potential to be very good and take them places,

and I still think that. Now, there is a scenario that has come to mind for me for the Vikings that I kind of am starting to like because as I was watching the defensive linemen run, I was thinking, whoa, buddy, there are some freaks in this draft. And Jared verse is somebody that I really like from Florida state. That defense was great. Uh, actually Brandon Fisk, who's projected as a second round pick destroyed the combine uh we saw byron murphy the other one the prospect byron murphy defensive lineman an absolute mauler crushed the combine i mean you saw all these defensive linemen who were

projected to go very high uh lotto from ucla did a really good job as well i was just checking their relative athletic scores which if you don't know what that is, just Google search relative athletic scores. It tries to take the most important combine drills for each position and put the whole athleticism together in a percentile. And the top defensive players in this class were all fantastic in terms of relative athletic score, which I think has a huge, huge impact on success for defensive linemen. So what I'm getting to is they could take a defensive lineman at number 11 and then look at who is the quarterback that drops and then try to take that quarterback late in the first round. And I mean, if you really like Michael Penix or you really like Bo Nix,

if you're Kevin O'Connell, then you can wait and see, as opposed to trying to trade up and looking to get Drake May or looking to get Jaden Daniels. And it's very possible that McCarthy is not there. So what I think the Vikings will create, if Kirk Cousins does not come back is sort of a choose your own adventure or a if then if McCarthy is there at number 11, then they'll take him. If he's not there at number 11, take a defensive lineman trade back in 42 is maybe a little too far with their second round pick to wait for one of these

quarterbacks. If you are really in need of getting them. I mean, you could probably try to wait and see if someone drops to the second, but if you are in desperate need of a quarterback, I don't think you can, I don't think you could do that. You should try to trade back in just like they did with Teddy Bridgewater and try to get your guy. So that's certainly an option that's on the table, but there's a lot of other things that bounced around that are interesting ideas at the combine as well. I mean, one of them is trying to move up and what that might cost. If a team falls in love with McCarthy, somebody walked by me in the hall in Indianapolis, who I know is really connected, and said, Drake May is going to drop, and then just walked away. I'm like, oh, okay, what?

So that's the combine for you. I mean, there's all sorts of things going on and a lot of people all hearing different information, but there's going to be a lot of different routes that this could go. And we really don't know what's going to happen next another one that caught my ear a little bit i perked up was when uh daniel jeremiah mentioned that baker mayfield might not sign with the tampa bay buccaneers and who did he connect them with the new england patriots which seems far-fetched because the patriots don't have much to work with with their roster.

But if you're Baker Mayfield, you're probably looking for the longest type of deal, which could potentially mean that either the Vikings could chase Baker Mayfield if they don't feel confident in the quarterback class. But it also means that number three might not be a quarterback. The New England Patriots, if they're going to sign Baker Mayfield, then they would potentially trade out of the number three. Could the Vikings be there? Number four and five, Arizona and the Chargers. They could both be looking at potentially trading out. So if the Vikings move on from Kirk Cousins,

this thing gets super intense. It really does. And the options, we're going to talk about a different option every single day for weeks until the draft. If that ends up happening, if it doesn't, well, then we'll see. Then we'll see if it doesn't, then maybe the Vikings still draft a quarterback. That's what Andrew Kramer of the Star Tribune thinks they're going to do is be able to get Kirk back and then draft a quarterback anyway, maybe in the second round. there's enough teams and this was my big takeaway from almost everybody i talked with is everybody that i spoke with said isn't somebody gonna come in with a bigger offer though because the vikings sound like they have drawn a line in the sand with cousins and it really is the other things that they're trying to sell to him so selling selling the chemistry with Kevin O'Connell, selling the situation, the NFL PA survey showing you that the players really do care about Kevin O'Connell.

They love where they work, all that stuff. Does that matter enough to supersede the money? And what somebody said to me about Cousins, which I think is really relevant, is that Cousins for his whole career has been underappreciated, or at least in his mind, that early in his life, he wasn't thought of as the top high school quarterback. He wasn't thought of as a top Michigan school quarterback. He wasn't thought of as a top Michigan state quarterback. He wasn't thought of as better than RG three. He wasn't thought of as worth it to Washington. And then even as recently as last year, he wasn't thought of as worth it to this organization. And I don't know if you are Kirk cousins that you let that go, that you just say, oh, you know, it's okay. It's all good

negotiations. He's had a chip on his shoulder that has helped drive him to be one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. And does last year's negotiation falling through live with him still as the Vikings put an offer on the table? And when the Vikings are talking and saying, well, you know, he's going to be a free agent and we'll see what happens and all that. Does that even sit with him as like, that doesn't sound like a team that's all in on me. And I've wondered about that, that from the very beginning with Kwesi Adafo-Mensah, the way that he's talked about Kirk Cousins, it's been, you know, well, we like Kirk, but we got a price on him and that sort of thing. And if you're Cousins, then is that what you want?

Or is it some team saying, we're all in on you, we'll give you the most guaranteed money. It's what the dollars represent. We keep going back to it. I didn't run into too many people that thought that Cousins was coming back to the Vikings. If he does, I guess I just need to know the plan because one of the things that really was left out, to tell you the truth, of this entire thing is any discussion about the rest of the roster. And I'm sorry for that, that that as reporters when we sit down with quesadilla fomenta and uh kevin o'connell or when they're at the podium it's hard to ask about too many other things i mean it was asked about rebuilding the defense and daniel hunter

it did not feel like um daniel hunter has much chance of coming back which is just another position that has to be filled for the Vikings. And then you release your starting running back or half of the season starting running back. There's another position that has to be filled by the Vikings. So when you look around at the roster, you go, how is this going to happen now that there's even another position that has to be filled in the backfield as well for the Vikings. And more than likely they have to go to free agency for it because, you know, you're not drafting it with your first or second draft pick.

One other takeaway that I had, a few of you have mentioned it that I think is relevant here to the Vikings is this wide receiver class is insane. Absolutely insane. One guy after the next was just blowing away the NFL combine. And the guy really stuck out to me was Florida's Ricky Pearsall, who I watched a lot of with Anthony Richardson last year, really liked him, did not think he was going to put up those types of numbers. He has great contested catchability. He's a route runner. There's lots of guys here, and of course, worthy running the 4-2-1, the fastest 40 ever. He is only 165 pounds. So, I mean, I guess that makes sense. But we've seen that lighter receivers can succeed in the NFL. I think that the Vikings with a wide receiver three and wide receiver four spot open should

be looking to this draft in the middle rounds and saying we might be able to get a potential high quality wide receiver in the middle rounds, which is usually very hard to do, but there are lots of guys who could potentially be picked here. They still need to bring another wide receiver in, in free agency. They need a veteran. Maybe it's Brandon Powell coming back, but this is certainly a draft class to pick one in the middle. And I know when I tweeted that, I got a lot, Hey, they need defense. I'm aware of that. But when you get to the fourth round, you're just picking the best players you can find. And I think there's a good chance that those are going to be wide receivers.

So how about this from you guys? A lot of you have been commenting and I appreciate that huge crowd here tonight, which is awesome. Great to see all of you. And what are you guys thinking about? What's on your mind? What else do you want to know from me about what I took away from the NFL combine and give me your percentages. Let me know your percentages for what you think does Kirk cousins come back or not. Um, it just seems to me that everyone is leaning toward no That is no kind of guarantee that it's not going to happen But when Kevin O'Connell said he's earned the right to test free agency It really made me think, wait a minute I mean, you know, we really won't get much opportunity to test it

Because there is a deadline on this Or the $28 million kicks in for dead cap so it what what do we mean here i mean there's going to be a legal tampering period and o'connell already suggested that teams were talking to kurt cousins representation and i saw i saw his agent out one night and he had a big glow over him. It was like the angels singing as he walked across the room. Everybody stopped and looked like, there he is. There's the greatest agent on earth. Now that didn't happen, but Mike McCartney was definitely around.

So I think that he probably did talk to a handful of people throughout the time there and got an idea of what the interest is going to be this is a good observation by duane koc sounded deflated about kirk he did he did i really truly believe that kevin o'connell cares deeply about kirk cousins i think that his relationship with him was forged in 2022 with all those crazy games. And even throughout this injury and everything else that O'Connell felt like he was playing football the way the offense was designed. And you add that with the locker room buying into him. We heard that from players, not just Justin Jefferson on Radio Row, but even Brian O'Neill, who vehemently argued for Cousins to come back at the locker room cleanout. I mean, I think that this team really bought into Kirk Cousins and he was playing his best ball. And if you went back in time and replaced the 2018 and 2019 rosters with Kevin O'Connell as your head coach, maybe we live in a different world.

Maybe we live in a world where Kirk Cousins took the Vikings to the NFC championship or beyond with those rosters, but we can't do that. They have to look forward. But if you were judging by the way that Kevin O'Connell sounded when talking on TV and even at the podium and with us a little bit, it did not sound like he was massively confident that Kirk Cousins is coming back. That is the feeling as of right now. I, oh, Dinas says JJ sounded excited about Minnesota. He did. says uh jj sounded excited about minnesota he did there was an interview where he mentioned like wanting to throw to justin jefferson which is uh probably a good idea oh that was something i didn't talk about too much because i talked about on some other podcasts but just the vikings

were not happy vikings brass was not happy i did not get the sense uh about the bogus Justin Jefferson rumors. And I put the biggest finger quotes I can over rumors. I didn't get the feeling that there was the slightest bit of validity to any possibility Justin Jefferson could be moved. I think that they came close on a deal last year, as was reported and thrown out there by numerous insiders and so forth. And they didn't quite get it done because they didn't have to, and they didn't have a hard deadline. And they want him to be wide receiver one for the next 10 years. And they're going to do everything they can to make that happen.

So if you were making up fake trades with Justin Jefferson on Madden, I respect it, but I don't think it's going to happen. Let's see. Matthew says, what bridge quarterback did the Vikings go with to pair with a rookie? Want somebody to mentor the rookie? There's some good options. Yeah, there's some good options. I mean, I think what you saw from Gardner Minshew was really good last year, stepping in when Anthony Richardson went down. And I think Minshew is a big personality, but I think he really knows the game and has stayed in that role for a couple teams now, despite, you know, it's not easy to be that

guy. And I don't think anyone's making Gardner Minshew their starting quarterback. I would also say Jacoby Brissett. Jacoby Brissett has a stellar, stellar reputation in the league as being like a guy who's a great mentor for a younger player and could also play if you needed him to, that he would provide competent quarterback play. That's where if you're looking for somebody to be a quarterback that is a mentor and in that role with your hope as the rookie wins the job, then Brissette and Minshew are those types of guys. If you're hoping that someone can actually play, then it's a little

bit harder. Like if someone can actually get you to the playoffs while your rookie quarterback stayed on the bench, this is more likely the type of quarterback situation where the rookie is going to play pretty fast, which I am not terrified of. I think it's better that a quarterback sit for a year, but I also don't think that it's like some tragedy. If the guy plays, we've seen it work for a lot of quarterbacks to come in and play right away. I mean, even Anthony Richardson looked great playing right away.

I mean, he was a guy that everyone said, well, he needs to sit for a year. He needs to sit for a year. And then there he jumped right in. So, you know, you never really know how someone's going to deal with being an NFL quarterback. I think one of the reasons that people like McCarthy is everyone talks about him as a guy that would need to sit for a year, but he's already been playing for an NFL coach in Jim Harbaugh. So like he's, I think probably a little more advanced for some of this stuff in the quote pro style than most are. And you know,

if that were the case, maybe he does step in right away. You let him take some lumps, make some plays and, and you know, you know, if, if that were the case, maybe he does step in right away. You let them take some lumps, make some plays and, and, you know, see what happens. So, uh, would I trade a third round pick for Gino? You mean Gino Smith? Um, I can't imagine Seattle's going to trade Gino Smith right now. Now they look like a potential candidate to, you know, draft somebody and, uh, then develop them behind Gino smith but i don't

think they're going to trade i think that's another team that's similar to the vikings where their ownership always wants to win i don't think that they would tank if they were going to they had a chance to a couple years ago and they didn't uh mateo says tyrod taylor i would add to that group uh that i agree yep ty Tyrod Taylor. The unfortunate part about Taylor is that he gets hurt a lot. And that would concern me as a bridge quarterback who doesn't stay healthy. Andy Dalton is still around. I think, you know, Andy Dalton is a guy that has taken on that role, took it on last year and actually played fine when he got in the game for Carolina. It's not going to win you anything, of course, but we're talking mentor roles. JP thinks 25% chance that Kirk returns. Dwayne thinks 30%. I mean, all of you are reading

the room the same way that I am, that based on the kind of body language and the tone of Kevin O'Connell, unless he's really acting, it just seems like you'd rather ask Teddy to un-retire. Teddy Bridgewater would be a great, great bridge quarterback. But look, I'm not saying Andy Dalton's good. I'm saying that if you're pairing a veteran with a rookie, that somebody like that is a good idea. No one is saying that Andy Dalton could actually win anything, but none of those quarterbacks can.

Gardner Minshew can't win. Tyrod Taylor's had his chances, can't win. That's not what your really goal is of that type of quarterback. It's just somebody who could play if you need them to, and is going to be a great mentor to your rookie quarterback. But I just feel like you guys are feeling the same way as me about the chances of Kirk Cousins coming back. And do you blame anybody for this? I mean, I think that everybody's going to be in the right if Kirk Cousins leaves. That Cousins is going to look at some other situation and say, look, this is a place where I have a better chance to win. And we can make that argument for everybody. You can make a better chance to win in even Vegas or Denver.

I mean, those are not, I think, as high on the list. But Pittsburgh and especially Atlanta, you can absolutely make a better argument for Kirk to win in any of those places. And then for the Vikings, you can't really make much of a case for them to win with Kirk, because if you use any history whatsoever, even with much better rosters, you still can't get yourself there. So it might end up being all's well that ends well for everybody, even if Kevin O'Connell is disappointed to see kirk cousins go and again if we had a time machine and we put cousins and you know o'connell together years ago maybe it would have been different but it's not uh i do wonder yeah uh blow fishes says

mccown uh josh mccown who they just hired used to coach Drake May. That is relevant and interesting that they hired somebody who used to coach Drake May, but also he's known Kevin O'Connell for a long time. They see the game the same way as former quarterbacks. And he is a good guy to have no matter who your quarterback is. If it's cousins, then he could talk on the same level as a veteran. If it's, you know, Drake may, then he has already worked with them before. If it's McCarthy, he can work with them on throwing technique and, you know, sharpening up some of those raw tools that he has. I mean, I just think overall that McCown is a good hire for them having somebody that has played quarterback before, but it does lean a little bit more toward a young quarterback than it would just bringing back cousins. Because why would you need an extra layer to that? If you

already have had success with cousins and he fully understands the offense, I think what O'Connell's looking for is kind of an extension of himself to be working directly with whatever young quarterback they end up with that's how it feels anyway maybe i'm what what did people say a few weeks ago i'm manifesting it that's what i'm doing here uh jp says courtney cronin bears reporter friend uh seems to think fields is going to atlanta then opposing reports that atlanta's owner wants Kirk. We'll find out who's right. Well, Atlanta's owner is going to be right if he wants Kirk because, you know, that's how it's going to work. I do know that Arthur Blank is very involved in the football side of things in Atlanta. That if you listen to the Sumer Sports Show with Eric Eager and Thomas Dimitrov. Thomas, former GM of the Falcons,

talks all the time about how involved Arthur Blank was with everything that they did, which can be sometimes a good thing or sometimes a bad thing. But if Arthur Blank is leaning toward wanting Kirk Cousins, which makes the most sense for me because Arthur Blank is, I think I said before he was 85, he's 81. I looked this up. He's 81. Same point exists, but it's been many years since the Atlanta Falcons made the playoffs. I mean, this guy has got to be absolutely tired of sitting around and watching his team miss the playoffs where he's kind of a quarterback away. It's very rare that a team truly is a quarterback away,

but Atlanta is in that spot. Caleb says, thoughts on the KOC interview with Rich Eisen. He seemed less confident in Kirk coming back. Yeah, we've talked about it a little bit, but I think the, the body language or tone, uh, of Kevin O'Connell in that interview, when he said he's earned the right to hit free agency, that really stuck out to me that like, okay, so O'Connell thinks that Kirk is going to go and take, as you would expect, and get all of his offers. And it doesn't sound like O'Connell thinks that their offer is going to be enough to keep Kirk Cousins.

And kind of makes a lot of sense. It just makes a lot of sense from all sides to me that he would do that. Mateo says, fitting Atlanta wants Kirk. Always viewed Kirk as a poor man's Matt Ryan. Yeah. Also, Matt Ryan is a good argument for why the Vikings should move on from Kirk, is that by 36 years old, Matt Ryan was fading in Atlanta. And if that ended up happening, if they brought him back and he faded from where he was last year,

this team's not making the playoffs and people are losing their jobs. And that's definitely something that maybe doesn't get talked about enough with the Kirk Cousins decision is you can't bring him back and play the middle you can't bring him back and start talking about well maybe we just slip into the to the playoffs maybe we're just in the hunt it would have to be a much higher bar than that if they they came back in the timeline for quesadilla flamenca and kevin o' is extended, in my opinion, if they draft a quarterback, then you get this next year for all of us to learn about that quarterback and build this roster, as opposed to you have to win, you have to reach the NFC championship. You know, I really think

that when it comes to drafting a quarterback, it puts them on the timeline that we expected and they have what four year contracts. So this is a year to show, look, we're going in the right direction. Give us contract extensions, believe and buy in to JJ McCarthy or Michael Penix is the future quarterback. It,

it just, it just all connects to me if they move on from him, and it does not connect if they bring him back, and then the pressure becomes immense. So Kevin O'Connell may be sad about it because he cares about Cousins and because they've won a lot of games together. I mean, they went 17-9, if you count the playoff game, overall together, and that's a very good record for two seasons of play together they had good offenses put up a bunch of huge numbers

but it's not about what happened before it's really about what's going to happen in the future jordan says kevin o'connell mentioned the high intelligence of all the rookies and how important that was in his scouting process yeah Yeah, he said that in his sit-down with us as well, and that really stood out to me that he said what he wanted to find out was sometimes on tape you can't always tell what was going on, and what you want is the quarterback to explain it to you, and you'd understand it. You saw in those old Gruden camps,

John Gruden used to do that same thing. He used to say, all right, what happened here? What happened on that play? And then sometimes you'd get a Brock Osweiler who wishy-washy kind of took him through it. And other times you'd have quarterbacks who are really cerebral about what happened and very confident. And it sounds like O'Connell was looking for that.

I get the sense that all these guys that are potential first round picks have some of that to their game because Penix was not running the super simplistic offense and people have criticized Knicks for his offense, but there was a lot going on to get those receivers open for him to find and field general is the way that he was described to me. So I'm not really surprised that he would say that. Caleb said, any Kyler Murray trade steam for the Vikings in Indy? Not really at all. No, it looks like it may.

Look, if the Cardinals are deking everybody out to jack up the price on Kyler Murray, then congratulations to them. They're doing a great job because absolutely nobody brought up Kyler Murray at any point where I was talking to people about potential quarterback options for the Vikings. Never, never came up. And even the Cardinals, like, look, I, I don't know about what Twitter means because they had the famous Josh Rosen he's our quarterback tweet but it just seems that they tweeted out Kyler is our franchise quarterback because they want someone to make them an offer that's what it feels like

uh Blowfishes says Vikings need a quarterback on a rookie contract to afford jefferson mostly true uh i don't think it's completely true because they would be only signing cousins to likely two years it wouldn't be any longer than that and there uh would not be like jefferson let me let me put this correctly jefferson's contract isn't going to get super expensive for several years. That's the benefit of signing him early is that it doesn't get super expensive for several years. He might have cap hits that are $15 million, $17 million, whatever, for his first couple years until it gets really big. Then you're hoping you have a longer term deal so you can restructure those and bring them down so within the two years cousins would likely be here they could manage that with jefferson i i think they could it's not so much about that as it is about like i i just think it's better to move on because of where the whole picture is than uh you know just about cousins uh aubrey says uh sorry if i'm pronouncing your name wrong feel free to correct me uh robert

mays and diana racini were talking about uh said the cardinals coach was talking up kyler all week yeah i mean it's it's hard to, like, is anything like that realistic? There's been no discussion anywhere about Kyler Murray being traded. So Blowfish says, I'd rather keep Hunter than Cousins. I don't think either is staying. Hunter is very much a guy who's going to command a huge contract. And there's so many teams with cap space The cap went up

And some teams have already cut players Creating a lot of space I think I saw the Patriots have like 100 million in cap space Daniil Hunter's hitting free agency It would be nuts if he didn't What about Bob says any funny stories from Indy? Yeah, but I don't think I can bring them up. Trying to decide whether I should or not.

The funniest story, the thing that made other people laugh the most regarding me was talking to somebody who's very much in, in the know about why the Vikings shouldn't bring back cousins. And that's all I can really say. I can't say much more than that, but there's when you're out until three in the morning with all sorts of people, funny stuff happens constantly. It's one of the reasons to go. Um,

B T says, uh, Drake may, or we riot. Yeah. Like that's still, that's still of the reasons to go. B T says Drake may, or we riot. Yeah. Like that's still, that's still in the mix. You know, I think JJ McCarthy had the best week of anyone to push up his value, but Drake may is still considered a top three draft pick.

And if he's not, if that doesn't happen and someone gets super sold on McCarthy after this, then Drake may becomes realistic. So JP says, if you truly want a quarterback, I think any of the top six could be gone by the mid twenties. The first round trading back into grab one 30 to 32 may not work. I would be pretty shocked if six went six have never gone before in the first round. Pennix and Nix both, I think, have the best odds of dropping out of the first round or late into the first round. Because when you look at the draft order, you've got the top teams really need quarterbacks. And then the middle teams from like 11 to 15 really need quarterbacks too.

But after that, very few teams do. So there would be a lot of opportunities to potentially trade up. Tyler D. Skoll says, Indie story, Collar drank a gallon of Dr. Pepper and closed down a Taco Bell. I ate a Taco Bell two times in three days and they did not have diet Dr. Pepper around, but it was five bucks for a bottle of diet Coke, $5 in the soda machine. And while I can write that off as a business expense, I was personally offended. So I went and I went to the store and I grabbed a bunch of cans

of diet Coke. So it was a diet Coke week, but you know, that's okay. Diet Dr. Pepper's number one on my list. Number one on my board, but it's diet Coke is fine. Diet Coke's good. Caleb says, even with a rookie quarterback, I think the Vikings could be a 10 to 11 win team and make the playoffs. I think it could be the same outcome as having Kirk. It's a nice situation and they have some money thoughts. I do not view them as a complete team in this division, ready to win 10 or 11 games. Not right now with Kirk cousins, you can always win 10 games because Kirk cousins and they could potentially have the ninth best offense in the league and win some close games. And we've seen that before, but even if you go back two years,

look at the difference in the roster and the amount of talent and the positions they have to fill. They do have some money, but if they're taking on dead cap from cousins and Daniel Hunter, they won't have a ton of money in comparison to the rest of the NFL. They will have a decent amount to work with. And the second wave of free agency could be huge for them.

It's very challenging to build a roster through free agency. I think what they can have, though, so maybe I wouldn't say a 10, 11 win team, but I would say if they are a six to eight win team that finishes with the 10th best offense with a rookie quarterback, that would be a huge victory for them and sort of send them off in the right direction to keep building their defense. I do not think that they would be a uncompetitive or terrible team, but I don't see quite playoffs for them. If they have a rookie quarterback in the best case scenario. Yeah. They're Houston and the guy's a freak and you just win a ton of games right away,

but they would be competitive. Definitely. Uh, Dennis says who threw the best, the combine Pennix hands down, Michael Pennix completely crushed his throwing session. And I haven't gone off of my appreciation for Michael Penix because I'm not trying to do this based on just where I'm guessing the NFL is or what other draft analysts think. Just on my own view of Penix, I've just liked him a lot the entire time and his arm talent is ridiculous i really think his arm talent is fantastic and he showed it today definitely showed today uh kft says mccarthy struggled on the deep out throws to the left which is something he struggled with michigan yeah all the deep passes for m from McCarthy weren't good. He has a mega

zip on the ball on the intermediate stuff where he's just letting loose, but the deep ball is, he just doesn't seem to have a great feel for it. And that's one thing that I have as a question about him is that touch just in general, because that's something i didn't see from him a lot in the season i saw lasers or inaccurate throws from mccarthy the lasers though were awesome and super impressive hawk says this quarterback class is overrated in my opinion especially past the top three well i guess uh as the dude once said, that's just like your opinion, man. I mean, I guess so. I guess you could think that I don't think that, um, I think it's a good quarterback class that we could see four or maybe five quarterbacks go in

the first round. And any one of the guys that the Vikings could get their hands on, I could see being quarterbacks. you can win with. There are some that have higher upside than others. But if you told me that the Vikings drafted Bo Nix and in two years played deep into the playoffs, that wouldn't shock me. If you told me that they picked Michael Penix and he was good right away because of his freaky arm, that wouldn't shock me. Or that McCarthy developed like a lot of you think he will. Again, wouldn't shock me at all. I think this group has the talent.

And as far as the top three, all franchise caliber quarterbacks, any one of them in a normal year would be number one. By the way, the way that NFL folks talk about Caleb Williams is different even from media. They believe in Caleb Williams as an elite, elite prospect who is head and shoulders above the rest. At least this is what I've gathered. Now, if Drake May goes number one, that gathering will be wrong. That's how it sounds, is that Williams is way above.

And then there's a little more questions about the other guys, but there's three guys who have a chance to be top-notch quarterbacks in the league with their gifts. And the other three who I think under the right circumstances could be very successful. That's how I'm looking at this. Jordan says biggest risers or fallers from the combine McCarthy and Pennix seem to answer a lot of questions. Yeah, I think that they were the winners here, especially the throwing session McCarthy of probably the whole week. I don't know what it was like for Pennix inside of those meeting rooms. As far as risers and fallers elsewhere, the top corners, Quinion Mitchell. Oh my gosh,

there's a winner. The losers, I'm not really sure about i that's harder to say because i didn't have expectations of certain other positions of well you know i thought this guy was gonna run a four four and he ran a four five like i don't know there were probably some maybe like uh blake quorum was supposed to be a little faster uh the kid from missouri for running backs you guys would have to tell me if you saw other positions that were like that, I was paying much closer attention to defensive linemen that I thought crushed. And, uh, of course, quarterbacks, um, blow fishes says, how do you feel about rattler after the combine? Not different. Uh, I, I know that there have been a couple of quarterbacks in the last decade who have been mid-round picks and have turned out. But I'm just not into that idea for the Vikings.

I'm just not. If Kirk is gone, you need a franchise quarterback. Then you're looking for one of those guys in the top five or six. You're not looking at mid-rounders that are hopes and dreams. And I actually thought that Rattler was a better athlete than he was when I saw him run. I was like, Oh, they should not have had him run. Cause he is super slow, super, super slow. He, he throws a nice football. I mean, when he was doing his throwing drills, I thought they didn't talk about him at all. I thought he

did a real nice job and he throws a nice ball, there's not a lot of success there and if you're talking about kind of the hopes and dreams of well maybe he'll become what they once thought possible but i'd rather take somebody who is a top pick and if the vikings i guess bring back kirk and you draft him in the fourth i won't you know throw a hissy fit but it just normally it's a Jaron Hall. Normally it's a Kellen Mond. If you're taking someone past the second round, silver Fox asks with Madison now gone, who gets drafted at running back and what round they will very likely draft a

running back. I like the kid from Missouri didn't run as fast as he was supposed to. Is it, what is his name? Schroeder? I'm sorry. Blanking on his name, but I think they need to go to free agency for that. You know, running backs can help you right away, but they've got Ty Chandler. He's going to get the ball and they drafted Dwayne McBride last year. Maybe there's some development there. I kind of doubt it. When I look at the free agent class, there are a lot of good free agents. I wrote down the list.

There's a ton of them. Hold on. Let me pull this up. The list of running backs, even the second wave, not even the great running backs. Okay. So this is the non-awesome star running backs outside of Saquon, Tony Pollard, Henry, Devin Singletary, Deandre Swift, JK Dobbins, Zach Moss, Gus Edwards. I wrote down Latavius Murray because I just really like Latavius Murray, Matt Brita, Dante

Foreman, Jarek McKinnon. All those guys could be good, good to pair with Ty Chandler. With so many other areas that need to be drafted and developed, drafting a running back anywhere ahead of the fifth round is, to me, probably a mistake. You always take a swing on a guy that you like in the late rounds, hope he becomes the next Aaron Jones, but I'd be looking late into this draft for somebody who is a running back scott says vikings gets this next eight weeks wrong they'll be in the basement of the division for multiple seasons i i think what you mean is bringing back kirk cousins but well no i guess you're right if they draft the wrong guy or if they sign the wrong quarterback you're right i mean this is a fork in the road for the Minnesota Vikings organization like we have not seen in a long time.

We could go back to 2018 as that kind of fork in the road, although I kind of question if the Vikings had any option in 2018 outside of drafting Lamar Jackson that would have eventually taken them to a Super Bowl. If they had traded for Alex Smith, do they get to the Super Bowl? Probably not. If they stick with Teddy Bridgewater and Case Keenum, do they get to the Super Bowl? Probably not. Only if they had drafted Lamar. But who knows whether they actually were going to draft Lamar that season. So that was a fork in the road for this organization.

And this one is too. And we don't really know which quarterback is going to be good or even still if Kirk Cousins is coming back. I think I only was pushed a little bit farther today after hearing O'Connell on the broadcast, but we still don't know. And they still don't know if Cousins is going to come back and tell them, you know what, actually, guys, I didn't love any of the offers, and I'm coming back. It's possible.

Favre came back in 2010 one time. So, you know, it can happen. But, you know, this is very much that. It is a fork in the road for this organization. If you get it right you can be right back up there at the top of the nfc north within two years and if you get it wrong you are going to languish for a little while and you're gonna have problems i mean that's what's so hard about this whole thing when you draft a quarterback you never know how it's going to work

out the 49ers drafted trey Lance at the top of the draft, and then a seventh rounder became their quarterback. You just have no idea how it's going to work out. The Tampa Bay Bucks draft Jameis Winston, who they think is a generational prospect that is going to be the quarterback who takes him to the Super Bowl. Then all of a sudden, Tom Brady decides he wants to leave the Patriots and joins the Bucs. Quarterbacks are weird, man. You never know what's going to happen at that position, but they need to get it right. And that's one of the hard things. You can't predict it.

You can't project it. But you also need it so, so badly. So my thing is for a long time, Ben, take the guy Kevin O'Connell likes the most. Give it your best shot. And if you fail, fail well it's not going to be good and if you succeed it has the potential to be great we know what kirk cousins has the potential to be though uh bull tarski says jj mccarthy needs a year to sit still young and has thrown the least of the top six guys so yeah i mean we just

assume that uh they need to sit i don't know that he needs to sit if he can operate mentally and from a leadership and pressure perspective i don't have any problem with a young quarterback who has issues throwing the ball that can be corrected. If it's like, oh, well, his deep ball he's having trouble with in year one. Well, that's okay. You go into year two, you work on it, so forth. We know he's got the pure arm strength. It's really, can he lead this group? Can he understand the offense well enough to lead this group? And if he can, then you can throw him out there. If he can't and he's not ready and he doesn't understand the offense enough then you can't put him out there and he needs more time to be able

to get it so it's kind of judged differently than maybe we think we think guy with raw tools must sit or a guy who hasn't got a lot of experience must sit but as i mentioned with richardson that's the guy who bucks that sort of idea is he understood the, the offense in Indianapolis and went out there and let it. So maybe McCarthy could do the same thing. I don't know, but that's the standard that I think coaches would judge on much more than his actual throwing at this moment. Uh, Jordan says I've seen a few mock drafts with may to the vikings stock could be down with how well pennix and mccarthy looked there's there's at least some thought that drake may could be the guy that drops

and if he is well then the vikings could be right there to get him. But that's watching the buzz coming out of Indianapolis. And the reports will be pretty interesting, I think, to see at least what the vibe is. Is it right all the time? No. But what is the vibe? Is there a vibe that McCarthy has solidified himself as a top 10 quarterback? And could he be the one who drops?

Yeah. I mean, I guess like, and it, it, look, if Will Levis could go in the second round after people thought he was a top three draft pick, then of course he could be the one that drops. And I've still tended to think that Drake may is the best fit for the Vikings with his arm talent, his playmaking. But look, McCarthy may have come up on him from behind in this combine. And I don't believe that actual teams are like, oh man, wow, that combine really deeply changed what we saw on film, but it's an influence for sure. It's more data points. And Drake may deciding he wasn't going to do it. And, you know, J.J. McCarthy going out there and doing really well, that may shift the tides if you're close.

And I really think one thing about McCarthy, and this is a small sample, just hearing him do interviews. But I felt this way a little bit about C.J. Stroud. He sounds the part. He sounds the part of a quarterback who is ready for the limelight. I don't know that Drake May quite sounds that way. McCarthy sounds a little more that way. What it's like in the meeting room is hard to say because the agents are going to tell the reporters that he sounded great. Time for a couple more questions because I am

running out of energy after a long week in Indianapolis, but I'll get to them. How was Spencer Rattler today? You saw the reason why Spencer Rattler was or is talked about as everyone's favorite mid-round quarterback. That's what Daniel Jeremiah said. Guy can throw the football. He really can. He just hasn't put it together in real games. And that's going to hold him back from being drafted anywhere near the top. But he looks mature from what people initially thought of him

as kind of coming out as that top quarterback five-star guy somebody will draft him maybe third round maybe fourth round it's just that if you're the vikings if you bring back kirk i guess that's fine but if you don't then you're you're probably aiming higher there's like a super high bust rate on a guy like him does throw a really nice football though miles says there seems to be some madness method that works in drafting quarterback for the fella that falls in the draft sometimes yeah sometimes there is like a Lamar Jackson or Teddy Bridgewater of drafting that quarterback who isn't necessarily the first guy or second guy off the board and that's like when the comments are earlier said, I don't think

this is a good draft class past the top three. I just shrug because historically I'd love to know what you thought of my homes coming out or what you thought of Josh Allen coming out. And those are two good examples for me personally. I thought Patrick Mahomes was going to be unbelievable. And he is, I thought Josh Allen was going to be terrible. And he's unbelievable. Like those are two guys who both were not the top quarterback taken for similar reasons. They had super arm talent, but they had a lot of raw skills and not really refined. And Josh Allen had this kind of wiry.

He has like long arms and he just was not accurate at all, but threw a huge deep ball. And I'm going to tell you the truth. I thought he was like Joe Milton. I was like, yeah, okay. This is a great circus act, but let's see him actually play football.

What I did not know about Josh Allen was his work ethic and his intelligence and his ability to handle being a franchise quarterback and the baller nature that the guy has. You just didn't really get an opportunity to see it in college. So I didn't know that. And that's what turned out. Zach Wilson is another example. I really enjoyed watching Zach Wilson in college. And if you're a longtime listener, you know that we were excited about Zach Wilson is another example. I really enjoyed watching Zach Wilson in college. And if

you're a longtime listener, you know that we were excited about Zach Wilson. Watch his highlight reel. It's absurd. His arm talent is ridiculous. Great, great arm. But yet with Zach Wilson, it turns out he was far too immature to handle being an NFL quarterback. And at least from what I've seen, looks like he doesn't watch tape and doesn't know where to throw the football. Doesn't study. I mean, couldn't lead anybody. You just don't know these things when these guys are coming out. You don't know how they're going to react to that atmosphere. So, you know, um, Joe says Pennix is talented, but will he survive in the NFL? Well, the thing about Penix is he didn't take a lot of hits this year and he was very good at getting rid of the football

from when he was rushed. And that's a stat that's been brought up all the time as one of his, you know, I think like top arguments for why he would be a good NFL quarterback is that he doesn't get sacked very often. He has a great rate of not taking a sack when, even when he's pressured. And he was actually asked about that at the combine. If you saw those, some of the combine press conference clips, you probably thought that they were all a bunch of jokers asking stupid questions, but they weren't. Somebody asked a very smart question to Michael Penix about his pressure to sack rate. And what he said was that it's all about the cerebral element of him understanding where the football needs to go if he's pressured and you could see that when he plays that he if he gets pressured he is checking it he is throwing it underneath and if

he's got time to throw then he is throwing rockets and lasers down the field and with the vikings and what they have for a budding offensive line at the moment they got to fill some spots they can give their quarterback time to throw they gave Kirk more time to throw than ever I still prefer a playmaker to Michael Penix but at least he has a cheat code the cheat code being his arm talent and you can win from the pocket if you don't take sacks and you have arm talent and that describes i think matthew stafford and jared goff and even to some extent what what dak prescott has become is exactly that if michael pennix became dak prescott like how would that look i think that would look pretty good uh kft says i think the vikings cleared a spot for a free agent running

back when they waived madison yep i agree that uh and jonathan says that i have a sick mckinnon jersey swap ready when he signs here yeah hopefully he signs with the same number if he comes back the free agent market has a lot of good players who are veterans, but not so far like lost as far as their age, or I should say so much mileage on them that they would be good for the Vikings. I think there's probably seven free agent running backs like Devin Singletary or Jarek McKinnon that can still play. And if you need a hundred or 120, you know,

handoffs for them, that's pretty good. If you need them to, uh, pass block Jarek McKinnon is an elite pass blocker. So is Latavius Murray. Some of these other guys are probably good at it too. So yeah, that's, that's exactly where they're looking at it. Uh, Aubrey says, uh, Zimmer would have been so horrible for Lamar. I don't know. I don't know if that's true. We always, we always did that with Zimmer where it was like, Oh, he would never work with this quarterback or that quarterback worked great with Teddy worked great with Sam Bradford. I think Kirk just wasn't his kind of guy. I think what Mike Zimmer wanted was more of a leader than Kirk Cousins was. And you could certainly play chicken or egg, but you know, is it Zimmer's fault that he

wasn't the leader because he took on more of that role later. But I don't think Zimmer was against a running quarterback or a playmaking quarterback. He went against them many times, praised them many times. So I don't know. I think that's kind of a myth that Zimmer can't get along with quarterbacks. I think there was one quarterback that he couldn't get along with. And that guy was Kirk cousins. And unfortunately that was the most important guy, I think. So that's, that's the problem. Uh, but really Mike Zimmer held the beef

against cousins that he wasn't good enough to overcome what they lost on their roster. And that is a fact. Phil says, what his cousins accomplished here other than guaranteed contracts and keeping the Vikings from drafting his replacement. Well, hard to argue against that logic. I mean, truly, truly, they didn't accomplish much when you have Justin Jefferson's entire rookie contract and no playoff wins. Didn't do enough. Was it all his fault? Of course not. But they did not accomplish enough with him at quarterback to make any argument for him coming back. That's how I viewed this from the beginning and how I continue to view it

and how I think the decision ultimately to give him a contract offer that's not going to be enough has to be decided on, right? If you're the front office, you've got to say, all right, well, we can give him an offer, but we've got to have enough cap space to work around it. But that's not going to be enough for him. And that's not going to make him feel respected.

Balarski says, what is Kirk asking for? Three years, 50 plus a year. That's a good question. What was floated-ish to me-ish. I don't mean this from, like, this from directly from vikings people or anything else was that it's really looking for most of two years being guaranteed i don't think that kirk has an argument for three years unless they're doing some sort of deal where you've got void years and so forth which could happen but the guy I believe Kirk Cousins wants to be paid like

is Matthew Stafford and Stafford got 60 million fully guaranteed and then a longer contract with void years. So the Rams could do it and have a lower cap hit in his first year. I think that's what Cousins would be looking for is something like $60 million fully guaranteed. I don't think the Vikings, then that would make it a two year at least guarantee guaranteed. I don't think the Vikings, and that would make it a two-year at least guarantee. And I don't think the Vikings want to go past one year of guarantee based on what happens with, based on what the rest of the roster looked like and the potential age fall off that he could go through.

I think they would want flexibility still for the future and they would not have it if they fully guaranteed or close to fully guaranteed two seasons. That's just my guess. Mike McCartney, his agent did not tell me exactly what he's looking for, but I don't think it's 50 plus. I think it's on par with Matthew Stafford because that's in, at least in his mind, should be a comparable quarterback to him. And that's mostly fair. If you compare them statistically through the years, I would guess that he wants to beat Derek Carr's number because he is better than Derek Carr. Blowfish says, Pennix being a lefty, will the Vikings be set at offensive tackle as I guess they'll swap sides? No, they won't change anything. Left tackle and right tackle are as just, I mean, they're both super valuable because Max Crosby and Nick Bosa

are rushing off the right side. Daniil Hunter's rushing off the right side. You need everybody at the offensive line position to be good. Both tackles have to be good. They're both getting paid high money. So yeah, I don't think it changes anything that he would be left-handed and, and you would adapt offensive stuff to that if you have to, but yeah, I don't think it changes anything. All right. So, um, it's really good chat with you guys. I'm just scrolling down, scrolling down, seeing if there's any other things I wanted to address before we call it an evening. Huge crowd here tonight. Thank you so much, everybody, for joining. It was a great time for me in Indianapolis. And I did as much as I could, talked to a ton of people, a ton of podcasts on the channel.

So I hope you go back, listen to those if you haven't, and really enjoyed them. As of right now, it looks to me like the Vikings are in position to potentially draft quarterback and move on from Cousins. We'll see if that changes. And if it does, we'll be right here. So we're going to lead up to the decision 2024, which we should have within about the next 10 to 12 days to know what's going to happen with Kirk Cousins. And then all options are on the table after that. So lots more guests to come. Lots more coverage. Thanks, everybody, for watching.

What happens before a free agency? We talk about it. That's what's going What happens before a free agency? We talk about it. That's what's going to happen before a free agency. We're going to keep talking about it. And I'm going to run through lots of different scenarios and get other guests to talk and so forth that I connected with people in Indianapolis that couldn't find time to come on. And you are right, Dennis. I do need to catch up on some sleep after that.

So anyway, thanks, everybody everybody so much for watching. I really appreciate it. And we're going to do a lot more of these live chats because you guys are so awesome at asking questions, engaging. I really appreciate it. So thanks everybody for participating and we will catch you again very soon. Any breaking news, you know, I'll be here. Catch you guys later.