Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Reacting to Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O'Connell's end-of-year press conference

Episode Date: January 18, 2023

Matthew Coller and Sports Illustrated's Will Ragatz break down the Vikings' end-of-year press conference and discuss the lack of clear direction laid out by the team's brass, what Adofo-Mensah said about the lack of draft picks and cap space and how we'd grade their first years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Liquid Death, delicious water that's bringing death to plastic. Learn more at liquiddeath.com slash insider. hello welcome to another episode of purple insider matthew collar here inside tco performance center with sports illustrated's will rag it's not to break down a divisional matchup but it will be just as intense i hope our conversation here because we are fresh off of Kweisi Adafo-Mensah and Kevin O'Connell's end-of-year press conferences. And I think I want to start with the very first question, Will, where Kweisi Adafo-Mensah was asked to compare his football team to a stock or the stock market or some sort of metaphor.

But you know, the answer was kind of interesting because quasi, I can read this to you. He says, uh, I would say that you have startups and you have long tenured core stocks that have earned money for a long time and they have less growth stocks. And I think we're somewhere in between. So he says in between a complete startup, which I guess would be a rebuilding team and a long time growth stock, which I think is what they wanted to be this year, if I'm following the metaphor correctly. But this sounds very competitive rebuildy again. And he was even asked about directly competitive rebuild. And he sort of qualified this year as being in that category, which I don't really understand.

Like the timeline in reality that we look at as versus the way it's being presented by them. I just don't know that those things really matched up in this conversation that we had with Kwesi and Kevin versus what it looks like on paper. Yeah, I think any franchise in the NFL will maybe like they could theoretically use the term competitive rebuild to describe the process of building a team because the goal of every franchise in the NFL is to make moves that will help you win now, but also look to the future. That's just the job of being a GM and building a roster. And there are certainly, there's a spectrum. There are teams like the Chicago Bears currently who are in the full rebuild phase, but this offseason, they're going to do things that will try to make them better next year and

also build for the long term. The Kansas City Chiefs are on the complete other end where they are competing for a Super Bowl every year. they're also doing things to sort of sustain that and try to keep the window open for as long as possible so I mean the whole competitive rebuild thing that they use it was an interesting term I don't think I had heard that exact term before and we talked about a lot but it kind of just describes the way you go about being an NFL general manager and and it was a good question. He was asked, like, were you more of the competitive side? Because you won 13 games and you made kind of an all-in move to go get TJ Hawkinson.

And then Kwesi basically said, you know, it was. I mean, it was and it wasn't because the Hawkinson trade was also about getting a young player who we have under contract next season. He seemed to indicate pretty confidently that Hawkinson is somebody they want to have around for a long time, which I don't think is news. I think he could be definitely one of the theme of a lot of what this press conference was which you kind of come to expect when it's the head coach and general manager of an NFL team and the season just ended but the answer about TJ Hawkinson is interesting from his viewpoint because you're talking about a soon-to-be expensive veteran player and that is not the type that you would

put under the category of being a rebuild the type player like yes that is not the type that you would put under the category of being a rebuild the type player. Like, yes, that is a piece for the future, but it's an expensive piece. When you talk about rebuild moves, you talk about getting younger and getting cheaper and giving yourself more flexibility for the future. And yeah, I think that there was a lot of non-answering as far as the timeline goes. And he was asked quite a bit about the salary cap space and talked about well there's ways to create salary cap space but man we've heard that story over and over and over again and when you're talking about you having to extend and having to void year and whatever your way there well there's 15 other teams in the league that have $50 million free already to spend,

you're at a pretty big competitive disadvantage. And it was a lot of the stuff that we've heard many times from them of sort of like, well, look, we've got the answers, guys. And we heard that from Spielman back in the day. Oh, you guys don't understand. We've got all these answers. But I didn't think that we got any concrete answers to almost anything which leaves you with almost anything could happen there wasn't really an indication of yeah we know we're going to have

to step back here but there was well we're going to have to separate how much we love some of these players versus maybe what they can bring in the future which is a you know wink wink nod nod yeah we're going to get rid of some of these old guys. And, uh, as far as other answers to how you rebuild the defense, the draft class, all those, they all sort of left you not feeling like you really understood where they stand. Um, Kwesi Adafo-Mentz has said the expectation is that Kirk Cousins will be our quarterback next year, but did not say Kirk is absolutely our quarterback franchise guy sign him up for life tattoo kirk's name on my body like there was none of that it was a one sentence expectation is kirk is our quarterback next year like okay and even with justin jefferson

it was well we've had some initial dialogue with his agent and there was nothing really more that could be expanded upon. As in, is there a timeline for an extension with Justin Jefferson? Does he want that extension right now? Does he also want to be a Viking for life? And so I think that I left with just as many questions and almost no real answers for how this team views itself. And I think that maybe the best you could do is that if we're talking about whether they're going to really start rebuilding stuff, like really, really, really rebuilding,

when they talk about, oh, well, championship, championship, championship, I just didn't get a sense. And I could be wrong because these things are harder to read with these guys than they were with Mike and Rick I just didn't get the sense that they look at it as oh yeah like there's going to be major changes and things are going to look very different in the future it just didn't come across that way I don't know if you got a different impression no it didn't come across that way to me either and it would be surprising if it did I think the facts are this was a 13-win football team. It did not necessarily perform like a 13-win football team if you look at kind of the peripheral and the

advanced stats and what they did on a play-to-play basis. But this was a 13-win football team. They won the division. They hosted a playoff game. I just think you heard so much. You just mentioned this. They talked about the next step is getting to a championship standard, and everything they do is going to be about getting a championship standard. And Kweisi said, we don't want to feel this feeling this early ever again, which good luck with that. You're not getting to the divisional round every single year unless you find a Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen-type quarterback.

But everything they said said I would be surprised if this was suddenly going to be a big pivot into some sort of actual rebuild where like I just I just think we're in for another offseason of kind of straddle in the middle and being in limbo a little bit and making decisions that are going to kind of keep one hand in both buckets and and like it's obvious that just from a financial standpoint they have to get rid of some expensive veterans like there are going to be some big name long tenured vikings players who are not going to be on the team next year because that's the reality of the financial situation adam thielen and harrison smith have 19 million cap hits next year adam thielen especially but har but Harrison Smith as well. They're not worth that at this point. They just didn't produce at that level last year.

That's just a fact. So those are going to be conversations. Dalvin Cook, Eric Kendricks. There are a lot of guys where some of those guys might be back, whether it's extension, restructure, whatever that creates kind of immediate space but some of them aren't going to be back because you just can't kind of hold on to the remnants of a previous era forever you have to usher in this new kind of generation and that's where it's interesting because you would like to have seen from their perspective more evidence of this next wave And due to maybe some questionable draft decisions and just some bad luck with injuries, you didn't really see that. And he was asked, can you count on Lewis Seen who's coming off a compound leg fracture? Can you count on a Caleb

Evans who had three concussions this year? And that's where it gets tricky because you just haven't seen them like Brian Asamoah got some good reps late in the season there there are some pieces like that but you didn't see that much and they're going into this draft where they're going to only have like five picks and so they might need to create some more that way they traded the second for for Hawkinson and it's just it's going to be another kind of fascinating offseason to see what transpires and do they do whatever they can after they clear salary cap space to another kind of fascinating offseason to see what transpires and do they do whatever they can after they clear salary cap space to just kind of load up and go for it again and I

I think if Kirk Cousins and Justin Jefferson and TJ Hawkinson and all these people are around that's what they're going to do but is it going to be good enough and that's kind of the age-old question the ongoing question is it going to be good enough to And that's kind of the age-old question, the ongoing question. Is it going to be good enough to where it's worth it to keep kind of being this middling team that maybe could play at a very similar level next year and go 10-7 or 9-8 even because you're not going to go 11-0 in one score game. So, yeah, I'm very curious to see what the approach is and curious to see as well who's going to be calling the defensive plays next year. But that's a slightly different conversation.

Yeah. So as we record this, there was a non-answer about the defensive coordinator. We assumed that there would be. Usually teams don't come to their end-of-year press conference and announce coaches are fired. They love to do it in the much more gutsy way of leaking it to Ian Rappaport. But that's neither here nor there. We'll see what happens with Ed Donatel. But what was your response to the Kirk Cousins answer?

The expectation is that he'll be our quarterback next year. And there was almost nothing else said about Kirk except for, you know, Kevin O'Connell praised his play and said he was good and everything else. And everyone knows that. But just the Kweisi answer on Cousins, your thoughts? Yeah, I just didn't get a lot. I think I've heard him say that exact line like four or five times last offseason when we were in kind of the similar. I mean, he hadn't had a season yet.

So it was Kweisi's first few times talking to us. And he just said, yeah, expectation is Kirk Cousins will be our quarterback. And then he was, and they extended him. And I think that worked out in the sense that Kirk took some strides and after kind of a slow start in this offense, did some different things under Kevin O'Connell and was really good late in games, really tough, really durable. You know you're going to get that.

But so, yeah, it's just you're kind of back at square one like we're back where we were last year he's under contract for one more year maybe they'll are they just gonna keep doing like one year extension like at some point you might have to make a decision i i don't know i didn't really get much out of out of that answer my expectation as is quases apparently is that kirk cousins will be the vikings quarterback next year but it wouldn't shock me if one of these years he goes in as in it's and it's a contract year and i don't know how they want to manage that because then then you risk losing an asset for for nothing at the end of the year but i don't know if they're gonna trade it there's just there's so many possibilities but i think he'll be the quarterback this year.

Is that something that you want, is a lame duck quarterback? I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think so either. But do you want to extend him for four more years and commit yourself to that either? I don't know. People are going to get tired of me saying this,

and I could just be completely off base here, but I don't know why if you're from Kirk Cousins side, you're okay with playing on a one year extension beyond this. And every year it's year to year when you just did what you did. And you could take all those words from Kevin O'Connell that he said, and just be like, well, if this is how you feel about me, why is it that we're doing year to year i understood why you wanted to do a short extension when you guys were new but now you know me and i want a bunch of games for you right so if i'm on his side i'm saying i'm either playing this out and um you know look i'm not taking as many hits as i did last year right i mean he gave it his all this year he gave as much as he had but if i'm him next year uh i'm throwing it before anybody gets there and hits me i'm just like just the reality that's why you don't want guys playing on that type of deal you want them to be happy with where they are and

give everything they've got but it's just natural to try to protect your neck a little bit more when you know you're on a on a one-year uh contract being. So maybe he does. Maybe they put cash on the table and he just says, okay, that's going to work for me. But I don't know. To me, this suddenly swung to the other side of things where the leverage went from on the team side where they were like, we could trade you if we want to, to all the way back to his, especially knowing the market for quarterbacks. So when he says my expectation is he's the quarterback, to me that leaves the door open for we're not really 100% sure even how Kirk is going to feel about signing an extension with this team. Yeah, no, I agree. Kirk Cousins, the evidence was there that he played well.

I think the wins are the big thing you can point to because that's not something he had previously. He was always straddling around being 500, and I think he went like 10-5 in 2019, and that was kind of his best season in terms of team wins. And now you come on, you win 13 games, and you take all the hits that he did and play as well as he did and kind of overcome some of the offensive line things

and just an abysmal defense that was on the opposite side which does not make it easy on an offense at all and and yeah you could you could say that like he has the leverage here so it's it is a really really interesting spot that the Vikings are in because I think Kirk Cousins played well enough this year that you could say all right he's our quarterback like let's let's move forward with him as our quarterback for the next three four years and and the pairing with jefferson has been so successful and let's continue to try to put an interior offensive line in front of him because we know we have the offensive tackles let's let's try to get another um receiver that

can stretch the field because i don't i don't think adam thielen's gonna be here next year just being honest and and you've got osborne and some other guys. You've got TJ Hawkinson as well. You have the two kind of key pass-catching pieces right there in addition to the tackles, but it all costs a lot of money. And Kirk Cousins costs a lot of money, and there's no indication or there's no reason why he's suddenly going to start costing less because he is going to maximize his earnings like any NFL player should. And Justin Jefferson is going to cost a lot of money. And he still has kind of the one more year on the rookie contract and the fifth year option and the ways you can kind of maybe backload things. But that's going to start taking up a big chunk of your salary cap. TJ Hawkinson,

if you're going to extend him, he has an argument as like the second or third best tight end in the league. He's going to want to make a lot of money. He's young, too. He just played extremely well for you over the final 10 games of the season or whatever it was. Christian Derrissaw, this is a few years down the line. It's going to cost a lot of money. Brian O'Neill already cost a lot of money. How do you afford all of this and also start to rebuild your defense and bring in the free agents that you probably need at basically every level of the defense and so that's why i think the the reality is a lot of

the expensive veterans just can't be around anymore from a math equation perspective and and quacey knows that and he's not going to come out and say name any names or say anything concrete at a press conference like this but yeah it, it is all just the pieces and everything are really fascinating. That's why I'm sad we're not talking about a divisional round game, but it is always fun to kind of dive into the offseason stuff. Folks, maybe you've noticed people in your office with what looks like an open tall boy at their desk in the morning at work. Well, it's not a beer.

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and their water and their sparkling lime are both delicious, and maybe I'll have to start pounding them in front of my friends who know I'm not a drinker just to see their reaction. So go get Liquid Death at your local Target, Whole Foods Market, or Hy-Vee, or find a Liquid Death retailer near you with their store locator tool at liquiddeath.com slash insider. That's liquiddeath.com slash insider. And I have a follow-up on what you just said regarding the age of the players and something that Quasey said, but I have to take a little bit of a detour and talk about something that is very awkward for me. I don't really like diving into this, but Adam Thielen's wife posting on Instagram that he might want something else with more opportunities after ranking in the top 30 and targets, by the way, in the league is notable. I mean, because I think I would have bet a lot that Thielen was going to be back next year, looking at his contract.

It's not super beneficial for them in terms of dead cap versus how much cap space you create. The trade market will not be high for a 30 plus year old guy who averages 10 yards per catch. Um, there's a lot of receivers in the league who, if you put them in the right spots, give a man coverage all the time are going to average 10 yards of catch and in a pass happy offense, catch a lot of balls. Um, but I mean, was that a trade demand that was that like an inadvertent trade demand or like, cause that's the way it looks. That's the way it looks is posting that on Instagram is basically like a goodbye, Minnesota.

I'm tired of Justin Jefferson getting all the targets that just looks that way. And I don't want to say that and say that his wife speaks for him. And I'm sure that my wife would overly defend me and everything I do and you know, so forth. And so I don't want to like speak for him just because his spouse wanted to see him get the football more often. It was kind of like the Tom Brady, was it Wes Welker, Julian Edelman or somebody, one of those, uh, that dropped the ball in the super bowl. And she was on video, like yelling about it. It's like, well, you're always going to defend your person. So I get that.

And I'm sure that she wanted to see him get the football more often and get a chance to star in some of those big moments that he didn't. But also if it's a window into his feeling about being second fiddle, uh, then, I mean, that could be interesting where you're talking about like have having to move on from him because he's just not going to be happy with this situation anymore.

Yeah, it is an interesting thing. I was kind of trying not to read too much into that because of what you said, where it's like the season just ended. There's a lot of emotions. You're always going to defend your spouse and various things. I don't think there's really any grounds for Thielen to stand on, to be like, oh, I should have had more yards and targets. Like, he just kind of is what he is at this point. He's a possession receiver. He can get open a little bit on certain routes and against certain coverages, and he has great hands.

And he just, like, I mean, he hasn't had a 100-yard game since the middle of 2021. He only has one in the last two seasons. He's just not the player he was when he was in his prime in 17 and 18. The reality is you're playing with the best rider-server on the planet. He's going to be the focal point. TJ Hawkinson comes in. He's a better pass catcher than Adam Thielen is too.

K.J. Osborne even was kind of at a similar level to Thielen. So, yeah, I think the contract stuff, there are other big veteran contracts that are more straightforward where you cut this guy, you save a lot of cap space, there isn't that much dead money. The Thielen thing, there is a lot of dead money involved, but sometimes you just got to kind of pay that price. And there's a few guys you could do as like, you could designate as a post june 1st and then you spread the dead money over two years or something like that there's just all of these these salary cap decisions are going to be interesting and they're going to be coming soon because you got to clear some space before you can start adding so quacey was asked about having very few picks in the draft and if i want to be just the worst and i try not to be i try to limit but i

also have this urge to always do that yeah and everyone who listens to the show knows like don't say it don't say and i said it whoops uh but like if you traded last off season several of the guys where there were offers on the table i'm not even saying hunter because he's really good, but Thielen, Harrison Smith, Eric Hendricks, look at the production from the players that they could have had trade offers for. I'm not saying robust trade offers, but just trade offers and how different the results would have been versus how different the draft capital going into this year would have been. I have a tough time thinking that Smith, Hendricks, and Thielen had production that was irreplaceable.

I mean, just on paper, it wasn't. And, you know, experience, culture-wise and everything else, veterans, locker room, I buy into value for those guys. But pure production versus having several more draft picks, I mean, it's kind of something we talked about last year where that's the math that has to be done, and it's kind of got to be done again, only now the trade value of those guys has sunk.

I mean, at the time, you could have argued that those guys were pretty valuable. Now it's like, who's giving more than a fifth-round pick for a 32-year-old wide receiver? And also, so when Quasey was asked about having few picks, he said, we talked about that in our plans. It was a two year horizon. So last year, our class, I think was bigger than normally we would have expected. And I think we've got a lot of young, good contributing players out

there. So I don't think we necessarily have to, when you look at the ages of a lot of the guys, the sort of the backend of our our roster we've got a lot of good young talented players so i don't see that as a limitation to us now i just i just can't help but say like how what do you how who what like who like what do you who are you talking about josh metellus like i like really whom are you talking about when you say it's not a limitation to have draft picks like this? Yeah, that was an interesting answer. And they drafted 10 players last year, and they currently have four picks this year.

And you can create more various ways. I think they're going to get a fifth because I think they're going to get a compensatory pick for like Tyler Conklin or somebody. So they might have five selections this year but that that that basically says to me your late round draft picks this year are like the guys who we drafted last year like ty chandler and asezi otomowo and vidarian low jaylen nailer because they're just not going to be able to bring in that many guys maybe they maybe they'll do better in the undrafted free agent market. But, yeah, I just – it is going to be in a lot of ways. Next year will be like the rookie season for the vast majority of the rookies who were rookies this year.

Like next year will essentially be Louis Scene's rookie season, and hopefully everything is – he's back to kind of who he was before the leg injury. And it will be Andrew Booth's rookie season because he was really bad when we saw him and then he got hurt, which maybe you could have seen coming since he hasn't been healthy since high school in his own words. Ed Ingram played every snap, so now he has a big kind of actual year two. But Brian Asamoah, it'll kind of be his rookie season and Caleb Evans and all these different guys.

So that will kind of help make up for the lack of the the draft picks this year but then there's this hole because normally you would expect your rookies next year to be the rookies you just drafted and the guys you had the previous year to start taking leaps and start kind of becoming these important contributors and you're just missing that like second, third, fourth year like generation of talent. And it doesn't help that the previous regime had four third round picks in 2021 and drafted like Chaz Surratt, who I don't know if he's probably on a practice squad somewhere. And Wyatt Davis and Patrick Jones is just kind of looks like a guy. And Kellen Mond,

like three of those guys are probably on practice squad. So that just doesn't help with kind of filling in that area of your roster and where it should be. But yeah, I mean, if we put a lie detector test on Kweisi and ask him to say that sentence again, like we got a lot of good young talent. I think it's, he's failing that test because I'm just looking at the roster and I'm like who do you mean like James Lynch like he just traded a sixth for Ross Blacklock and then he was inactive the last eight games of the season without being hurt like you know who's a good young player on this team Ryan Wright he had a he had a good he had a great season as a punter but that's not gonna make a huge difference and so it's Christian Derusaw and it's Justin Jefferson. And then it's, I don't know, you're hoping that some guys take big strides next year

or that you go 4-4-4 and 5-5 in the draft. That's what it's going to take to kind of start to fill in the back end of this roster. Well, and when you look at, too, because we referenced the special teams for why they have these good players that are up and coming, but not many of them are very young or some of them will be gone. Like Troy die. For example, never developed as a linebacker.

DJ Wanham is who we thought he was when it comes to being a pass rush. Got crushed, crushed by Isaiah Hodgins on the first Saquon Barkley touchdown, by the way, total non-impact play. Can't set an edge. Just the guy. Let's see.

Like only Udo, not a future starter. I'm just looking at guys who are like 25 or who played some role blake brandle swing tackle irv smith won't be here kenny wong woo it's very clear that they don't have any interest in using him offensively jalen rager is not a wide receiver it seems i think patrick jones might have some potential yeah um so there's that uh let's see. Madison won't be here. Josh Metellus is a good special teamer, but there's not much more. Starting running back Ty Chandler?

Could be, right? Could be. I think that's my rate. Might almost have to. Like, if you're looking for an area to save money, let some team, like, maybe trade Dalvin Cook. Let some team talk themselves into his big name and his previous production and hope they don't look at the rush yards over expectation statistic and do that. Because Alexander Madison is probably going to get a decent deal somewhere else.

So then I think you can survive if Ty Chandler develops a little bit. You can survive with that being a position where you don't really spend any money. Cam Dantzler lost his job to Duke Shelley.y so that's not really it's not ideal ezra cleveland uh i think it's just it is what it is with ezra cleveland like we've reached the point of he's been doing this long enough at guard to know that he's gonna have some really good weeks and he is one heck of an athlete but there are some major downsides to his game and he's gonna going to allow a ton of pressure, and that's just who he is. Cam Bynum, I thought, for a first-year guy trying to play safety, was fine, but there's no upside.

Like, this was not a high draft pick player. This is not a freak athlete. This is not somebody you would project to be, like, way better in the future. He's kind of just a replacement level starting safety. And we saw that throughout this whole season. Good dude, but just too often was not in the right positions and was a pretty big reason. Not nearly the only reason.

There were a lot of reasons. Very few people on this defense can say that they did their job at a really high level all year, but Kambinem did not. So Asasia Tomolo and Jalen Naylor, I liked the tiny, tiny samples, but those are not people you write in to be starters in the future. And then Ed Ingram and Brian Asamoah, I would say I really liked what I saw from Asamoah, and Ingram was way in over his head this year,

should not have been the starter. They probably should have just played Chris Reed or Jesse Davis in hindsight and tried to get below average play instead of horrendous play. So we don't really know what's going to happen at right guard there in the future with him. He'll start, but like, is he going to be better or not?

Because every year we talk ourselves into that, like, Oh, Bradbury. And then Bradbury was finally better just in time to hit free agency, which so often happens. mean asimo is a starting linebacker he has to be just that based on you have so few young players who have flashed in the way that he has and man jordan hicks and eric kendricks were running in molasses in that playoff

game right and so the point is like out of all of the players that we named that are under the age of 25, we came up with one significant starter that we think we're pretty high on as far as like replacing the guy that's leaving. Yeah. And the rest, a lot of shrugs. So you're telling me that last year's draft makes up for a lack of draft picks this year, but I don't see it. I don't see see it what you mean jaylen nailer is going to replace adam thielen like maybe but unlikely right um so you need about six positions with one first round draft pick and no second round no second round draft pick i i mean that's a pretty that's a pretty hard argument to make i think for quacey and i i mean i don't know that and this is not a criticism of his answer because i don't know how it would be said differently other than like oh guys it's a problem i mean right i mean yeah we are screwed did you guys see vidarian low huh right i mean just that yeah there's nothing you can really say there but i think that when you go through it

like that and then read the answer like i don't i don't really see it and uh so i i guess i really think that it probably comes down to one of the things kevin o'connell says all the time is we have to be honest with ourselves will they be honest with themselves are you asking me i'm asking you or is it a rhetorical question for all the listeners out there? It's like one of those that leaves the audience thinking. Yeah, that's good. But you can answer.

I will answer. No, they probably aren't going to be that honest with themselves. I mean, I think they will in some regards. And I do think, as of recording this, Ed Donatel is still the defensive coordinator. I think that the odds are greater that he that will not be the case then it's a better than 50 chance just because i don't i don't know how you rationalize the coaching performance that you saw this year and yes it was personnel as well but just the complete lack of adjustments and the the the whole thing where everyone says the definition

of insanity doing the same thing over and over. Like, that's what they were doing. They were doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And, I mean, it was just pretty incredible that he offered up the, this is our time to shine, baby, playoff football. I think you're going to like the way we play. And then had one of the worst performances all season.

Like, it is so ridiculous that they had this happen to them twice against the Giants. I was looking at Daniel Jones' passing stats, and I'm going off topic here, but he threw for over 300 yards three times this season. Two of them were against the Vikings. His next highest passing performance was 228. He was held below 200 passing yards 10 times this season. He wasn't a good passer all year, and then maybe got a little better throughout the year. But then he played the Vikings twice, and he looked like freaking Josh Allen.

So I don't know how you can keep a Donatello, even if you try to say there was a lot of personnel stuff was involved too. So I think they'll be honest with themselves about some things but yeah if they were really really honest with themselves i think there's an argument to be made that they should lean more into the rebuild side of it and try to just kind of build from the ground up and have a more i don't know it's it's tough because then i can counter that easily as well and say if you do that well justin jefferson's gone and now you, you fumbled that and you lost one of the best receivers ever. And so that's not, you don't want that to happen either. Like that, that's a whole part of the equation as well. And in fairness, the salary cap, it looks rough right now, but once they sort of cut off some of the,

the dead weight, that's kind of a rude term to use, not dead weight, but some of the, some of the pieces that you can't really keep around, you start to trim that up a little bit. It doesn't look as bad when you look into like 2024 or 2025. They don't have as much kind of on the books right now. And now you're going to have some extensions soon that will fill those in. But I think it's a semi-manageable long-term salary cap situation. So that to me is why it's interesting because I can make a case to kind of go either way. I was just looking at the answer when Kevin O'Connell was asked

about the defensive side of things. And I'm sorry if this is taking us off topic from your answer about being honest with themselves, but, uh, but it's related. He says, statistically the standard we fell below that we hoped to be. That's how Kevin O'Connell talks, by the way. Yeah.

Uh, both schematically and our performance on the field. So I think it's very, very important. We look at it from a standpoint of the why, why did it happen? What were the contributing factors that were both in our control and out of our control i don't know what was out of their control for the defense i i don't

know what that could be they had no bad luck this year on defense um with health like if you said oh we got a bunch of guys hurt well that's totally fair but that's not what happened and it says we need to make sure that we're facing it head-on from an accountability standpoint well if they keep donatelle that won't be facing it head on from an accountability standpoint but these word salads are very like difficult to try to figure out what is actually going on here because he mentions schematically and they're looking at it as the why well we've all got the why it's both you don't finish 31st and yards without both bad players and bad scheme like it really has to come together uh it was almost magical to be that bad as you mentioned like against

Daniel Jones so there is this like there's this we got to be honest with ourselves and we got to look at everything and everyone's got to be accountable but then there's not the feeling that anyone was accountable this year and I don't know that that means fire at Donatello, but there was never even commentary of just like, this is not good enough. It was sort of like, well, you know, we're pretty happy with a few interceptions at the end of the games and things like that. Like, I don't know, do I want him to come to the podium, like Zimmer and roast somebody? Probably not. But where was who got benched? Like I guess Cam Dantzler, but he was also hurt toward the end of the year as well. I mean, who, who got benched? Who got fired? Who had the responsibilities taken away? Who had to pay for you being horrible all

year? Anyone like, so, I mean, yes, when they fired Donatello, which I'm sure they might, by the time you listen to this podcast, I guess that's it. And I guess the players that they change out are it. But if you're going to be honest with yourself, you also have to do it on the fly in the season to not have it cost you your year. And maybe the lack of that accountability was part of the reason that they ended up where they were. So am I confident that they'll be honest with themselves? Not really, because I'm not sure they ever have been since they got here yeah that's the most i think maddening thing is that like you could have fired ed donatel you could have read

the tea leaves and fired him mid-season and gotten somebody else the keys to call in the defense or i mean you're probably not bringing somebody else in from the outside. Probably Mike Patton. Mike Patton. Yeah, it would probably have been the guy. And maybe you say, all right, if we keep playing like this, our season's going to end in the first round. This way we're operating defensively, there's no upside to it. And it's not like players are going to grow into their roles and suddenly start performing it better. No, you're not passing off simple responsibilities on the back end you're giving up acres and acres of space on simple crossing routes you're not setting edges against the run like it just all these all these basic things so they could have obviously it's easy to say in hindsight but they could have done something like that and made some sort of significant changes and they adjusted a little bit and they

played a little bit more man coverage and brought a little bit more pressure but it wasn't nearly enough they didn't they weren't comfortable making a big switch and changing things up and maybe if they had done that they would have given themselves a better chance to to beat the Giants so that that to me is it feels like a missed opportunity in a lot of ways when Kirk Cousins played as well as he did you got a all-time season from Justin Jefferson and he had a lot of ways when Kirk Cousins played as well as he did. You got an all-time season from Justin Jefferson, and he had a lot of good things happening, but the defense was just such a kind of weight dragging everything else down. And you're right.

There has to be accountability for that. There has to be change made. And hearing from Kevin O'Connell, he's not going to say a whole lot, and it's a lot of rambling, but you could tell kind of throughout the season he was annoyed by the defense and he he was not he was not happy he was not satisfied with anything that was happening there so i think there will be change it's a question of how soon and and how much but there this defense is not going to look the same next year there's just no way and i know everything is easier said than done, but nothing really was done. I mean,

they clearly increased the blitzing in the second half. I mapped that out, charted it. Um, and that was really it though, because my thing was, and I know it's more intricate than everybody thing, whatever the same routes were open in the same passes all season long. I think that's the biggest thing is that in that game against the giants, it was the same routes were open in the same passes all season long. I think that's the biggest thing is that in that game against the giants, it was the same routes. It was like, how did you not resolve this? I remember one time in 2018 where they got roasted in Los Angeles.

Yeah. And it was this leak route. That was kind of the problem is Cooper cup, huge play. And it was something that teams had just kind of started doing one of those McVay genius things. And so that's where the guy kind of pretends he's going underneath and then just takes off and it's a it's a really like cool thing when you see it happen and uh after that every team tried it against the vikings and no one succeeded with it the rest of

the year and i know that's players but i also know that where Zimmer was very, very strong. And I think we can use him as the standard to have this conversation a little bit because he was a tremendous defensive mind that his adjustments on defense were always happening. And even last year where you could criticize some of them, at least they were happening. Like they started getting super aggressive blitzing all the time when that was never Mike Zimmer's thing because he knew that was the only way to get pressure. And they had 50 sacks or something last year because he knew it was going to have to be boom or bust on the defense. This defense just kept doing the same things. And there was no accountability that we could put our hands on at all. And look, if they had benched Jordan Hicks for Brian Asamoah, maybe that's some accountability. But they didn't do that either. So I don't really know how to expect that they're going to make, I mean, Donatello we'll see, but like the, the changes that they need to make when they're hard.

I don't know. Like, can, can these guys be ruthless? I'm not sure that they have shown that yet. Uh, but I want to ask you this as we wrap this up since we just got done talking to them um what would you grade quacey and kevin o'connell for their first years as head coach and gm it's a good question i think i would give quacey a b and i don't know i don't know if that that feels high or if that feels low I'll go with a B because I think he came in and him in just in general along with Kevin they did some good

things to kind of fix what had kind of soured in the building and I guess a lot of that is more on Kevin's side but Kwesi deserves credit for that as well and and the staff he assembled and things like that the draft did not go well and there's some stuff that was unlucky with injuries there's some stuff from a process standpoint that you can really question because you were sitting with the 12th overall pick which if you plan to be a good team like they were this year, they won a lot of games, you don't get the 12th overall pick that often. So they could have sat right there and taken somebody like Kyle Hamilton, who had a really good year with the Baltimore Ravens. They could have taken somebody like Jameson Williams, who was the whole injury thing, but showed some flashes, caught his only pass and only touchdown of the season against the Vikings. He's going to be

really fast and he looks like he's going to be good if he can stay healthy. You could have sat there and taken Jordan Davis or just any number of people at that point. To trade back that far, I don't know. There's questions with the process of that. Coming out of the draft, I thought he ended up doing an okay job because they managed to get seen, and then they moved back up and get Booth. And he made so many trades, and I think the value of it, it all looked pretty good on paper.

It didn't really work out from a year one standpoint. The free agency stuff, I think you get Patrick Peterson back, and that worked extremely well. I think Harrison Phillips was a nice addition. Jordan Hicks, eh, I don't know. Oh, you know. Yeah, well, it wasn't great. We respect Jordan Hicks, but you know. It wasn't great. It wasn't great.

Harrison Phillips is another one, by the way, where you're like, was that necessary? I like Harrison Phillips a lot. I think he's a good player. Kyrus Tonga did the same thing for them. Yeah, that's a good point. And I think Dalvin Tomlinson is not going to be back next year because he's a free agent. I think Kyrus Tonga can be somewhat similar. I don't think it would have been a B without the TJ Hawkinson trade. Because that was one of the best moves any team made in season. I think Christian McCaffrey with the 49ers is up there.

But that worked out extremely well. The cost you paid was reasonable for a young, extremely, extremely good player who just looks like the best tight end the Vikings have had since Steve Jordan. He's just a very, very talented player who is going to be, I think, a big piece of this offense for a long time. So I think there's a long answer. I think that's what gets him to a B. I'll give Kevin an A-. I think it's hard to come in as a first-year head

coach and go 13-4 and do everything that you did to, like, when you talk to players and they talk about, like, we're loving coming into work every day, that's not just, like, some BS answer. Like, there was some real truth to that and kind of the leadership of O'Connell and the coaching and so I'm going to hold him to a higher standard next season and in the future because this is what they've done so far but I think for a year one to come in and win 13 games and and kind of set the foundation that they set um I'll give him an A- for that uh the quacey one is hard for me because i think we have to try to parse out what was in his control so was it is was it in his control when i mentioned bringing back certain guys that had trade value but they weren't traded did he want to trade them and was told not to

trade them for example and i think there's a very realistic possibility that that was the case. And so I don't think that bringing back, well, and Mark Wolf told us, I asked him before the season, like about his control of the overall direction. And he said, well, he had a huge hand in it. So he was honest about that. And I appreciate that. And so that to me takes a little bit of well hey this veteran didn't work out that veteran didn't work out that you were already uh inheriting well that's not really quasey's fault so when i

say that they didn't trade those guys and could have and now it would look different that's more of just hindsight but also like not a critique of the gm who was pretty much forced to keep them i think that um kirk cousins contract extension was as good as they could do, considering that also the owners seemed to want to keep Cousins and run this back with a coach that actually liked him. And I get that. And I think they've signed the extension

that was least constricting to their future, but it also pushed the decision once again to now. But at least they could give themselves a year and whatever. And if had i don't know if they had drafted malik willis they would have lost every game or whatever i don't know i don't know like whatever i get why they did that and that fit with their overall ideal for the direction so that's another thing that they were in control of how long they wanted to lock themselves in and they chose shorter which i think was a good move uh you went over the draft. There's no argument that it was good. There's just no, out of 32 teams, it might be 32nd. Just the reality of how they perform this year. We'll see how it goes in the

future. That's an incomplete, but I think we've already got enough evidence to say that that wasn't great. Drafting can also be pretty weird and random, but it hasn't worked out. The process was pretty questionable, as you mentioned. So there's some demerits there. As far as picking veteran players to fill out your roster because you were forced to. Okay. I just don't understand why the guard position was not valuable. You could have asked any one of us in the media room. Knock, knock.

Do you think we need better guards? Maybe a veteran? Yes. Anyone, any Vikings fan go to Hopkins, Minnesota, knock on an old lady's door and say, ma'am, Margaret, what do you think of our right guard situation? Should we fill it with a rookie? No, get a veteran player to protect Kirk Cousins. My gosh.

So there were some clear things that maybe didn't understand the impact. There were some naive things. I think with the draft that it was a little galaxy brain, a little, we got to trade down no matter what. So I guess I would say it's probably, probably a B minus for me or a C plus. Okay.

And now the real challenge begins. But a lot of this though, and it just should continue to be said, was caused by the Spielman era. So where you are right now is so much caused by that. And you kicked it down the road a little more, but it's all the same bad drafts, bad contract decisions and so forth that put them in this position. As far as O'connell goes that one's hard for me too because it's like 13 wins you just can't tell a coach who had 13 wins regardless of

point differential or anything else that you did anything less than a great job uh but what we talked about with the defense now that you wear the head coach hat you get both you don't get to just be the offense guy we're gonna hold the same standard as Zimmer and if Zimmer had a horrible offense and a great defense we criticize the heck out of him so I think he deserves the same critique like that it's all yours it's all yours you can't just point to Donatello because you're the guy who is in control of the whole organization so I guess I go a B i think the culture stuff was tremendous for everybody it also helped that they won a lot um you know i i think that he's a smart offensive mind that maybe overthinks it sometimes um the third and short stuff i think is one area where he will

really self-reflect and be like well first of all we don't need to do a freaking like throwback pass to kurt cousins because what are you what are you even doing there but just there was a little bit too much of getting cute on third and short and i think i think with the success he showed in in the low red zone like that that's a reason for optimism that he will figure out kind of the third and short stuff so yeah there was that i think the like from a game management perspective like timeouts and stuff it wasn't necessarily really good or really bad i think he was i think he was fine at it which shows that there's probably room to become good at it or or maybe there's room to fall off and be worse but yeah i the reason i gave kevin an a minus is because of like the year one as a

head coach thing is tough. Like even if there was already some talent on this roster, which there was, to come in and take a team that won eight games and win 13 games, it's hard for me to give anything less than an A-. Now, next year, the standard gets higher because this is year two of your tenure as the head coach and the guy who runs everything. And so if you don't make some really tough decisions, those tough but necessary decisions, especially on the defensive side of the ball,

and they come out and the defense isn't good next year, that's on you. I agree. And your grade will be lower next year. But that's what's going to be hard is to grade them next year when the landscape is different. I mean, everything is going to be different with this team but i agree that on the defensive side somehow they have to show progress so i i would give it a b only because of that that you have to own both sides you have to own how it ended we can't put that aside that you know a side of the ball that you never fixed in any way was its worst in the biggest moment.

And the defense or I'm sorry, the offense had enough failures and enough little goofy play calls, a couple of screens at a weird time, you know, things like that, that you get, you get some demerits for that. That doesn't mean that like, I think they found their coach. I really do. I, I do wonder though, about like the play calling and being the head coach and how hard that is. That's very hard. And I, it has to be better next year.

I think the game management was very average, if not below average at times. Sometimes, you know, sometimes they'd have a fourth and one and throw a 20 yard pass, you know, like there was little moments like that. Sometimes against new Orleans or against green Bay, you're kicking a 20 yard field goal. And you're like, I don't like that sometimes against new orleans or against

green bay you're kicking a 20-yard field goal and you're like i don't know like what's really happening here so there's experience to be had for him and i think he can improve that grade but you know some other guys nate hackett or something or matt patricia you just like an f immediately and this is over so i think they found their coach i think they have the right human being to lead their organization. But there's improvements to be made for sure and it's going to be hard to judge them because I think the roster is going to be

in a transitional period. Yeah. No, it's a good point on being a head coach and all that goes into that, managing all these different things and then calling all the offensive plays. I don't know if people have an understanding for how like difficult and and kind of time intensive and stressful and and

everything that that takes so maybe there's a world where west phillips calls plays at some point but probably not because when you're yeah probably not when you're an offensive guru an offensive mind like you take a lot of pride in that and and being in control of it so you're right that's probably not going to happen but they they need to find ways to be more consistent offensively because so many times we saw all year i mean it happened it was perfect it happened in the playoff game they got the ball first they marched down it was beautiful justin jefferson was involved they scored a touchdown and then they just like after the opening script they just they they're a step slow to make the necessary adjustments and

stay ahead of things and they would go in these lulls and teams would late in the season not not all season because he had 1800 yards but late in the season teams would would find ways to take jefferson away and they wouldn't really have counters for that to the extent that there are counters when you're double and tripling a guy. But, yeah, they need to find ways to be a little more consistent offensively on a drive-to-drive basis and then blow up the whole defense and do something new there. And, yeah, next season will be interesting. Very fascinating stuff.

This organization is in a challenging spot, but a spot that gives them a ton of options for us to talk about and discuss and see what they do so will thank you for your contributions all year long for the game breakdowns i'm sorry we didn't have one now and that we weren't headed out to san francisco to talk about that game and break down how nick bosa was gonna sack kirk 50 times and so forth i think the consolation foration for Vikings fans is if you're realistic with yourself, you knew what would happen in that game. I mean, if the Giants got all those yards off crossing routes,

yeah, there could have been some records set. So anyway, well, thank you for all the game breakdowns. They were great. We'll continue to talk through the offseason and analyze everything that comes our way and, of course, get to the fans only things. I want to do more of those podcasts during the week. It could be kind of challenging to get to them, but people have so many great questions.

So more of those coming. Brad Spielberger for PFF later in the week to break down their cap situation. And we are off and running on the offseason now, kind of officially like this is the last thing it's locker clean out. And then this, and then it kind of goes dark. We're not going to be back here at the, at TCO until draft maybe, or maybe free agency,

but no. Yeah. Well, when they signed someone, yeah, they like, they, we came here to talk to Zedarius last year or something like that,

but, and the combine as well. So, yeah, but we will be here breaking it all down. So thank you everyone for listening as always football, football.