Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Reacting to Kwesi Adofo-Mensah's competitive rebuild talk

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

Matthew Coller and Jonathan Harrison talk about the big-picture takeaways from the Vikings press conferences, including Justin Jefferson's perspective on a contract extension and whether Kwesi Adofo-Mensah seems confident in the team's competitive rebuild. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🎵 Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider and another Hot Routes here on a Tuesday night. Matthew Collar and Jonathan Harrison here with you and Vikings football officially back. We heard from the general manager the head coach the quarterback the only old man on defense outside of Jordan Hicks uh I guess Dean Lowry is also old so the oldest man on defense but also the best player on defense Harrison Smith talked and you know what there was a lot to discuss from the Vikings press conferences today and then tomorrow they will get on the field and the last time I checked on my phone it said it was going to be 94 degrees so pray for me uh out there do you think that this skin tone handles the sun and 94 degrees very well i'm gonna be spraying myself with sunscreen

about every 10 minutes it's not a good situation but uh maybe like going in the sauna i'll sweat out some of the summer weight of just eating meat and taco bell uh all summer long speaking of which we got a new sponsor to announce on the show a little later that does involve meat but uh that's not what everyone's here for here for football talk we've also got contract news around the nfl that we want to talk about as well so jonathan, there is a lot to discuss, but let me throw this your way first, because there were so many different topics that Kweisi Adolfo Mensah, Kevin O'Connell and so forth hit on today. What was the number one thing in your mind that was the biggest takeaway from today

with the Vikings brass? From watching it. Well, first off, if, if you're stuck out at training camp outside for the entire month, your face is going to blend in with those glasses, with how red your face will get with the sun, with the sunburn and everything. But the thing that stuck out to me is that there was definitely a coherent message from the brass about what the contract status is among everybody. It starts off with, we've had great dialogue and this is a great player that we want in this building. After that, they didn't tell you anything. So there was a whole lot of not anything being said with a whole

lot of words coming out of their mouths. So they did a very good job of staying on their verbal cues and on their message that they wanted to say. Other than that, Daniil Hunter, definitely from the way Kevin O'Connell phrased it, very much going to be the hold-in. We're going to see, I think, the Vikings' first hold-in, if I'm remembering correctly. Or am I misremembering how Dalvin Cook played out? But I'm fairly positive this will be the Vikings' first hold'll have to, we'll have to see how that plays out. Yeah, it was sort of a hold in from a Delvin cook. It wasn't a complete hold in, and I feel very silly talking about it this way, but Delvin barely practice did not do a whole lot of 11 on 11s, but he did do

individual drills that year and work on the side and stuff like that and it was fine and he had one of his best years and this is where i say well look uh this guy is going to be fine if he works out the contract in the last day and then has to play the next day if he doesn't do anything in training camp it'll be all right so there's no reason to panic with him. And I think that there was also, I mean, that, that, I think this will get resolved at some point. Uh, there is a date that, you know, Will Raggetts and I talked about on another podcast episode.

So go back and listen to that, where we kind of had our instant reactions. There is a date where you will say what the heck is going on, but I think that date is pretty late into the summer so it could be your daily or weekly we come back every tuesday night when we're going live and go well still nothing to tell you about daniel hunter this could take a while to work it out but i thought that that was part of the message is we're not going to have a press conference tomorrow to announce any of these deals but we we're talking with these guys, we're working on them. And I did think that the ongoing word with Justin Jefferson was, I don't want to say it's good or bad, but it was sort of notable,

like just saying to everyone, yeah, we're working on it. We want this done as much as you do and we'll see what happens. But even just last night when we talked Jonathan we projected that none of these things would be announced today and that it would play out through at least for Daniil Hunter throughout the summer and the other guys I think it's less clear but I think when everybody knows that the team wants to get it done that makes me a little more confident that it will. I mean, TJ Hawkinson, the way they talked about him was,

this is a guy that we want in our organization. I think when they traded for TJ Hawkinson, they weren't 100% sure, is this going to be a guy that we try to extend and so forth? But then the way that he played and the way that he fit in was much better than he's ever played for the Lions. Really, I mean, more consistent and really impressed right off the bat. So he looks like a guy that they want long term. It's just whether they can get this hammered out throughout the summer.

So I guess I would still put it as probably if someone was going to have a press conference in the next week, it would be Hawkinson seems like the easiest one to get done here hunter could go on for a while and we'll probably just wake up one day to oh they're trading him or oh they're signing him uh i think with brian o'neill we were at a press conference like just sitting there waiting for somebody else to come to the podium and they were like oh brian o'neill signed an extension this is happening So sometimes it just gets done and comes out of nowhere, and then it's out there and finished. So I think we left the press conferences today feeling like we really don't know and we're just kind of in wait and see mode.

You know, I thought the Daniil Hunter thing was an interesting approach that is kind of a counterpunch to something in the CBA that was just bad for players. I mean, to not have one thing that they can do to hold their team's feet to the fire or to put pressure on their team, which is the holdout to have that taken away from them. They needed to find some way to still kind of fight that battle. And I think what Daniel Hunter is doing is exactly that. I'm going to be here. I'm going to learn the defense. And if I got to play, I got to play, I guess that's where it would get really interesting is if it gets to the week of the first game, is Daniel Hunter actually

going to play or is he going to continue his hold in? I don't think that it ever makes it there at that point with him. So we'll see how that plays out. But that's, you're right to say that they were prepared for those questions and they had their answers of, I guess we're just working on it and we'll wait and see. But I do think that that was the biggest takeaway, is that they did not have the opening press conference, we're going to surprise you all and announce a contract extension. And last night as I was writing, I was doing a list of, and tell me if you agree with

this, doing a list of the most interesting Vikings in training camp. And I used Vikings instead of players because I ranked Kweisi Adafo Mensah number one as the most interesting in training camp. And a part of that was you know competitive rebuild and how this all reflects on his decision and there's some interesting things that he said about that and you know the three-year window and so forth and uh you know I guess I thought that you know combine the the contract stuff with this brand new team and him kind of saying, look, this was the plan all along. It puts a lot of pressure on Kweisi Adafo-Mensah. He may have more pressure on him throughout this summer and the next few weeks than anybody else on the entire team. I think,

you know, probably Jordan Addison is carrying a lot of the offense on his shoulders because if he emerges, he's going to be, you know, a key part of how good and what the ceiling can be. But I don't even know if the pressure on the first round pick is as high as the general manager and what some of his draft picks look like if Addison succeeds, if Louis seen succeeds and so forth. And then these big contracts that are still lingering. Yeah, absolutely. He, he, because of what he's kind of laid out and especially going back to some of his comments last year in the competitive rebuild and how this, how this off season in particular played out, he, there is a lot of interest in what he's put together. And yes, there was a lot of tearing down of that defense and moving on from

some of the older veterans, but there was a lot of bringing in young guys and kind of just throwing numbers at it to see what they have and if they can find some diamonds in the rough. And it'll be very interesting to see how that plays out because if this defense looks like 2013, they're in for a world of hurt. But if it looks like something a little bit better than that, if it looks like something a little bit better than what they had last year, then there's signs of improvement. There's signs of hope because this offense is already pretty good. We know that, especially with the pieces that they have. If you can get a defense that is just moderately good, if it's better than last year, then you're on and continuing to roll through that competitive rebuild and you don't have to completely tear it down on both sides of the ball like they did on the defense. So there's a lot of pressure on him for that fact, just because of what he's kind of hoped

to lay out over the next couple of years. It's also interesting and has been for the last two years of covering Kweisi Daffo-Mensa that he knows what we know about the analytics, and he even referenced it about trying to stay in the middle and then get to the top although i mean it's also interesting to hear him talk about that because they won 13 games last year and yet i think that he views it as what a lot of the numbers said they were last year like they made the playoffs lost in the first round that's not getting all that close to being in the Super Bowl ranking eighth in offense and 27th in defense I don't know of any recent team that made the Super Bowl

with eighth and offense and 27th defense I mean usually it's a top five offense if not top three offense that's making the Super Bowl and usually I looked at this last year what the bar is for defense and offense is definitely more important, but I think I only found one or two teams out of the last 10 years that gave up more than a 90 quarterback rating and more than 4,000 yards passing, although that's going to change with 17 games. But you get the point.

A lot of times, that Falcons 16 team was a little bit of the outlier there, but usually these teams who make it deep are great at both things. And so I think that he looks at that 13 win season and still says that team was not a legitimate Superbowl contender. He's not going to say that out loud even now, but understands that they were kind of a middling team masquerading as a great team last season and not overreacting to that is just a really important point to focus on but as you bring up and I think it's exactly right everything

is going to be a referendum on this decision I agree with the way that he's approached it but that doesn't mean that it can't look bad right I mean if Andrew Booth Jr. is hurt again, if Makai Blackman can't play, if they're having to sign some veteran free agents come in and play like Bashad Breeland once upon a time, if these rookies are not working out and it looks like it's a big old struggle, then we are going to say, hey, is this actually going in the direction that you want it to go, which is building this thing up through the draft. And that's not going to be decided by any means during this training camp, but we are monitoring it during this training camp

because you will have a good idea. And someone asked about 2020, and this is what's different from 2020. That training camp was so short and there was no preseason. We had no idea what to expect out of that secondary. And then it was a horror show. We will have an idea of a Caleb Evans, Mackay Blackman, Andrew Booth,

Jr. Lewis scene, Josh Metellus, who got a ton of praise from Harrison Smith today. And I plan on writing about that because they do have all these interesting pieces and some of them seem to be trending in the right direction. But if they are really trending in the right direction by the end of camp, it's going to reflect very well on the GM, especially if he gets some of these extensions

done. But the opposite side of that is that it might not. I mean, if it looks like it's a struggle, if they're having to sign some veterans because they're concerned about what's going on, if there isn't quick resolution to the Hunter situation, if there if the other situations with Hawkinson and Jefferson are left floating in the throughout this camp, which is very unique, Jonathan, because most of the time the general manager's job is done by the time you get to training camp. And then he sits back and, and, you know, waits to see how it goes and tries to fill out the roster with some people who get cut or, you know, whatever else, or, or one more veteran to try and fill out a team. Instead, this is like moves are still going to be happening um just want to jump to the comments here from jamie i would give hunter guaranteed money for the first year with a three-year total deal but not break the bank maybe three years 44 million

with one year guaranteed uh yeah that would be the best team-friendly contract that you could ever sign and uh if he if his agent signed that contract, he should be investigated. But here's where you have a point, is the Vikings have to have a number and based on what we know right now, that number is a lot lower than what Daniil Hunter's number is. So you might be in the ballpark of what they want. They might want a three-year contract where it's essentially year to year. And I think that there was a report that said something to that deal and say, absolutely not. You're looking for double that total money. You're looking for 44 million guaranteed, not 44 million total. Daniel brings up now you're more of an internet sleuth than me, Jonathan. Can anyone explain why Daniel Hunter to the Jags is trending? What happened there?

So it was brought up that he follows the jaguars on instagram there's only two teams that he follows on instagram the vikings and the jaguars i couldn't tell when he started following the jaguars and uh i would assume he knows it's the jacksonville jaguars and not the jaguar car brand because we know denny hunter is a big car guy uh so that is the big interest why uh there's Jaguars interest because he follows them on Instagram and it's the only other team that he follows on Instagram. He follows a ton of NFL players, so you can't really take anything away from him following a couple of Jacksonville Jaguars players because there's a lot of Jacksonville

or there's a lot of NFL players, uh, in his follow. So I think it's just because he follows them on Instagram. Okay. So Hunter to the Jaguars is set, I guess. I will say though, that if you were trying to identify out of all the teams in the NFL, who would make a lot of sense for Daniel Hunter, the Jaguars are actually that team. I mean, I actually totally agree that the Jaguars would be a team that should have a lot of interest because they have Trevor Lawrence on the rookie deal. And so they can afford to do something kind of crazy. And also like they drafted a guy that I'm not sure. And Trayvon Walker is going to be a 10 sack guy. I think he could be an impact player based on his athleticism, but I mean, we'll see if he takes a big jump forward, but last year he didn't really look like he was going to be

one of those absolute freak sack artists. Like we saw from Aiden Hutchinson, who they bizarrely decided to pass over. And maybe if you were to pair, uh, you know, him Trayvon Walker with Danielle Hunter, you've really got something there and their defense has to be better if they're going to actually compete in the AFC I mean the the standard for being a good defensive team is so much higher when you're playing in that conference than it is the NFC so uh I actually like it from a perspective of that team is ready to win they are taking their timeline and accelerating it because of what we saw from Trevor Lawrence in the second half of last season. And I mean, they were not that far away in the playoffs either, but they just need a little bit better of a roster. But of course, someone following a team on Instagram doesn't mean a lot, at least at this moment. But I guess i've been surprised before uh kyle says i want to hear that lewis scene impresses right away and has potential to start let's get the first round

draft picks on the field please so the coaches no matter what are going to play the best players because they want to be in the playoffs and they want to win so they're not going to play somebody who is not as good just because they were a first round pick, especially Brian Flores, who does not care at all where anyone was drafted. He just got here and he's evaluating every player just based on their merit of what he sees when a coach is responsible for drafting someone. So you usually think, oh, well, it's the GM who drafts the player. But a lot of times coaches will have their choice between a couple of guys like, okay, here's, here's, who's on our draft board. Who do you like the most as your fit?

And that's why I've been really intrigued by Mackay Blackman, because that's a guy that Brian Flores picked. And, you know, Louisine has nothing to do with that though, because that was Ed Donatel. That was last year. And once you've been in the league, you're just another guy in the league. They, they do not care where you were drafted. And I also thought Jonathan, that the Josh Metellus praise from Harrison Smith, I have been covering Harrison Smith a long time, and I've heard him compliment a lot of players that was as complimentary of any other player that I've ever heard. He talked about how smart Josh Metellus is, which we have mentioned on this show before, but said that he could stand up at the whiteboard and coach the defense and that it's been really cool to see him make plays wherever he's asked,

whether it's special teams or he's asked to fill in. So it seems to me that everybody's riding the Metellus train. And you know what? I mean, if you find a really interesting player there, I mean, you're going to have to sign him to another contract. So he isn't going to be a free agent, I think after this year, but if you find a really interesting player there and don't find one in Lewis scene, I don't care where they were drafted. I mean, you just need, you just need guys. And it just seems like Metellus has that momentum that he looks like under Flores, he's, he's going to momentum that he looks like under Flores. He's going to thrive and he's going to get opportunities.

Yeah, I think the most interesting point is Harrison Smith adding his weight behind the praise, the growing praise behind Josh Metellus. Because earlier this offseason, it's Kweisi Daufomensa and some podcasts and some comments in the media praising Josh Metellus as kind of the guy that he expects to be the sleeper and be the guy who, or the dark horse candidate for being one of the stars of this defense. So yeah, there's certainly momentum. There's certainly people jumping on this bandwagon of Josh Metellus. And that's interesting to see considering they did spend that first round pick on Louisine. But as you said, it doesn't matter if they found a guy in Josh Metellus, who can pair up alongside Harrison Smith or can bind him in that secondary.

It doesn't matter what your draft status was. Can you play? And right now it certainly seems like Josh Metellus can play and Louis scene still has to prove it. And if you can't get anything out of Louis scene, so be it. You have a guy in Josh Metellus who can do it. And that's,

that's good for this organization. They won't care about the about the draft status sure it's not going to make them look good but they got the guy it doesn't really matter yeah and that was the uh the previous regimes draft and develop project but but like you said i mean it just really doesn't matter there's no scoreboard i mean what they're trying to do is build a good defense. And we've seen this in the past from your Andrew Sodejos, your Anthony Harris is sometimes good safeties, good defensive backs kind of come out of nowhere. And that's fine. Like they,

they just need players. They need to find young players. And I think that we do that a little too much of, well, this guy went, you know, had this many draft picks work out or that many draft picks work out or whatever. It doesn't really matter how you do it. But they were so far away

last year on defense. It seems like there's just so much to make up for this year that if Metellus becomes one of those players and then they can resign and keep him, that he can be a weapon for a long time. And maybe he's the guy who's taking over for Harrison Smith. I don't know. I mean, there's, he's a fifth round draft pick, which is a late round, but it's not like he was just some guy that they, you know, found at the gas station and asked if he wanted to play safety. I mean, he went to Michigan. So it's not super shocking that he could have this development curve

over a couple of years and, and become a good player. That's not to say that it doesn't matter if Lewis Seen is a bust. You want your first round pick to succeed. And also we're going to relitigate that draft over and over because of who they traded out of. They traded out of Kyle Hamilton. They traded out of Jamison Williams, who eventually will get to hit the field and we'll find out if he can play or not. But even also they foregoed, is that the right way to put it? An opportunity to even take, if they wanted to trade up even a spot or two, you know, Chris Alave, Garrett Wilson, like these guys were right in that ballpark.

There were really good prospects and they decided, no, we're going to move back and back and back. And then we're going to take, you know, this guy. So he gets to be kind of in the crosshairs a lot more. So it's not that it doesn't matter because that decision is going to be relitigated. It's just that like sometimes I guess, you know, the football gods close the door and open up a window. And that might be how it happens with Josh Metellus getting an opportunity here. But I just thought it was very interesting for Harrison Smith to give that much praise to a

player. And I think he's a pretty straightforward guy and would only do that if he meant it. From Daniel here, did you get the vibe JJ's willingness to sign an extension depends on how he views the organization's true potential of reaching the Superbowl over money based on Casey's comments. I have always thought that about Justin Jefferson. I think that why Casey loves to tell that story because, and then I think it's like maybe the fourth time I've heard him tell it because it's just so descriptive and so correct for Justin Jefferson. I remember, and you know, this Jonathan, I keep like this bank in the back of my head of all dumb things that were ever said to me so I can bring them up to be snarky. But I remember in 2020 covering Justin Jefferson and feeling like I am seeing something truly special emerge here in 2020. And part of that conversation was his personality, was how he was so big on just, I want to win. So focused on football.

That's all the guy is about. Right. And it just impressed me right away. And when you meet Justin Jefferson, it impresses you right away. Like you are left with this guy is just all about winning and football and a competitor and everything else. He's not about celebrity. And you've really seen that. It reminds me a lot of like Julio Jones, kind of on the quieter side. But that's what he's about. And so Casey likes to bring that up because it's true.

But can we read between the lines on it? I don't know. I really, I honestly don't know if you can say, well, he wants to win. So he's not signing unless he's sure you're going to win. Because it is advantageous for Justin Jefferson to sign a contract of like three years and huge guaranteed money, huge average annual value, and then try to go back several years down the road and do it again. And then maybe have an opportunity at that point to hit free agency that's the way the cba is so he i mean unless he was going to cause massive problems and just say i'm not playing football like a carson palmer like i will never play football again that the cba is set up for teams to keep their stars so he to, and his agent has to work around what the collective bargaining agreement allows. So Jefferson could do what you're saying and feel like, oh, I don't know

if we're in the right direction. I'm not going to sign. I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait. But if I was his agent, I'd be saying, look, look, look, I get what you're trying to do because you don't know who the quarterback is and everything else. However, if you try to play this out, you're just going to end up getting franchise tag twice, and we're still going to be here and we're not going to have the guaranteed money up front. So you're going to have to play three years with no parachute whatsoever. If something goes wrong for you and knees do go wrong sometimes in Minnesota. So I guess I think from his perspective, yes, that it would matter that he is very dialed in. He knows what's going on in the league. You know, he knows who the

great quarterbacks are, as you saw from his top five ranking and everything. But I just think, Jonathan, that it's so advantageous for Jefferson to sign earlier at kind of the contract he wants versus trying to play it out that it can't, he just can't hold that like that position. It's just a losing position to try to say, I'm going to wait to see if we're going to be a Superbowl contender or not, rather than signing the deal. That's smart for him. Yeah, absolutely. It just makes sense to, to get the second contract started right away because even if or especially if they're negotiating for a shorter contract a dj metcalf type uh that means if he does feel like this organization just isn't going in the right way

he can get out of here that much quicker because he can put in he can get in the contract the no franchise tag thing or no or no franchise tag exemption, whatever, however they word it. Just get that contract started. And as you said, if he doesn't, if he continues to try and play this out and hope that something gets better and just tries to wait it out, there's a whole lot of just nothingness there behind him if something does go wrong. He loses a whole lot of the bargaining chip and the weight that he has right now coming off of the season that he did

finishing fifth in the MVP votes, having as many receiving yards as he had. He has so much bargaining. He has so much on his, on his side that the Vikings just have to give him whatever he's asking for at this point. and you don't want to lose that. So get the contract signed now. It just makes total sense, and I'm kind of surprised that it's not done yet already, but again, there's still time for the Vikings to play this out, so I don't think they're in that big of a rush

because they know they have a couple years still left to go before they absolutely need to get it done, so they may just be slow playing it themselves too, but also it just makes sense for them to just get this done as soon as possible as well. Right. And I don't want to, you know, try to put myself in Jefferson's shoes because I mean, he might view it the way that you're talking about. I mean, if the Vikings don't have an answer at quarterback, he likes, or he might want to see what their answer at quarterback is, which by the way, nobody was talking about Kirk the same way they were about Jefferson and Hawkinson.

And if you wanted to, if you wanted to put it on something getting done based on just how they talk with Hunter, it was, well, you know, I mean, I guess I will see.

And with Jefferson was like, please, please, I mean, I guess I will see. And with Jefferson, it was like, please, please, please be reasonable. And with Hawkinson, it was like, come on, bro. You know, you know, you know you want to stay. Come on. You go to the hockey games. You go to the baseball game. You like it here.

Come on. Catch some passes. So it was very different. And then with Kirk, it was like, who? Oh, can we extend it? I don't know. We we talked to him and we kind of have these good vibes going but uh maybe we'll see uh yeah i'm like friends with his agent i guess so we'll maybe i'll like text him like i don't know we'll see it was a very minnesotan sort of thing when you turn down like an invitation hey do you want to come over to our barbecue and you're like

yeah i mean we'll see uh you know there's a lot going on the weekend to the summer i mean the the cabin and we can't extend him so uh you know really really was kind of clear what's going on there just from the general tone but uh anyway yeah the je the Jefferson thing is, is going to remain out there, but I don't think it's impossible that he does want to see where they're going at quarterback. I just think it's not advantageous for him. So strategically from a contract, from a earn the most money, best possible situation. But that may, I mean, as Daniel was trying to read between the lines there, that may be a thing like Daniel might be right that he might do that. But the thing is that similar to Lamar Jackson, there is a level of player that the organization

is just not going to let get away with it. I mean, they're like the Packers with Devante Adams probably felt like they had gotten the best of Devante Adams for his career. And we're like, okay, we don't really want to let you go, but we also don't really want to have a 32 year old making $30 million. And Kansas city must have known. I mean, first of all, Tyree kills kind of a ticking time bomb as a person. So they probably knew that they also,

I think knew that Patrick Mahomes could make somebody else great and felt like it was better to work on the rest of the roster. So a lot of times if a team is willing to let someone go, how about the Jets with Jamal Adams? They let him go for a couple of draft picks, probably because they knew Jamal Adams was overrated. The outside world thought he was this unbelievable Harrison Smith type player and he just wasn't and so they were like oh yeah I guess so see I guess we'll give you away but Lamar Jackson

Justin Jefferson they are in this one percent where the team will fight to the absolute death and the Ravens did the whole league fought for the Ravens that if Justin Jefferson said no I'm gonna hold out I'm going to hold out. I'm not going to play. They'd say, okay, we'll wait. We will wait. We will, we will use everything in our power to keep you. So I don't think they want to let it get ugly.

I would still say that a contract gets signed eventually. This is an interesting question from Dustin. How confident does Kwesi seem up there just in the overall three-year plan on where they are yeah that's a hard one to read uh how confident he seems in the three-year plan but I felt like his commentary on the competitive rebuild was quite revealing uh what did you think of that Jonathan because I thought that what Kwesi Adafo-Mensah said when he brought up a three-year time horizon, when he used the word competitive rebuild as to say, look, this was what we were going to do all along. And the more things that kind of trickle out,

the more clear it was this was what they were doing all along. Because even Alexander Madison sort of being like, yes, they mentioned something about RB one when I signed back in March, but who knows? I mean, even today someone asked if Delvin cook could return. And I mean, Kwesi was like, he couldn't get off that question fast enough. I mean, like I guess if the world was ending and there was only one running back who could save it and it was him and we had to sign him like that's it.

Who put that out there? Somebody put that out there. That was possible. And it's like, what? Kirk said it. That was Kirk. Oh, Kirk said it. That's right.

That's right. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, I don't know if he was serious or just like having trying to play off a joke, but obviously someone with him and jokes. Yeah. Yeah. So someone,

someone clearly took it seriously and asked the question about it. Okay. Okay. I forgot. I was like, where did that come from? I didn't think of any of the, I have Adam Schefter alerts.

I didn't see it from Adam Schefter, but what, what did you think of what he said about the competitive rebuild and time horizons and stuff? Yeah. I think it was interesting to know that they're obviously not trying to win now like they were last year, that there is a long-term plan with this as well, which is nice to hear because it felt like, especially going into last season, that it was a win-now mentality with the roster that they had.

And it worked. They got 13-4, but unfortunately you lose in the first round of the playoffs, so you have to change, and they've now adjusted. They've been able to kind of tone down the Wilfs a little bit from their win-now mentality or win-always mentality and try and kind of pull back a little bit and see if they can rebuild on the fly. And I like that mentality of if you're not going to go full rebuild, which I'm a big proponent of, cause it's probably going to work in Chicago. We've seen it work elsewhere like Cincinnati and in Kansas city or Kansas city, getting Patrick Mahomes,

getting those guys in helps you. Uh, so if you're not going to do that and you're going to try and remain competitive, uh, at least be really competitive on one side of the ball, make sure that's the offensive side because defense, you can kind of try and build that up as you go and make it work from there. But I don't know. I thought it was very interesting what he said and having that long-term approach because it felt like we've never been given that look from them over the past couple of years of what the long-term future of it is. It's always felt like it's a very short-term thing, especially with the contract that they were given what the long-term future of it is, it's always felt like it's a very short-term thing, especially with the contract that they were given, the four-year contract,

which usually, what is it? Usually you see GMs get a five-year contract and Kweisi was given a four. So it always felt like a very short-term plan and a very win now mentality from the ownership down. So it was nice to hear that there is some long-term, hey, we want to build for the future as well and keep this thing going long-term instead of just kind of patch it together year by year. If they do something crazy and sign some veteran player or trade for some veteran player for a lot

of money, then I'm going to have a lot of questions. When we go back to 2020, it was like they were sort of right there on this kind of thing on this competitive rebuild idea. And then they just took a hard left and it made no sense when Daniel Hunter got hurt. And you just wondered, like, whose idea was that? Who made you do that? Was that Zimmer demanding it was done to ownership? And then they said, OK, let's do it because they were on the cusp of something that could have been competitive rebuild ish and then kind of threw it away for that and they also extended kirk over multiple years at that point as well and so that's the big difference here

between now and in 2020 is they didn't extend kirk they've left themselves open in the future and they haven't locked themselves into anybody who is older and expensive or you know within gawkway he was going to be expensive he needed a new contract and so you trade it for a guy that you had to extend and then didn't extend him and what was the point of that whole thing it was a desperate flail and so I don't see desperate flailing I I don't know about how confident he is but how confident can you ever be when you're not sure who the next quarterback is that's the one thing that I always come back to. I think that you could be pretty confident in drafting guys in the secondary.

I mean, does that not make a lot of sense? I mean, it does for me. I think passing and pass defense are going to win for you, and we've seen if you can rush the passer but not play any in the secondary, it does not matter. You will not stop anybody. So trying to build through drafting in the secondary trying to get young players on the field not extending older players all these things are

smart things to do it's just that if i were him if i had as you mentioned patrick mahomes dropped in there i'd be like competitive rebuild baby let's go oh yeah we're just gonna win the super bowl in a competitive rebuild year which is what kansas city did but when you don't know what's next as far as the quarterback position i don't know how confident you can ever really be in what's next for your organization as a whole but we i think we do know though that uh i mean they're they're always going to try to win in some ways i don't think what they did this year was to tank. I also think that a lot of the players they moved on from, they kind of had to based on their age and contract.

That's where Hunter is kind of a swing man for this, for how much are you leaning toward rebuilding and how much are you leaning toward competitive? Because a lot of these moves were forced throughout the way. They really had no other choice. And I think they knew that going into the off season, we're not going to keep these guys unless they take massive pay cuts, which they were never going to do. So it remains as we head into training camp, kind of the number one story is just how this direction looks on a day-to-day basis. And by the time we get the preseason games done with and who plays in those

and what it looks like, and then how we feel about the roster, do we feel like it's got long-term potential or do we feel like there's a lot to be done here and uncertainty at quarterback and who knows what's coming next? Derek says, Kwesi is a good guy, unfortunately, a victim of paralysis by analysis, waits too long to pull the trigger while overthinking everything. I don't know that that's true yet. I don't want to make that determination yet to say that about Kwesi D'Affilmensa. I think that what a lot of people like to do just in general, and this is totally

fine. I'm not criticizing what Derek is doing here, but maybe jumping the conclusions a little bit too fast. And from my perspective, I try to wait until I've got the whole picture. So I want to give you where I think it's going, how I think it's trending, and then say definitively after we, we know, or, or pinpoint the moment when we know, right? So like take Lewis scene, for example, right now, the trend is not great, but I'm not calling it. I'm telling you that the trend is not great. But if I said right now, Oh, Lewis scenes, a fool, uh, he's terrible. He's never going to make it like whatever. He's just can't figure out football.

I mean, I think that there are broadcasters on TV who are totally fine acting that way because they, I don't know, just like don't care about getting it right. My goal is usually to try to get it right. So I think that I'm not like comfortable being that guy. And I guess they'll never put me with Stephen A. Smith or Skip Bayless to yell at them to just, you know, use hyperbole and go off and everything else. So tying this back into Kweisi Adafomensa, I think that we have to see how this goes before we can say he's like this or he's like that.

Because we saw one off season where he actually did a very good job of identifying players that could help them win in that moment. I'm talking about Peterson, Zedarius Smith, guys that they brought in to win just for last year. They did a great job with that. I think this year they've done a very good job of identifying the right players to move on from.

But there's so much still in the air that has to be resolved. How can I say, yeah, he waits too long when it's July 25th and, and he might have a deal with Hawkinson or Jefferson done in a week from now. You know, so, I mean, not to say to be afraid to, you know, turn up the heat on hot routes on a take. I just am not comfortable saying how I feel about that yet about, you know, paralysis by analysis. I think that if we're judging that just off of Delvin cook and waiting maybe too long on Delvin cook, and he could have done it earlier. I think that that's fair, but I also think that that's that you're jumping the gun by making any sort of assessment about what he's like as a general manager,

just based on seeing if they could trade Delvin Cook throughout the summer or seeing if they could trade Zedaria Smith and not getting enough for him. I don't think that there was any major miscue there. No, I think there's certainly enough. There's questions you can kind of have in the back burner ready to go once you, as you said, pinpoint that moment where you realize, oh, this probably isn't working here with Kwesi. There's certainly questions there that need to be answered, and we're still waiting to see how some of these things play out. But it's too early.

It's, what, two years in now, going into the second season now. It's still too early to make that definitive judgment. I don't think the Wilfs helped him with the four-year contract, obviously, but that's an old talking point at this point. But yeah, there's certainly questions that are starting to build up. But I don't think there's anything ready there to make that definitive judgment yet. But these questions certainly aren't helping his case. But as you said, there's also plenty in the positive with some of the signings they made last year. The trade for TJ Hawkinson worked out, especially if you can sign him to a contract extension.

That looks like a very good trade because you got a player who didn't look the greatest with Detroit, and now you've got probably one of the better tight ends in the league, the top five tight ends in the league. And you only traded a second round pick for him. So that looks like a pretty good trade from this standpoint, if you can get him signed. But yeah, there's certainly plenty in the positive as well. But I don't think there's anything definitive yet, whether he's a good GM or a bad GM at this point. I want to answer more questions but i also want to bring up our new sponsor grill masters club imagine how excited i am about this

and you know this you uh you saw me in the process of moving and i got the big giant grill out back and i am at that thing all the time in fact i it it's almost, what is it, 9 o'clock at night? I might still grill tonight. It could happen. Grill Masters Club is our new sponsor. And when I talked to the people from Grill Masters Club, I said, look, there's just some sponsorships that fit. Oakley, look at me.

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lettuce, no as well. I mean, let us know if you're using grill masters club or if you want to try it because it's pretty awesome. So GrillmastersClub.com is the place to go. So it's our new sponsor. And maybe I'll just eat like a steak or something during the show.

Like I wear the sunglasses. Each hot route. So I'll just eat a steak that I've put the Grillmasters Club rub on. I think Benjamin in the chat had a great idea. You need to now grill while you do the streaming. So get the setup, move it outside to the deck, and grill and then talk Vikings football while you grill. This is not a bad idea at all.

This can be done. Because if you're co-hosting, then I can ask you a Hot Routes question and then go flip whatever I got and then come back. So I think this could definitely be done. Okay, so let's see. Oh, just a couple. Let's do a couple rapid fire kind of questions here that I had written down. There's great stuff from everybody in the chat.

Really appreciate all of you guys jumping in and asking questions. A couple of things that we had planned in rapid fashion. Kirk Cousins has a full-time trainer now and somebody who's working with him year round. How much longer do you think he plays Jonathan? I think he's probably got two, three, maybe four max years cause he's going into what age 35 season. So maybe four is a bit of a stretch but three at the most maybe two uh

probably two is kind of where i'm leaning because you look at some of these other quarterbacks that played late into their 30s and they definitely started to fall off around the 35 36 37 year old mark they all had their pop-up seasons in their mid-30s like kirk cousins did last year with a 13 and 4 record but most of them kind of started to fade off a little bit over the past couple of years. And it's only really the Tom Brady's and the Aaron Rogers that have really played successfully deep into their thirties. So I think he's probably got two years max left in him.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's very possible. I might think that he tries to stretch it out till 40, because I think what he's going to do is next year, he's going to be a free agent. He's going to sign with somebody else and then play a couple years with that

team. I think he'll look for a three-year contract and try to play that out. So I'm going to say that he plays till 40 in part because of how well he takes care of his body. And you saw that of course, in the Netflix documentary. But I have felt the same way about history of quarterbacks like him. There are not many that have a ton of success into their late 30s of the quarterbacks who are not all-time greats.

And it will be interesting to see how he ages. But let's say he signs with San Francisco next year or something. Always quarterback-friendly out there. You know you know i mean it might help him uh as far as what he's asked to do but the situation he lands in if assuming it's not here could determine how much longer he plays but i think he'll try to get to 40 and then call it quits after that uh thor asks where exactly are we building for the future what position have we added that is a future star well that's the thing is that they have only had two drafts so we don't really know yet uh from two years they might have added no future stars

or jordan addison might be a star or somebody we don't expect to Caleb Evans might be like, I don't know, because even think about this, even the 2015 draft, when did we know that the 2015 draft was amazing? Not until 2017. So three years later after the 2015 draft, then, okay. Hunter's a star. Okay. Diggs is a star, right? That we were really sure that that draft had been unbelievable. Until then, I mean, 16, they started to show signs, and then 17, they were great. So, I mean, there aren't a lot of players who they've just even drafted in general,

and then we'll see from there. But it's not really about have you drafted stars at this moment. It's really about the theory of moving on from older veteran players and building through the draft creating cap space for yourself and giving yourself flexibility if those draft picks fail so if lewis seen fails if jordan addison fails you can have the money to go into free agency at some point and spend, spend, spend to fix the problems that you have. I think that that's kind of how that theory works. They re but you look at, if you ask like, where are they rebuilding? Look at the secondary. I mean, this is all young players,

all young players, everyone except for Harrison Smith is a young player in the secondary. That's what you're talking about when it's rebuilding. The wide receivers are extremely young. K.J. Osborne, more likely than not, becomes a free agency and leaves after next year. But even if he doesn't, he's still a young player. And Jordan Addison, Justin Jefferson, Jalen Naylor, these are young players. The backfield is now young.

The offensive line is young. What, is Brian O'neill maybe 27 and everybody else it could be uh garrett bradbury's 27 28 all these guys have five plus years to go if not more in their careers and they added that's what it means tj hawkinson they added and he's certainly on the path to start him at that position 26 26. And as Travis Kelsey has been showing, you can be a star at that position into your 30s. So if TJ Hawkinson can stay healthy and can continue to do what he's doing for another five, six years,

you've got your star in your hand. And they've added him in, not through the draft, but they use your draft pick to get him. So real quick, Saquon Barkley kind of makes a big deal uh more Barkley than bites I guess when come on more Barkley than but feel free to use it folks you've been waiting for that one all day haven't you yeah yeah no that one actually just came to me when I put on these glasses I'm a different person so um but but yeah, he got $900,000 more, maybe in just if they make the playoffs, I think that's, that's kind of an odd situation.

They might, I don't know. I don't think they're a great team. They might, but I think with running backs, here's life advice for running backs. Okay. When you go to college get all the nil money you can and then when you get into the nfl get all the sponsorships you can if you're a star maybe you're a fifth round pick get all the sponsorships you can in the entire world for your first couple of years be peyton manning with the number of commercials you do because the next contract's not going to be a lot there's nothing you can do to change this. It will not ever change for one day. The internet thought of a bunch of ideas that didn't make a lot of sense in, in practical speaking. And then everyone forgot about it. And then he

had no leverage and had to sign this. I think he made the right move just coming back, taking $10 million. That's a lot. lot uh maybe you know he's working with a shoe company that'll give him a couple more million look it's a lot of money and you should take it because the nfl i mean look there was a report that they tried to trade him even and everyone was like nah good that's okay and he's an unbelievable talent but just nah we don't really trust where that's going like long term we know that when somebody touched the ball as much as he did last year is probably not going to go in the right way. So if you're a running back, earn all your money on your rookie contract, get all the

endorsements you can and try to live your life in a happy way, because you're not going to be making $30 million a year at age 30, just not going to happen in the NFL. And you know what? Neither are. I mean, I think if you're a center in the NFL, are you just like, I guess we don't matter. You know, I mean, I centers don't get paid either and neither do safeties. And I I'm sure that they're like, oh, you guys think since you sort of touched the ball that you're more important than us, but the NFL doesn't really think so.

They think it's about the same. So anyway, um, just an interesting development. And I think Josh Jacobs probably should just do the same thing. Take your 10 mil and make as much money as you can on endorsements this year, and then hope, because if he has another big year, maybe somebody else signs him. Or look, if you get franchised again, then you can make 20 million in cash over two years. It's not the worst thing that's ever happened to anybody. You're just going to have to cut your losses. But I guess the one question is, did Saquon Barkley, by caving and going back on essentially the franchise tag, did he hurt the cause here for running backs?

No. I mean, I don't think there was a whole lot of cause to be fought for here because the NFL has kind of moved on from that position. They realize there's a very short shelf life with that position that if you're really, really good, you've got a couple years of being that level of good. I mean, look at Derrick Henry, really, really good and has started to fall off at least last season just a little bit to the point where are you sure he's worth that much money

paying him that much money anymore? And it certainly seems that NFL, uh, the NFL teams are not willing to pay that much money for that position, unless you're incredibly, uh, capable of playing other positions and playing in a different style than we're no, we know running backs are playing or have played in the past. So I think Josh Jacobs is probably just going to have to come back and take the Saquon Barkley deal if the Raiders are offering it. Delvin Cook's probably going to take a lesser deal than he probably would have got by taking a pay cut here if that was even actually on the table at all. So I think Saquon Barkley just kind of signaled the end of those monster contracts for the running backs.

And he kind of realized that this is as good as it's going to get for me in this position for the foreseeable future. And I might as well take this while it's still here before they decide, nah, we're good without you. You can sit out the year as much as you want. You're not going to get paid. So I think he just signaled the future. Okay.

Let's end on this. Well, first of all, Jeffrey says that smoking in the meat way is life changing. So that's, I mean, that's pretty convincing and I'm going to have to look into that. Smoking in other ways could be life changing in a bad way. So,

but Daniel comes with a hot route caliber question to end the show here. If Netflix had done a QB show with any past or present player, what three quarterbacks would you guys pick? I mean, there are hundreds of answers. Uh, the first one, man, what say McMahon? That's a great selection. Jim McMahon, Jim McMahon, like Vikings version where he was grinding out wins, averaging five yards of pass somehow. And these glasses, Jim McMahon would be

probably a pretty big fan of Jim McMahon is a great one. I thought for him being the middling quarterback that he would be a great one because I don't think anyone ever thinks that he was like Joe Montana, but kind of this grindy find a way to win type of quarterback. The first one that came to mind for me for the elite quarterback was John Elway that going behind the scenes for John Elway, not necessarily in the late nineties where they were winning, but when he was the entire team, I mean, their, their teams, when it was in the eighties and they were finding ways to get to the Superbowl and then getting pummeled by the 49ers or whoever, that was kind of a fascinating thing. Washington killed them. They were really, really good because of John Elway and not so much because of

the rest of the team. And then it wasn't until the late nineties. And of course they got Gary Kubiak as their office of coordinator and that made all the difference but they just had absolute freak teams when they were able to win the super bowl but he came to mind as such an interesting guy uh as like the ultimate competitor really the mahomes of the era i think somebody who every single year that you went into the season simply because because you had John Elway, you had a chance to win the super bowl and did freakish things with his arm. You're never, ever out of any game. He was gritty.

It was tough. Like same with my homes where he's getting hurt and he's playing through it. He would have been an interesting one. Dan Marino coming so close all the time, but never having it work out. He would, he would be another one that comes to mind as like the elite quarterbacks of the past and then how can we not say a mccown

it doesn't matter which one just a mccown i mean that's mariotta has become a journeyman quarterback but i i would love to see a true journeyman quarterback be featured. Somebody who's just bounced from team to team. A Ryan Fitzpatrick type. There's your guy. Yeah, we need Fitzpatrick to come back for a year just so Netflix can feature him in their documentary for a season. Yes, that's yes. I wish this was around for Ryan Fitzpatrick.

I like our list. If it was John Elway, Jim McMahon, Ryan Fitzpatrick, it's the best show in history. Oh, absolutely. That's getting monster ratings and Netflix might actually reveal their ratings for once. If that was the case, Joe Webb, I want to have Joe Webb on the show. Can you work on this? Like Joe Webb seems like a cool guy. What a, what a career you, you know, when there's the randoms, sometimes I will like, you know, come across people sort of, you know, you make fun of this quarterback or make fun of that quarterback or whatever, but you just have to have so much respect for Joe Webb is a guy who actually had a career out of what he did.

And he was still playing until like three years ago. And it is incredible. Uh, Brad Johnson, I've heard, I've heard such great things about Brad Johnson as a guy. That's another one. Like, I would love toad johnson on the show because just doing trick shots now he's yeah i know right i haven't seen him on twitter lately but i gotta find a way to get in contact with him i'd love to have brad johnson on the show i bet he would be awesome so uh great picks tommy kramer would have been a fun one from the 80s that you probably couldn't show most of it on Netflix from Tommy Kramer so anyway um yeah so this is a really fun show thanks so much everybody for all your great questions and comments I have not actually seen Elway's a football life I really want to I've

seen most of them but there's like uh some is there like a new season that i haven't seen i saw the 72 dolphins one some of the joe theismann one but i gotta get on that anyway absolutely great great stuff tonight guys super fun it's there's like a whole new sweep of energy in when we know that football is uh actually happening and tomorrow i'm gonna spf 7 000 and uh i 7,000. And I usually have shorts with a couple of pockets in the back. So water's in both pockets. Or maybe I need one of those hats that has the water that goes directly in your mouth. That kind of thing. But I will be out there.

The farmer's tan will be elite within just a couple of days. Do you rock those glasses at training camp or do you rock the other ones? No, I rock the normal ones. These ones are only for hot routes because, yeah. Yeah, I mean, anyway. Come on, do it. Thanks everybody for watching slash listening.

Appreciate you all. And we will talk again very, very soon. Thanks everyone.