Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Reacting to Kwesi Adofo-Mensah's pre-draft press conference

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

Matthew Coller and Will Ragatz of Sports Illustrated get together at TCO Performance Center following Kwesi Adofo-Mensah's press conference in which he talked extensively about quarterbacks and was surprisingly insightful Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

inside or Matthew Collar here inside TCO Performance Center alongside Will Raggett of Sports Illustrated and we have just wrapped up listening to Kwesi Adafo Mensah excitedly talk about the Minnesota Vikings draft situation and by excitedly I mean he was talking a mile a minute today and you could tell that there is a lot on that gentleman's mind but i will give quesia da fomenta credit for this uh there's no hiding or debating what's going on here they are drafting a quarterback they are drafting a quarterback in the first round they are drafting one of the quarterbacks that you've heard of and there would be no way to pretend otherwise.

But this certainly made it super clear that that's going to be the case. Yeah, I kind of went into this thinking, how much are we going to get here? The draft's in two weeks. There's no incentive for him to really reveal any of his plans. And he didn't do that. But he also gave us a lot. He talked pretty openly about this whole process of all these private workouts they're going to put these quarterbacks through and such a huge monumental decision that's coming up. And I feel like we learned a little bit more about, um, how Kwesi Adafamensa is thinking

about this, how he's approaching it. Um, and yeah, like you said, this, this, if there was any doubt that they were taking a quarterback in the first round, which there shouldn't have been, by the way, they don't have a quarterback and you need one um there there no longer is any so i was looking at my phone just to check the actual phrasing of the first thing i wanted to bring up with quesadilla fomenta where he said there are multiple guys we're in love with which hopefully my wife doesn't feel the same way right am i right will that was good uh but you know he has talked a lot about this draft class and how they've been assessing it over years and i guess we could say is this a smokescreen or not when it comes to

saying that there are multiple quarterbacks that they would be interested in because does he not want to reveal hey this is actually this one quarterback that we would be interested in because does he not want to reveal, Hey, this is actually, there's one quarterback that we're really, really in love with. Or is this the truth that they think that there is a value on each one of these quarterbacks and that they could see themselves taking multiple players at their right spots? Because I'm of two minds on that. If that's the case and they do love multiple quarterbacks, there's part of me that says you should really pay whatever it takes to get the one that you love the most. But another part of it is knowing how random this can be and the economics of this have to be a part of it. It can't just be a decision made in a vacuum. Here's the guy we have the

highest grade on. Well, what if that guy costs four first round picks and a guy you have a slightly different grade on costs only one first round pick and then you get to have johnny newton or something as well and i think that's what's added so many layers to this to where you could talk about a different scenario per day and still not cover all the potential ways that this could fall yeah i'm with you that there's there's gonna be a guy that they have graded above the rest who isn't caleb williams by the way who they're not getting like of the other five daniels may mccarthy pennix nicks like they're gonna have their board and there's gonna be one guy out of those five that they like the most that doesn't mean that you give up whatever new england or England or Arizona or the Chargers are asking to ensure that you go get that guy or the commanders or whoever.

Because there has to be just logic in the decision making. And that's the same kind of approach that you use in every decision as a GM. That's the same approach you use when you're trying to decide if you want to re-sign Kirk Cousins or not at X number, even though you like Kirk Cousins. And you choose ultimately to not do that. So, yeah. Kweisi Delfamense even said this, he said, like, there are going to be multiple guys we're in love with. And there could be other guys that we're in love with at the right cost because of their value and because we would be able to then get them and something else that could maybe help them. And he talked a lot about the importance of building around the quarterback and the quarterback matters but you have to build around them and they they really really think highly of the environment on offense especially that this quarterback is going to come into and justifiably so with the pieces that they

have at the skill positions and the offensive line and the coaching staff and things like that so yeah that's what makes it such an interesting decision is do we how much do we love this guy? How much more are we willing to give up to go get this guy versus having this guy retaining an asset, getting another player in the first round, potentially even or keeping the future first or something like that? So there's just so many different pieces that go into it. And one thing he said was when you're making a trade, the question you have to ask yourself is would i regret not doing this at this cost and then not getting that player and that's kind of what it comes down to he also said um if you get your guy for the next 10 years people aren't going to care really about how much you gave up so there's all these different pieces in this decision um you have to get it right but that doesn't mean you just give up

four first round picks willy-nilly to go get the guy that's atop your board. In regards to the 23rd overall pick, that was one of the first things that he was asked about. Kweisi called it insurance. I thought that was an interesting way to phrase it, that he said, we want to set ourselves up for a better look if a team picks up the phone, but they don't always pick up the phone. Well, talking in present. Well, I guess he's talking in future tense there in a way.

Pick up the phone. Does that mean that they have not picked up the phone as of right now? Maybe there would be a trade already if they did. I guess you might be talking about uh draft night but when they made the move for number 23 i was a hundred percent sure that we were going to get another announcement or adam schefter tweet the vikings have traded 23 and 11 up to number three four five within an hour of it happening i thought was was going to go down and now now I think what, what I'm realizing is that they were telling the truth when they were talking about it being a piece that gives them flexibility. And when he

says insurance, I wonder what that means. Like, does that mean insurance as in, we don't think that this particular quarterback is worth drafting at number 11, but he is worth drafting at number 23. So we'll take our guy at number 11 and then wait till number 23. Does it give it insurance in case say the New York giants decide that they want to draft quarterback, but they don't want to give up their second round pick. So the Vikings can say, all right, well, this is our, this is our ACE in the hole. We can use number 23 to get up above the Giants or to beat them on whatever draft chart that they're using. How do you look at that now?

Because I assume you thought the same thing I thought, which was we're going up three, baby. And then like, oh, wait, are they what's going to happen here? Why did they do this? And I thought that he shed some light on their thought process of getting the 23rd pick. Yeah. I don't know that at the time I thought it would be instantly followed by another trade, but it kind of would have made sense. The interesting thing about that deal is still why you make it in the middle of March. Like why couldn't you wait? And I guess

we saw from the Texans perspective, they wanted to get that second so that they could then trade it for Stefan Diggs. But from the Vikings perspective, it was interesting that they made that deal so far ahead of time. And then, like you said, haven't subsequently moved up and, and they do have flexibility.

They keep talking about that where you have 11 and 23, and that gives you the ability to really beat a lot of other offers. Cause there aren't a lot of teams with multiple first round picks and especially like the teams like the Raiders or Broncos or the Giants who are looking to maybe move up for a quarterback that you can beat those offers because those two current firsts are so valuable. That current first is more valuable than a future first, even if it's kind of towards the back end of the first round. So you have the ability to trade up and beat other offers. But I suppose you do have insurance where having that second pick gives you the ability to not force it and move up. Like if the team, like say the Cardinals at four are really, really demanding a ton, you have the ability to not do it. See how the board falls.

If the Cardinals stay and take Marvin Harrison Jr. or whatever. And then if a quarterback gets to you at 11 or gets closer to 11 and you can move up to like seven or maybe five to jump the Giants. But even if the Giants don't take quarterback seven or eight or something or you stay put and you maybe take like you said like a bo nicks or michael pennix at 23 like you just you have a little bit more flexibility you have these options i still think and i think you still think that they're going to uh they're going to trade up but you don't want to like make it clear to the other teams that we are under no circumstances staying put like we have to move up you kind of want to preserve the notion that you don't have to um i don't know how much other teams are going to buy that especially when you make

this trade that seems to signal you're going to move up but i think that's that's what he's getting at when he's talking about the flexibility and the insurance and i think you can tie the two things together what we're talking about with loving multiple quarterbacks and having more flexibility slash insurance to be able to do it and look i mean it doesn't always have to mean even sitting at 23 and waiting hey are they going to actually drop here they could actually still move up from 23 if there's a quarterback that's on the board. So you could take your defense player at 11 and then you could give up next year's first

to move up to 15, 16, whatever it is to get a quarterback is that this does give them so many more options than they would have had before. Not only more value to move up, but also more potential approaches to be malleable on draft night. Even if we still all think that the right answer is probably going to be the one that we thought the moment they traded for it, which is, oh, they're going up and trying to make a major play for their guy. But in trying to figure out who is

their guy and can they actually get him, Kweisi Adafo-Mento said, if you get the right guy and he's your answer for 10 years, then there's no price that you wouldn't have paid. However, you have to go back and look at the odds of that happening. That's the hardest part. Did that say to you that, okay, there has to be a limit because yes, if you could draft Drake May for five first round picks and Jordan Addison and know that that guy was going to turn into Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes, then of course you would still do it and just replace

them with, you know, Juju Smith Schuster and win the Superbowl or something, but you can't know that. And what he's talking about is the odds and the potential of it happening that you get an elite 10 year quarterback, because to me, there's different tiers of what you hope for in drafting a quarterback. If you draft the top, top guy, you are hoping for a 10 year result. If you draft, say Bo Nix, you might be hoping for a four-year result, but that four-year result could be really good with what they have, even if he's not a second contract quarterback. All of these things have to be weighed into the decision. But I think what he told us and what we know about Kweisi Adafo-Mensa, and I could be wrong about this on draft night, but I think there's always a line in the sand no matter what it is whether it's resigning daniel hunter or resigning kirk cousins or potentially trading up

that he's going to have a mark that he feels like all right we're not going past that because that will ruin our future yeah no everything with with quacey is calculated and there's a risk assessment and the quote one of the quotes that stood out to me was he said, just because something's risky doesn't mean you should be scared of it. And I think that that's that's one of those quotes that tells me we're trading up here. Like this is going to be risky because you are going to be giving up. If you're moving up into the top five, it seems to me like you're giving up 11 and 23 and probably that future first. And I think they're going to do whatever they can to try to get up there without giving up a future first. If you give up 11 and 23 and probably that future first. And I think they're going to do whatever they can to try to get up there

without giving up a future first. If you give up 11 and 23 and a future third or a future second or something like that, it'd be a lot more palatable, but you might have to give up that future first. If you want to go up to four with the Cardinals and ensure that you get JJ McCarthy. So the question is,

is that worth it? Like, well, how do you have JJ McCarthy. So the question is, is that worth it? Like, how do you have JJ McCarthy graded? What do you think the odds are of him becoming so good, or at least a certain level of good over the next four years, five years, 10 years, that that makes it worth it? And that's, I don't know, that's the question that they have to ask versus staying put and taking a chance on a Michael Penix Jr. or Bo Nix and retaining more assets. And to me, yes, there's a line for everything, but I just, I don't know. I wouldn't be inspired by the Penix or Nix value idea because yes,

that would allow you to draft a defensive tackle. But again, what are the odds of Johnny Newton or even a Byron Murphy, the defensive tackle, but again what are the odds of johnny newton or even a byron murphy the the defensive tackle not the cornerback like becoming a stud that's that's no guarantee either this is all a total crapshoot so just because you keep your extra picks doesn't mean they're not going to turn into um jalen rager or somebody like that in the first round not that they're going to draft a receiver but um i don't know I still just come back to the trade to get the extra first round pick being a sign that they're going to try to trade up and go get their guy. And if you can't get all the way up to three and get like a Drake May, you can at least probably get to four or five and get McCarthy. And to me, that's just

what I, that's been the baseline of what I've expected is that they are going to at least go get J.J. McCarthy. And not that that would be like some fallback plan, because I think Pennix and Knicks are more of the fallback plan. I think they'd be very excited about getting McCarthy. But if you're not going to be able to go all the way up and get the ceiling of Daniels or May, I still think they're going to be able to go get McCarthy and plug him into this offense and have that be a really good potential fit. Well, there's also the assumption that we've made that they have the same order of quarterbacks that everybody else has that the league does even like that the draft analysts have or whatever.

And I'm thinking about the 2021 draft where we all assumed it was going to be Trevor Lawrence then what Justin Fields and Mac Jones was supposed to go third and Trey Lance fourth because he was a project and that got blown up almost immediately on draft night so it's altogether possible that the order of these quarterbacks in the minds of the Minnesota Vikings is not different, as you said, or is different from the league and is not the same as what we have just come to sort of almost decided as a consensus of what we think it's going to be. And then that could change pretty quickly. I tend to think that there is a tier one, then, and then there's a tier one, a, which would be may and Daniels. And then there's a tier B, which would be may and daniels and then there's a tier b which

is mccarthy and a tier c that is the other two quarterbacks but that again that might not be their preference because of who they like more when sitting down with uh these guys which by the way reported today the vikings are going to meet with jade and daniels i didn't think there would be any quarterback they wouldn't meet with. So I was assuming, cause I got questions about that. Well, did they not like Daniels? Cause they're not like, no, they're, they were going to meet with every quarterback that could be a possible first round draft pick. I want to talk about hints that we think may have been dropped in this press conference. I don't think it's a robust amount, but I did have this.

Kwezi Adafo-Mentza said, we've put a lot into this. This is something Kevin and I set in motion when we first got here. Oh, uh, that was my feeling in general was that when crazy Daffo Mensah and Kevin O'Connell arrived, they had a timeline and it was to compete in year one, competitive rebuild in year two, move on from Kirk draft a quarterback in year three, competitive rebuild in year two, move on from Kirk, draft a quarterback in year three, because they already would have known that the draft class at very least they knew it was going to have Caleb Williams. Cause that was known a couple of years ago. They also have scouting that goes ahead several years. They might've had a sense that this was going to be a

good quarterback class, but I think it tells us that even though they did like Kirk Cousins, and even though Kevin O'Connell got along really well with him, and I think came to care about him very much as a person and loved where he was headed, that this was always the plan. This is not some haphazard fly by the seat of your pants. Oh, shoot i guess we gotta draft a quarterback because kirk left i feel like they knew all along that it was very likely and they set themselves up for that with their offers to kirk over the last two years that this would be the day that they would be drafting a quarterback do you agree yeah it makes sense and he called he said it's been a two-year process um with this quarterback class and you know maybe they kind of left

it open to some degree when they came in of when exactly they were going to draft a quarterback. And then when you go 11-0 in one score games in year one and you end up picking later than you maybe anticipated, not that they probably didn't think they were going to be good, but you win 13 games in an unsustainable fashion and you're picking later and you're really just going to have to give up an absurd amount to go get a Bryce Young or CJ Stroud or Anthony Richardson. You're like, all right, let's stay here, draft Jordan Addison, continue adding to the context around the quarterback. That pick looks great now with what you're going to be bringing a quarterback into this year. And then predictably after you move on from a bunch of veterans last year and

you do the competitive rebuild thing and you look to balance your salary cap, you win fewer than 13 games. Cause you're not going to keep winning all the one score games. And, and yes, Kirk and Justin got hurt, but now you are in a much better position. Even before they made this trade to get 23,

just sitting at 11, like that's striking distance for sure to go up and get a quarterback without having to pay absolutely through the nose. So they got the extra first now. And yeah, it does seem like this was kind of the plan to move on from Kirk. They gave it a shot. They did the competitive thing in year one. They did the competitive rebuild thing in year two. They learned, all right, Kirk Cousins is who we thought he was, which is a quarterback that you can works out this plan will have all come together quite nicely with what they're going to be bringing a quarterback into the context of all that folks we all have smartphones and we know that they are pretty amazing but they can also be amazingly distracting especially when we're around other

people so us cellular wants us to reset our relationship with our phones by putting down our phones for five. That's right. A company that sells phones wants us to put down our phones and see what we can find. Learn more at uscellular.com slash built for us. That's uscellular.com slash built for us. That's uscellular.com slash built for us. So I was, as far as hints go, I was trying to pick apart a quasi answer. And I was going through my notes here. If you're watching on video, I'm not ignoring will. I'm trying to read what I wrote about it in my notes, uh, where he was

asked about what type of quarterback succeeds historically, right? And the first place that he started was a quarterback that can execute the offense at a kind of above average or top half of the league level. And then he got into something he's mentioned numerous times because I think fourth and eight probably sticks in his soul like it does for lots of you as well, that he wants somebody who can make a play outside of that structure of the play. And even if we break down that into how much is on time football, how much is off schedule football, it's probably in the NFL, 75 to 85% on schedule football. So they're looking for the person who can execute what they're asked to do

most of the time. And then on occasion, make something special happen. Of course, if it's Jaden Daniels, he will do it more than on occasion. You're going to be betting on that. But I was curious if you tried in your brain as he was giving that answer to be like, all right, who does this sound like? Who does this sound like? And the funny thing is that their description always sounds like Bo Nix. I don't think that that's who they want or who they're going to trade up for. It just always sounds like him playing on time, throwing to the right people. This is why Kurt Warner loves Bo Nix and a lot of other former quarterbacks because he's always throwing on time to the right spots. And then he makes a play occasionally out of structure because he's a pretty good athlete. I can't talk myself into that, but if you're talking about maybe who could be another version of that, that's less refined,

it does sound more like JJ McCarthy. My question for you will is as you've gone through this whole thing, and I wrote an article about it today, which was like, it's hard for me to figure out who I'm supposed to listen to with JJ McCarthy, because our friend Alec Lewis tweeted out a screen grab of somebody calling him Troy Aikman and somebody saying that he's going to need years to develop. And you're like, well, which, what is it? Which is it with that guy? Were, were you hearing McCarthy in your brain were you hearing Bo Nix in your brain I wasn't hearing Michael Penix when you're talking about going off schedule but maybe they believe he could do that more I don't know because he is a pretty

good athlete what were you thinking as uh Quasey described his ideal successful quarterback yeah to me it it always sounds a lot like McCarthy and I know that's kind of a polarizing thing he's kind of a polarizing prospect to a lot of fans um because they were such a run heavy offense at Michigan and they didn't ask him to do a whole lot but when you look at just the operating from within the pocket on schedule making the throws throwing with anticipation, throwing in the big spots on passing downs, on third downs, fourth downs, the money downs where you have to have it. He was really successful with that. And yes, he needs some more development,

but I think he really meets a lot of that bill when it's playing on schedule throwing from within the pocket and then having some of the um creation ability out of it i just i don't know i think at the the price that it's going to take if we are correct that the it's williams daniels may or williams may daniels the top three that the the price to get mccarthy is just more palatable than it is to go all the way up and get the mayor Daniels. And I think he fits what their offense is looking for in a lot of ways, because it has to be first and foremost, the on schedule, you have to be able to do that. And I wonder if there's even concerns with Drake may about doing that where Drake may, who I Drake may, I love, I think he would be the home run if you could go

get him because i just the tools and everything fits like the josh allen justin herbert prototype if he can develop a little bit with the consistency but drake may right now you watch the tape and there's some stuff with the consistent execution from within the pocket and accuracy and all that and he's obviously this. I think the ceiling is certainly higher than it is with McCarthy because May is just an alien when he gets outside of the pocket. He's throwing on the run and all these things. But McCarthy fits so well the baseline of what you need from within the pocket and still

with his athleticism provides the ability to do things outside of structure as well. McCarthy does strike me as more of the plug the offense into his brain guy than Drake May, because Drake May's brain malfunctions way more than JJ McCarthy's does. But an interesting stat here that I ran across from the Twitter account, college football numbers, CFB numbers. PFF has a wins above replacement stat, but it's not public. They only give it to teams, and they'll occasionally tweet out some stuff that it says. And this came from that account. The wins above average among supporting cast. So how good was the supporting cast for the play like players around the quarterback?

Caleb Williams was a 2.5 Bo Nix, 3.6 JJ McCarthy, 2.7 Jaden Daniels, 2.2 Drake may minus 0.04. So all of the rest of the supporting casts were pretty equal. They were all really good. Uh, and I believe this is over the last, yeah, two years. So obviously Caleb Williams would count with Jordan Addison and so forth. So over the last two years, they're all pretty good. Bo Nix's was amazing. And here's Drake may just with this terrible supporting cast, especially last year that he made more into. And I think that's one of the hardest things they have to factor as far as how aggressive you're being is, uh, is Drake may going to play more on time when he plays for you than when he plays with a bunch of guys who are selling

insurance after this year. Uh, that's, and also I think an offense that wasn't all that well designed either. That was basically Drake, go do something special. That's not how Kevin O'Connell is going to set it up, but talk about things. We think we believe. Now, Mel Kiper in his mock, he's out here having the Vikings giving up the 2025 first round draft pick to move up and get McCarthy five. Are you comfortable with that? Because that seems like the top price that they would be willing to give up to move up for anybody. Yeah. To me, if you're in an ideal world,

you would give up the 11-23 in the future first to go up to three and to get May or to maybe get Daniels, who I have questions about Daniels in the NFL and in this Vikings offense specifically. And I think the range of outcomes there is really wide with his frame and how he opens himself up to big hits and some other things there. But yeah, if you love one of those two guys, May or Daniels, you have them really, really high up your board,

you give up the future first and these two firsts and maybe even another day three pick or something to go all the way up there. To give that up as well to go up to four or five and get McCarthy. It doesn't feel as great to me on paper, but I think I would still get behind it because I like that. I still like that a lot more than saying, all right, let's just let's do Michael Pennix or Bo Nix. And we also get

a defensive tackle this year and keep our future first. Like I just, I don't know. I think this year, the two-year plan, setting it up for the quarterback, it's not the time to be patient and wait and just take the fallback option because you get some excess value around it. And that doesn't mean I'm saying that you go do whatever it takes to go up to four or five because there has to be a line. And if the Cardinals are using their leverage of, oh, we could stay here and take Marvin Harrison Jr. or whatever, or we could trade this pick to the Giants, and they're asking for a truly ridiculous amount, you can't just give them whatever they need, but you have some leverage too, because they, those picks that 11 and 23, that's valuable to a team. Um, and, and you know, you

don't, you also don't have to truly trade up to get any quarterback in this first round. So I don't know, but for me, it's, it still has to be, you go up and you get a guy that you really like. Um, and I just keep coming back to McCarthy, making the most sense for this offense and at the price of what it may take to go get him. Yeah, I kind of have looked for a lot of different metaphors of this because we are now well trained to think of things economically as football enjoyers, analysts, reporters, because we have access to so much information and we just think in these terms now that everything is efficiency in sports even when we watch a basketball player if they score 40 points and it takes them 28 shots then we're going to say you know it wasn't really that efficient of a game or if yokich plays against the timberwolves then he can score 40 points in like 14 shots or whatever

he did. It was 16 of 20, 16 of 20. Yeah. Wow. Holy cow. Anyway, the point is that we all think this way now. And in this case, you have to throw some of that out the window. It isn't like getting a free agent where you say, all right, you know, at that price, he wasn't worth it. Let somebody else overpay for that guy. But this is kind of like, if you were on a ship and it was starting to go down and life rafts cost $5,000 a piece, you know what I'm not paying for on land is a life vest, right? That costs $5,000 or a raft. but you know what? If this ship is going down, I'm going to pay what I need. And not that I think the ship is going down. I just think that it's that level of desperation to make sure that you get the quarterback that you want. And well, Kwesi should say, oh yeah, well, we've, we're in love with at least 11 quarterbacks in this draft.

That's probably not the case. It's more likely that Kevin O'Connell has an idea of option ABC that he'd be comfortable with. And then probably options that he would not be comfortable with. The only thing we can conclude from this press conference clearly is quasi-dolphin Mensah is pretty jacked up about this decision. I think today was the most energetic, the fastest talking. The transcription is not going to be easy because it's going to be like, whoa, whoa, rewind.

This man was talking fast. And I guess you could look at that as nervously or just excitedly for this decision. I think for Kweisi Adafomensa, this is a culmination of everything that's happened to get to this decision. I think for Kwesi Adafo Mensah, this is a culmination of everything that's happened to get to this point. And he understands that teams that chase the Superbowl get their guy, he works out, they build around them and that's the model. And we're two weeks away from him being able to actually implement a plan that I believe he wanted from day one. And that was my read on today. I didn't see someone anxious at the podium.

I was looking at it much more because he was smiling and answering all the questions. He was not trying to dodge anything with very direct questions about the quarterbacks. Look to me like a man who understands what he's about to embark on here with this quarterback class. Yeah, I think he's kind of like the rest of us and he just wants these two weeks to hurry up and go by. So this can get here because I think they're probably, I mean, they're still doing some preparations at this point, but you're probably pretty close with your, your, your film study and what you know about all these prospects. And they're just probably ready for it to get here. And yeah, this is a huge moment, a defining moment in his tenure that he probably envisioned when he was sitting in the office interviewing with the Wilfs two years ago.

And ended up getting this job and started talking with Kevin and planning things out. And it's a thing where this this could this will make or break potentially quacey's tenure and you you could potentially survive it but i don't know i i come back to that brandon bean quote a lot where it's like when they traded up for josh allen like if this didn't work out i wasn't gonna be here anyways and if it did work out which it did who cares how much we gave up to go get him so yeah it i i got the sense that he's very excited about this that they he like you said he they're gonna put their stamp as this regime on this team and finally kind of build it in their vision and not this isn't some inherited

thing that they're working around the margins to try to improve and competitively rebuilding and uh and doing all these things this is when their era of vikings football is really going to begin especially if you hit on that quarterback and it takes off um and it become you become so much closer to super bowl contention with a good quarterback on a rookie contract than you ever were under kirk cousin so yeah i think he fired up, but I'm fired up about it. I still have no idea what's going to happen, but it is going to be very exciting to find out. This is kind of for all of us, something that we've waited for for a long time. And there were a lot of moments during Kirk Cousins tenure where we thought they could maybe if everything fell right, be better than we thought. And that's the best I can do is 2019.

They were actually a better team than I thought they were going to be going into the season. And that was the closest they ever got. 2022, way better with the final record. Maybe not better actually as a team, but at the final record, I never saw 13 wins coming for that team. There were a lot of fun moments, but there was never a time that you felt this team is actually competing for the Super Bowl beyond a miracle. And the miracles ran out in 2022 and they didn't compete for a Super Bowl. And last year they were four and four. When he got hurt, they weren't competing for a Super Bowl. They were competing for maybe we make the playoffs, which, you know, in hindsight, if

he was going to leave, it's better that it all happened that way. And they ended up with a pick where they were in place to actually even try to move up, though some regrettable Josh Dobbs wins like a three nothing victory, although that would give that one to Nick Mullins. Unfortunately, on pro football reference, Josh Dobbs gets that win. I don't know. That's a different tangent. Give that one to Nick Mullins. Unfortunately, on pro football reference, Josh Jobs gets that win. I don't know. That's a different tangent. The point just being that almost the entire time that I have covered this team, or actually more years of covering this team than not, they have, with Kirk Cousins, been a team that at best could maybe be within

a miracle of going to a Super Bowl. And that's not something I ever viewed as a model for success or something that was ever really going to work. And it didn't. And now we've seen the thing that we talked about all the time. It would be like a random week five and we'd be like, all right, well, you know, they're two and three or whatever. And what do you think? And we go, ah, it's, you know, it's Kirk's contract or like we talked about it so much. And that's why I think all of us, uh, who are talking about this on a daily basis or writing about it on a daily basis, kind of savor the moment, even if, you know, it takes two weeks longer and we could really move the draft up. That would be great. But that this is, this is the thing that we believed was the best path.

And now we all get to find out whether it's going to be the best path or not. When you talk about your preference for quarterbacks, over this whole thing, how have you formed it? Because I, at the end of the college football season, felt one way, and then throughout this draft season have been told to think another way about McCarthy, about Pennix, about Bo Nix and so forth. And I also try to not change my opinion too much from the last time I saw them play college football. How have you dealt with that informing your opinions about what the Vikings should do

here and what outcome you would be the most, I guess, praising if they did it? Yeah, it's a good question. It's a balance of what I already thought from watching these guys play in college, which like some of them I watched more than others. Obviously, you can be really swayed by like one result like you watch Michael Penix Jr. play against Texas in the national semifinals you're like oh this guy's should be the number one pick and then you watch him play in in the title game you're like wait maybe he's a fourth rounder so that that is a those are big swings but then you you throw on some of the the film and what people cut up and um you try not to just watch highlights because

that can kind of talk you into everyone any quarterback but it's a lot of also reading what other people who are smarter than me and who know quarterbacks better than me um and are really diving in and watching five six seven games of all of these these players what they say and what they think and um trying to balance those different scouting reports and opinions. And I mean, at the end of the day, it is a total kind of crapshoot. And we are not sitting here pretending to be expert scouts or anything, but you can still take the information and what you know about this quarterback and what people think to be true about this quarterback and what we know about the Vikings offense

and what they're looking for and form opinions on what you think might work. And I have no idea if it will or not, but that's kind of how I get to, I don't know. Drake May, I think, is the ultimate prize for me if the Vikings could get him. It just, it makes, well, Caleb Williams aside, but it just makes so much sense there. There are people that I really respect who think he's closer to Caleb

Williams than he is to any other quarter and to Jaden Daniels or Jaden McCarthy, JJ McCarthy, or anybody. And then for me, I think McCarthy at the price makes a ton of sense with what I've seen from him. And I'm just, I'm skeptical about Daniels and they could draft Jaden Daniels and it could work amazingly and he could become Lamar Jackson ask. But to me, there's a lot of risk there. I don't know about the fit in the offense. And I don't think they're going to have a chance really to get him anyway,

if he, if he's going two or three, but then there's, there's Penix and Nixon and I tend to lean towards Penix on that but that again may just be because I I watched him play in the uh that Texas game and saw what his arm is capable of and and I admittedly didn't watch as much Bo Nix um during the last college football season and and I still remember watching Bo Nix play at Auburn. So it's all, you try to kind of come to a logical place and not rely too much on one thing you watch or one thing you read.

But that's kind of how I feel about it. But I do agree, just to piggyback off what you were saying earlier, like it's a fun time to even be having this conversation. And that's not because we didn't like Kirk Cousins. Kirk Cousins was a pleasure to talk to. He's a super thoughtful, interesting guy, a good quarterback, sometimes a great quarterback.

But we did it over and over and over for six years, and I covered for five of those. And it's just we're having the same conversations, and now we're doing something new, and it's exciting, and it's fun to talk about, And there's so many possibilities here. And I just would caution or not caution. I would remind everyone who was thinks that the Vikings should have kept Kirk and was really on that train that, you know what? You have to take this swing.

You can't just you can't just stay there with Kirk and hope that you got everything perfectly around him to maybe get that one playoff run that we've never seen him make in his career. They could miss on this draft pick. They could absolutely draft a bus because you know what history tells us that of these six quarterbacks, probably three of them or maybe more are going to be busts. At least two are going to really not do very well in the NFL. And if that happens, you know what? You're playing a bad rookie or you're Sam Darnold or whatever. A year or two from now, you'll be in this position and you can do it again. And you're not doomed to become the Cleveland Browns of old or the Detroit Lions of old or the Jets or whatever.

You can do it again and take another shot and continue to take those shots until you hopefully hit one. And you just give yourself a chance to have a Super Bowl window that the Vikings haven't had since like 2009. So a few thoughts. 2017, maybe. Yeah. Well, yeah, of course. 2017.

A few shots or a few not shots. They've only had a few shots ever at actually winning. But a few thoughts from what you were saying. Sometimes I think if you took a novice, someone who just watched football casually and just had them sit down and watch the quarterbacks and then rank them, they might do better than an expert. Because the more information that you get, the more minutia you get into the, probably the less it matters. And the guy I think of this over and over with is Desmond Ritter, where the people who are really smart about quarterbacks loved his pocket footwork, pocket footwork just doesn't matter that much in college. And these same people hated Patrick Mahomes footwork and thought that it

would be a disaster in the NFL because of that. And it was really the arm talent. And that was it. I mean, like Patrick Mahomes had way more arm talent. And so those people were giving you great detail on what kind of college quarterback the guy was, but as far as projecting him, it's a totally different story. And that might end up being the case here with someone like JJ McCarthy, where if you watch the college stuff, you might go, I don't really see it, but then it's all about what the person can become over the next couple of years, which is why I have landed on the spot. And I love all of it, by the way, I read all of it, every draft analysis, every podcast

that's good at this, all the smart people. And I like to get the range of different opinions, but they are so wide. I mean, there is Michael Penix. There are people who have him as QB3. There are people who have him as undraftable. And who knows who's right? I guess we're going to find out. But on draft night, this is my strategy, Will.

And this is a very unusual strategy for a critic of the team, for an analyst of the team. If they draft quarterback on draft night, my grade for that draft pick is an A, unequivocally. Because we don't know who's going to work out. There's no draft analyst who's consistently right about quarterbacks. There's no reporter or podcaster who's always right. And we really don't know until we see them. We can start to get hints in training camp, what that's looking like where, you know, with Jaron Hall, there's a couple of signs, but we're also going like, I don't know about this. Kellen Mond, it was immediately obvious that was not going to happen. Right. You wouldn't have known from Kellen Mond's college

tape that it was never going to come close. I would have thought, well, this guy could be a backup at worst. Oh no. Oh no, he could not. He was just weighing over his head because it's a different game. So my lack of confidence in myself, no matter what they do, I'm going to say, good job. Well done mission part one accomplished. Now go do the rest that you've promised. I'm not going to plant a flag. I'm not going to say if they take McCarthy, it'll be the biggest mistake of their lives. This is not good for me eventually getting on television anywhere, but I think it's right. Yeah, I'm with you. I think there will be outcomes that I am more or less excited by. I think – so if they take Bo Nix at 23, A from you,

because they took a quarterback. And you know what? Then you get Quinian Mitchell or Byron Murphy or Dallas Turner or whatever too at 11. And that could be a great player as well. I wouldn't be as excited about that as I would be about moving up to five for J.J. McCarthy. But at the same time, I hear you. Bo Nix could become really, really good at operating an offense and being a cheap quarterback that gets you to a Super Bowl.

And that could totally happen. There's concerns with like Oregon's offense and what they asked him to do and how it was kind of a lot of screens and first read stuff. But that doesn't mean he can't project it and process more. I mean, the dude's played more college football than like anybody ever.

So yeah, I hear you. I think there would be things that I would be like, all right, that I see the upside of that and the vision of that. But as long as they take a quarterback in the first round and they don't wait to take like Spencer Rattler or something, which they're not going to do, they're going to take a quarterback in the first round. And we're going to everybody should give that player every opportunity to succeed, because whoever it is, even if it is Pennix or Knicks, which I still don't really think it will be, they're going to be coming into one of the best situations that any drafted rookie quarterback has come into in a long time. Because we saw last year, Justin Jefferson can make Nick Mullins look really good. And

Jordan Addison is very good. And TJ Hawkinson's hurt right now, but he is very good. And the offensive tackles are very good. And Kevin O'Connell is someone who I think we both really believe in as an offensive mind. So yeah, they're going to take quarterback in the first round and we're going to find out who it is. And it's going to be a lot of fun to watch that player.

Give it a go in the NFL. It would be different shades of concerns, but all of them could unravel a guy and all of the upside could work out to them going to the Super Bowl. Because we've seen quarterbacks drafted in the second round like Jalen Hurts or 32nd like Lamar Jackson become an MVP. Jimmy Garoppolo was a second round draft pick who ends up going to a Super Bowl. There's just such a history that suggests that almost anybody under the right circumstances who's taken toward the top, I'm not talking about fifth round picks, can end up leading a team deep into the playoffs and being successful, even if we have questions about their upside. I mean, we would have never

said Brock Purdy's upside or even Jimmy Garoppolo's upside was necessarily taking a team to a Superbowl, but he did because it was the right team. And that's what the Vikings are trying to guarantee. And that's, that's part of the reason that I would be okay with it. Uh, trading up a lot is because they have this really advantageous situation, but it'll be different shades. It's different reasons to be skeptical. It's all right. Well, does Bo Nix really have the ability to carry a team if he has to? Does Jaden Daniels get himself hurt on day two of his career? Because I think Nate Tice calls him the roadrunner or the Wiley coyote or something like running himself into something like Looney Tunes and Drake may may never shake off some of those

strangely inaccurate type of passes and you might have had anybody go bust but all of them could and all of them could also work out and that's why I think that I would just say yep you got a quarterback and now we're gonna your process was right getting a quarterback anyway you got there was right. Now we're going to see what happens after that. Yeah, it's funny to think about the parallels to the last time the Vikings drafted a quarterback in the first round was 2014. And they took Anthony Barr, the ninth overall or something like that. And they draft Teddy Bridgewater with 32nd overall.

And that could have really worked if Teddy didn't get hurt. Anthony Barr made a bunch of Pro Bowls and was a fit for mike zimmer and was a really impactful player and teddy bridgewater i think the the healthy pre-injury version of teddy bridgewater could have been good enough to get you to a super bowl in that 2016 or 2017 um path that timeline so the vikings could do something like that i just think that you raise your odds even if it's all a crapshoot you raise your odds a little bit by going up to get the guy that your gut and your scouting says you like more and that's why i ultimately think that they're going they are going to go into the top five and get a May or McCarthy or Daniels or somebody like that and just take that big swing at the guy that you have worked out at their college campus

and talked to in a classroom setting and seen how they translated that to the field. And Kevin O'Connell and Quacey D'Alfa-Mensa and Josh McCown and Wes Phillips and everybody else who likes this quarterback. Go take a shot and see if that guy can become what you think he can become. I did want to ask Casey about the left guard position. It just didn't happen. I apologize for that. I'm concerned. I know I was going to ask him about the comp picks.

Threw away a comp pick for Shaq Griffin. No, I wasn't going to. I'm glad we're past that portion of the offseason where we all want to really try to predict comp picks and then do a bad job of it. But I am. I'm worried that Blake Brandel is going to be blocking for JJ McCarthy or something by week six. But we'll worry about that. You have to guard time fourth round. No, but not put them right in.

We've even seen first and second round guards struggle with that. Maybe. Maybe it's a tough league for guards. Anyway, that's for another show. There will be a whole show dedicated to guards at some point, but that's not today. The Chiefs drafted Trey Smith in like the sixth round and he was really good.

It happens sometimes. You know, Tom Brady was a late round pick as well. Yeah. Alright. Anyway, so, well, this is your recap from a very excitable Kweisi Adafo Mensa press conference. And we'll have a lot more lead up and a lot more fun as we go along up to the decision. Twenty twenty four, the most important in our nation this year. So thanks, everybody. And we'll talk to you all again soon.

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