Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Reaction to the Stafford for Goff trade and Trey Lance analysis with Derrik Klassen

Episode Date: January 31, 2021

Matthew Coller opens the show by breaking down the Matthew Stafford for Jared Goff trade and what it means to the Minnesota Vikings and then he is joined by Derrik Klassen, who writes for Football Outsiders and Rotoworld, to talk about the NFL potential of Trey Lance and why he might be a fit for the Vikings plus the idea of trading Kirk Cousins and which teams might make trades at quarterback. Will the Rams trade Jared Goff, where's Matthew Stafford going and how we define arm talent. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Folks, do you feel like everything these days is go, go, go? It's non-stop, from work, to friends, to family, and a million pressing issues. Sometimes you just need to take a playoff and hit the reset button. That's when you reach for a Coors Light. It's made to chill. Hey, it's that time of year in Minnesota again to get out on the lake, go to the cabin, sit back, watch some baseball. Coors Light is the perfect refreshment to chill during these summer months. There's only one beer out there that's made to chill. The mountains on the bottles and cans turn blue when your beer is cold,

and that way you know it's time to chill. Hit that reset button with some mountain cold refreshment. Coors Light is cold lager, cold filtered, and cold packaged. It's literally made to chill. It's crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies. Coors Light is the one you should choose when you need to unwind, when you want to hit the reset button, reach for the beer that is made to chill. Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart,

Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate! Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, an emergency episode really. Matthew Collar here with you, and coming up in just a couple of minutes, Derek Klassen, who writes for Roto-World and Football Outsiders. We are going to discuss the landscape of quarterbacking, and then he talks about the piece that he wrote on Trey Lance, which is interesting, I think, to Vikings fans. But we recorded just before Matthew Stafford was traded for Jared Goff. So I want to give you some instant reaction to that, what it means for the Vikings, and then we'll get to my conversation with Derek Klassen.

So they part ways with Derek Klassen. So they part ways with Matthew Stafford. They get Jared Goff back. The Detroit Lions also get two future first-round draft picks and a third-round draft pick. And what's interesting about this to me is, first of all, how much Detroit got back from the Los Angeles Rams. How much Los Angeles was willing to give for an upgrade that when you look at these two quarterbacks statistically might not be as much as the Rams think or they clearly believe that Sean McVay elevates quarterbacks by so much that Matt Stafford will be far better than he was with the Detroit Lions than Jared Goff was

with the Rams. Interestingly enough, over the last three years, Matt Stafford's quarterback rating in Detroit, 95.8. Over the last three years, Jared Goff's 92.3. So, I mean, three points of quarterback rating is not worth a couple of first-round draft picks and a third-round draft pick. But that, again, must mean that Sean McVay just sees a skill set there. I would argue, from what we've seen from Matt Stafford, that he's actually had very good supporting casts. I mean, he had, by PFF, a top-ten offensive line this year. In years past, he's had some of the highest-rated wide receivers

in Marvin Jones and Kenny Galladay. Vikings fans have seen them a ton, and Marvin Jones especially has ripped up the Vikings over the years. I mean, I don't think that it's Matt Stafford's fault necessarily that Detroit has been such a poor organization, but I think that who he is with Detroit has largely been who he's going to be, that there's not going to be this massive jump of Matt Stafford, and it seems that L.A. thinks there will be. So Detroit goes all in on the rebuild here, with Jared Goff as kind of a Ryan Fitzpatrick type of bridge quarterback.

They can get out of that contract by just straight up cutting Jared Goff after 2022. So if they're going to rebuild every other part of their organization, it makes a lot of sense to keep Jared Goff, have him play for two years, and then draft someone, develop them behind Jared Goff, and eventually move on. So where this is interesting for the Vikings is, for one, the immediate future means you should set your standard at two wins this year and next year with the Detroit Lions because they are going to have to rebuild everything. And their coach also might be crazy. I'm not entirely ready to say that Dan Campbell is going to be a bad coach just because he had a really weird press conference where he talked about biting people's kneecaps. But, and I also think that

they've put together a decent staff there and might have, based on this trade, a general manager who knows what he's doing. But they're looking like the Miami Dolphins when they tore it all down and then decided to rebuild that thing kind of from scratch again. And they got better in two years. So Detroit, if they're competent, can do that. They are still Detroit, so we'll see. But for the Vikings, the immediate future is, look, you can just check one team off of being competitive in the NFC North and only worry about the Chicago Bears and the

Green Bay Packers. And the Bears currently do not have a quarterback. There is a bit of an issue, though, with the fact that the Vikings have to play Matt Stafford now with a Rams team next year as the Vikings will play on their schedule, the Los Angeles Rams. So they'll have to play Sean McVay, Stafford, and a Rams defense that was the best in the NFL this year. So that game all of a sudden becomes much more scary when you're playing Matt Stafford, a more talented quarterback who has in the past given the Vikings some problems, but not any time recently. And Mike Zimmer and Sean McVay have gone toe-to-toe twice. One time

Zimmer got McVay, and the other time McVay got Zimmer. So that'll be a game that you circle on the calendar when it comes out. When are the Vikings playing the Rams? Because that will be very interesting. Now, in my conversation with Derek Klassen, we discussed the idea of trading Kirk Cousins. Now that you've seen the value of somebody who is in the same ballpark as him, and, well, you can listen for that part.

But I think it suddenly becomes a little more interesting with so many teams that are desperate for quarterbacks. And it's not an indictment of Cousins necessarily, but more to say if that's the going price, what they were able to get back, now maybe that discussion needs to be had. So this, I mean, what can we ask for better than the NFL is off, we get a senior bowl that was kind of fun, and then a big trade on Saturday night.

We can't do any better than that. But I think that the big takeaway is that the Lions are clearly taking a long approach here, and I think that this trade is really good for them for that purpose. Instead of trying to go 8-8 next year, they are saying, let's take a step back to try and take a step forward later, and they got a lot of value for that. And the Rams are going to be considered a Super Bowl contender because of this. I am not convinced, though, that Matt Stafford will perform so much

better than Jared Goff that all of a sudden the Rams go 12-4, 13-3. There have been Detroit teams before that had a great supporting cast and good play callers and good offensive coaches, and Stafford was always Stafford. So we'll see how it plays out. But already, the offseason, super interesting, and we haven't even gotten to it yet. We haven't even played the Super Bowl yet. So, all right, here's my conversation with Derek Klassen to talk about quarterback trades and Trey Lance. Derek Klassen, he has written a big piece on Trey Lance for Roto World

and also contributes to Football Outsiders as well. One of my favorite quarterback analysis, analyzers, analyzers? You'll get it. You'll get it. That's the right, analysts is what I was looking for. So, but I got to talk to you about a few other things first before we get to Trey Lance because I do think that Vikings fans are very intrigued by Trey Lance and the possibility he could be bouncing around in the middle of that first round. But before that, what's your Twitter look like these days with all the quarterback situations coming open? I mean,

what are you thinking about this offseason? Because I feel like the entire league is going to have these tectonic shifts going on, and it's not even going to be recognizable by the time we get to the 2021 season. I mean, this has to be one of the most chaotic offseasons I can remember, at least specifically through the lens of quarterback, because a lot of the times you'll either, I mean, for one, having this many veterans on the market or potentially on the market like Goff is rare in and of itself and then plus you get that on top of one of the most at least anticipated quarterback classes we've seen in a long time obviously Trevor Lawrence is going to be a big one obviously Justin Fields has been you know in people's eyesights for a long time and then Zach Wilson and Trey Lance have also been like you know probably first round talents andights for a long time. And then Zach Wilson and Trey Lance have also been like, you know,

probably first round talents. And then you even have, if you're really a Mac Jones guy, you can throw him in there too. Like there's five potential first round picks and probably like four or five veterans on the market. Like you said, at least like a third of the league is probably going to have a different starting quarterback, which feels insane. Can we talk about Jared Goff and Jimmy Garoppolo for a second? Because I feel like when we discuss them, there's another quarterback who gets lumped in with them.

And it is interesting to me, and these are two guys who were in the Super Bowl, and yet Kirk Cousins has not taken a team to the Super Bowl. In fact, just one playoff win in three years with the Vikings. But he's always lumped in with those guys, and I wonder if your brain goes to the same place as my brain when you think about that. I mean, a little bit. To be fair, I think Cousins is still probably like the best version of whatever that style of quarterback is, despite him not being in the Super Bowl like those two um but I also think like with those two the writing on the wall maybe not with Goff but with Jimmy Garoppolo the

writing was kind of on the wall from the get-go in the way that they structured the contract where they were like yeah we want to be able to get out after two years just in case which to me was like oh it doesn't seem like they really believe in him they're just kind of hoping they can keep getting lucky um Goff's was more like they kind of got into the Super Bowl at the, quote, wrong time in that they had to give him an extension. Like, if you get to the Super Bowl, you kind of have to give him an extension. Like, there's nobody who's going to get to the Super Bowl, I guess unless you're the Ravens with Trent Dilfer.

But Goff wasn't that bad. That Elvis Gerback move didn't work out for the Ravens, by the way. That's true. Piled that up. um but yeah elvis gerback move didn't work out for the ravens by the way that's true um but yeah i think it's hard not to take your mind to the same spot like i said i still think he's the best version of that and if the vikings can figure out their defense again maybe they can get back or they can get to the super bowl the way that goth and garoppolo did but uh it it does feel like he has kind of the same limits that those two do. No, it definitely does because when you're looking around, and I think this is happening to a lot of teams, where everyone was saying, let's make sure we pay our franchise quarterback

because at least we have one and he can get us to X floor and then we keep our jobs. But then it seemed like there was a shift in the league thinking about this to where it almost went NBA style where if you're not first, you're last. And if that's the case, then having quarterbacks that keep you in the middle for a lot of owners or for a lot of general managers who are thinking this same kind of way that you'd rather be drafted high than playing in the first round and getting eliminated,

that that sort of changed the mindset even around the quarterback. And that's, what's really interesting to me about Matt Stafford being on the move is if you are the Lions and you tried to restock that roster, got a defensive coach who had a clue, you could probably go 8-8 or 9-7 next year with Matt Stafford. He's good enough, but you're not going to be able to build up enough around that salary, and you're also – he's just not good enough to carry you like an Aaron Rodgers could to the Super Bowl. So, I mean, I think a lot of sort of teams are having this awakening of, yeah, that's not really a place you want to be.

And once again, here's the Vikings being like, ah, yes, we will be in that place. Yeah, I think – you know, I don't know if it's because of Patrick Mahomes, but it seems like it's certainly kind of cropped up at around the same time that what you're saying is like, yeah, there used to be the idea that, oh, you could just be good enough. And then maybe we'll figure it out. I mean, that was what the Bengals were with Andy Dalton, like forever. And they were like a good team. They would win like 10, 11 games and they were constantly pretty competitive and weren't like an easy out. But it's pretty clear now, especially when there's one dominant quarterback, the way that Patrick Mahomes is like being just good enough and trying to beat that.

It's like you're never going to be able to do it. It just doesn't it just doesn't make sense. Which is funny because there always kind of has been this guy or a couple of these guys hanging around. But Mahomes is different I mean he just feels like it's a different level yeah yeah Peyton Manning was putting up 120 quarterback ratings when the league average is like 80 and yet he still felt fallible in the playoffs and even Tom Brady the same way where you never watched Tom Brady and said no way can we beat that guy and you saw the Giants find some answers for him and even to some extent the Falcons for a half of a Super Bowl and there would always be some meltdowns in the season where

you'd be like wow the Patriots got killed by the Chiefs how did that happen and it just doesn't happen to Patrick Mahomes and I also think too that you know they look around general managers and say well okay you know Justin Herbert who I'm not entirely sold on, but Justin Herbert, that's really exciting for a franchise to have this big armed guy, Josh Allen, the same thing, big armed guy who can gun it down the field, whose weaknesses did get revealed in the playoffs, by the way, by some good defenses. But still, think about that franchise, rookie contract, exciting skill set set and so even if he throws a ridiculous interception or takes a 30 yard sack as he did against Kansas City you had a really fun season and were able to build a great roster around him and so even from the entertainment value you're putting out a pretty

fun product for your fans even if you can't beat Mahomes exactly I mean, against a team like Mahomes, you have to feel like you can score from any field position at any time. And a guy like Josh Allen, for all of his flaws, you do feel that way with him. Even if there's like an equal chance that he might do something painfully stupid, like take a 30-yard sack, like you said, you still feel like there's a chance that you could, you know, take a punt at the 10-yard line and you still take a 90 yard drive in fourth place like you have that with him with kurt cousins like it's not to say that kurt has never done that but when he gets the ball at the 10 yard line down a score you don't feel like he's the one who's going to be able to to make that drive happen and his coach doesn't feel that way either i i mean, I can't tell you how many times this year they got pinned back

and it was run on first down, run on second down, and then maybe throw something underneath or over somebody's head because Cousins didn't really want to take a risk. That's also part of being Kirk Cousins where you're seeing some of these guys succeed with these skill sets that are high risk, high reward, and you're like, let me roll the variance dice here. And if it hits, and I'm not saying that's the best idea of all time, of course, because as you mentioned,

Jared Goff and Jimmy Garoppolo made the Superbowl. So it doesn't always work, but I can see why it would be shifting that way. And I can also see why Vikings fans are looking like, what is it, the office meme there where they're looking out the window. Like, I could see the same sort of thing, you know, like where Vikings fans are looking out the window at like, oh, man, all those quarterbacks look like they're having a lot of fun and they're only on the rookie contracts. And, man, they have good offensive lines that they can afford and defensive lines. So I wonder what you think of the idea of the Vikings exploring a Kirk Cousins trade, even though that has not been reported by anyone, but it sort of has to be on the table with like everybody's trading. Does anybody make a phone call to Minnesota?

Do you make a phone call to anybody else? Like that has to happen, right? You would think you have to at least like consider it. And the thing is you could make the argument like, oh,'re not as bad as the lions they don't need to do that well the rams are trying to do it and they're a better team than the vikings are right i mean and honestly i still think like i said cousins is a better quarterback than golf but like golf has had higher moments in his career in terms of producing and stuff so it's like it's not like you would be insane for them to like let go of a guy like

cousins, regardless of whatever they paid him. So since the roster is, like I said, it's not as bad as the lines, but they're clearly need to kind of retool things, especially on the defensive side and offensive line. I think it would make a lot of sense for them to try to at least see what's going on with dumping off cousinsousins to make him somebody else's problem. This is the most maddening offseason, isn't it? It's just like, you know, you do a Madden fantasy draft and that's how everybody ends up. But I think the same thing

that you have to kind of investigate, but I can also understand why they wouldn't because the Vikings ownership has put a coach and a general manager in a position to be the trying to keep their job guys and Kirk Cousins for his flaws he has a lot of upside to his game too that will get you to seven wins even when your team is not good this year I mentioned this to you before we went on but the two defensive tackles starting for the Vikings combined for 16 pressures this year, Aaron Donald himself had 98. Like, you were not winning anything with this team, but you also didn't go 3-13 this year

because Kirk Cousins had 100 quarterback rating and got graded 10th or 9th by PFF, as he always does. And, you know, I always think about, like, Vikings fans who like Kirk Cousins, I don't blame you or even think you're wrong for saying hey why don't they get him a guard why don't they get him a third wide receiver why don't they lean into him as a passing quarterback I agree with all that stuff but I also feel like if I tell you the similar quarterbacks to your guy do you like it like Derek Carr do you like it like if you're you know if I tell you Vegas and say Derek Carr, do you like it? If I tell you Vegas and say, Derek Carr, are you saying sign me up for life? I think that's where the conflict comes with some of these guys that fit into that bucket.

100%. Yeah, that's a good way to put it is that I think people might like what they have, but if they see something that's really by all accounts in the same tier, they start to realize maybe they don't like it as much as they thought and I think it's also like if you're thinking is like oh well if we just do these two things for cousins like you know we get a guard and maybe do a little bit more to try to open up the passing game okay well what if we did that with a quarterback who had a higher ceiling and maybe that's more of a gamble because you're having to take that gamble on a rookie who might not have nearly as high of a floor as Cousins, but what if you do

those things and try to do it with a guy who has a higher ceiling? Now you might have a really great offense instead of one that's like pretty good. So here's what I want your opinion on. With rookies coming out, every Vikings fan is terrified of Christian Ponder. You would be amazed how many times when I discuss, hey, like, what will they do after him? Or what could be your options? Because, you know, there is a good contingent of the fans who are interested in that. What always gets brought up is, but what if it's Christian Ponder? Like, that guy ruins your franchise for years.

And I would say, like, of course, that's always a possibility. And that great quarterback class a couple years ago, Baker's okay. Josh Allen, jury's still out a little bit. Lamar is real good. And the other two, big thumbs down. You know, that's how it's going to go, right? But I also think that quarterbacks are more prepared than they ever have been, and offenses give rookie quarterbacks more of a chance to be a Kirk Cousins

than they ever have before. And I think it's just also like, if you're constantly afraid of drafting a Christian Ponder, like, yeah, that sucks. And you don't want to have to do that again. But like, if you're afraid of doing that, you're never going to find your Deshaun Watson or whoever, right? Like, it's just not going to happen. If you think that you can only take quarterbacks at, you know, one into the way that Trevor Lawrence is going to go or whatever then like I don't know like that it just doesn't make sense because then you're saying you have you then you're just wanting your franchise to like deteriorate and be terrible again and then like it just doesn't make any sense like

teams have to be willing to take quarterbacks that are maybe not the clear you know tier like Andrew Luck or Trevor Lawrence. And like, if you're scared of getting Christian Ponder, then like, I don't know, man, like you probably just don't deserve to have a good quarterback if you're that scared. Christian Ponder was also a long time ago now. And yeah, I actually think Christian Ponder probably goes in like the third round these days because, you know, the athleticism and the arm strength and all that would be so much more of a focus than looking for the the kirk cousins type operate my system quarterback i think it's just

it's changed a little bit there um so let me ask you before we well we might as well just go right into trey lance and then we can finish up with the super bowl quarterback matchup which wow uh but uh trey lance so you watch all of his tape you broke him down for roto world um give me like the big picture on trey lance like are we talking about more toward a like extreme project with a low chance of hitting but if he hits he's great sort of that's why i viewed josh allen like low chance of hitting but if he hits he's great or is it more of like because he can run so well there's at least a floor there that could make it a quarterback you could win with and build around even despite some of the arm issues i think it's closer to the latter for a couple of reasons now he's still a huge

projection because when you have a guy whose only tape is as a 19 year old in the fcs like despite how good some of it was like you like going from that to the nfl at 21 years old with like a year of not really playing football in between it's like holy moly like he's gonna need a team that is willing to be patient with him maybe more so than other teams um but i think there are a couple things that at least give him, like, a really good floor early on. Like you mentioned, he's a really good athlete, not just as, like, a scrambler. I mean, I do think he's good at getting outside the pocket and making plays.

He's really comfortable. He has really good vision outside the pocket. But he's also a great designed runner, kind of in the same way that, like, Dak is, where he's, like, really good on, like, counter read, power, stuff like that, where he can really beat the hell out of you between you know like around the hashes maybe not the fastest guy to the edge but still plenty good um but i also think his quick game work is like it's honestly the best of i think the quarterbacks i've seen in this class he his he kind of gets a little bit inaccurate after

that but his quick game footwork just the way that he can maximize his efficiency and really make sure he's throwing accurate balls is like to me it speaks to how much time he's put into the position for such a young player and I think him not being able to necessarily translate that to like deeper drop back stuff is really more just related to like inexperience than him not being able to do it and you kind of just hope that with a couple more years of time and actually getting to play football that he can kind of clean some of that stuff up some of the clips that you were showing on your twitter the thing that i noticed about it when he was throwing shorter routes the ball really explodes i mean it gets there and that's something we don't think about too much like oh anybody can

throw those short passes but not everybody can fit short passes into windows in the middle of the field when you have linebackers in zones and you have robbers coming in and all the chaos that goes on the defenses create and he can really fire it in there and like you said I mean accurately too no absolutely I mean that was the thing is like you know we memed cam newton for like the longest time for being a terrible short thrower and i think a lot of that was honestly just that he had literally nobody who could like win on a slant route for five years yeah um but if you watch if you go back and watch some of cam newton like throwing like a speed out you know when he was at his peak in carolina that dude could rip a speed out better than almost anyone in the league

and it's because he had absolutely ridiculous arm strength and he could get away with it even if he Carolina, that dude could rip a speed out better than almost anyone in the league. And it's because he had absolutely ridiculous arm strength. And he could get away with it even if he knew maybe the defense was going to choke on that like really, really well. But like Lance is a guy who also has the same type of arm where like he might know that they're kind of indexing to take that away. And it just doesn't matter because he has the arm talent to make it work. I think the desperation for quarterbacks, especially athletic quarterbacks, will mean he probably goes before the Vikings.

There's a lot of people that are putting him to someone like Carolina, which makes a ton of sense. But I think for the Vikings it's sort of the same reason because Teddy Bridgewater is probably not the long-term answer in Carolina. I've made the Ryan Fitzpatrick. He's the new Ryan Fitzpatrick where he's going to play for teams that need a professional quarterback for a year, and then they draft someone else, and that guy gets a chance instead.

But with the Vikings and Kirk Cousins' contract up after 2022, it does make sense if things just fall the way they're going to fall. I think there were results last year we were surprised by, Tua falling, Justin Herbert a little bit you know too you could see it with the other quarterbacks being at the top with three other quarterbacks there or even in a position to trade up a couple of spots if they wanted to take an a long-term outlook despite all the other needs that they have this is the quarterback to me that makes the most sense in the first round because he can sit for that year. He can learn the position. He can learn the game.

And then you can also assess at the end of that year, like is this guy really got it or was he kind of just like an FCS hero? Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is like, I think if they get it within a reasonable range of him, even being in like decent trade range I think you have to I think it's not a matter of like oh they could like you have to because they and I think the Falcons are actually in a similar position I mean they're in a position to take him but I mean basically those two teams they can they can take him like you said they can sit him for 2021 and they can

kind of see what they have in in him and if he's good enough okay then you can try to ship off your quarterback um like I know Ryan can just basically be cut for like no money I'm not exactly sure where Cousins is on that it's not easy it's not he's got a great yeah and he really does but he can be traded right right um and you can do that and then if he's bad well you still have either Ryan or Cousins on contract, and you're still a decent enough team. So, like, it's a worthwhile shot because worst-case scenario, you still have a competent quarterback, you know, in Cousins. And so, I mean, and, you know, best-case scenario,

you have a guy who is hopefully at least as competent as Cousins and cheaper. Like, I mean, that's pretty good. Want to remind you about our friends at SodaStick. If you use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER, you can get free shipping at SodaStick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. There's so many great designs, including Chuck Foreman's Spin Doctor shirts, Skull Hats, Straight Cash Homie shirts, and much, much more. And if you're a hockey fan without getting going soon or a basketball fan,

make sure you check out all sorts of great designs. Their apparel is screen printed here in Minnesota on super soft, super comfy shirts and hoodies. You will love it. That's SodaStick.com, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com, original Minnesota sports inspired goods. Code Purple Ins insider for free shipping yeah i mean i i even like it for someone like jamie newman where i i've kind of brought him up before and i've got to watch a little bit more but just if you tell me this quarterback

has great physical gifts and is available the vikings make sense them, just in my mind, to develop for a year and then see where it goes, because I just have a tough time thinking with the cap space that they have and the draft capital that, hey, all of a sudden you're the top team in the NFC, you're a Super Bowl contender, snap your fingers, and you're back to that. There's also too many questions to be answered, and I also don't see teams that do this and even have it not turn out have their franchise corrode like I didn't see the Green Bay Packers fall into the ocean because they decided to draft a bad quarterback at the back of the first round like I mean and that one to me like Jordan Love in the first was kind of senseless but it's like

it didn't ruin their entire organization to take a shot on another quarterback that they might need down the road. You should always be thinking not for just this year, but, you know, the next year and long term future when you draft. That's a position that the Vikings might not be in with their coach and general manager. But I think philosophically, it makes a lot of sense. Are you a Mac Jones guy? There are Mac Jones guys and they're not Mac Jones guy. I'm not a Mac Jones guy, because I look at his body, and I see my body. So I think, eh.

I haven't fully charted him yet, but I think at this point, I've seen enough to pretty much feel comfortable on where I'm going to land on him. I'm not really a Mac Jones guy either, at least like not in terms of like, oh, he's going to go first round. That's insane to me. One, because he doesn't have the physical gifts near any of these guys. But to me also, like, let's say you take Mac Jones like the the best that you can realistically get like is what Kirk Cousins is. Yes. Like it's like for him to be better than that. You have to assume that he's like Tom Brady level genius, which you're an idiot if you're assuming that any guy is like that without you literally being in the room and looking at the whiteboard with these guys, which none of us are going to be able to do.

So maybe, maybe some team believes that, but there's no way that I think, you know, he has a good enough ceiling to really for me to buy in on him. And like, even with his floor, I don't think he's bad. He's, like, relatively accurate. He's, you know, pretty strong in the pocket. But, like, that Alabama system kind of makes it tricky to figure out exactly what a guy's floor is. And then when he doesn't really have any physical tools that tell you anything about anything good about his ceiling, it's, like,

it's hard to really feel good about him. And it's not that new. Like, Danny Warfel, Josh Heupel, like these guys, I feel like I'm aging myself a little bit. But, you know, Ken Dorsey, there have been lots of these guys who put up crazy numbers, did all sorts of winning, but didn't have the physical tools. And someone drafted them and said, hey, we'll give them a shot

because they're a winner. A.J. McCarron's kind of this way. And like, hey, that's not a bad decision in the fifth round or if it's somebody a little better in the third round, but it is a bad decision to put your franchise on that guy. And to your point, it's funny about when I see Kirk Cousins comparisons from other players, because Kirk Cousins has to max out every single ounce of talent and intelligence and competitiveness and all those things and work ethic to be Kirk Cousins like with his physical skills he's a fourth round talent player who squeezed every bit of blood out of the stone can we expect every other guy to do that

like no like usually you can't exactly I mean that's a great way to put it is like with a guy like Mac Jones, you really need everything to go right for him given his physical skill set. And like the other side of the coin is like a guy like Josh Allen, like not everything about his game is really fixed. Like his process is honestly still kind of up and down. It's just that he's so outrageous athletically. And that Bill's so outrageous athletically and that bill's offensive line say for this past weekend was really good down the stretch and was giving him a ton of time to really make use of him being a guy who can target down the field so like he can be a good quarterback while still flawed like if certain things don't work out for mac

jones he just sucks like you have like you, you have to have everything go right for him. Yeah, and Josh Allen is one of the interesting ones for me to talk about because I was so low, and then he has this great year. But it sort of feels a little bit Carson Wentz-y where you're like, if they don't have these things that go right for him, if Stephon Diggs tweaks a hammy and is out six weeks, like how's that going to work out for you? Or if the offensive line loses two guys in free agency,

because I still have this clock in my head watching and I go like one, two, three, four, is he going to throw? What's he going to do here? And the one thing I'll give him though, he is impossible to sack. Like you just can't bring the guy down because he's so massive, and that helps him a lot. But I think we saw some of the shortcomings in the playoffs. Now, speaking of that, Patrick Mahomes is an alien and is not from this earth, so that should be fun,

versus whatever is left of Tom Brady, which turns out sometimes is a lot and sometimes is nothing. So I feel like if the Tom Brady turn back time first half of the Packers game shows up, this could be great. And if the, uh-oh, Tom Brady's suddenly really old, the second half of the Packers game shows up, this could just be not a fun Super Bowl. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, to me, and I wrote about this a little bit for Football Outsiders today, I actually think the first half is like closer to what is real for that Bucs offense. Like their game plan was fantastic. They did a really good job like shifting and motioning guys to give Brady some good indicators. Even putting just a guy like, not even with motion, just putting Bray out like as a outside receiver. And obviously safety has to go cover him and they're like okay well now we know it's man because there's no way they're going to want to play a deep third with a safety on the boundary like nobody wants to do that and then

they did a really good job of like mixing a lot of their run concepts with their play action which I think they've done better lately like it seems they have a really good game plan and Brady did a really good job for the first like like, 35 minutes of executing that. And then the second half, he just, like, wasn't accurate. Like, to me, that's literally all it was. The first interception he threw, he tried to throw, like, a back shoulder to Evans that he just left too far inside. The second one he obviously threw too high, went off the fingertips.

And then the third one was, like, I think it was Leonard Fournette like blew a protection and Brady Brady kind of rushed out that vertical ball and it ended up like 10 yards short so like I kind of expect a lot of those weird miscues to not happen again especially when Brady's going to get a whole other week to prepare yeah and the interesting thing that Mahomes is facing for me is a defensive line full of beasts with an offensive line that is going to be missing both of their starting tackles. And if anybody can do it, it's him, because just like Josh Allen, he's unsackable, but way better at processing and throwing. And so, like, with accuracy. But, I mean, JPP is playing at an extremely high level.

Shaq Barrett is playing at a high level. Indomitian Sioux, if you ever get a chance when you can go to football games again in your life, I hope you get to see Indomitian Sioux somewhere up close. He is the largest person in the whole world. So they have some dangerous human beings here going up against them. Yeah, that's right. And he did a great job in that game. Actually played more than I would have expected.

So they have a deep defensive line that can get after you and can push the pocket back. And I think we saw last year against San Francisco, you've got one chance against Mahomes and that's it. Yep. And like the thing, even for as good as those pass rushers are, and for as, you know, banged up as his chiefs offensive line might be, like,

we even saw it in that 49ers game. It was like a third in God knows how long, I think. Patrick Mahomes threw a ball from like 15 yards behind the line of scrimmage and it didn't matter. Like that distance doesn't matter at all. Whereas like Brady is pretty much only throwing for as far as wherever he ended his drop back. Mahomes can drop like 20 yards,

and that distance doesn't mean anything to him. And I think against this particular team, especially one that's going to like to do a bunch of blitzes and stuff, I think he's going to have to maximize that particular trait that he has, and I think it's a good bet that he's going to be able to do it. Talk about the video game skill. I mean, I create myself on Madden. I do that mode.

So I'm the quarterback. I take it and I just drop the hell back. I keep going way back. I'm 15 yards back, plenty of time to throw. And then I make my play. But I never thought that was possible for like real people to do. And you know what? Even just before we wrap up, because you study this so closely

and I got a kind of an interesting note from somebody the other day about Kirk Cousins and arm strength. And I think that there's a pretty big difference between arm strength and arm talent and being able to throw accurately on a deep ball. Because this person's point was, hey, he completed a pass that was like the longest yards through the air. And my response was, they don't draw plays for 75 yards. I don't think you could run that far without getting sacked. But I think that that's the best way to explain it, is that Patrick Mahomes could be dropping back 15 yards and throw it 58 yards through the air for a completion, where what Cousins needs to do to get the most out of his arm

is kind of like an outfielder, right? Like catching the ball and crow hopping and being able to throw it like that. Yeah, Cousins has to have like, I mean, to me, there are guys who like have to throw at their base and there are guys who clearly don't. And a lot of that just comes down to like raw core strength or just like wrist strength basically like Michael Vick like Michael Vick I mean he wasn't even really core strength like he just had a straight whip like that was it like his arm was just crazy um whereas a guy like Cam Newton is kind of more of just a core thrower like his feet could kind of be wherever but the way that he could snap his core was just insane and he he could, you know, kind of like you said, just rip it 60 yards with maybe his feet doing

God knows what. I remember he had one against the Raiders, I think, in that MVP season that was just insane like that. And then Mahomes is a completely different category where like nothing that he does with his feet matters. Even his core doesn't matter all that much because he just has this, like he can just completely disassociate everything and like you said he can get 70 yards of arm strength doing literally anything I mean and that's where I think some of the the non-outfielder baseball stuff comes in like it looks like a shortstop just picking up something and like doing a spin and just letting it rip from some random platform like that's kind of how Mahomes plays and I don't think there's very many guys who can actually get away with it

like that. Right. That's the shortstop makes the play behind second base. You have to like flip their hips and make that throw. You got to be a freak athlete. Only a few, even shortstops, like they're great athletes, but only a handful can do it well consistently. Just never thought I'd see a guy throwing a football like that,

but here we are with Patrick Mahomes. So it should be great, the Super Bowl. Love your work. People should go check it out. You're at QBKLASS on Twitter, so you've tweeted out your article there. It is at Roto World on Trey Lance if you folks are interested. And I just love getting together with you, man. I hope we can do it again soon.

Thanks, man, and I'm sure we will. We've got a long offseason ahead of us. Yes, we do. Yes, we do.