Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Report: Vikings won't make fully guaranteed offer for Kirk Cousins

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

Matthew Coller talks about a report from Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated that the Vikings will not give a fully guaranteed contract to Kirk Cousins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider Matthew Collar here and I'll tell you the truth I had planned to run an interview that I did with Brandon Thorne about the Vikings offensive and defensive lines but we got a little bit of morsel of news so guess what we're going live here on YouTube to talk about it and we'll have that interview with Brandon Thorne up on YouTube in the podcast feed very soon where we go through the Vikings options on the O-line and D-line to rebuild those things. But anytime we get any hints of what's going to happen at the quarterback position, we got to jump in and immediately talk about it. And we got that today from Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated, NFL insider.

He had several paragraphs about the Vikings approach to the Kirk Cousins situation and where they stand in negotiations, which will presumably happen at the NFL combine where the Vikings are very likely to meet with his agent. Usually they meet with all the players agents and go through their situations with free agency contracts and so forth at the Combine and talk it over. And every year this has happened between the Vikings and Kirk Cousins since Kweisi Adafo-Mensa and Kevin O'Connell have gotten here. It's actually year three in a row of us going to the Combine,

not 100% sure whether Kirk Cousins is going to be the quarterback. If you guys remember last year, Trey Lance thing was going on. And will the Vikings trade up for a quarterback? We weren't even actually sure how high somebody like Anthony Richardson was going to go. That was in the discussion revolving the Vikings as well. And they ultimately did not come to an agreement with Kirk Cousins, which has put us here. So let me bring you what Albert Breer had to say about where the Vikings stand in their negotiations upcoming with Kirk Cousins. I will read from his article at SI.com.

He says, because of some creative timing in his contract his current deal voids after the deadline to tag a player is passed cousins cannot be franchise tagged by the vikings so all he has to do to become available to the other 31 teams is well do nothing contractually until mid-march at this point it makes the most sense for him to do that. The current Minnesota brass, now going into its third season, really likes Cousins, but it's also been made clear that they're not going to go contractually where the previous regime did twice and give Cousins a fully guaranteed deal. Absent that, Cousins is now in position to hit the market much like he did six years ago, this time older and of course more injured. That said, the success

that he's had in the Sean McVay-Kyle Shanahan offense, both early in his career with Kyle in Washington and over the last two years under O'Connell and before that with Kevin Stefanski and Gary Kubiak, would ostensibly make him an attractive candidate to join new offensive coordinators in Las Vegas or Atlanta who have strong ties to that coaching family. What sort of price Cousins will be able to command is another question. Derek Carr and Jimmy Garoppolo did pretty well on B-level market last year, as did Geno Smith, so something like like 30 million would seem attainable. Is 40

million or 45 million in reach? That's a good question as far as how the Vikings would be willing to go or how far the Vikings would be willing to go to keep Cousins. So this is not definitive from Albert Breer that Cousins isn't coming back to Minnesota. But the nugget in there that is very much worth talking about is him saying that this regime is not willing to go as far as the previous regime went when it comes to giving Kirk Cousins a contract. So that means they're not going to give him multiple years with fully guarantee, which of course makes a lot of sense. And my approach to this for the entire offseason has been pretty simple.

It's been, look, Kweisi Adafo-Mensah has handled every negotiation like this. He has a price. And if the person he's negotiating with, whether it was Delvin Tomlinson, Zedarius Smith, whoever, Adam Thielen, Delvin Cook, if they don't match the price that Kweisi Adafo-Menta has set, then they're going to move on. And maybe that's just the economics element of bringing in a guy who works Wall Street and so forth or is into the analytics that they've got a dollar figure for every single player and if you don't meet it then goodbye unless of course we always have to throw this in ownership steps in and says no no no you're meeting that price but the way that things have set up over the last couple of years for this regime has not suggested that the Wilfs are desperate to keep bringing back Kirk Cousins. Otherwise, they would have pushed for a longer term contract extension

the first time when Kweisi Adafo-Mensa and Kevin O'Connell arrived, and they definitely would have forced the brass to do it last year if that was something that they definitely wanted and there was no other way around it, you're signing Cousins and we're going to step in here and pull that trigger. Well, that is not something that seems like it's happened, which to me means combined with this, they have an amount that they're willing to guarantee. They have a length that they're willing to go, and they're going to give that to Cousins' side and kind of say take it or leave it. So what it may come down to is just how much someone else is willing to give Kirk Cousins, because his agent is going to poke around, and during the legal tampering period,

but probably at the Combine, we'll have these discussions, and find out what are the Atlanta Falcons willing to do. I think I didn't give enough weight to the idea that the Las Vegas Raiders could be interested, but if they can't trade up and they're in the same area as the Vikings, if they can't trade up for a quarterback, they want to win. I mean, they won eight games last year playing Jimmy Garoppolo banged up with Josh McDaniels, and then Aiden O'Connell. So they may feel like they are a quarterback away.

And Mark Davis does have a tendency to do some crazy stuff and to put down the most cash and say, we're going to guarantee the most to bring in our quarterback. We could see that as a possibility. I kind of dismissed it in part because Vegas, Antonio Pierce, Kirk Cousins, just doesn't exactly meld, but Albert Breer makes a good point that Luke Getzey comes from that same sort of coaching tree where they like to build off the run, play action, bootleg, things like that. And I think actually Kirk Cousins would be a way better fit for Luke Getze than Justin Fields was. I think Justin Fields was a terrible fit for that type of offense.

But this offense that Kirk's been in his whole career, that could work out. And look, it is Sin City, but their facility is in Henderson. It's outside of the strip. It's not like they practice inside of a strip joint. It's just another NFL franchise. I don't know if that's where he would want to take his family or not, but I didn't really put a lot of weight into the Raiders. Actually does make a good amount of sense with Devontae Adams there. It's in Patrick Mahomes' division, but they could make the playoffs. I don't think you're terrified of Denver. The Chargers have work to do. And then of course, Atlanta is, I think everybody's best fit for Kirk Cousins.

Do they want to go all in on him? Do they want to trade for Justin Fields? Do they want to chase Russell Wilson? What's Baker Mayfield going to do? All these things are moving parts, but what we, I think know now, at least based on this reporting, is that it's correct to think that the line will be drawn in the sand for the Vikings as far as how much they want to guarantee. And then it's going to come down to, does Kirk Cousins want to come back at their number? Does Kirk Cousins feel like he's been kind of disrespected by the way this whole thing has played out? Is he okay with that? As long as he gets X, Y, and Z in the contract as well.

The guaranteed dollars are going to be important, but the length is going to be important. The potential no trade clause could be something that he's looking at as being important as well. So I've got to wonder about how much guaranteed money would they be willing to give? And when he brings up Derek Carr, that's an interesting contract to look at. We should go look at that and then we'll get into your questions and comments about this situation. But Derek Carr is a bit of an interesting comparison for this situation. He signed last year four-year 150, but that's not four years 150. That had $60 million guaranteed. And his cap hit was 35 million this year. Actually, it was only 7 million this year, the way they structured the

contract. And it'll be 35 and then 45. So with Derek Carr, he got $60 million guaranteed. Is Kirk Cousins willing to take 60 million? Does he want more than that? Are the Vikings willing to go 60 million guaranteed? That seems like a heck of a lot to give Kirk Cousins considering the risk that the Vikings would be taking on. So this one really feels like the outside interest is going to determine this. Or does Cousins have to come back to the Vikings and say, yeah, I'll take your offer because I couldn't get a bigger offer elsewhere. Or I brought this up a little bit on yesterday's show, something I was thinking about.

I've seen in the past sometimes if a player feels like they are disrespected by an offer by their own team they will actually take less somewhere else just to not take their team's offer because they don't feel like their team is completely bought in a lot of moving parts to this, but at least I think we have a feeling now that this brass has other options in mind. They've got the, here's what happens if Kurt comes back at this number. Here's what happens if he says no to that number. And I would imagine that they're only going to go as far as they believe they can actually work around his contract, which is not

very high in my mind. Is it 30 million? Is it 35? I mean, the Geno Smith contract was brought up, but if you're Kirk Cousins, don't you feel like you're more accomplished than these other quarterbacks that we're talking about? That you're better than Derek Carr, who again, got a four-year deal, even if it was kind of bogus to spread out the cap hit. Still, if the Vikings give Cousins a four-year deal, everyone's going to go, what? Are you out of your mind? I just don't see any situation where that happens. And we know that New Orleans loves to kick all that money down the road. By this report, it feels like the Vikings don't necessarily want to do that again, where they load up on all this cap space for Kirk Cousins to make it work for a year or two.

And that wouldn't make sense anyway when you look at the rest of the roster, which has been our big discussion throughout the entire offseason. So now let's talk about what the dollar figure would be that we would actually think was reasonable. Now, personally, my offer would be have fun in Atlanta because we've seen this by the way. And now they're going to pay some dead cap hit because of that in Tampa Bay. But if it was a cap hit like that, then okay, maybe we're talking, but it's not going to be. And one of the biggest issues with Cousins through his entire time here, and this is why it's not comparable to Justin Jefferson at all, is it's always been guaranteed and it's always been short term. And so there's only so much you can do to move the money around. And he has repeatedly had cap hits that are somewhere between 12 and 17% of the salary cap.

That's just way too much. They can't do that again. So how would they keep it under 10% of the cap? They would have to either go multiple years, which they probably don't want to do considering his age and his most recent injury. Heck, we saw Cam Akers, who's younger, have both Achilles pop. I mean, if that happens and you sign him to a multi-year deal, where are you at? They have to make sure it's year to year. This can't go over multiple years. Is it 40 million guaranteed? 30 million that they would give him?

It really can't be, if they were going to bring him back, anything more than a single year's worth of guarantees to me because of the risk that you're taking on with his age and with his most recent injury and his cousins going to be willing to do something like that and only take 30 35 million dollars guaranteed on a two-year deal that's essentially a one-year deal or is somebody else who's more desperate for a quarterback going to come in and say, hey, we'll give you 60, 70, 80 guaranteed? Because even the Derek Carr $60 million guaranteed feels like so much. And let's all keep in mind, too, that there's $28 million dead cap that happens either way. It can either be spread out or it's going to happen all at once, but it's happening.

So if you're giving him 60 million guaranteed over the next two years, say, for example, you also have to factor in that you're going to have to add money on top of that. That's the dead money from before. And I can't make this work. And every day I feel differently about the possibility of this happening. Is it realistic that he's back? Is it realistic that he's gone? I keep ending up at about 50-50. But today with this report, this makes it feel a little bit like, and somebody suggested this to me. I don't know if it's true or right or not, but it makes it feel a little bit like, is this out there to potentially

soften the blow a little bit? So it looks like it was Kirk looking for more guaranteed money, and that's why he didn't come back. Hey, not that we didn't want him, is the Viking side, not that we didn't want him. It's just that he wouldn't come back at the price. He wanted too much. That's really how they sold everything from last year in a good way, in a good way to not bring back Delvin Cook, to not bring back Adam Thielen. But they were never bringing back Delvin Cook. And yet still we heard kind of reports of, well, if he takes the right pay cut, that was never going to happen. Yet that was still what was out there and what people wanted to believe is that if he just took a pay cut that he could come back really that looked more like we don't want to be

viewed as wanting to get rid of delvin cook and the same thing they went to the combine last year with delvin tomlinson and at the podium at the combine said we want Delvin Tomlinson back. He's the best defensive tackle. He's our guy. And yet what happened? Somebody else came in with more money and poof, there it went. And Zedary Smith was kind of the same thing. He came in and said, give me some more money. And they said, nope, goodbye. And they moved on from him to Cleveland. And this at least seems like it's lining up to potentially be the same thing. And what I really wonder about, though, is the other moving parts. When does a Justin Fields trade happen?

There was a report today that Justin Fields and the Bears are going to work things out at some point for very soon for what they want to do. So where are they trading him? Or are they drafting Caleb Williams? Are they keeping him? Seems almost impossible that they would keep him. But the Bears are reportedly working that out very soon. Where does Justin Fields go?

And does he go there before Kirk Cousins becomes a free agent? If they trade Justin Fields to Atlanta, that takes a pretty big location for Cousins right off the table. If they trade Justin Fields to Atlanta, that takes a pretty big location for Cousins right off the table. If they trade him to the Raiders, if they trade him to Pittsburgh, where does Russell Wilson fit in in all of this? Is Russell Wilson even going to get a job for next year? I mean, he played okay with Denver, better than a lot of quarterbacks in the league last year, but does anybody want to get themselves into that? Or does Russell Wilson want potentially to wait for a team to get a quarterback injured

so he can press them for a bigger offer? I mean, there are a lot of things happening here. And does Baker Mayfield go back to Tampa Bay? Or does he surprise us and sign in Atlanta, sign in Las Vegas, somewhere else? There's going to be somebody who's competing for Kirk Cousins, but who's it going to be? Is it the teams we think, or will they, in the next couple of weeks, pluck quarterbacks from other places?

I mean, of course, Mayfield's going to be a free agent, so it'll be similar timing, but with Justin Fields, for example, or could Russell Wilson be traded? I don't know if that's going to happen. Could they have their answers solidified going into free agency that aren't Kirk Cousins after finding out what the price is? Everybody else plays a role in what's going to happen here. It just seems like with this report that it's a little bit of nod, nod, wink, wink. Hey, we just don't really want to marry you. And if you're going to come back extremely cheap, that's fine. But if you're not, then sayonara. And if you're

in that position already, I think it's just time to move on. So what their dollar figure is, what the guarantees are very, very interesting stuff. And we'll see if some of that trickles out as we go forward here. But I have to shout out to Albert Breer for the report for giving us a lot to talk about here. My guess, just as a total guess, this is not reporting at all as far as guarantees go. I could not see them going an amount of dollars. That would take you past one year. Just because of the injury. Just because of the age. And Kweisi Adafo Mensah has said.

Hey this is a guy. Whose body is young. Compared to 36. But he also noted. In his press conference. The history of quarterbacks of this age. And we've talked about it on the show. But unless you are legendary it is unlikely that you are going to continue to play at a super high level

past the age of 35 and with the achilles thing we shouldn't just aaron rogers told everybody achilles are no issue and of course he didn play, even though he claimed that he was going to be able to. And I think that shaped a bit of the perception of the Achilles injury. It's very serious. I would be shocked if Kirk Cousins was able to come back for OTAs or mini camp. Even the start of training camp is a little bit of a stretch and how strongly you actually come back from this thing at 36 years old. Cam Akers came back from it at 20-something, 22, 23. That's not the same as 36.

And Cousins did argue that, hey, you know, mobility's not a thing for me anyway, which is like kind of a cell phone in a way. Well, I'm a pocket quarterback. I can't move anyway, so who cares? But he does use his lower half, his base to drive the football. That's how he gets his velocity. If you're the Vikings, you can't give two years for that. You couldn't give two years guaranteed because what if he shows up and you find out he can't drive the ball anymore off his back foot?

And is it is right? Somebody correct me. I forget which Achilles it was. But he can't drive. If he can't drive the ball whether it's your drive your plant foot or your landing foot either way you're still talking about the base and the lower half being a huge part of him throwing the football and what if he shows up and that can't happen and you've given him 60 70 guaranteed that's not something I think the Vikings

are willing to do. So your reaction, let's go through it. Let's get to the comments and other questions or thoughts that you have about what they should do, who they should consider, what their numbers should be. If they are going to make an offer to him, I will take anything you got. So let me run down these comments from Jason. They need to just tell him thanks for everything. We're going in a different direction. Maybe this is it. Maybe that's what this is. Now. I don't know for sure if that's what this is, but that's how they did it with other people is they gave them offers that they knew they wouldn't sign and then said, okay, well, you're not going to sign it. So go to Carolina,

Adam Thiel. That's what happened. And is that happening here? Kind of a low ball, a little bit of a sandbagging. Is that what is going on here? That might be their Minnesota way. Isn't it? Isn't that like a classic Minnesota passive aggressive rather than just saying, Hey, we're not going to offer you anything. We'll offer you something that you definitely won't take. That would be the way to do it. Javier says, this is music to my ears. I just hope they don't get cold feet and give him everything like they did with Anthony Barr. I know different regimes, but still, that might depend on how good they feel like their options are outside of Kirk Cousins. And when we go through them, we just

talked about some now Justin Fields won't get traded here because the bears would not do that. Baker Mayfield, potentially Sam Darnold is a name that I like as a bridge quarterback. The draft options are good and there's all sorts of different opinions on these quarterbacks, but at very least there's four, potentially five, maybe even six, but probably five quarterbacks that have a really good chance to go in the first round. So they've got all of those options, throw out Caleb Williams, but anything else is possible. I didn't want to bring it up, but I did a draft sim the other day. First draft sim of the year is more of a practice than it was an official draft sim, which we'll do here on the channel a bunch of times. But Jaden Daniels dropped in my draft sim.

And there's always the possibility that Jaden Daniels or Drake May does drop in into the range of the Minnesota Vikings. Like it's not always clear as we learned from Will Levis and Malik Willis it's not always clear that the NFL feels the same way or the top picks teams feel the same way as the draft outside world it's not a guarantee that Jaden Daniels and Drake may go at the top or they might like McCarthy they might like Knicks there's those options but then there's also the bridge type quarterbacks that they could look at trade down draft another guy I mean there's a options but then there's also the bridge type quarterbacks that they could look at trade down draft another guy I mean there's a lot of ways that they could go but there's options on the table it's not like if you move on from Kirk this has always been the thing that I've heard

forever is when we talked about moving on from Cousins the big thing that comes up is well where are you going to get another quarterback well it's hard to get another guy as good as Kirk Cousins. Well, what we saw from last year is, I mean, not only did some rookies step up and play really well, CJ Stroud specifically, but Richardson played well also. Quarterbacks are more prepared than ever coming into the NFL as rookies. And also there's veterans available for the Minnesota Vikings here. It isn't that Kirk is the only possible option who could throw the ball to Justin Jefferson, for example. And we also have seen that Jefferson can elevate a backup quarterback

like Nick Mullins, who's, you know, maybe the 28th best backup quarterback in the league. We've seen that, that they can still throw the ball. They can still get Jefferson open with other quarterbacks outside of Kirk Cousins. So I thought that coming out of the season, they should have looked at it as, hey, if you get somebody who's reasonable, they're going to be able to succeed here and then draft and develop another quarterback. Hyrus says, I don't want kirk back six years and two front offices later the experiment is a failure he was brought in as the missing piece

it's time to move on and find our quarterback of the future well that's the thing is that it's not even a missing piece situation anymore there's so many pieces. When he arrived here, they really have to consider this. When he arrived here fully healthy and very much in his prime, look at the roster that they had. There was a very good argument. It wasn't my argument at the time, but it's a very good argument that he would be the final piece that, Hey, look, Case Keenum, you know, you just have to be a little better than Case Keenum. And if you're a little better than Case Keenum, then you could take this team to the next level. And okay. Because everybody came back from 17 outside of a few players that actually did turn

out to be important. Like Joe Berger, Berger, and Jarius Wright, players like that, but still the bones of a great team. They had pro bowlers all over the field in 2018. How many do they have now? How many pro bowlers, how many all pros do they have now? Well, they need to get a lot more because right now with Daniil Hunter not under contract, Harrison Smith might retire. You're looking at two, three. I mean, has Derrissaw made a Pro Bowl? If he hasn't, he should, but he may have not. Brian O'Neill, Justin Jefferson, that's it.

TJ Hawkinson, these are your guys. That's it. That's all you have. No, what? Metellus was a Pro Bowl alternate. That's a good piece to work around. But compare that to having Harrison Smith in his prime, Xavier Rhodes, even Trey Waynes as well as a solid corner better than anyone they have now. Kendrick's bar in their prime, Griffin, Hunter, Joseph, like there's just a lot of talent

that they don't have now. So it's not a final piece type of situation um Caleb says should the Vikings trade for Sam Howell he looked pretty good at times I've been a Sam Howell enjoyer personally he does get sacked like crazy and has some wild interceptions he does have an arm. He does have an NFL arm and played for a team that was really abysmal, kind of a coach that was clearly getting fired in a bad situation. If we're just talking about taking shots at people, why not? I don't see that as a bad thing.

As maybe the bridge, it's a little on the riskier side. But if it was, say if it was a draft pick quarterback trade for Sam Howell and sign Sam Darnold, let's get, let's just throw a lot of stuff at it and see if something works kind of in the way like San Francisco brought in Darnold. They had Brock Purdy who they weren't sure about. They were calling apparently Tom Brady to see if he wanted to come play for the 49ers for a year. And they had Trey Lance. That was going into last year.

That's he made the Super Bowl. It's not a bad thing to have multiple potential options. So there's always a fail safe. I like Howell enough to say, go for it, take a swing. But not as like the answer, of course. But there's enough there. Let's take a shot. Jason says four years 80

million dollars guaranteed for justin jefferson would he say no that's about the number that i've been thinking about for jefferson about four years maybe 120 overall 80 guaranteed now the guaranteed becomes a little less important for a younger player because you've got to assume that Justin Jefferson's going to play out the full contract and make the full amount. So that full amount is important to Justin Jefferson, but the guaranteed is always the number we look at. 80 million guaranteed would blow out of the water. AJ Brown, who made, made i think 56 guaranteed as the number one wide receiver so if it was four years 80 million that would be a lot but also would make a lot of sense for justin jefferson i think he wants to go shorter they want to go longer uh he wants to be the highest paid receiver by

average annual value they could do that but also be able to spread that out and make it. So his cap hits are pretty reasonable. And I was looking at this because I've looked at this Jefferson contract a bunch of different ways, and there's only a couple wide receivers in the NFL that make even more than 8% of the salary cap. So if Jefferson were to make seven to 8% of the cap at its peak for his number, that's fine. I mean, that I said, I mentioned cousins was making 17% at the peak of his number. If it's that much for Jefferson, that's totally fine. And, uh, you know, this is the thing that keeps coming up, uh, is the faithful says there's no way I want the Vikings to pay Jefferson that. But once I show you how the contract would actually work and consider his age and his success and the fact that you can restructure, the fact that you can extend, you get into, so you sign

into a four-year deal. After three, you're extending that thing and you're spreading out the money again. The problem with Cousins, and this is why it's just, I think it's gotten into people's heads that Cousins big contract problem, but it's not the same because Cousins had all the guaranteed money and he had short-term deals. That was the problem. That was the issue. That's where they couldn't do a lot with the salary cap. But the way you would set up a jefferson deal is that you will be able to restructure down the road and the first couple of years will be very reasonable go look at any of the contracts recently for wide receivers who got paid big coming off of rookie deals the first couple years of their deal were not too expensive i if you want

to go play around with it, it's a fun thing. Overthecap.com, you can actually create your own Justin Jefferson contract. I did this, and the first three years were $15 million cap hits. Totally worth it. Sort of like TJ Hawkinson, where this year and next year, his cap hits are very reasonable for a top five tight end. It will get more expensive, but that's when you restructure. That's when you extend the player.

There's options with younger guys, especially to be able to do that. And you assume that you're going to pretty quickly get into a winning window. Like if you're drafting a quarterback by year two, you're trying to get into a winning window um respected warlock sounds intimidating says is this the strategy of quacey and ownership or a push from leadership league wide to push the guaranteed money down no i don't think that it's that way with cousins that's worth asking about the lamar jackson situation and it was pretty clear last year with Lamar Jackson that the NFL owners were saying, no, no, no, no, no, let's not make any offers there. And keep in mind, they could have, they could have made mega wild, crazy offers and force the Ravens to match those

offers and then have some problems with their salary cap. And instead the owners just said, no, we're going to back off. We're going to make sure that Lamar stays with you at that reasonable price. So it doesn't go through the roof for quarterbacks. I don't know if that applies to a 36 year old guy with an Achilles injury. It more applies to the next wave of quarterbacks that are going to sign extensions. Now we kind of got through that though. We got through that wave of successful quarterbacks. Now there's going to be, let's say there's going to be a Jordan love extension and there's going to be a Jared Goff. So those guys, maybe it would play into, but cousins is going to be such a short term

that I can't see the, the league and guarantees really playing into this as much. But yeah, I mean, of course, they want to pay less guaranteed money. Everybody does. And all somebody else might need to do is just top the Vikings number. Timothy said, Quasey is definitely hedging his bet on Cousins. That's all they've done. I mean, that's really all they've done since they got here,

is they have hedged their bet with cousins. It's always been one foot out the door. And somebody brought this up. I think it was Dane Mizutani to me. The Pioneer Press does the postgame shows with me. He mentioned the other day, what if they had just gotten Trey Lance last year? And that's certainly worth asking.

I don't know if Trey Lance is any good or not, but if they had done that last year, if they had gotten Trey Lance instead of running cousins back, where would we be right now? Either you'd know that Trey Lance was a good quarterback and you feel like you're in heaven because you've got your guy, or you would have known that it didn't work and you gave up a fourth round pick and who cares? I mean, or you would have known that it didn't work and you gave up a fourth round pick and who cares?

I mean, they really should have done that. Dallas paid a fourth round pick for Trey Lance. That would have been worth it to at least have a potential option. But now they're kind of on the hunt. They must think that Lance is no good at all, but that's just kind of one of those things where they have consistently hedged with cousins where it's like, well, let's give him the shortest deal possible going into 2022, which made total sense. But then in 2022, let's not give him a deal at all. If he's not going to take the short one. And eventually I think similarly to Daniil

Hunter, the guy's got to be like, all right, man, if you don't, if you don't love me, then just let me leave, right? And that might end up being where we're at. Nick says, let Kirk walk, and we are out from under that monstrosity of a contract after this coming year. That is a really big part of this, is the $28 million dead cap hit is annoying for a year. It is annoying. Because if you add up him and Daniel Hunter, which by the way, once again, push money down the road, push money down the road, it'll be fine. It'll be fine. The salary cap's not real. Oh, but it is. Oh, but it is. And that's,

that would be a lot to have to work around. However, if you sign players in free agency, knowing the sheer mass of cap space that you're going to have in 2025, you could work out the deals to have lower cap hits in 2024 to get free agents in the door. Say, just for example, that you wanted to sign Brian Burns from Carolina the first year. You're going to give him a huge deal, but the first year, maybe it's reasonable. Maybe it's only a $15 million cap hit or something like that. 15, 18 million. And then it goes up, but it goes up when you are getting your huge amount of cap space from Hunter and from Kirk cousins leaving. So I, you know, I think that, uh, even though it's frustrating with the dead cap of $28 million, it's much better than adding whatever his cap hits would be to spreading that out.

Even if it's $7 million a year dead cap, that's still seven more. So if he signed and had a cap hit of $30 million, that makes it $37 million. That's a full player. That's a left guard that you could get that's just going to be in dead caps so it's clear that it's going to be a problem to deal with in the short term with that 28 million but ripping off the band-aid is much better than going down the road down the road with uh kirk cousins and having to deal with that even after he's gone for multiple years plus if he didn't make it to the end of the contract

you know with his injury or something comes back i mean then then where are you at there is a lot of risk in this this is what i've always said is that this team has to avoid the major risk that goes along with bringing back a quarterback of this age and with his injury and he can say hey i'm doing great he can dance on tv he can do whatever but once you get out there i you don't know uh you don't know at that age we never would have thought that cousins would have gotten injured this year. And then he did. Caleb says, Matt, would you give Baker 25 to 30 million a year, two to three years? He's only 28 ish. I have always liked the Baker Mayfield idea. Of course, everything has to go along with drafting a

quarterback. I don't think Baker Mayfield is the answer to actually winning a championship. I mean, he played really well this year and I respected the way that he handled himself. It was a total deviation from how we thought of Baker Mayfield in previous years. But if it was a Gino Smith type of deal for Baker Mayfield, where it's a three-year contract, but it's more year to year. And if you look at Geno's deal, it's more year to year. That they could have let Geno go and not guaranteed money at a certain date, even this year if they wanted to. So you could bring in Mayfield, see how it works.

If he's coming into his prime, shockingly, I mean, he is a former number one overall pick. If he's coming into his prime and plays great with you and wins 10 games with a team that's not that great and you have him under contract, you'd feel really good. And then, of course, you're drafting somebody else and you're having them ready to go. He was already in a situation like that. But then you can decide, is the guy that you drafted going to be ready? Is he not? Can you give him two years instead? So I have always liked that as a bridge where you can set up that contract so it doesn't lock you into that player as much as say a two or three is going to actually sound like when they do. Timothy says, Kirk will go to the highest bidder. It's always how Mike McCartney and him have operated. Yeah. I mean, I think that he was being honest when he talked to us at the end of the year and he said the famous line that we have loved so much and might make t-shirts of

someday about it's what the dollars represent, which is cool and baller. But I think he's being honest with that, that he understands that he's made 200 something million in his career. And it's not about building a new boathouse or whatever, or getting a cabin. I don't know if he's got a Minnesota cabin. If he doesn't, he needs one because everybody has one. But it's not about that. It's really about where your peers are paid. And what popped into my head was Derek Carr and Daniel Jones. I have to think that Kirk Cousins wants to be paid more average annual than Daniel Jones. That 40 million mark for Jones, Cousins knows he's a better quarterback than Daniel Jones. He knows he's a better quarterback than Derek Carr.

Is he going to be willing to say, no, I'm going to take less money than my peers who I am clearly better than? That's what he, I believe, meant. And then he said, it's all about structure. So that is it necessarily the highest bidder or is it highest bidder in the way that they could give the most guarantee highest bidder in the way that they could give the most guarantee highest bidder in the way that they could give a no trade or even the most years there might be a team that's willing to say hey we will give you three years even if it's not all guaranteed we'll give you three years

an x number guarantee and maybe there's stuff in there that if he does whatever, then that accelerate, whatever, right? Like parts of a contract that would be built in. If you hit certain markers, you get so much, whatever, because of the health issue. But how desperate is everybody else? That is the question here. How desperate is Atlanta? How desperate are the Las Vegas Raiders or the Pittsburgh Steelers? It's out there that the Steelers want to bring back Pickett and Mason Rudolph. I don't know. I don't know about that. They seem like a perfect team to try to bring in Kirk Cousins. They always win despite bad quarterback play. If they get a good quarterback,

they should be right there at the top of the division j98 asks how do you feel about minnesota letting kirk walk and drafting jj mccarthy with the number 11 overall pick and sign a bridge quarterback also yeah this is where the mccarthy thing i always talk out of both sides my mouth with the mccarthy thing there's one part of me that watches JJ McCarthy and goes, I don't, I don't see this. I don't really see what the attraction is based on how he played in some of the biggest games against some of the best defenses, Penn state, Iowa, the national championship game where he completes 10 passes.

He has talent though. He's got a great ability to throw on the run. He has a big arm when it comes to throwing intermediate passes. His deep ball is pretty bad. Maybe could be developed. Not terribly worried about that. If he's got a strong enough arm to do it, you could develop it. He looks like a guy who needs time. And then I'm uncertain about what the ceiling can actually be because I don't think he's a good enough athlete to be a difference maker as an athlete. He's not like a Jaden Daniels, who is a legitimate playmaker, a Caleb Williams. Drake May, I think, is a better athlete than J.J. McCarthy as well. But at the same time, I just want them to pick the quarterback that Kevin O'Connell likes.

If he sits down with J.J. McCarthy and they go onto the whiteboard and he fully understands what Kevin O'Connell sees and they view football the same way. And O'Connell believes we can develop a passing motion, which I believe is true. We've seen guys get more accurate. Jalen Hurts got more accurate. Josh Allen certainly did. All of these guys work with private quarterback coaches these days. It used to be a belief that you couldn't get more accurate, but now where you could spend a whole off season working with quarterback gurus,

you probably can. So if that's the case that they see football the same way that they like his tools, then do it. Then I would not be against it. I would be going against what my eye says, but that's fine. Like I, I mean, I don't believe in my ability to pick out which quarterbacks are going to succeed any more than I believe in yours or any team in the NFL, because history says it's really, really hard to do. So if they draft McCarthy, great idea. And then bring in Sam Darnold or bring in Gardner Minshew, pair those guys together. And if you have to play the other guy first, be patient,

play the other guy first, have a competitive season, and then go on to give J.J. McCarthy the ball. So when I mention my skepticism about McCarthy, sometimes people get like, oh, well, I love him because of X, Y, and Z. It's like, that's fine. If they love him, then that's fine. Then I will say that it's a good move. I'm just, with every quarterback, I'm going to bring up things that I like and don't necessarily like about them or skepticism or reasons that the Vikings might look at them and say, not really our

type of guy. Personally, Drake May would be my pick uh the size the athletic ability uh i think that sometimes too much is made of and i saw this a little bit on twitter hey look at all these negative plays by drake may like yeah he's a college quarterback so that's what's gonna happen he didn't throw like a ton of interceptions or anything but oh well he was behind on this read or he didn't make this throw or whatever. It's like tools are going to translate the most. The big arm, the size, the athleticism. To me, he has the second best tools of anybody. Jaden Daniels certainly is spectacular as well. But as far as how he throws the ball, the touch he can put on the ball,

how easy it can be, a brilliant deep pass. But if they were going to trade up to get him, you can talk me into lots of different ways to approach the quarterback position that are not bringing back Kirk Cousins at huge dollars. Timothy suggests letting Kirk walk, signing Gardner Minshew for two years, $30 million. Like it, like it. But, of course, everything, everything is always paired with drafting a quarterback

to go along with that. But if that is what they do, bring in Gardner Minshew. He was great last year for Indianapolis in relief of Anthony Richardson, kind of grinded it out. I wouldn't say he was a superstar quarterback, but Ryan Fitzpatrick-y in the way that he was able to step in. And I think at least my understanding is of him working with Richardson was a positive thing for them. I also would want that. Anybody you're bringing in as a bridge

quarterback to obviously get along with the rookie that you draft. Caleb says, what would the cost be for Kyler Murray if he was available? That is a great question. This is the wild card we don't know about. We are assuming that the Arizona Cardinals, who I think have some crazy number of draft picks, as tanking teams often do, they've got a lot of draft picks. They got more from, what, didn't they, did they release DeAndre Hopkins or did they trade him? I forget, uh they've got a lot of draft picks they got more from what didn't they did they release deandre hopkins or did they trade him i forget but they've got a lot of quarterback or a lot of um draft picks and i don't know if there's a quarterback that's going to be available for them when they pick at number four are the quarterbacks going to be off the board and then at number four they're just forced to draft a wide receiver or could they get

Drake May or Jaden Daniels there and reset the clock with the rookie contract? My guess is that they want to go the Lions route. I think they want to copy the Detroit Lions, have a solid quarterback and build around him over a couple of years. Even if he's expensive, if you draft well, you can build the rest of the roster around that. What would the price be, though? You might have to be talking about trading them something special. I think they're okay at tackle, but, you know, Jordan Addison and your 11 pick and maybe next year's first, the price, my guess, would be pretty high for Kyler Murray. But that's another option if they did it.

And I've looked at Kyler Murray's contract. You can restructure a lot of those years and cut his cap hits in half. It's not the most ideal, and there would be a lot of opinions on Kyler Murray. But I would say this, any time that we talk about a quarterback option, if you can give me an excitement level, I'm probably going to say yes. And Kyler Murray would be exciting. I mean, for a downfield passing game where he is at his best with an MLB arm and here was an, you want to hear a wild stat about Kyler Murray, that if this was an option, I would say, go for it. When he was throwing to Deandre Hopkins, that one year in 2021, where he was very

good, they had a 141 quarterback rating when throwing to DeAndre Hopkins. So when he had his guy, he was really, really successful. Bob wants to bring in Russell Wilson for cheap. It's a pass for me. I'm not into that idea. I just think it's more of the same. I want to get younger. I want to find the future quarterback. I want to be taking swings at the future quarterback rather than bringing in somebody that I don't think is a great fit for Kevin O'Connell at this point and just doesn't have the same skills that he used to. If you were giving me 2017 Russell Wilson, oh yeah. Oh, I'm very much into that. 2024 Russell Wilson, you're probably looking at the same issues with Kirk Cousins, where he's on the older side, could get injured. His play as a bridge, but again, it has to go along with drafting someone.

I still don't really see the point because when you bring in Russell, he kind of has to be your guy. This was the problem with Cam Newton and why nobody brought him back was you can't just bring in Russell Wilson and be like, hey, you're a bridge quarterback. And you can't just bring in Cam Newton and say, hey, you're a backup. Like those are franchise type quarterbacks. you've got to really buy into them. And we saw what happened when Sean Payton didn't. Bron Frick and Solo says, Vikings fans, who are the Vikings' top five quarterbacks of all time in order? Tarkinson, Favre, Cousins, Jeff George, Tommy Kramer are my choice as well.

I love Jeff George. That season was so much fun. I would put Randall Cunningham because of 98 and he won a playoff game in 97 for them as well, where he had a crazy game winning drive at the end off of an onside kick. I would have Cunningham ahead. Favre has to go there and you're not putting Dante Culpepper. Come on, man. You got to put Dante Culpepper there. I would have Dante Culpepper second. And then probably Favre, Tommy Kramer, Wade Wilson deserves to be in there. And then Kirk at some point around number four, number five. But you got to have Dante Culpepper.

His 2004 season, he took them to an NFC championship. He is definitely one of their greatest quarterbacks. Just bad break, unfortunately, for him with the knee injury. Lots of comments here. Really appreciate you guys jumping in on this. And just to reset, if you're just joining, we're talking about Albert Breer's report that the Vikings are only willing to go so far with their guaranteed money. They are not into giving cousins a fully guaranteed contract.

But Breer did not seem to know what that number is that they would go to. And maybe we'll find out more as we go forward into the combine where everybody's gathered in Indianapolis, including me. I will be there as well uh doing a bunch of shows there uh you know a bunch of shows from radio or um not radio row that was the super bowl but from uh indianapolis just as i've done in the past but all the usual suspects are going to uh appear dennis says time to move on unless he signs two years, 60 million, still too much for me, still too much for me. That's still 30 million, still 30 million a year. And how much guaranteed do you have to get for that?

Can you work around that? And there's also 28 million dead cap to be dealt with two years, 60. It's a, it's an offer that i think is intentionally if that's what they offered which i i actually would guess that you're sniffing up the right tree when it comes to what their offer is going to be two years 60 with like 30 or 40 guaranteed i still think that's too much i still think that you're not going to be able to go deep in the playoffs, build a complete team if you're talking about that dollar figure. But if we were talking about earlier, what's the price? What do we think they will offer?

You just, I think, got pretty close with two and 60. I think they will try to go low enough where it's an offer, but somebody else could very much top it. David says, you know, they won't do the smart move. They will cave in again and bring back Kirk and blow the chance to move on. Well, David, it seems you have been a Vikings fan for a while. That's the best I could do. I don't know if that's going to be the case. It has not been how they've handled other negotiations, including Kirk's last year. They did not cave to him last year. That has to be important when we discuss this, as far as the odds go, is the fact that they already went through this last year and it you know they were able to

you know not sign him to that extension last year Jason says hot take let Hunter Kirk and hitman walk yeah I don't know if that's a hot take i mean i think that's a fair take as much as the nostalgia of you know harrison smith i'd like to see him retire a viking um but ed reed went to the houston texans maybe it ends up a situation like that i'd prefer to see him remain a viking for life and he's a guy that i wrote an article about this, I believe, as a Hall of Fame player. So, you know, that is just better for the franchise if he stays. If he was to move on, though, you're just starting the clock on Josh Metellus takes over at safety and you get to figure out, does he fit in that role? Does he have to be in the hybrid role? And you're in a good place with two young safeties for a long time they can be like buffalo had with poyer and micah high they could be your combo that's really dangerous for a while uh so that's not it's not a bad thing to move on this is football and i think last year what i was really i'd say impressed by or struck by was when those players who had been good for a really long time moved on. Adam Thiel and Eric Hendricks, so forth.

The majority of the reaction from Vikings fans was like, thanks for the memories, guys, but it's time. And I feel like it would be that way with Harrison Smith and with Kirk Cousins. Hunter is a little bit harder because Hunter is not that old. He is 30 and he's coming off 16 and a half sacks that's a little bit more difficult to be like hey see ya uh delvin cook was coming off a down year so was kendrick's so was theelin and the second half of zadari smith honestly wasn't all that good so there was reason for everybody to be like, oh, this is okay.

Yeah, this is fine. With Hunter, start to finish, he was fantastic. And 16 and a half sacks setting a career high, that makes it a little more difficult to just be like, all right, buddy, see ya. But when we consider the price, it's going to be high and the risk that comes along with it. And there is a tie in Justin Jefferson point here that when we talk about who to pay and who not to pay, the fact that Jefferson is 25 is a huge part of it. The only reason I wouldn't pay Hunter necessarily is because of the age, that you'd be paying for his highest season last year

and it's unlikely that it goes up or that it even sustains whereas with justin jefferson five six seven more years of this is very plausible uh when a guy is 25 years old mike says do we really and the really is in capital letters so i want to emphasize that is really think another nfl team thinks the final piece narrative like we did when uh he was six years older coming off a major injury find me one nfl talking head who says kirk can be a super bowl winner well the talking heads are not the people that you convince it's the owners are the people who you can convince. And is, does another NFL team think that? Well, let's look at two teams specifically the Las Vegas Raiders and the Atlanta Falcons. Let's look at who they played a quarterback last year. Jimmy Garoppolo injured, didn't play very

well. Josh McDaniels, et cetera, and Aiden O'Connell. And they won a game where he didn't complete a pass in the second half, Aiden O'Connell. They lost the game three to nothing to the Minnesota Vikings last year with Aiden O'Connell. They have a very good defense suddenly. They have a receiver that they traded for and spent huge, huge dollars in Devontae Adams. And maybe no other quarterback can throw to a number one wide receiver like Kirk Cousins. If you're Devontae Adams, you are well aware of the numbers that Justin Jefferson has put up with Kirk Cousins. You want Devontae to stay. You spent all that to get him. You want Antonio Pierce to succeed right away.

And you want your offense to be good because your defense was top 10 last year. And they think, and this is something Antonio Pierce said, not I'm making up that they can compete with the chiefs. If they have ideas about how to slow down the chiefs offense, is that real? I don't know, but they think that and their owner has always been into the big swing. Al Davis first Mark Davis. They've always been into that. And their owner has always been into the big swing. Al Davis first, Mark Davis. They've always been into that. They hired John Gruden. They hired Josh McDaniels. They traded for Devante Adams. Is this the time where they begin being shrewd and reasonable? I don't know about that. And in Atlanta, their owner's 85 years old. Is their owner going to say, you know what? Let's draft Jaden Daniels.

Let's wait three years and then we'll see if we have enough to win. He's probably going to look at this roster and go, we haven't won in years. We've got three top drafted weapons on the offense that Arthur Smith couldn't use. And Desmond Ritter and Taylor Heineke couldn't use either. That's two teams that have a very good argument. And look, if you're Atlanta, final piece narrative, I get it. I get it. And it went wrong here.

Who are they playing? Who's in their division? Their division, it was, is terrible. The Saints, the Panthers. I mean, these are not good teams. So if you have Kirk cousins and he plays well, and he's got those weapons and a defense that is decent, I mean, yeah, they could be hosting a home playoff game. And if you're Arthur blank, that's what you want, right? You want to be back hosting a home playoff game. That's probably your goal when the division and have a chance.

Are you going to win the Super Bowl? I don't know. But look who's in the NFC. It's going to be San Francisco again, Philly again, Dallas again. Who else? Packers. Do you feel like you're so far off there? It's not like you're facing Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, CJ Stroup.

So there's always a talk me into that's why we like to play the game on the show is to talk me into and uh we wouldn't be doing a live show without this uh rock says if i were the vikings i would blow this up trade jj and move up in the draft for a future quarterback. Detroit and Green Bay will dominate the North for the foreseeable future. Minnie is going nowhere with Kweisi. If you call it Minnie, I can't believe you're from here. That's one, because nobody calls it Minnie here. But I don't know what, I mean, as far as Kweisi goes, that's yet to be seen.

We're going to find that out about the front office based on what they do here in this off season. So I don't know how we can make any assertion like that. And if they handle this quarterback situation the way that they might, as is maybe potentially being suggested by Albert Breer's report, then I'm going to want to see that play out. I'm going to want to see the roster build, who they sign, how they build the team, how they build other parts of the draft if they're spending a pick on a quarterback. And the Trey Jefferson thing is just completely off the table for me. I just don't buy that at all as a plausible thing that could happen or even a good philosophical idea. If you want to compete

with the best teams, giving away your best player is not the way to do it. It's just not. Oh, let's see if we can draft some other guys. Okay, well, what if those draft picks go wrong? If we even say 50% of draft picks go wrong. And look, as far as trading up to get the quarterback, yeah, that's great. But you want your quarterback to succeed, right?

Giving him the best receiver in the world is the way to do that. Not taking that player away. Then you're just robbing Peter to pay Paul. Then you're making it harder on your quarterback to have a chance to be great as opposed to giving him a great wide receiver to work with. There's no world where it makes sense to me. There's always going to be somebody in the chat every night where we do this that wants to trade Jefferson. It doesn't make sense. It sounds to me very maddening, very like I'm money ball, Billy bean type of thing,

but you win with great players. So giving great players away, it's not the way to do it. San Francisco worked through some tougher years with Nick Bosa, Debo Samuel on the roster and they built around them, not just giving them away. It's a bad idea. Is the Faithful says the number one defense from 2017 was smoke and mirrors. They got killed in the second one half against the Saints

and destroyed by the Eagles. I don't think that that's proof that they were smoke and mirrors. I don't agree with that. I mean, they were number one in what run pass and the red zone. They were a totally dominant defense. The problem is that in the modern NFL, not 2000 with the Ravens, you just can't defense your way to everything. Right. And we have to also consider that Drew Brees was the opposing quarterback for the New Orleans Saints, one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. Yeah,

he made some plays. They also lost Anderson Dayhoe in that game. That was a pretty big deal. But I mean, I don't know. That just sounds like sour grapes about what happened. But if I recall, the reason that the game turned against philadelphia in the nfc championship and i was there was a pick six thrown by case keenum that really turned the tides on that thing and then uh the defense fell apart later but i mean i guess you can always look at the playoffs and the final results i mean you could look at if you're going to do it that way then just say like lamarar Jackson's no good because they lost in the playoffs at the end. I mean, we just can't do it that way.

They were number one the entire season. They were totally dominant. So, yeah, but that wasn't even the point. Anyway, the point was that that team on defense, which was also good on defense in 18 and 19, by the way, that you could see why they would think that bringing in Cousins would be the difference maker. And then it wasn't because the reality of Kirk Cousins is all the ducks have to be in a row in order for it to work. That's always been the problem. It's not that he's not good. It's just that everything has to be in line in order for it to get there. If you're playing the giants in the playoffs and your defense fails, you just lose. You don't win that

shootout. If you, you go out to San Francisco in the playoffs and they shut down your run game, you just lose. Or if your offensive coordinator isn't any good in 2018 and in 2021 you just lose and uh if everything goes right you can win some games for sure but cousins has always been a reflection of what else is on the roster and if he couldn't succeed with everything else on the roster in 18 and 19 then why would it work now would be the point chris says i think draft uh i think you mean sign uh saquon and kelvin ridley draft quarterback that falls to 11 then spend the rest on defense would love to see that offense and let floors develop on the fly i like this plan. I mean, I don't know about if Saquon wants to sign here, but I like the plan of taking what they have on offense already and just stacking it. So I liked it last year when they drafted Jordan Addison because it was just stacking it. Stack talent around your quarterback

and do everything you can to get that man to succeed. That's the Jefferson point. Do everything you can to make sure your quarterback succeeds to the point where if you draft a seventh rounder like Brock Purdy, you've given him so much that he can take you to the Super Bowl. Or if you draft a second rounder like Jalen Hurts, you give him so much that he can take you to the Super Bowl. That's what you want to do. Make it impenetrable around that quarterback. So he's got to be horrible for it not to work out. He's got to be Zach Wilson for it not to work out. Let's see. Dan says better situation QB four or five or with JJ or QB two or three without JJ. Give me a break.

I don't know what give me a break means because I'd like you to go through the last 10 years when there's multiple quarterbacks in a first round and just tell me how it worked out. Did the number two quarterback consistently outperform the number four quarterback or the number five quarterback? No. I mean, not always. Did the quarterback who was taken second overall outperform the quarterback who was taken 10th overall? Not always. Mitch Trubisky, Patrick Mahomes. And you could say now, oh, well, obviously they should, but they didn't know that then. A lot of people liked Mitch Trubisky much better than Patrick Mahomes coming out. So a lot of people will like the top three quarterbacks.

The reality is one of them might end up being terrible and the fourth or fifth might end up being good. I don't like that logic. I'm going to give up the best player in the world at his position in order for a chance at a quarterback that I don't know is going to succeed rather than using the best player at the world in the world that is positioned to make that quarterback succeed. And let's go through the quarterbacks who have succeeded. A lot of it is circumstance. And that doesn't go for my homes. I've heard that. Oh, well, if he went somewhere else, he wouldn't. No, I would. But how about some of the guys who have failed? How about Sam Darnold and the bad circumstances he had? It matters what you give these guys. It matters that you can give Jalen Hurts,

A.J. Brown. And he went from a middling quarterback to a really good MVP caliber quarterback after getting A.J. Brown, a good offensive line. It just matters what you can give your quarterback. So if you're telling me number, and I don't know which one you're saying, because I don't know what give me a break meant, but if you're talking about JJ and the fourth quarterback, I would take that over the second quarterback and not having Justin Jefferson and then hoping and praying I could find another receiver that good. Addison's good. Hockinson's good. Nobody's as good as that guy. Nick says,

weren't Kweisi and KOC brought into draft and develop quarterback. I should also mention, by the way, Tua, Tua Tagovailoa. I mean, you get Tyreek Hill, totally different quarterback. Tua's probably just okay, but with Tyreek Hill, he's quarterback. Tua's probably just okay, but with Tyreek Hill, he's great. That's what you want. You want whoever can come in to be just okay. Worst case scenario, they're just okay, and yet they're still great. And best case scenario, they're really great. Yeah, I thought so, Nick. I thought that Kweisi and Kevin O'Connell were here in their original timeline when they arrived. I totally believed that their plan was to get here and to try to draft a quarterback at some point and develop that quarterback. And they haven't had the opportunity.

They weren't going to take Kenny Pickett. They weren't going to take Will Levis. They weren't going to take Malik Willis, Desmond Ritter. They didn't buy into any of those quarterbacks. And last year, the quarterback that they did reportedly buy into, which was Anthony Richardson, looked great when he came out. And it would have been ideal if they had gotten Richardson, had him sit for a year behind Kirk Cousins and then be ready to take over. But he ends up going fourth overall. They couldn't trade up and so forth. So that didn't exactly work out for them. But that was on their mind just last year of making that move and getting a quarterback. When they got here, the whole timeline made sense. Try to win in 2022 of course you know we could talk about ideas at the time were probably better to reset the whole thing but whatever it

made sense what they were talking about it wasn't completely insane to try to win in 2022 tear down major parts of the team in 2023 don't extend Kirk Cousins and then get another quarterback it all lines up and with this report from Albert Breer feels like it's lining up even a little bit more Roy says I'm sorry Ray says they should still try to sign Hunter back that would be a massive hole on defense for a guy playing at a premium position. Yeah, Daniil Hunter, you are better with him on your team than not on your team. It's just that everything carries a price tag. And if Hunter is feeling the same way potentially as Kirk might feel, which is this team is just playing games with me, and a boy band once said, don't play games with my heart, right?

Wasn't that the song? Don't go playing games with my heart or something like that uh the vikings have done that with daniel hunter year after year with his contract where they've said uh do we want to give you your massive extension no i don't think so and now he's got a chance to hit free agency and get that from somebody else would i prefer you be on the team of course And at the right price always comes along with it. The right price. When you're talking about a player of that caliber and the Jaguars need a rusher and the bears need a rusher,

there's going to be some high offers for Daniel Hunter. And it could just be pretty hard to be able to, to do that, to be able to match what other teams are going to potentially give Hunter. And here's another key part of the Hunter situation. He has to sign before free agency or that $14 million dead cap kicks in. So that would mean he would forego going out to the market and finding out other than in the legal tampering period i'm not sure he wants to do that daniel says if mccarthy daniels williams may all go before the vikings pick what would you do if

cousins all is already gone that would be getting into the territory of making sure you get a quality bridge quarterback baker mayfield at the top of the list but i would also say sam darnold gardner minshu maybe i look at him as more of a pure backup but you're then you're drafting somebody else maybe in the second round or trading back into the first to get bo nicks and the world has decided that mccarthy is going to go higher than nicks we don't really know that and history shows you that that's why i like to look back at the mock draft databases that every year the mock drafters have been wrong about quarterbacks. So I'm not entirely convinced that this is the order or that we know actually when these guys are really going to go. The NFL is probably lower on one of these guys, which one

we don't know. They're not lower on Caleb Williams, May, Daniels, McCarthy know they're not lower on caleb williams may daniels mccarthy they're probably lower on one of them than the outside world is and they might be higher on nicks i'm not sure um there's examples that go both ways the mock draft community was not high on my homes they were not high on daniel jones both those guys ended up going pretty high it's hard to say but that would be my plan would be to try to get the best possible bridge quarterback and then draft still draft bo nicks trade back into the first something like that or this is another option from enigma one is draft pennix in the second round uh and uh or trade back into the first along with an edge rusher at 11 that would be yeah to your question that would be another way to approach it uh they could they could sign joe flacco's brought up that

could it could be an option but i'm gonna say no to uh joe flacco probably pretty old uh it's always interesting to me that a lot of you guys have like really strong opinions on some of these quarterbacks and um i'm less i'm less like that i'm less like that when it comes to uh these this group because i think that there's reason to like all of them and if michael pennix shocked us and was actually taken in the first round i'd be like okay well all right that's cool mean, he's got an arm. Let's see how it plays out. So there's reasons to argue for all of them. If you want to make the argument for Bo Nix, pull up the numbers.

Look at the stats. Look at what that guy did. And also, he got better every single year, which is important to me that somebody continued to improve and improve and improve. And then, you know, if you're looking at JJ McCarthy, the raw tools, something to develop, that's yeah. Great. Okay. That's fine. Go ahead and take them. And if you're looking at Michael Penix, look at the arm and there's risks with all of them as well. And we're going to

get deeper into that with people who watch film in more intricate ways than i do when it gets to the combine i'm going to bring on some more draft experts and things like that so this this is always this is the point where i know it's probably time to end the stream is when jeff says jj will not win a championship for the vikings moss and car and Carter couldn't Moss and Carter this is just where like you gotta you gotta ignore a lot of stuff right first of all Randy Moss with the New England Patriots caught a go-ahead touchdown in the Super Bowl where he roasted somebody off the line of scrimmage they won every single game that year and he set the record for touchdowns you take take that. Is that okay with you? You good with that? That's one. I mean, Eli Manning threw it off of David Tyree's head and everybody forgot that Randy Moss did that,

but he did that. The other thing is too, in 1998, Moss and Carter put up the single greatest offensive season that the NFL had ever seen. You're going to take your chances with that. You're going to take it. I'll take my chances with that. And if Gary misses a kick wide left, then fine. But I'm going to take my chances with having the greatest receiver in the world, drive your offense to success. Yep. I'm going to, I'm going to take a shot at that. And let's, let's not forget recent history is pretty, pretty helpful to wide receivers outside of the chiefs. The team that's in the super bowl in overtime against the chiefs this year has two elite

receivers. The team last year has AJ Brown and Devante Smith, who they drafted in the first round. The team that won the Super Bowl the year before had Cooper Cup, who won offensive player of the year. The team that was playing against them that had the ball with a chance to win the game had Jamar Chase. Hey, look, if you can't beat Mahomes in the Super Bowl, I guess it's just not worth anything. I don't know. Also, Mahomes won a super bowl with tyreek hill so that also matters as well anyway uh let's see from anthony why are the wolves overthinking the whole kirk cousins situation it's really not so complicated at all the guy is good but he's not great he is he has

not taken us to the promised land yet move on on. I don't know. Kirk Cousins does stuff to people. He messes with your brain. I don't mean like in a weird way that he does. I mean that every time I talk to somebody about Kirk Cousins, who isn't involved with the Vikings, people who evaluate players, other people in the NFL, they will always say to me, always, well, you know, you could do a lot worse. And that's where everybody gets stuck is that's totally true. You could do a lot worse. And it's always been the fear of doing a lot worse. And he always gets you right to the edge. He always gets you into the one score games. This is something that I think Kevin O'Connell talked about at one point last year.

Well, if we don't fumble in this game and we don't have this bad call in this game and then we're this and this, but the good teams and the good quarterbacks, they blow people out. They don't play every game. One score. They don't rank 14th in scoring.

Not if you're going to win the super bowl, not if you're going to really compete for a super bowl. That's not usually you outscore your opponents by a hundred, 150 points over a season. You don't play every game close, but when you play every game close, cause your quarterback is just good enough to play every game close. It messes with your mind. You think we were, we were right there. All we need to do is X, Y, and Z better. But think about the Super Bowl. The chiefs did a lot wrong in that game. And Mahomes came through with a game-winning drive. There was a lot of reasons to say down the stretch for the Chiefs,

oh, well, we didn't do that right or didn't have that go right. But your quarterback makes up the difference. So you don't have to always play in these one-score games. And if you do, you've got the best of the best, but you shouldn't always be playing in those games as they have been. Uh, Zen Clover 84 says, is Joe Milton a nice project for a team that needs a backup quarterback? Looks like a heck of an athlete with a huge arm. I don't like what I see from Joe Milton. I don't think so. I he's looks to me like somebody who's going to be

playing in the UFL personally, seventh round pick, maybe undrafted. I mean, just if you watched him in the senior bowl, it just didn't look like quarterback play at all. I mean, so, so far to go big arm, but not much else there. Uh, Roz 47 says CJ Stroud was good without a star receiver. That is false. Incorrect. Yep. Sorry. Not true.

Um, sorry. You didn't watch any Houston Texans. It's just not true. Do I have to tell, I don't have to tell fantasy players who it was, but that's just not true. Uh,

let's see. Jabu says, uh, only when people learn to accept the fact that the Wilfs don't give two bleeps. Sorry for putting the cuss word on the TV here about winning a Super Bowl with all the cousins stuff makes sense. Yeah, I don't think that's right. I don't think that's true. I just don't think that it sounds very much like with the twins forever where it was like.

Well, think about think about these narratives that we have in town just just in minnesota well the timberwolves can't win with glenn taylor because they draft they didn't draft steph curry well they're winning now and okay glenn taylor is on his way out alex rodriguez is in but it was glenn taylor when he was the owner where they drafted anthony edwards wasn't it really just Anthony Edwards? Didn't they just need Anthony Edwards? Wasn't it just that they made mistakes and drafted some wrong players? Was it really that the owner was the problem or was it a few bad decisions that went wrong,

but mostly that Andrew Wiggins didn't hit and Anthony Edwards did. That's really the difference. Isn't that really true? Isn't it more the obvious explanation here that it's not the Wilfs don't care about winning. It's that they've never been willing to tank is one. And they haven't been in a position to draft that quarterback and haven't gotten lucky with it either. And that's really what it kind of comes down to, to say that they didn't try. I mean, they tried with cousins that was trying, it was trying wrongly, but it was trying. So I've never been into that. They spend a lot of money. They spend a lot, the resources. It's just, that one's always a little bit To me Just off I don't think that that's quite true

I think people love that though People love to say that I just don't think it's exactly right Taylor says What's the approximate cost of Hunter Anyone hear contract numbers I have not And this is a hard one

When I look at other pass rushers, there are guys who have really good contracts that you would maybe want to emulate, like a Hassan Redick or a Shaq Barrett. And then there are players like Nick Bosa, for example, that you can't reach. So if Hunter is going for the biggest and the best of the best for contracts, if that's what he thinks he can get in Jacksonville or in Chicago, you can't compete with that. You can't give him 27, 28, 29 million, but could you give him 20, 21, a PFF Brad Spielberger suggested three years, 21. I'm into that. That would be great. So it really depends on where he views himself and where the league views himself or him. If they look at him and say, yeah, this, this guy is on the same level as Bosa, TJ Watt,

Micah Parsons for the impact he makes. He's going to make that big, big, big money. If they look at him more as hassan reddick and shaq barrett guys who have had huge sack totals but aren't maybe the same level of impact players then you could be talking about a reasonable deal and i i don't know the answer to that that's going to depend on other teams which kind of goes to this whole thing is a lot of it comes down to other teams with kirk and Hunter. A lot of it is what's somebody else willing to pay. Will says, why don't more teams emulate featuring two receiving tight ends that the Patriots did a decade ago with Gronk and Hernandez? TJ's hurt. Maybe the

Vikings get another tight end. I think it's because there's so few good tight ends that what they were able to do is just almost impossible to get two tight ends that are that talented. I mean, how many tight ends in the league, fantasy players would know this, were really, really excellent last year. Just how many total. And the Vikings did try this with Irv Smith and Kyle Rudolph, and it actually worked quite well for 2019. Irv got hurt, never was the same after that. That's life, I guess. But the Vikings did try to emulate this, and when it was going, it worked pretty well. And I agree, if you have that, if you have two beast tight ends that you can put on the field at all times oh man you are hard to stop very hard to stop but how many tight ends are there there might be 12 good people

who could play tight end in the entire league can you get two of them not easy to do bob says uh matt if you could rank top six quarterbacks in this draft, the KOC would target. What's your order? I don't know how anybody could not have Caleb Williams. Number one, there are times throughout this year that maybe some of you heard me say potentially like, I don't know. Maybe I think that Drake may is better, but I don't.

I don't think Drake may is a better prospect. I think that Caleb Williams is the best prospect in the draft. There might be some teams that have Drake may or Jaden Daniels a little higher. I can't really be sold on that. He's just got the most talent. And even despite those other concerns, he's got the most talent. I couldn't pass that up. So obviously Caleb Williams would be everybody's number one. I think may is second. And then after that, it's probably Daniels McCarthy, Knicks or Daniels, Knicks, McCarthy, and then Pennix. But I don't really know because Pennix actually makes a lot of sense with his arm strength. Those throws that he makes down the field are the dream throws for Kevin O'Connell's

offense. But I would have to think that he wants playmaking and everybody has a strong arm. Even Bo Nix has a pretty strong arm. We shouldn't act like he's got some noodle. I mean, he could throw the ball. So McCarthy Nix, that's where I'm not really sure because there are a lot of draft analysts right now saying that McCarthy is over Knicks. But again, can we really trust the draft Illuminati? I think history will show you that we can't. I mean, Stuart brings up Mel Kiper having McCarthy as his fourth quarterback. Sure. A lot of people have different orders, but I mean, last year, one of ESPN's draft analysts reported that the Indianapolis Colts had Will Levis higher than Anthony Richardson on their draft board.

Like that was a report. Oh, I'm hearing from sources. Totally wrong. So that's where I just don't trust anything. And all it takes is one team. So if you look at, Hey, look, this is where Kevin O'Connell sees certain route combinations that this quarterback throws. Well, it goes to a very deep level that we just can't go to. I think Drake may is a great fit though. That touch on his fastball is really something, his size, his ability to see down the field, his deep ball, it's really nice. That's the guy I think would probably be the best for the Vikings.

Taylor says, here's the thing with Kirk, who knows how good he will be. He already isn't super mobile. Now add a bum Achilles. The risk, he isn't, Kirk, we remembered, is fairly high. He might be a statue. Well, he's always been a statue, but it might be even worse.

I think the risk is that he doesn't throw the ball as well. That would be the risk, is that he just doesn't throw it as well as he did before. That he can't put the velocity on the fastball that he used to be able to do. Um, that was really his, um, that was really his, you know, his key was to be able to grip the ground, create the torque and fire fastballs into, uh, you know, tight windows and things like that. If he needed to, or throw with anticipation. If any of that is thrown off a little bit by this injury, then it's going to be a problem. Is the faithful, why is there talk of Knicks being so bad? I don't know. I, to tell you the truth, I have no idea. I have no idea. I mean, with Knicks, it it's great stats the guy was a former five star he's athletic he created he put up incredible numbers he was a field general running an offense

when I watch him I see a lot to like do I see the next Mahomes no but I I see a lot to like, do I see the next Mahomes? No, but I do see a lot to like, and he wasn't like a statue quarterback either. Last year he ran for, or the year before I ran for over 500 yards. He made plays out of structure. I just don't think that he's the sharpest quarterback as in super, super deadly accurate, but I, I really do. And I mean, this isn't exactly true. Like Enigma one says Nick's just doesn't throw down the field. And I don't think that that's true. I mean, I looked at the numbers on this on the show before, and when he threw down, when he threw

over 10 yards, he was graded among the best of the best in college football by PFF when he threw over 10 yards and very rarely had turnover worthy plays. But I don't know. I don't know how the league is going to look at him. Knicks, McCarthy, Pennix are all a mystery to me. Terry says, if Kirk Cousins was in this year's draft, where would you rank him? That's not, and you say, there's your answer. That's not your answer because Kirk Cousins was in this year's draft, where would you rank him? That's not, and you say, there's your answer. That's not your answer. Because Kirk Cousins doesn't cost what a rookie quarterback costs. So it's not your answer.

It doesn't work like that. He's also not 22 or 23 where he's going to get better. If he's in this year's draft, a quarterback, I mean, this is a quarterback of his intellectual power would never be at the draft. No college quarterback has anywhere close to the mind that Kirk Cousins has. Of course he doesn't. But if you were drafting Kirk Cousins, he was drafted in the fourth round for a reason because he has limitations that's and that's what the league would look at with him even if he was coming into the draft now although that would be funny if a 36 year old came into the draft um i guess that did happen kind of with chris winky

i that's not how this works though if it was just who could play the best quarterback and everybody costs the same amount then there would be better arguments for Cousins, but that's not how it works. So yeah, I mean, I think that also if we're talking about raw tools, we're talking about just talent, Cousins is accurate, but look what wins. Mobility wins in the league. Athleticism wins. Playmaking wins. He wouldn't be ranked among the top quarterbacks because he is missing a pretty key element this is why you know michael pennix probably will go in the second round he could throw the ball really well but he's not a playmaker and everybody's going to look for a playmaker because defenses are so good defenses are so so good at creating pressure how can you escape it

you know kirk cousins has never ranked in the top five in offense for a reason. He's consistently been in terms of points per or drives where you produce points in the middle of the league for a reason, because there's a kryptonite there. And that doesn't mean he's not a great quarterback because he is. It just means that there's a limitation. That's all. And that limitation is kind of a death knell to trying to go deep in the playoffs. Unless the only other example of a pocket quarterback is a guy who was drafted number one overall, which is, oh yeah. Okay.

Hendon Hooker. That's a good point. That's a good point. Hendon Hooker was, yeah, he was almost as old as Kurt. Yep. That's a good point. That's a good point. Hendenhoeker was, yeah, he was almost as old as Kurt. Yep. That's right. So, you know, I think, um, with this whole discussion, that's a big part of it is, are you going to bring back somebody who's not going to be able to make key plays with his legs who couldn't before, but now is unlikely to be able to do it again uh at even the level that he did before i thought his pocket movement was pretty good last year in the pocket

moving a little bit here there even if that gets worse that's a problem all right last comment of the night j98 sign tony pollard and draft mccarthy at 11 and address the trenches on both sides of the draft um yeah i think they're gonna have to get guard in free agency more likely than not i like the idea of signing a proven running back there actually are several really good running backs tony pollard mixed with ty chandler and alexander madison in more of a role as opposed to being the guy. I think that's pretty good. And McCarthy, that's fine. If that's who they like, then take them. If that's who they like, go for it. So, all right. Time to put a wrap on it. I really appreciate all of you jumping in. Huge crowd here tonight. Awesome, awesome live stream reacting to this Albert Breer article.

Si.com is where you can see it. We need to do what we can to help si.com stay around sports illustrated. So good reporting there by Albert Breer. And we will have so much more to talk to talk about anytime that there's breaking news, rumors, all that stuff you know we're going to go live we're going to be here look forward to by the way the conversation we talk about the trenches with brandon thorn that's going to be coming up on the channel as well

really really great insight from him so uh that's going to be here just uh tonight we had to talk about this report so thanks so much everybody hey do all those things subscribe like go to purpleinsider.com check out the newsletter there as well you can sign up for free participate in the friday mailbag all that stuff so thanks everybody and we will talk to you all again very soon football all. you