Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Sage Rosenfels talks Brock Purdy and finding the next Vikings QB

Episode Date: October 18, 2023

Matthew Coller gets together with former Vikings quarterback Sage Rosenfels to talk about when he trained Brock Purdy before the NFL Draft and what he saw that has translated into him becoming a good quarterback along with Kyle Shanahan's schemes and what type of QB would fit Kevin O'Connell the best Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to a very special episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and returning to the show. It has been far too long. My friend, my favorite journeyman quarterback in the world, Sage Rosenfels. And for those listening on the audio version, wearing a Reebok Miami Dolphins hat from the old days. What is going on, Sage? How are you? I'm doing great. Good morning.

I've been out of the podcast game a little bit, just doing an Iowa podcast, sort of for Iowa and Iowa State fans, called Iowa Everywhere. I do an interview about once every two weeks, and I just have – I find people in my past, former players or coaches or media people, or present like Eric Eager from Pro Football Focus, and he'll come on, people come on. And sometimes we talk about football, but really it feels like more of a, how you been? And I'd like to know more about you, Kevin Carter, who was a teammate of mine in Miami and now works for CBS Sports and covers a lot of college football.

But he's the of the other, he's the other guy who played for Steve Spurrier and Nick Saban. I think there's two people in the whole world and it was Kevin Carter and myself. So that's what I've been up to amongst other things, but not in the media game and not totally entrenched in Vikings football, totally entrenched in the NFL or college football still, of course, following as a fan. But it's nice to be back on a talking ball. Yeah, and our connection remains, though, because my wife and I go to this restaurant

where you order and then they give you a number and the numbers are all from one to 19. So it's always a quarterback number. So every time we get the number, then I'll say, oh, well, that's, that's Bobby Brister or that's Bernie Kosar, whatever. So what I'll do is I'll go to the pro football reference page, screenshot their stats without the name, send it to you to see if you can identify the journeyman quarterback without seeing their name. And you have never missed you. you nailing bobby brister was pretty darn impressive uh but that that remains our connection of talking ball

from time to time but i want to talk to you uh this week specifically because of your connection with brock purdy you didn't just go to the same school as brock purdy but also worked with him in the pre-draft process. Did you ever see this coming, that Brock Purdy would become the starter of the 49ers and then emerge to leading one of the best offenses in the NFL? That's a good question. That is a really good question. I, you know, I don't want to ramble on about Brock Purdy, but you know, when I played football at Iowa state, I threw 10 touchdown passes my senior year. I think I threw 20 or something in two years as a starter. I threw for 52%, right?

We won with pretty solid defense and a ground game. We led the big 12 in rushing. We run some bootlegs. I would run the ball a lot, sort of like Daniel Jones in New York. Not the most – he's not Lamar Jackson out there, but he can get it done when it needs to get done. That's sort of how our offense was, and we took care of the football. Meanwhile, Brock Purdy, I come back from playing and I'm watching this kid

and it's like, man, he is out there just making magic all the time. I mean, his accuracy was always really good. Occasionally he'd throw an interception to make a bad decision, but for the most part, I mean, you know, there'd be a lot of times where he'd catch a snap and a blitz would come and he would just sort of like fade to one way and then like off balance throw a uh uh just like an extremely accurate pass on a really hard throw 20 yards down to the field of the tight end and it's like wow that's a great play like that's a great play and i would see eight great plays every game like a lot of them um it just sort of is a style of their offense. It's not overly sort of robotic for the quarterback. They don't do a lot of like long extended play

actions or bootlegs. It's a lot of RPOs and a lot of drop back pass. And you get a lot of weird fronts and weird defenses in the Big 12 too. So it's not like you can have a protection for every blitz that you're going to see uh in the big 12 and so you know i'm watching him throw uh his freshman year he goes in mid-season and i look right away i'm like this little short little guy with the thick thighs can you know he doesn't have a big arm and the ball doesn't like spin like crazy but he's a little playmaker out there then he he'd run and he'd fake a pitch and make someone miss and you rumble forward for 15 or 20 yards. And he was just a little competitor. And it just sort of was like that for the next four years at Iowa State.

And, you know, they relied on him a lot. If Brock Purdy got hurt, Iowa State would not have been very good. I'm a big believer in this concept of if you can find a college football team and say, you know, I'm going to take that guy off the college, that team and put someone else in there. How good are they going to be? Drew Brees at Purdue is always like the easiest one. If you took Drew Brees off Purdue back in the day, you know, maybe 500 football team, but they go to the Rolls Bowl and they win it. So Brock Purdy was sort of like that. And the throws and the accuracy is, and the anticipation, because I was doing an Iowa State radio show at that time. I did the Iowa State side, Chuck Long did the Iowa side. So I'd go back and I'd watch the film, like the real film, not just the TV

version. And it was like, man, this kid is making throats. Like I'm super impressed. Did they ever throw the ball 60 yards down the field? No, you know, but, but his accuracy and the way he could throw off balance and then his athleticism to create was, I thought really impressive. Um, and so when he was coming out, you know, the whole thing was like, well, he's, you know, 5'11 or 6 foot. I don't know how tall he is. And he doesn't have a big arm.

And he's just not impressive when you see like Josh Allen. When you see Peyton Manning or some of these guys, you're like, look at that giant person. And then it's like, well, actually, I'm about the same size. I don't realize how big I am. But Brock was just not one of those guys who ends up being on the list because of these sort of tangible, I guess, tangible measurements is probably how they say it. But all the intangible stuff and, again, that accuracy and sort of ability to throw on the move and throw on the run and anticipate was, I thought, off the charts. So I'm at his pro day. I mean, here's how you get it.

It's interesting. I'm at his pro day. I mean, here's how it's interesting. I'm at his pro day at Iowa State. And Kellen Moore, who's at the time the Cowboys offensive coordinator and is now the Chargers offensive coordinator, we sat there for three hours. I think those quarterbacks coaches, I seem to sort of find, or they find me, and we just end up talking about all sorts of things. And he was super interested in my history with that sort of Shanahan offense.

But was he overanalyzing Brock Purdy? Like, no, like he was watching, but it wasn't like he was all that super interested. And we were talking about all sorts of things. And sometimes we're talking to each other. We're not even watching Brock throw. I feel like I sort of missed part of his workout. But I mean, that's just sort of how interested

people were in him because he didn't have that big upside so short story long yes I I had a I had a really good hunch that he'd be out there my concern was his ability to get rid of the football with the NFL timing situation because he held on the ball a lot and I'm a like the thing is a hot potato, and you've got to throw on rhythm, and you've got to get back and stick your foot in the ground. And it's not like you're just bouncing around back there, you know, like looking over the field. And I feel like he was doing a little bit too much of that at Iowa State.

But they had long plays that took a while to develop, and so he had to hold onto the football and the NFL. They don't, they, they, they minimize those super long developing pocket passing plays get so hard, but he's getting the football out so quick. I think he's got probably the, he has the best coaching in the national football league. I don't know. You could probably say Tua is up there.

I don't know who the quarterback's coach is in Miami, but Brian Greasy, are you kidding me, is his quarterback's coach. The best situation, Jim McGrath, who had been in the offense for a number of years, so he got to sort of watch someone really run it. That wasn't like some elite player, too. And, you know, it couldn't have been a better situation for him. Great defense, but Brian Greasy is his core best coach. You've got to realize Brian Greasy was playing quarterback in Tampa

when Kyle Shanahan was quality control for John Gruden. So their minds and the way they think, and of course Brian Greasy played for Mike Shanahan, right, and went to the Pro Bowl. One year he had 15 touchdowns and one interception going into like week nine or something like that. To have him as your quarterback coach. Maybe Eli was really smart. Greasy may have been the smartest quarterback I played with.

He was like a political science major in Michigan. Grew up private schools and all those things and Coral Gables to have him with all that knowledge, even though he was sort of out of football for a while. But and then, of course, Kyle Shanahan's extremely cutting edge offense, that's always changing. To have that to be where he starts is sort of a dream that I think he knows how lucky he is. I do. I'm sure he does realize that, like, you watch other offenses, you're like, man, they don't do the things that we do. And I think that Brock's seeing that. So, yeah, I didn't think Brock was going to be, this was going to be happening.

But I really felt like, man, this guy gets in there. I think that the right offense, the right coaching can turn him into an NFL starting quarterback because that accuracy and that instinctual talent he has is what was so unlike I had really seen all the time with a player like this when they're drafted in the seventh round of, like, is it real? Is it just the system? Is it just the circumstance? And so forth. And look, throughout history, we have seen pop-up quarterbacks, so there's a reason why you would want to be skeptical when it's not somebody who's Josh Allen's size. We saw Case Keenum, you know, take the Vikings to the NFC championship. We saw Nick Foles get hot for a playoffs and win the super bowl. And then never did anything like that before. Never did anything

like that after. And I think it's fair for people to wonder, all right, is the physical skill really there? But I also think that if you're watching closely, I know he's coming off of a tough game where he led a game winning drive, but a kicker let him down. But against maybe the best defense in the NFL, a hard game against Cleveland. But I also think that, you know, C.J. Bethard and Nick Mullins and like other guys have tried this to not as much success as Brock Purdy. And I think there's way more playmaker in him than there is in a lot of those type of pop-up quarterbacks. And I also think that handling and managing all the stuff that he's asking you to do before the snap and after the snap, the reads and things like that, I don't think it's just as simple as anybody can drop back and throw to open receivers.

It's identifying where they are. It's lining them up correctly. It's getting the protections. And I saw a stat today that will be interesting for this matchup, that he's crushing it against the blitz, which to me says his preparation is extremely good. And I think there was some sense for that when he was coming out, that he had the mental capacity to handle something like this he has uh uh an extreme his probably extreme talent well he's got a lot of things going for him one he's extremely just

grounded and focused i think you can see that and you know if you follow him like on social media and he's not some big poster by any means but he just seems like the most down to earth focused young quarterback. And that's not easy. There's a lot of things going on for, for young guys. Um, but he has ability to take an information that all the information that's going on with the, with their offense, which there's a lot going on, um, in these things with the different types of motions and the types of plays. And, you know, Shanahan's got an all-missing audibling system and, you know, check with me and all these things. But for him to take all that so quickly and digest it and then go out there and from day

one play like he's a four-year veteran or three-year veteran where he's very comfortable in this offense. And the fact is, you know, go back to last year, he's out there with guys that he's never taken reps with. When you go out there as a third-string guy, you never are throwing to Debo Samuel. You are never getting snaps from the center. You're never working with these guys, ever. And for him to come in and so fluidly and just like veteran quarterback, you know, obviously, you know, I don't know what his like IQ is or his mental capacity or all those things,

but at least from a sports perspective, he can take in a ton of information and both with what you're doing and what he's seen out in the field. And it computes really, really, really fast for him. And that's probably his, you know, another one of his big talents that, you know, it's hard, hard to measure that at the combine in shorts and t-shirts. Yeah. And I was thinking about this as I was watching Justin Fields and I watched

the tape back on Justin Fields from this last game. And I was blown away how little he can see out there that it was basically he would get to his first read but he would come off of his first read quickly if there was anything going on in front of him I mean you've been a part of that chaos before but we almost just take it for granted when quarterbacks look comfortable how difficult that is and I feel like that's the hardest part as you're talking about because in college you can see everything pretty well everything's super spread out one side of the field is 75 yards long you can see where everything's going on

and it doesn't see teams play and teams really do play i I don't know, not that many coverages. The Iowa Hawkeyes are 6-1 in the Big Ten West. The Iowa Hawkeyes have been playing the same defense. There's a guy in Omaha that I know that is 37 years old or something, and he's like, they're playing the same quarters coverage of when he played DB there at Iowa State. They play quarters, 90% of the snaps.

And you don't see the, as a wider variety. I don't think there is this sort of three man rush thing with, with a lot more going on now, but some defenses are extremely simple in college football. And to, to, to move on to the NFL for,

for Brock is, is impressive. But you could tell it struggled with, as you said, with Justin Fields. It's been a real struggle for him to process the information. Do you understand processing of information, by the way? I know you do, but how that they're smarts and processing information are extremely different things and i think where justin fields struggles is this sort of processing of all the information that's going on at the same time and brock that's that his strength i think that is

testable and i think that the test will actually say that justin struggles with the sort of processing of the information of his team and, or the other team. And then physically that processing of, of taking that information in and making it happen. He's lower on that bar and, and Brock Purdy is, is extremely,

extremely high. So it was like Ryan, Ryan Fitzpatrick actually was, of course he's really smart, but his is really high on process information as well. So it's, that's an interesting attribute.'s, again, hard to measure at the combine. Folks, if you know me, then you understand how much I love going to sporting events. When I go to another city, what's the first thing I look for?

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Lowest price. Guaranteed. So my favorite, or I don't know. I had a lot of favorites, quarterbacks growing up. But like top five for sure, Steve Young. And there's hard not to make a comparison with former quarterbacks and stuff like that. I'm not saying Brock Purdy is Steve Young. Steve Young was an incredible athlete. I think Purdy is a good athlete, but not like running for a 75 yard touchdown or something. But yeah, one of the things that Steve Young said in his football life documentary, which is extremely good and people should check it out if you care at all about 90s football.

He was talking about how I think it was Mike Holmgren said to him, you're not going to be able to see your receiver run open. You're going to have to throw it to the spot. We tell you to throw it and just believe that your receiver is going to be there based on what you saw on the defense and I feel like there's a visualization element to playing quarterback where with Justin Fields unless the guy had already gone into his break and was wide open then he would throw the ball that's just not how quarterback works like everything has to be so far ahead you have to visualize where it's going to be and throw the football there and also sometimes not even see

where the receiver is because the offensive and defensive linemen are six foot six I mean this is this is like I feel like these quarterbacks who are good at it fit into such a small window of being able to do that and it's not just their preparation but also how they memorize it and how they like you said process it in their brain to be able to do it beforehand and that's something that you just can't scout in the draft i would say like when you go into a game i'm trying to think of how many pass plays you, you know, you have 150 pass plays or a hundred pass plays with all of them have at least two formations, just in case you want to run it twice or something, but you, excuse me, you sort of go into each one of

those past plays and what formation it's in. And you imagine all the possibilities of what coverages and plays, like what defenses you might see. You know, as the old school flank or drive play, but you're going to go back and before you go into that game, you're going to say, okay, if I get cover three, what am I thinking? If I get cover two, what am I thinking? If I get cover man to man, what am I thinking? If it's a Sam Mike blitz, where am I going with the football? If it's a Sam Will blitz, am I going with the football if it's a Sam Will blitz what am I thinking and you start having to go through mentally and sometimes physically too like after practice I'll go back and sort of go through one you know two and what coverage and that you know I got

to sort of mind work after practice doing drops and footwork but you have to like constantly try to be ahead of the game of where you're going to go to the football with what you what coverage that you think you got when the ball was snapped there's just you cannot read it out per se you have to be like on this coverage really the running back who's number three in my sort of pattern he ends up being the one that's probably going to be open so I will very quickly go through one two and boom three and it's almost like he's number one but you're probably you're what you've got you've done is you've done all this stuff beforehand and that years of that sort of preparation uh sort of pays off because you can't see anything out there you got brian mckinney to

my left who's six seven you got phil or maybe i don't know then phil loldholt who's 6'7". You got Phil or maybe Phil Lodholt who's 6'7". They're 700 pounds combined at least. And I'm supposed to see Wes Welker out there. Like that's, you can't. You can't see your people and you can't see, you know, throwback in Terrell Buckley either. He's 5'8 too. So you can't, like, you know, you can't,

you just see areas, but you see helmets barely move or the way that's what you really see. And the guys who were smaller like Brock or Doug Flutie, to me, man, Doug Flutie was like that guy was back there. And when he threw, he actually got shorter because he had a pretty wide sort of throwing motion like a baseball player and so he's like five foot eight when he's letting letting go of the football thrown between the guard and the tackle in some window and find some other window and he was like as good at it as anybody for being a small quarterback and sort of seeing where the defense was and seeing those little things and there are a lot of quarterbacks who just really struggle to see that puzzle and how your play fits in the puzzle and to quickly process the information to get to number three or four as quickly as possible.

You just can't hold on to football in the NFL. You just can't. It's nearly impossible. And there's certain guys like Justin who have a hard time getting it out really, really quick and anticipating. And that's, again, going back to Brock Purdy, that's what I loved about Purdy is his anticipation. He'd be throwing a ball and his receiver is completely covered as he's running through a window and a boom right between the two linebackers. He's hitting that tight end. Iowa State had Charlie Kohler on the run right in the chest. And I was like, that's great anticipation. That's hard to sort of trust to do that.

And some quarterbacks sort of have that and other quarterbacks really seem to struggle with it yeah and that's part of the you can make wide receivers open based on where the ball goes and sometimes we talk about systems and things like that and we go well you know nobody was open because you kind of look back at the tape and when the quarterback is throwing the ball everyone looks like they're covered but with, that's where you can throw people open. That kind of saying comes from. And I don't think it's something that's very easily scouted from college to the NFL. But as long as we have known each other, which I think is since 2018, you have talked to

me about Shanahan KubKubiak-inspired systems. And what is amazing to me is that the NFL figures out everything. They stop everybody from doing anything. The Wildcat is the all-time example, but there's hundreds of different wrinkles that have been thrown in over the years, and defenses always figure something out. And I think defenses are figuring out a lot of things that teams are doing this year and having a lot of success overall scoring is down. And some of the stuff,

you know, the trickery is not working and here's Kyle Shanahan, just one step ahead of the game as well. And I will say that I think part of his genius is Trent Williams. I think it's Brandon. I, you, I think it's Debo Samuel.

I think this guy is pretty smart hold on but one they drafted those guys right now like are they all first round picks no they drafted those guys they developed those guys Kyle Shanahan's the best wide receiver coach I had in the NFL too hands my first year in Houston 2006 he was a receivers coach hired him from Tampa he's a young guy he played receiver at Texas and when you play a receiver in the big 12 or at Texas you're going against you know Quentin Jammer and a lot of these guys that are going to go to the NFL and you're a little skinny receiver you're going to really really try to figure out like what is the best way for me to you're not just going to physically impose your Andre Johnson throw the guy down and run a slant like you have to really and Kyle was

so good at getting people open and developing those receivers Andre Johnson Andre Johnson was a sort of a chest catcher before when after a couple years in the NFL and then all of a sudden Kyle's working with him and he became really strong with his hands, with the football, his development as a development skills, as a, as a receivers coach, tight ends coach. The tight ends block like they're tackles because while they have incredible teaching with how they do those, those fundamentals. And it's not just like, well,

he ended up with George Kittle or he ended up with Brandon Ayuk. I think there's real development there and I think it happens right away. And so, you know, I think there, it's not just his system. It's they do find like they know in that system, you have to have a just a top, top tier defense event and whatever it's willing to take. They, and they got Nick Bosa. Right. And so that's what they, they know what's really, really important in the details and which players are important and they,

they do a great job of developing those as well. Yeah, no, it's a great point. And I'm, I'm complimenting the approach. I mean, Kyle Shanahan knew what he needed and he went and got it. He said, I need one more receiver. Let's get Brandon. I, you, I need Christian McCaffrey, which at the time they made the deal. I was like, are you sure you're going to trade all that? And I should have trusted him because McCaffrey is a special player with his ability to catch the ball. And that's just like handing a magic wand to Kyle Shanahan. But what, what is it about him specifically that has allowed him to stay ahead of the game?

It's not just the bootlegs as much as we like to talk about. No, not anymore. No, not anymore. I mean, they still do some good quick play action. It's less long drawn out because Brock doesn't throw the ball 60 yards. And to some of those deep play action that they used to have, you really had to chuck it down the field and they don't do that as much. But yeah, yeah, yeah.

By the way, the McCaffrey thing is your, as you were talking, I was thinking about, I think what they saw in the McCaffrey deal is one, they just knew what type of Swiss army knife player he is. He's a receiver running back, a little of everything, but the team that he was on, Carolina, I can't remember who the offensive coordinator was, but it wasn't some brilliance mind. And when you see a player who's a great player in an offense, in a coached offense, that's not very good and they're doing pretty well, but they're not like,

oh man, he's maybe not the player that he was when he first came out. And you go like, if we put him in our system, because they know how to maximize the talent and they know great running schemes and they know how to put him out as a wide receiver. Cause you can do all those things to know how to, you know, I think they just see value in like poorly coached players on other teams. And if we could just get that, like, yeah, his stats are, he only ran for 800 yards last year. Stats were down,

but we see that they have like the worst O-line coach in the NFL. Why? Because they all know each other and they know who, what coaches are better than others. You do. You just, you have a great feel for it. And oddly enough, not all NFL coaching is the same. And so I think they see undervalued players other places. And McCaffrey is, was definitelyaffrey was definitely one of those players. But on Shanahan, what is it that makes him so special and able to stay ahead of the game?

I know I took you in a bunch of different directions there. You know, what's interesting to me when I watch the film with both him and McDaniel, and then really each one of these guys that played for him or coached for him, they go and they sort of spread out like a tree and they all have their own versions of it, right? The Packers are different than, very different than what San Francisco does now. But, you know, I think what he does is he has these principles that starts with, I think, the tight splits. The tight splits by receivers allows them to do so many things and cause so much confusion. It's almost like the high school wing T in a way.

There's so many various things going on and reverses and motions. But the tight splits, when I watched the film, a lot of the passing combinations and the thoughts about are still very much. There's I watch plays that are like, that's the same play. We ran Houston 2007, same play, but they've just done it with a new motion. A lot of times those are running plays. You know, the three man bunch toss crack play was called truck back then. Well, now they do it with a motion where the guy is screaming across

and you snap and he's on the left side of the formation, but by the time Brock gets it, tosses it to the running back. That receiver now is the lead blocker who is the fullback in the bunch formation. So they're still doing a lot of these same plays with just sort of like cooler motions. I think to maximize both the speed of like the the receivers everything is like so fast the defense is a hard time computing all that information that that's happening right and where they're supposed to be and what gap they're supposed to have they don't like allow you time to to think but um yeah i think he does a great job with that those basic principles though are still

the same and he understands defense so. I think that's where it all starts with. Monty Kiffin, great defensive coordinator in NFL history, probably a Hall of Fame-style defensive coordinator. His teaching of the principles of defense, gap soundness and the way they drop and what they're being taught with their eyes and their feet. And that's where Kyle learned football from when he got to Tampa. He sent a lot of these money kiffing meetings. And I think that sets them apart.

Every other offensive coordinator had been around. You come up, you're like you say, I got into coaching. I'm not going to go to the defensive side of football. I'm going to go to the offensive. I'm going to hope to be a quarterback coach at some point, right? So I'm going to start quality control, go quarterback coach, work my way to coordinator. But never am I like, I'm going to go spend a year, two years, spend a lot of time with our defensive coordinator and learn exactly how they describe things. And that almost never happens. And so I think that's Kyle's big strength is his ability to truly understand exactly how like every single defense works and where the weakness is, because every defense has a weakness or two.

And it can be really, really hard to try to manipulate it, to figure out what what exactly that is and how to use it. And Kyle does that better than anybody. You know, he's still getting great players like George Kittle wide open, catching balls on, you know, some random fake jets or reverse and just gets got, he gets star players wide open. He still does do that on occasion. And like NFL teams don't do that. So I think he just understands the weakness of every single defense. And when he sees it on film he's like that's we're going to run this play because that same linebacker when they run the reverse he's going to lose

Kittle because he's he's got to carry him on the flatten up and he's going to lose him in the sort of the this that and the other and Kittle's gonna be wide open and sure enough like that's exactly you know that they see any undiscipline out there um they just take advantage of it i kyle once said if you can break the what was his phrase if you can um basically break the technique of the defense you'll make a huge play uh it's it really is that if you you know run a stick route versus inside leverage a little five yard out versus inside leverage you know that that they want you to run that little five yard out and attack you for a six yard gain. And we move on.

Right. But if you can fake going out and get the linebacker to run outside of you, then get inside of him that he's being taught to always stay inside technique. Now I get actually inside of him. That's then a huge play is going to occur because everything they're doing is trying to funnel to safety funnel to a corner funnel to a helping player and Kyle does a great job of uh drawing up plays that that helps it helps his guys break the technique of the defense folks if you've been listening to the show then you know how much fun we have been having with prize picks this year just Just go to prizepicks.com slash purple. Use the code purple

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purple50 at factormeals.com slash purple50 to get 50% off. It's interesting because that's something that our friends at PFF were looking at a while back about how do teams how often do teams cause a mistake by the opposing defense which is a really interesting way to look at it and i don't remember exactly like what the metric said about who was good at it or not but i'm sure san francisco was crushing because and if you think about it like if someone on the defense makes a mistake or has a negative graded play that your chances of creating a big play are huge so identifying what could cause that and identifying who could cause that which is the weaknesses as well and knowing the principles of the opposing defense and anticipating how they're going to game plan for what you do and putting it all together

and having guys execute it it's execute it. It's the reason why not too many people are great at coaching because there's a lot going on there from a week-to-week basis. I do want to ask you a future Vikings question, but first, something I've brought up on the show to numerous people is Brock Purdy comparisons. And I've heard them across the board for a lot of different ones. Well, I'll let you go first, then I'll tell you them across the board for a lot of different ones from, well, I'll let you go first. Then I'll tell you some of the ones that other people have come up with. Who does Brock Purdy remind you of?

Well, you can't, you know, Mike, my cousins, she writes TV shows or movies in Los Angeles, you know, one of those sort of Hollywood types and every single movie or show we talk about, she describes it or something that she's writing. She describes it as a combination of two to three other shows, right? So it's like, it's a little Breaking Bad with like an Eastbound and Down, you know, like she'll combine them. Like that's what I'm working on right now. So for Brock Purdy, I think that he's Drew Brees.

And I think that he is Doug Flutie or a young Russ Wilson without the big arm. His ability to run around. Gosh, I'm trying to his accuracy is so good for a young player. That's what I think. Drew Brees is accurate, but Drew Brees didn't have nearly as quick a release as Brock and didn't run around. Drew's a great athlete, but definitely did not like run around nearly as much as, as, as Brock and didn't sort of create as much. He was totally dialed and talk about a guy who would visually like knew exactly where he was going with the football when it hit his hands.

It was too dialed in with the defense, but was very in the structure. Flutie is a guy that used to run around all the time. Started up in Canada. Of course, he started with the Bears. Then he goes up to Canada and runs around all the time. Comes back and, man, this old guy's been playing for 12 years already. Now he's a rookie in the NFL. He's running around in Buffalo and playing great football. And that's how he sort of wasn't seeing Diego till till he was done. And it was like incredibly effective a lot of times.

But then he turned the ball over. So like he wasn't, you know, he didn't have a super quick release either. But from sort of a like little guy running around out there, that's that's sort of a comparison. I don't know. He's he's I haven't seen i haven't seen a lot a lot of players like him before especially at a young age uh especially at a young age so it's going to be interesting to where to where his career goes you know again like on that iowa podcast we like is brock pretty going to be some guy making 50 million dollars a year like the kid that was thrown past is at Jack Trice Stadium are like is that really going to happen you know we

had Tyrese Halliburton who's like a max player in the NBA which is pretty unbelievable you sort of feel like you just don't get those people in Ames Iowa like we're gonna have an NFL quarterback or not or like it flames out all of a sudden here and he hurts his elbow again and struggles to really throw you know we don't know what's going to happen but through 15 games or something or whatever as a starter uh 12 games whatever it is it's it's incredibly impressive to what he's accomplished already so far and so we'll see where this train goes yeah and we have seen players whose careers start off really hot because they have great teams and then they get paid and then etc etc after that uh and it's much harder for them because

they have to carry more of a load and this is going to be the future for josh allen for justin herbert even the most wildly gifted players are still going to have a challenge. Right. Exactly. Exactly. But I, I, I think that there's some Mark Brunel in his game for the nineties people, not a big time prospect or anything like that, but he does have that playmaking. He's got some shiftiness,

some quickness to his game. And also he had two amazing wide receivers and so forth, but very accurate is how I think of uh mark brunel but not like the biggest guy and then even though tony romo is big ish like he's maybe six two six three but that little bit of baller kind of didn't i mean oh big time I, I kept trying to think back who I was talking to back in those days, but discuss, I was, someone had a teammate somewhere who had played with Romo in Dallas for a couple of years. And he was like something when you idolize Brett Favre growing up in Wisconsin. And like you see how Brett sort of ran around and did those things with the, of course, with the rocket arm. But in breath, what Romo watched, you know, Kobe watched Jordan and sort of made his game similar to Jordan's. And sometimes they look the exact same.

Like that's a real thing in in sports in in idolization and and romo is one of those guys who really could get out he he's he's similar but i i think uh brock's brock i think brock's more accurate i think he's got a romo had a quick release um but uh definitely a much better coached team. I don't think Romo actually, he was back there a lot in shotgun and forced to run around a lot. I think their offense, if you look at it, if you went back and watched the Dallas Cowboys now when Romo was playing,

you'd feel bad for him. You'd feel bad for him because it was like shotgun first down, we're shotgunning all the time. And there just wasn't this like detail in the running game there wasn't great play action um there there wasn't it was very simple concepts in my opinion um and it caused him to have to like be a hero a lot so it was fun to watch but winning wise it was like a lot i feel like nine and seven ten and six sort of football because the the details just weren't, and it was hard for him. But he's probably – he threw like a Drew Brees, Tony Romo,

and Doug Flutie in there, and he got Brock Purdy. It's not – that might be a $15 million quarterback, though. So we'll see what happens. Yeah, but I think it is a good enough quarterback to take them deep into the playoffs, and they should be a Super Bowl favorite, which will make for a very difficult matchup for the vikings this week particularly because he's so good against the blitz which is brian floris's big thing but before we wrap up because i got to run out to tco performance center i wanted to ask you about the vikings

future quarterback kirk cousins does not have an extension i don't know how many hours you and i spent in our lives talking about the v the Vikings quarterback situation and breaking down all the different ways you could try to pump up Kirk Cousins. And I think what we've reached is likely the end of the road. And this group wants to go in a different direction in the draft. You know, Kevin O'Connell, I'm curious what you think that he should be looking for if they indeed go this route in the next quarterback class because there's a lot of quarterbacks to be liked in this next class if you watch any college football this year you've seen a bunch of them like what do you think would fit with Kevin O'Connell I mean what would fit I think Kevin does a great job um with right like right now

Kirk is a structured offense type of quarterback and so I don't know yet as like a head coach what Kevin had when what he would do if he had a Lamar Jackson or something like that. I've only seen what he did there. And of course, when he was back previously with the Rams and how McVay's offense was, because I see the similarities there. I also see a lot of Calvin O'Connell in the Detroit offense with what Jared Goff's doing now. So I feel like structurally they do similar things, but I would assume he would want to go

out there and to get a, a multi more multidimensional guy. I think that is, we've, we've been saying it since, I don't know when Michael Vick, maybe my year came out in 2001, like, oh, we got to have the multidimensional run, pass, pass, run, you know, quarterback, but they're so hard to find but i think more and more and more more athletes true athletes not like myself but real athletes who can do like 360 dunks in high school are playing the quarterback position and there are more and more uh players with the the the coaching at a younger age the quarterbacks coaching at a younger age, the quarterbacks coaching at a younger age, the throwing motion coaching, the training's better. I think there's just,

there's a lot more kids with great physical skills with great mental capacity to do all of it. And I think, you know, I don't know, I think you go after two of them. I think every, you just, we're going to go until we find the Brock Purdy, you know, and you don't know until you actually have them in there a lot of times, but I think you, you, you swing, the more swings you get, the more chance of you are of connecting. And, you know, I think he would probably like to have somebody a little bit more,

a little bit more mobile than what Kirk's doing, but I know it's interesting. It's, it's really hard. It's hard to develop. It's hard to bring them in and hard to have them learn the game as quickly as possible to get out there and start right away. The NFL, as we know, is an extremely hard business to be out in the middle of the stream and try to train your horse at the same time. you'd like to have that guy, of course, already on the roster as like some young guy. I guess like what the Packers did for a couple of times now with whether it's Rodgers or Jordan Loves has him sit for two years behind a good quarterback and really see how the pros do it. And Kirk would have been a great guy to sort of be behind for two years or a year and a half to be like, OK, now it's your turn, young, more talented, physically gifted quarterback you've learned for a year and a half from this like okay now it's your turn young more talented physically

gifted quarterback you've learned for a year and a half from this veteran guy but I don't know if the Vikings are going to have that capability to do that and so it is actually exciting in some ways for Vikings fans to be like what is the future really look like this is pretty obviously going to be a sort of a clean slate and the GM the head coach aren't going to be criticized or anything for like moving on. So I think they've played this situation fairly well. They were extremely competitive. Of course, last year being 13-4 and having a really good season,

they proved that, hey, we've got the right coach, we've got the right system. But now they may have to have a losing season or two or three or whatever as they go out there and try to find the one who's going to bring home the Lombardi trophy. And that that's not, cause even you have Josh Allen doesn't mean you get an old Lombardi trophy either. You know, only if you have Pat Mahomes, does it make sure, does it a hundred percent guaranteed? So it's, it is really, it's really hard to find the, the, the future,

whether it's the first round or you find the guy in the seventh round if i were kevin o'connell and this is from watching now a year and a half of tape of his offense there's two things that i would want i would want a guy who could make me right when i'm wrong because he sends a lot of receivers deep down the field, which creates a lot of space, but sometimes they cover it up. And it's just, there isn't much of an answer there for Kirk, but the answer might be escape, roll out, gain 15 yards running like, oh, my play didn't work or there wasn't any great opportunity there, or there was pressure. And this guy made me right with a play

there was a play on on third and long the other day where kirk gets no pressure whatsoever and it's man coverage but everyone's kind of covered up and one side of the field is just completely open that i think a quarterback who has any running mentality turns rolls out runs for 15 yards but that's just never going to be who k Cousins is. The other thing is too, that he runs a lot of these deep route combinations that are kind of clearing out for underneath stuff for the tight end and things like that. But he's got Jefferson. Jefferson is as good of a downfield receiver as I've ever seen. Like you want Matt Stafford to throw that ball in there. I mean, even if the guy's not perfect with accuracy, I feel like Jefferson is another guy who makes you right when the throw is wrong. And what we don't see from cousins who has a good arm when he can set off good platform,

but does not have a Matt Stafford rocket fired in there into the tight window. And I think that O'Connell would, would want that for his offense. I can very much see that um you know maybe you have the inside information but I I can see both the Rams excuse me the Rams and Minnesota sort of moving on from their veteran quarterback um going younger and especially with O'Connell having coached Stafford excuse me or, or been with him before, that would be a perfect fit. Again, they have similar offenses already, so he'd be a perfect fit. But also, again, you got to find the next generation.

You do. I mean, both those guys are almost done. You do have to find the next generation. But I would think that, at least for excitement, I would think that for Vikings fans, i would think that for vikings fans that would be an upgrade um even if statistically it's maybe they're in even you know in quarterback situation with where stafford is right now you know and and uh his propensity to throw a lot of interceptions sometimes but uh i think that would be a good move but again you have to go out and find that

quarterback and and you may have to draft two. Again, I'm a big believer in if you're swinging, you might as well swing a whole bunch and hope that one of them connects. And Brock Purdy was the last pick of the draft, and they found magic over there in San Francisco. Yeah, and you do have to draft high to get a Matt Stafford prototype, and we'll see where they end up drafting as we go down the road. But Sage Rosenfels, great to get together with you again. I always enjoy our conversations and no matter when we're talking,

what we're talking about, always learn something about football from you. So keep your phone on and be ready for Jay Fiedler's stats to show up in your phone randomly for me. At some point, we had to be on the show once. Great guy. Wonderful guy. Jay, it's funny. When I was playing, Jay was a veteran.

He was the veteran star in Miami. I already had a son. He didn't have kids until like two years ago. So he's like 50 with two little ones. And we're like in opposite spectrums of our life right now. So you never miss a good J.F.E. of the reference. Exactly. So I'm always there for you with that.

But thanks for your time. And we'll get together again, man, for sure. Thank you. All right. Good seeing you.