Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Sam Monson lays out the Super Bowl blueprint for new Vikings GM Nolan Teasley

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

Sam Monson of the Check The Mic podcast joins Matthew Coller to talk about how Nolan Teasley will need to approach building the Minnesota Vikings to get the franchise to the Super Bowl. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider presented by Fandul. Matthew Collar here and joining me on the show today, Sam Monson, check the mic podcast. Look, Sam, when they name a new general manager, who more do I want on this show to break down how Nolan Teasley can get this franchise to the place that they have not been since the 1970s? And you having followed them closely since you were a little tyke, you know the struggle of the, ups and downs of the Minnesota Vikings. So we're going to break down how Nolan Teasley can get the Vikings to a Super Bowl. You ready? What's going on?

How you been? Yeah, especially since I appear to have been the angel of death for poor Quasi. I was talking to the man midweek at the senior ball and then Friday he's gone. So, oops. Yeah, you know, I don't think that that had much to do with it, but the timing maybe was a little weird. You know, I've been thinking about the timing a lot, though. And now I'm convinced that they should fire all general managers in January.

and have an interim for an off season. Because if you're Nolan Teasley, this is, I think, a very favorable situation to walk into where you can learn the entire landscape, watch an entire training camp, take in a full season before you really have to start, you know, pushing buttons. Yeah, they could add an outside linebacker for a little bit of depth right now.

But in terms of your major moves, I think it's really hard when they fire a general manager at the end of the season, hire a new guy two weeks later. And then you're like, So you don't know any of the scouts. You don't know any of the people in the front office. But come in and do an entire offseason. I think this works out really well timing-wise for Nolan Teasley.

And for the Vikings to a degree. Like there's a, there's sort of give and take in terms of, you know, if you do it the way everybody else does it, you're now going on a general manager search at the same time as the other teams that are in need of a general manager search. And everyone's kind of in this rush to like fast track it to get their guy, right? Because you're in a competition with everybody else.

So as much as you can take that off the board. The Vikings got to take their time with this and got to do it at their own pace and got to, you know, spend as much time as they wanted to do their due diligence on any of the candidates they wanted. There's no pressure. Now, obviously, the downside of that is you're doing it after the cycle has already taken place, right? So if there was somebody you wanted in the main general manager's hiring cycle, you miss out

because you've taken your time, you've done it at a different rate. But I think there are benefits to doing it this way as well. I'm not sure that was the plan. I don't think they necessarily game planned it out that way. But I do think that the fact that they've been able to, you know, sit down, take their time with this, get through. Like, it's also the, there's no real reason to get a general manager in, you know, a couple of weeks after you fire the last guy. You're not looking at the draft and free agency necessarily because, like you said, that guy's coming in. it's somebody else's staff.

The legwork has kind of been done by other people, particularly the draft. I mean, free agency, they should have a better handle on it. But the draft, you're kind of working from the last, you know, the last guy's information. So the way the Vikings did it were presumably the coaches took a significant power share in that whole process this time around. Like we were joking on our show that it felt like Brian Flores was like

in the corner with the phone and a chair and a whip. like I'm making these picks. If you can take this phone out of my hands, you can make the next pick, but it's not happening, right? I'm not sure that's a bad thing necessarily, as opposed to a new general manager comes in. He's working from the last guy's data, and they're kind of compromising their way through the draft.

You might as well just, you know, the work's been done. Let the coaching take what the coaching wants, at least for a year, and then let's come back around. Let's hire a general manager. Let's let him put his old process in. And you've got, you know, 10, 11 months. before he needs to put that into practice. Yeah, I was perfectly fine with the idea of the coaches taking the reins for this draft,

even if it meant maybe a little reachy on certain picks or certain guys where you'd go, I don't know, is the positional value, this, that, or the other thing. But it's like the investment that they're going to have in these guys versus, well, a GM that we didn't believe in drafted these players. So immediately you're skeptical as opposed to pouring into these players being more patient, which I think is what the franchise needs from these coaches, who have pretty much said about every young player that has come in and is not ready. All right, yeah, hit the road.

And you look around other teams like, well, this guy's playing over here. This guy's got a depth role over there that they drafted. The 2022 draft is spread about the nation for, you know, other teams. And I think getting on the same page with Nolan Teasley and believing in his background and believing in his success from Seattle is very different from Quasi Adafo-Menta. who just never really won everybody over. And I think that if he had, it would have looked a little bit different

in the way that they managed the draft. But I also think that Quasi da Flemento, we have to remember the circumstance he was dropped into was you're not allowed to tear this entire thing down. So you have to try to win in 2022. And then he tried to fill every future position with one draft by trading way, way down, taking a bad trade with the Detroit Lions.

And then because it fails, they're behind the eight ball the entire time. So they're chasing and chasing and chasing, right? Because they want to be successful. They have Justin Jefferson. They've had veteran quarterbacks. So they're chasing and chasing. And also, if J.J. McCarthy had worked out, then Kuezzi Adolfo Mensa would look really smart.

And they'd say, wow, how bold was it to get rid of an expensive quarterback? That's so genius. But that's just, that's not football. But I think Nolan Tisley now takes over a spot where, yeah, not only does he get to evaluate this entire situation for a long period of time. But also, he comes in at the end of a group of players. There's a lot of free agents after this year. There's a lot of veterans.

And if he wants to take this thing in a refresh direction, I think he can. Now, we know they're never going to go all the way to the bottom and tank. But at least he can come in and have the credibility as the new GM to say, all right, we're moving out a lot of these guys and we're going to rebuild it in my vision. Yeah. And also, you know, until you get an. answer a quarterback, whoever is coming in is always going to be able to put, like the biggest stamp you can put on a team is the quarterback, right? So as long as you're in a world where you've got

a short-term solution in Kyla Murray, potentially no solution in J.J. McCarthy or, you know, the development of J.J. McCarthy and then mystery box X for if neither of those guys are the answer, like the new general manager is going to have his opportunity to put the biggest stamp possible on the franchise by selecting the next quarterback. And, you know, ultimately, the way, way the NFL works, you tend to get one shot at that, right? You get one go, getting your quarterback in the building. If you get it right, all is good. You get to do whatever else you want to the franchise. And if you miss, that's probably going to cost you job. And that's the one go around at this you get. That's just the way of the world now in the NFL. It's become about finding the quarterback.

So, yeah, the team is in reasonable shape. It's not the best Vikings roster they've had over the last half dozen years, but it's not in bad shape. You know, the fact that they were able to win as many games as they did a year ago with arguably the worst quarterback situation collectively in the NFL, you know, speaks to the fact that the roster is in a solid position. They've had some flux in the offseason. They've lost some players. They brought in some more.

But yeah, like the biggest thing he's going to be doing is where are we getting the next quarterback from? Who is it going to be? What methodology are we going to use? Are we just turning straight to the draft? and, you know, next guy up in the first round, or are we going to get more creative? You know, are we going to try and find the next Sam Darnold or, you know, that type of thing? There's various ways of doing this.

And a lot of it depends on, you know, what kind of combination, Kyla Murray and Kevin O'Connell are going to create this season. You know, that's where I wanted to sort of aim our conversation toward how do the Vikings get back to the Super Bowl. Like, what's the way? What's the method? And what's been really interesting about the NFC over the last. number of years. It actually has probably been this way for a long time is that there are a lot of good quarterbacks in the NFC. And I went through and counted 11 quarterbacks out of the 16 who at

some point by PFF have been rated in the top 10 during the last five years, which I think really tells you that there's a ton of parity at the quarterback position, which means that the Philadelphia's, the Rams, the Seahawks, the teams that have built the strongest supporting cast, and a lot, in a lot of ways the strongest defenses and the strongest offensive lines and the strongest running games. And one of the reasons I think everyone's talking about like, well, you know, you got to have that running game and it's a running league now. Sort of because if you have that, it's an edge when your quarterback, if it's Jalen Hertz or Dak Prescott, the gap's not that much.

Or if it's Sam Darnold or Jared Gough, the gap is not that much. So that makes me wonder about how they'll ultimately feel about where Kyler Murray fits into this because Murray has cracked the top 10 before in 2021. He was 12th by PFF in 2024. I think that the road to the Super Bowl and the NFC, unless Caleb Williams becomes Josh Allen and then the landscape totally changes. But as long as he's not and he's just a flawed really good quarterback, I think that stability at the quarterback position becomes a cheat code.

And we see what the Rams have been able to do, a rebuild on the fly around their quarterback because you're not constantly chasing that position because you know what it is. I would not have said this to you during the Kirk Cousin's era because I think it was very different than it is right now. You still had Rogers. You still had Breeze. You felt like 50 miles away from those guys. I don't feel that way now necessarily about Kyler Murray if he is the version of himself that has been the guy who could play 17 games and be a good quarterback. Yeah, it does feel like the landscape is changing again. Like it's constantly shifting. But before you were, in this world where if you had one of those elite quarterbacks, you were going to get to the

playoffs every year and you were probably going to win a game or two in the playoffs and you were a Super Bowl contender in any given year. And the Chiefs just showed that's not true anymore. The Bengals have shown it's not necessarily true. Like teams that have that elite quarterback any given year are not necessarily just already rubber stamped into the postseason and they're a contender right away. As recently as like last year, I would have been saying Andy Reed plus Patrick Mahomes equals playoff team, you know,

Super Bowl contender. I don't even care what the rest of it. Like, I literally don't care what the rest of the roster looks like. That on its own is enough

to get that team into a contender status. And it wasn't. I understand, you know, six wins looks worse than maybe it was because Mahomes got hurt

and, you know, it's not exactly fair. But like, this was not the contending team that they had been before from week one. Like Mahomes was playing the game differently in week one.

He was playing it like it was the AFC championship game as soon as the season started. He was making like trucking people, you know, making those carries that he only really broke out in the playoffs in the past. He understood he needed to carry this team more than he had in the past. So, and yet, as you said, the sort of the level of like the baseline level of just decent quarterback seems to be going up. So I wonder if the way that the league has shifted defensively, the way that they've sort

of taken away these explosive plays as much as they have. in the last few years if it's almost narrowing the gap between these elite quarterbacks and just good quarterbacks and now there is power to just getting a guy that you know is pretty good and locking in this consistent consistency at the position for a few years and letting you just focus on the other elements of the roster um the problem with that is with kiler in in a couple of ways number one you've got the injury you know risk that he's had an injury history now you know i don't know if you want to sort of double count that and ding him twice and be like, well, he's a small guy, so maybe he's going to get injured again.

I don't know that's fair as much as just, look, he's been injured, right? So he might not last 17 games for four straight seasons. The other thing is he is a unique quarterback. And with Kyler, you've got this extra layer of not only do we need to get him playing at a decent level, we need to figure out how we build an offense around him that looks different to an offense for any other quarterback in the NFL, right? And that doesn't mean it's worse. It just means it's not the same task for a guy like Kevin O'Connell.

He can't just say, all right, you know, my quarterback likes a couple of things, doesn't like a couple of things. Like Murray is a short quarterback who plays the game differently to everybody else because he's short, right? And that's a reality you have to live with. And that doesn't mean that Kevin O'Connell can't create an offense that makes something, like makes Kyla Murray look like that top 10 player and be that top 10 player. And it's awesome.

It's a top five offense in the NFL and blah, blah, blah. But it does mean that it's a different task. And it also potentially means that it's harder to do that year after year and, you know, constantly reiterate and, you know, evolve this thing in a way. Like if you watch Shanahan's offense or McVeigh's offense, like those guys are, they're iterating on a year on year. They're building it. They're evolving it.

It changes, right? And you can do that knowing that your quarterback can do whatever you wanted to do. You might not be able to do that if you're like, well, okay, the next. logical step of this offense is to do this, but I can't do this with Kyle Murray because he doesn't play the game that way. And this is, you know, the Eagles are potentially running into this problem as well with Jalen Hertz. And their approach to that appears to be, we're just going to force him to play the game this way. Like we're going to take away AJ Brown, get rid of him, you can't throw those classes anymore. You're

going to have to operate in the middle of the field. And if you don't, we're all screwed. So you get used to it, right? I don't know that that's the right approach for the Vikings, but it's a similar conversation that they may end up in if this works out this year. Folks, you guys know that I'm a hat guy. I've always been that way because I sunburn easily and my wife likes how it looks. But if you find yourself wearing hats these days to cover up your thinning hair or receding hairline, well, maybe it's time to take some action rather than try to hide away from the world.

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time throws which is insane no turnover worthy plays and you're like if he plays like that you will win every game and then you know a couple weeks later it's it's way down and that I think was a big issue with Kirk Cousins as well where Kirk Cousins you were guaranteed to have Kirk Tober and you were going to get a certain number of games where you were just like, this guy is unstoppable right now. And at some point, someone would say, just like with Kyler, they'd be like, you know, Kirk's like playing like an MVP. And with Kyler, there has been three times in his career where people have said,

you can Google or whatever, look it up, duck, duck go, everyone's using now. You can look it up and it'll say, Kyler Murray is in the MVP race, eight weeks through a season, six weeks through a season. And then at the end of the year, you go, well, that's a pretty good year. But if you distributed that year equally through each week, yeah, you would have won a lot of games, but instead it was the 400-yard passing game and then the 100-yard passing game, you know, and with sacks and interceptions and mistakes. So how can Kevin O'Connell smooth that out?

And I want to tie this back to Nolan Teasley, because what Teasley has to decide is, can Kevin O'Connell smooth this out enough? And can Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison and T.J. Hawkinson and so forth and Joanne Jennings, can they smooth it out enough? because he has been extremely victimized by bad defenses. Mike Sando pointed out to me that the Cardinals have had one of the worst special teams over the last five or six years. They're just atrocious at pretty much everything.

So they're awful. They draft a guy who's supposed to be a generational talent at wide receiver. He's not even a wide receiver three for me after watching him back. It's like there's been a lot of things that are vastly different. But I think it is a major challenge for someone like Nolan Teasley to come in and try to decide based on one season of play what it looks like here and whether that's good enough because it does restrict you, even though it's less than it used to be. It does restrict you as a GM, but then at the same time, it's freeing because you can work

around a quarterback. I think it's that that question is going to be super fascinating to see how he processes it. Yeah, I mean, by definition, you know, we are going to be making decisions on Kyla Murray based off a really low sample size, right? Like a season is nothing in the NFL. We know that seasons can lie about a player. Guys can have good years, guys can have bad years, particularly when you're throwing everybody into this for the first time. Like they're all getting thrown together now and it's got to work by week one, right? So it's going to be a tie.

Like you're not making this decision based off the kind of data that you would want to have to make this decision, but that's the reality of the NFL. That's what you've got to work with. The concern is with Kyler, you know, is that volatility that you talked about the product of, you know, Marvin Harrison Jr. not working out of the defense, of special teams, of, you know, Kyler trying to overcompensate for these things in Arizona, or is that inherent in a short

quarterback trying to play the game in a unique way? And this was, you know, again, we talked about Jaylon Hertz. Russell Wilson had some of this as well when, you know, when the way Russ used to play the game at his peak, a lot of it was out of structure, right? It's like, I'm bailing on this play. I'm going to run around the backfield for five seconds. And then I'm going to heave something deep down the sideline, that's an inherently volatile way of playing the game, right? And it might be a case of any quarterback where you're

dealing with physical limitations generally height, right? Like if a guy is simply too short to hang in a pocket and operate the way Peyton Manning operated, right? If guys can't do that, does that mean that he is now inherently a volatile player? And there's just no avoiding that,

right? He has to play the game in a way that skews him to towards volatility and you just need to lean into that if you're going to go with that guy. Or is there some kind of way that you can modify it and, you know, try and take that away and try and smooth out those rough edges? I don't know what the answer to that question is anymore. And I've thought about that since Russell Wilson's, you know, been at his peak because I think his decline really coincided with the NFL taking away those deep plays, right?

Like they shifted all this Vic Fangio defense to high shells, you know, let's take away the explosives. I mean, that's what Russell Wilson did at his peak, right? And you suddenly take that away. He's got to play the game differently. He's no longer as, uh, as explosive, as threatening as he was as a quarterback. That also coincided with him just being older and, you know, losing the threat of his athleticism. But like this may be the world you're in now if you're, if you're taking a quarterback who's so sort of outside of the norms in terms of physical stature that he has to play the game in a different way to other guys. Like, I don't know that there's a way of stopping that, which doesn't necessarily mean

he can't play at a high level. It just means if it's going to work, you need to figure out how we make this volatility and this explosiveness work for us instead of just being like, man, we got to change this. And you also, as many quarterbacks have had happened over the years of the NFC, you just sort of have to catch the right time with him in the playoffs or with matchups or whatever it might be. I mean, I think that we would have said this in some ways about Sam Darry. Arnold, even coming out of 2024.

None of us would have said, Sam Darnold is just the most incredibly consistent quarterback week to week. And there's a lot of guys that we say this about. Jordan Love, to me, is one of the ultimate way up and down. When he is hot, what is the Toyotathon? When that happens into December, he goes crazy and he plays this great football. And then you look up and you're like, man, Jordan Love was the one, like 14 games this year, right? Oh, it was nine.

Like, because they were these nine great games. So smoothing that out is not just a, Minnesota Vikings problem. But I do think that he gives you a baseline based on his play. Even when Arizona was pretty bad in 2024 as a team, they ran the ball a little bit more. They had them run under center a little bit more. Like you could see the wheels turning of how do we do this? How do we smooth this out?

But then their defense was absolutely horrific. And there's not much you could do there when you're in shootouts all the time. So I think defense is going to play into it. Can COC figure out the running game? But from a GM perspective, let's just go forward saying, all right, they let's. Like Kyler enough from what they've seen, he gets along with KOC, Jefferson goes for 1,700 yards. Like, everybody's pretty happy with what you have. And you sign him to, let's just call it like a Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, transition middle tier quarterback contract, which now exists and did not when Kirk Cousin signed his contract.

What are the steps to get there, Sam? Take me to the Super Bowl. Like, how do you get to the Super Bowl? Teams do it every year. Somebody makes the Super Bowl. It's just never this team. So can you borrow from Seattle? Can you borrow from the Rams?

Like what is it with teams that have imperfect quarterbacks like Sam Darnold? I would have said that about Stafford once upon a time. Jalen Hertz. What is it about those NFC franchises, San Francisco as well, where they have been able to consistently be in that conversation in January, where the Vikings have not? I think you need either two things or one of two things being extremely good that it overpowers the other thing. You either just need the best roster you can get, you know, one of the best rosters in the NFL, top to bottom,

or you need a coach that's so good schematically that he's able to overcome a bad side of the ball, right, almost single-handedly. Ideally, if you can get both those, you're cooking, right? Like we saw last season, Shanahan has still got plenty of teeth that his defense or his, offense rather can can overcome so many injuries um you know the defense was pretty incredible there they were doing amazing work with uh with personnel that was just in bits once they lost nick bosa fred warner but really it was shannon's offense it was overcoming a defense it was getting pretty well wrecked um on a on a regular basis the viking should have that like i think flores and kevin o'connell on either side of the ball are both in that category of coach where they can overcome a lot

but you want to build as good a personnel group on both sides of the ball as you can. So it's really just going to be a case of, you know, how much of this roster is going to be turning over year to year. What can we assemble? Like one of the big questions obviously coming down the pipe is going to be what you do with Jordan Addison based off his past, like his off-field transgressions and how much you want to lock him down, how much you want to be looking outside and trying to move on from him long term.

Jefferson is obviously a superstar. you keep your superstars when you have them. I think the offensive line, the work that they've done there, will start to pay more dividends this year than it did last year when those guys basically weren't healthy at any point together. But it's really just a case of let's try and build the best roster around the quarterback as possible. And the best thing that could happen is if they're confident enough in Kyla Murray

and are able to get one of those middle class quarterback contracts. Like if they're able to get Kyla Murray, healthy and locked down to a Baker-Mayfield style of contract. That's a massive positive thing for this franchise in terms of like salary cap health, roster flexibility. Like that gives you the capacity to go and assemble a Seahawks or Rams type of roster. So with the Seahawks just borrowing from them because Tisley played such a big role in their success, you know, I go to draft history.com and start scrolling.

and I'm like, what the, how did they do this? It was hit after hit after hit. Now, in part, they have Russell Wilson to thank because they didn't earn some of those top draft picks that they got from Nate Hackett and the Denver Broncos. But nonetheless, I mean, they have hit on every area of the draft. They get a Tyreek Wollin in the fifth round, and he becomes a starting outside corner, well flawed,

still really darn good on a Super Bowl winning team. Their first round draft picks have been extremely successful. They draft a running back who ends up carrying them in a Super Bowl. And I mean, at this point, we've done enough research. We've done many data studies and everything else on the draft. Most of them come out historically that the draft is random. And we know that. But at the same time, there are some teams who are consistently doing this in recent years

that make me wonder if we've gotten better with the amount of resources and the amount of data. and the amount of studies and everything that you do about what can succeed. And Seattle has just done it in spades. So explain to me where like Nolan Teasley can borrow from Seattle or where you think it was just like, hey, man, sometimes you just roll the dice and you just hit the right number. Like how much can he truly borrow from because you can't bring luck with you? I mean, particularly we did this on our show on Monday. if you look at their first two rounds, right, since 2022,

which I think is, there's not the same year, Quasi, that was his first draft as well, I think, right? If you look at basically just their, the value picks, right? The high value picks that they're going to, they've hit everything. Like every single one of them, I think, has worked out and being a good player. That, I would assume, is unsustainable. Like, I don't, it's just nobody that's ever done that, right? That's hit on literally every single high value draft pick that they've made over a period of three, four years.

But if you do that, things are going to be well, right? Things are going to be good because those are literally the most impactful draftics. You have, they're the ones that the investment goes into. They're the guys that start immediately. They're the guys that you kind of have earmarked going into the draft as like, we need to come away with this player because there's a hole in the roster. If you hit on a sequence of those for three, four years, you're going to be in a really, really good spot.

And if you miss on a sequence of those for three or four years, you're going to be in trouble. And that's what the Vikings were in, situation by like direct contrast over the exact same period of time you know you could argue that the viking's lack of those players being successful as what cost quasi's job meanwhile the seahawks are winning super bowl is because in large part of all of those players right Charles cross high end starting left tackle boy amalfe was an important player before he left in free agency jsn witherspoon or like cornerstones of that team on either side of the ball now byron murphy year two was really um impressive

as a defensive tackle. Gray Zabel comes in and fixes like the biggest problem spot on the roster because they finally, you know, went in that direction and drafted an interior offensive linemen. So I think if you're taking anything from the Seahawks, it would be they aren't, they're not overthinking the draft, right? They're not locking themselves into here's the optimal approach, here's what we need to do. Here's, they're like, look, I mean, John Schneider came out and said it a year before this.

He's like, we just don't draft interior offensive linemen in the first round. We don't think it's value. We can get these guys later, blah, blah, blah. Like, outlined the, you know, the analytics approach, really. Like, this is how we should approach this, right? And it made sense. And then he's like, all right, the interior offensive line was just an absolute mess. And yet here Gray's Abel is sitting at 18 overall.

Like, to hell with it. Just draft Gray's able. Don't overthink it. Fix the problem spot. And then, you know, we can deal with optimization later on, right? Just stop dying. Like, stop handicapping yourself to try and stick to this theoretical, optimal way of doing things. And that I think is what they've done. Like Nick Emanwari in the second round as well,

it's like, don't overthink this. He's like an absolute freak athlete. He's available in the second, not the first. Let's draft them. Right. So if you're taking anything from what Seattle have done in the last few years, I do think it's that. It's like they've been quick to learn that sometimes just don't overthink the draft. Don't try and tie yourself into like, what is the optimal way of playing this game? Just be like, look, if the right player is sitting there and that guy fixes a problem spot, grab him, right? If a super freak athlete slips into the second round when, you know, because of some,

like maybe the play at college level wasn't quite there. Well, let's draft them in the second. Maybe don't draft that guy in the first. I think they've done a good job of like understanding when to deviate from the spreadsheet, from the optimal strategy. And I think that, that in part is why the draft is always going to be this crapshoot

and more art than science, because there may be an optimal way of doing this thing, but I think the real genius for a personnel guys is understanding when to break the rules because it makes sense, as opposed to just when to break the rules, when it makes sense, and when you're trying to break the rule to talk yourself into something, right?

And that difference, I think, is what separates the great personnel guys from the guys that are going to make mistakes. I think that's totally true. I also think that if you looked at Philadelphia and Seattle, and you said, does this draft pick click two boxes, two boxes only? Was he an elite producer? Is any elite athlete?

Almost every single pick from the Philadelphia Eagles and the Seattle Seahawks checks those two boxes. And sometimes when you talk about like this thing maybe isn't as complicated as we need to make it. I mean, if you're drafting a Byron Murphy, like that guy was a freak athlete who absolutely dominated at college, if you are a defensive tackle who meets a certain threshold of athletic, and also production, your hit rate is like 90% in the first round. These guys, I mean, Quinn and Williams, the best example. That guy, unbelievable athlete.

I think he had a 96 PFF grade, which I haven't seen before in his last college season. It's like, I don't know, that seems like it's got a pretty good chance to work out. I remember looking at Devon Witherspoon, who had like 14 past breakups in his final year of college, which is an insane number. It's like, yeah, the guy is a crazy athlete and he plays the football the time. time, wild stuff from Nolan Teasley and then John Schneider in Seattle. But when you look at the Vikings drafting, it was hard to check those boxes every time. Right.

And even with Caleb Banks, you're like, well, sort of once again, you're going with a guy who I think could be a very good player in the NFL under Brian Flores because his talent is insane and his senior bowl workouts when he was at his best. They're like, oh my gosh. The highlight realism. Right. It's crazy. But you still have to talk yourself into it.

There is none of those draft picks that I've seen from Seattle in the first or second round that I had would have to say, well, what happened was or what we're really seeing is or the real genius eyes are seeing like that's not that's not something you have to do with a lot of their picks. Here's the other stat that's my favorite. Under Quasi Adafel Menta, they had eight top 100 picks. From 2022 to 2025, eight top hundred picks is not going to build you a franchise. The Seattle Seahawks, I can't fit it on these two hands because they had 14, 14 top 100 draft picks, and all of them are great athletes, and all of them are productive. You got a pretty good chance, and we're not going to care if you miss on one or the other. I think that that sort of approach of stockpiling picks now is becoming even more important

because with the cap going up all the time, Sam, teams are just not letting their great free agents go. the guys who hit free agency are going to get overpaid or have problems. So you better do it through the draft. Yeah, but I think the caveat to that is, you know, teams are using those picks now to go and trade for proven commodities, like the way the Rams are doing things, right? You can take your top 100 draft picks and flip them for high-end impact players that are not going to hit the free agent market and assemble a roster that way. I think that's one area where I don't think Kwayze gets enough credit is everything outside of the

draft was actually pretty solid, right? He did a good job of building this roster, generally speaking, with free agency, with trades and that kind of thing. It was just that the draft was terrible, right? And I think you can't have any one of those areas fall down because then it doesn't work anymore. And the Rams are a great example of this where, you know, they've flipped all these top 100 picks, all these first rounders, and they brought in proven players and blah, blah, blah. But they always consistently backfilled in, you know, day three of the draft. And they made, you know, they made sure they were drafting, you know, 11 times each year, because every, if you're drafting 11 times each year, you're going to, you're going to find a Pooka and Akua somewhere down the line, right?

You're going to find, and those are the guys that made that work, right? The fact that they were able to find some players lower down the draft that cost them nothing because they're day three picks. They're on like absolute pennies relative to the other players. Like you need to be able to do some combination of that. So if you are, I don't think you necessarily need to have a ton of day one, day two draft picks, but if you're not going to have them, you need to, A, have an absolute boatload of day three draft picks, and B, you know, you actually need to find some players

in those things. And like, that's the problem that the Vikings have had. I think, you know, if you're looking for one cheat code of the draft, I think it really is as simple as like eliminators, right? Just don't take anybody, particularly with those high value picks. Don't draft guys in the first round and the second round that have one massive missing area of the profile, right? Just don't do it. It's a risk. Let somebody else take that risk. The chances are that guy, the missing part of his profile is going to be a problem, right? That's why they're not going, you know, five overall or whatever. Like, just don't take those players, let somebody else take that gamble. And Caleb Banks, I think, is a great example. Like, I was tweeting this before the

draft. I'm like, if don't let your general manager watch his highlight reel. Like it's, don't let him do it because you watch that highlight really. Like, this guy could be the best defensive player in the draft, right? It's absolute dominance to a level that maybe only Ruben Bain has in this draft, right? The problem is he just doesn't do that all the time. And you're like, well, that's a pretty big problem, right? And maybe Brian Flares is the answer and he'll be able to get the guy, you know, that gets the highlight real player all the time. But if he isn't, then he's going to be the same guy he wasn't. And this is outside of the fact that he broke his foot four times or whatever. Like the fact that a guy that physically talented and dominant did not dominate all the time is itself a problem, right?

And that's the guy that you just, you know, Byron Murphy didn't have that problem in college, right? And he's not as physically talented as Caleb Banks, but he's probably going to be a better football player because you already saw him do it, you know, way, way more often. So I think if you're taking any kind of overarching lesson from the draft, it's like if somebody's got that problem, right? the dominance at the college level wasn't there, or you're looking at the athleticism. You're like, well, that's not there. If there's some big gap in the overall picture that you want to put together,

let somebody else take the risk. You mentioned the Rams. They made this little acquisition yesterday by getting Miles Garrett, trading away Jared Verse, a bunch of draft capital for him. And what I really respect about the Los Angeles Rams of Los Angeles is that they are always going

for it when the time is right. Like, I'm not sure that at other times during the last couple of years, it would have been the right time to make some absolutely insane move for the Rams. I mean, they were contenders. They were in the playoffs and so forth. But I don't know if they had quite as complete of a team that fell only a couple of steps away. I think what they've done really well.

And this goes back to 2021 is picked the moment to do that because it's very exciting. We saw this last year from the Vikings off season. It's very exciting when your team signs five big name free agents. It brings back everybody and makes a big trade or something else like that. But if you're not doing it at the right time, like when you have no idea what you're getting from your quarterback, for example, and that's when you decide to go all in, you can end up where the Vikings are having to try to fix their salary cap situation and everything else. How do you decide if you are Nolan Teasley, when the right time will be to make a move

like this because the way contracts are structured now, it opens the door for this. It's not just players demanding out because they want more, I don't know, rights or something. It's a lot to do with contract structure as well. They load it so it's got lower capits early on. They're set up for extensions two years before the end of the deal. But if the player says, yeah, I'm not signing an extension to go forward, then all of a sudden, you either trade them to another team. That's where Jonathan Granard ends up in Philadelphia.

you either trade them to another team or you give them so much money that they can't say no to you that sets up for like Tyree Kill, Jonathan Granard type of trades or Miles Garrett going to the Rams. My point is that as Nolan Teasley goes forward and builds this team, someday a player will become available that you can trade two first round picks for or whatever to get that player. But how do you decide? They did it right in Seattle with trading for Leonard Williams. and he played a huge role in their Super Bowl. How do you know when it's time to go full Rams?

I think that, yeah, it's a huge point that I don't think people fully appreciate yet, that when you're trading in the NFL, you are trading as much for contracts as you were trading for players, right? Like every bit as important to the degree that the Miles Garrett thing, it only happened because the Browns adjusted his contract and effectively threw a bat signal into the air that, hey, this guy will be available at some point. Now, the question was when, and we didn't know if it would be this year or next year. But like, according to reports, the Rams were effectively only alerted to the fact that Miles

Garrett could be available when this contract adjustment took place. Like, they weren't calling. They weren't knocking down the Brown's door being like, hey, what would it take to get Miles Garrett? The Browns made this adjustment. And then internally, the Rams were like, ooh, Miles Garrett might be available. What do we think about that? And then so where I think the Rams deserve a ton of credit, the Eagles as well, like the best franchises in the NFL is you can see the joined up thinking throughout the organization.

And the question is, does this only come with that kind of job stability and long term security that those guys all have? Like, you know, Les Needs got a job for as long as he wants at this point, how he's not going anywhere. Like those guys who've got the runway that a lot of general managers do not have and they've got the ownership that a lot of the general managers do not have. I feel like the Vikings ownership is good in terms of they're willing to give time. And, you know, okay, we trust you. Let's go. But a first time general manager in year one does not have the same kind of cachet that,

you know, how your less need have. But when you sort of start to unpick elements of the Miles Garrett thing, like you can see it isn't just this crazy, oh, Miles Garrett's available. Let's flip whatever it takes to get him. Like, woohoo, let's go. It's not just this crazy all in push for the, this year, you know, the way that they've balanced the contracts and the expenditure and all those kinds of things. Like it's, it makes sense, right? Like they're bringing in Garrett on this contract

that because a lot of the bonus is already paid out, they're functionally only on the hook for like a three year $99 million deal, right? Now, then they're going to have this decision of, well, do we re-up them? What do we do? But they can effectively let Miles Garrett play out three years at 33 a year, which is like eighth or ninth in terms of APY for defensive ends now. And those will be probably the last three really high-end years that Miles Garrett has in him, right, generally, just based off his age and the way those players tend to age at the NFL level. And you're also offsetting that with they don't have to pay Jared Verse anymore, right?

He was going to be coming up next year and he was going to be looking for $45 million a year. And okay, you could push that cap hit further, but you've got to pay that bonus money. So, like, they're balancing all these things and being like, well, that it's a massive upgrade, even if Jared versus a very good player. It's probably less money. It's a shorter term deal. You know, like there's so many plates that they've got spending. They're calculating the impact that this has on the roster.

That's what I think you need to work out along the way. Like, there are sometimes making a move like that makes some sense. But it isn't just like, does this guy make us better now? You know, are we willing to go to hell with the future? Like, they're calculating it into this whole. giant project of roster construction and not just for this year, but for the next three years, minimum, like they're projecting all these things out. I think sometimes you look at the Vikings in the last few years and it doesn't look like they're doing that. It's like, does this guy make

us better right now? Do we care about next year and beyond? Not really. Let's go, right? And that's kind of the way they've constructed this roster sometimes. Like Jonathan Grenard trade this year, that's a move that says we didn't adequately plan this into the future, right? you should not be trading away Jonathan Grenard for a third round pick because his contract, he wants a new contract that he's earned, right, that he should be getting paid more than he was getting paid right now. And you basically don't have the capability to make that happen. You're like, yeah, okay, we'll take a third round pick to get rid of that headache. Like that just says you didn't think this through well enough when last year, the year before last. Like this is not adequate

enough forward planning. So that's what they need to take from that is like look at these moves, are making, they're not moves that they haven't thought through. Like, these are moves that fit within this overarching machine, and it makes sense. Like, it's not killing them if it doesn't, you know, if in the next two or three years, even if they don't win a Super Bowl this year. Like, they now have Miles Garrett for the next three years, probably. They drafted the future, theoretically, right? If Ty Simpson is the guy that's going to take over for Matthew Stafford, like, we could be in a

situation where year three, Miles Garrett's still one of the best defense. of ends in the NFL. Ty Simpson's playing his first year hitting the ground running and the rounds are still contenders. Yeah, I mean, the planning, I think being able to see that even from like Philadelphia as well, moving on from A.J. Brown, where you acquire A.J. Brown, you use up all of his best years and then you send him out and get a future first round draft pick at exactly the right time. I think the best franchises are, it just seems like it's on point with longer term planning. whereas with the Vikings so many times, and this goes way back, this is not even a recent thing, but 2024 into 2025 was this, where it reminds me of, I don't know if you watch the office,

but when Dwight starts a fire in the office and then everyone just runs around panicking and going crazy, that's like when the Vikings realize they're good. Like, oh my, oh my gosh, we're good. What do we do now? Let's, and I thought that trading for T.J. Hawkinson overall was a fine move when they did but it still was the same sort of thing of like, oh my gosh, we're good. What do we do?

Go trade some stuff for somebody. I don't know. And 2024 into 2025. Oh, we're good. Like, what do we do? We just sign all the defensive tackles to the biggest contracts that we can afford. And then, well, what happens next year? I don't know.

It doesn't matter. There's no tomorrow. We're all in this building. So like, it's just, that's how it's felt. It's felt very reactionary. It's felt very haphazard. And I think what you see in Seattle, was a multi-year build that got to a certain point where you realize, okay, we are at this level

and you make a trade for Rashid Shahid or something at the right moment. But it feels like it got there through taking each step to get there, not just it happened. What do we do now? And I think Teasley can bring something different to them there. From the immediate, Mr. Monson, the Vikings are plus 500 to win the division. that is fourth out of four on Fanduil. The Detroit lines are plus 150. The Packers are plus 250,

which has dropped a little bit since the Josh Jacobs news, and the Chicago Bears are plus 320. Short term, as you're watching the season play out, if you're Nolan Teasley, because really you're just evaluating everything for an entire year. What is he going to see? What is the new general manager of the Minnesota Vikings going to see? Is he going to see a NFC North champion?

that he wants to try to keep together and start adding pieces to through the draft, or is he going to see a basement dweller as the odds on Fandoul have the Vikings that he wants to totally reshape in his vision? Yeah, I mean, I think those odds basically just reflect the fact that there are the most question marks about the Vikings quarterback situation in the division, right? Like, we know that Jordan Love is a good quarterback even if we're, like you said, streaky, right? The streak he could take it to the Super Bowl. The streak he could take it in nine wins and miss the playoffs. And, you know, that's just the reality you're living with.

Caleb Williams has now gone from, you know, wildly inconsistent Maverick year one, year two, a massive step forward in the right direction. And then if he takes another step forward this year, there is like genuinely special potential there. And the step he needs to take is theoretically the easiest one. It's like, hey, just make some layups. So Caleb Williams could be amazing this year could be an MVP candidate. And then Jared Goff is just a very good quarterback, right, who maybe has a ceiling, but you feel good about him. Kyla Murray could be anything. Like, Kyle Murray, A, could be injured for most of the season and who like never plays. Be, you know, that inconsistency. Like, we just don't know. And we don't know how it'll mesh with this Kevin

O'Connell offense and the players around him. So I think those odds base you just reflect, we have less overall confidence in Kyla Murray than these other quarterbacks that we feel pretty good about. But overall, I feel like the roster is in, you know, as good as place as maybe all the teams in the division, but certainly two of the three. And I think it's a wide open division. Like any of those teams could go in a run. Like, again, the Lions a year ago were like, you know, NFC contender, Super Bowl bound. And now they're just battling to get back into the picture. I think this division is wide open.

Anybody that puts it together and goes on a run could take the division, could emerge as a contender, but equally any one of them, I don't think any of them will be bad teams, but like any of these teams could end up winning six games and not, you know, not being that team. It's super fascinating because you can make really strong arguments on each side for every single team. Like maybe the lions miss their run. Maybe the Packers are just two weak of a roster outside of Micah Parsons and have no great wide receivers and their offensive line is mediocre. And if they can't run the ball, Matt Fleur doesn't know what to do. And the even Chicago, Are you going to intercept 30 passes this year again?

Not without Nashon Wright. You're not going to. So I mean, you know, what if Caleb takes a step back instead of forward? Like, you know. Yeah,

right. We just assume that every quarterback is going to take a step forward. But that's like the Baker Mayfield sort of thing where he comes into the league and you just, okay, well, over the next five years, he'll just become great when you never really know. So it is wide open and fascinating.

And the crazy part, as you mentioned, the small samples will shape the entire. way the new general manager views the future of this franchise. So it is a very pivotal year for the Minnesota Vikings. Sam Monson, always great to get together with you, my friend. And check the mic podcast. People, if they are not aware of it, how dare you?

And otherwise, you know, go listen to your offseason content because it's some of my favorite stuff when you guys just sort of kick back and talk ball during the season. So great stuff. And we'll talk again soon. Absolutely. Thanks for having me.