Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Senior Bowl quarterbacks and Vikings bets NBC Sports Betting's Drew Dinsick would make

Episode Date: February 6, 2022

Matthew Coller talks about Saturday's Senior Bowl in which Malik Willis set himself apart with his athletic skills and then chats with Drew Dinsick of NBC Sports Betting about whether he would have upgraded the odds of the Vikings winning a Super Bowl in the next few years if they had hired Jim Harbaugh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Folks, before we get into the show, I wanted to tell you that you can save 15% at SodaStick.com by using the promo code PURPLEINSIDER at checkout. That's S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com for your Minnesota sports-inspired hats, hoodies, shirts. Use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER at SodaStick.com. Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here in just a couple of minutes is going to bring you a really fun interview that I did with Drew Dinsick who works for NBC Sports Betting and we talked about a few really fun topics. One is whether you would have bet the Vikings to have higher odds to win a Super Bowl had they hired Jim Harbaugh. That was my first question which you'll hear in just a little bit and then how many quarterbacks are being traded this off season,

whether the Lions and Bears are the long-term threat, a bigger long-term threat to the Vikings, things like that, a fun conversation. That'll be with you in just a second. But first I wanted to go over what we learned about the quarterbacks at the Senior Bowl. I spent Saturday watching the Senior Bowl, taking notes, reading what everybody had to say. And I've got a big article in front of me from Jeremy Fowler, which includes commentary from Todd McShay and commentary from some other executives around the NFL about the four main quarterbacks in the senior bowl. So that's something to focus on here. There were lots of good performances, especially by defensive linemen, which actually made it a little difficult to evaluate some of the quarterbacks because the defensive linemen were whooping the offensive linemen in this game. And so there were a lot of muddy pockets plays that weren't really in rhythm. And I think there

were some sort of frustrating moments for the quarterbacks because of that, especially Sam Howell, who was under pressure a ton. Still, I feel like with these quarterbacks, we really had a lot to take away. And we'll get into some of the other players later in the week with Chris Trapasso, who, by the way, he's from CBS, their draft analyst. We'll be doing weekly appearances on the show starting next week, all the way through the NFL draft, and then after the draft with Chris Trapasso. So that'll be really fun. We did that last year and it worked out great. So I got to start out with Malik Willis. Malik Willis went in as having some buzz and being on the radar as a first round draft pick. And he left with a lot of people saying on the internet that I follow draft experts, that he will be a top 10 draft pick. So I saw that from Luke Easterling, who writes for USA Today.

He was saying, guaranteed now, Malik Willis is going to be a top 10 pick. And one of the first things that stuck out to me was actually something that Daniel Jeremiah said in the broadcast, which is that Willis, his top speed that he reached in practice running around was over 20 miles an hour, which is like incredibly fast for almost anybody. It's super fast, but for a quarterback that puts him in the echelon of the fastest quarterbacks in the league. And you saw that right away that even though there weren't a lot of easy throws that were in rhythm for Malik Willis to make, his running ability was ridiculous. And he had one huge run where he just exploded out of the pocket and immediately was a game changer. Um, as soon as he got to the second level and had a huge run, almost got it, uh,

ended up with a touchdown. That's just something that you only see from really Russell Wilson, Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, but he's faster than Josh Allen and also is kind of a tank. Like he's not as tall as Josh Allen. That's the guy he's getting compared to, but he's not as tall. He's only about six foot one. I also enjoyed his interview on the sideline with Tom Pelissero, where he talked about liking to play chess, getting to know some of the other guys and talked about that as his favorite part of the senior bowl was getting to know the other players, which I think is something you're looking for is that a quarterback who relates to his

teammates. But I mean, the number one thing here from Malik Willis is just that he has the cannon that he's talked about. There were a couple of throws that just were rockets in this game. What two of them toward the sideline, I think they were both incompletions, but they were terrific throws that were on a line and who knows whether the guy is going to have the ability to harness this raw talent, but in terms of his explosiveness as a runner and his arm strength as a passer, uh, yeah, he would have checked all of those boxes. And when you look at what Todd McShay and what, what, you know, other people were saying about him is that, you know, he has to understand that not everything needs to be, here's what McShay said, a hundred mile an hour fastball. And that's kind of how it looked

is that McShay said he's trying to drill a hole in every receiver's chest, which is exactly how he was throwing the football at the senior ball. But I think that Malik Willis has more or less put himself in the lead for being the top draft pick. It doesn't necessarily mean he's for sure to be number one, but this week really upped his draft stock. I think a lot of being able to go down to the senior bowl and be the guy. And McShay also makes the Josh Allen comparison of somebody who probably is going to take a little while to come along, but it has a very, very high end. So I was impressed with some of the things that I saw

from Malik Willis. Now, Kenny Pickett had good numbers. He had a drive where he went six for six and the drive ended in a touchdown. It's kind of a swing pass. There was another throw that was a little bit off that probably could have gone for a bigger game, but it was low and he forced his guy to kind of go down to one knee to catch it. But also Dane Brugler said that even though he, it wasn't a perfect week for picket throwing the ball in practice, that nobody helped themselves more behind the scenes in the interviews with the teams, which is really an important part of it than Kenny Pickett. And one of the things that you notice from him, not so much in the game, cause there wasn't a ton of opportunities to do

this, but the highlight reels that they talked about and listening to Daniel Jeremiah talk about him is that even though he is not a runner in the same way that others are, he can throw off balance and he can move in the pocket and be not perfectly set and make a play or be outside of structure and make a play. And of course there was the famous, I'm sure you've seen it by now, but the famous play where he faked a slide and ended up running for a touchdown in a game. Well, I mean, that's sort of the creativity of Kenny Pickett. And the hilarious thing is that he's going to be asked about his hand size over and over,

which if you read what our Paul Hodowanek wrote on the website, purpleinsider.substack.com, if you read that, you'll see that hand size makes no difference. There's no evidence that hand size is a big deal. In fact, Joe Burrow has small hands too, and it seems like he's doing just fine. So Kenny Pickett, I think overall had a pretty good week. He didn't play a ton in this game to really evaluate lots of things that he did from this game in particular, but there's going to be a debate of whether he or Malik Willis is going to be the top quarterback.

I liked what I saw from Desmond Ritter. Uh, Desmond Ritter is a guy that moves pretty well in the pocket. Um, mobility would be one of those things that you're not talking about, like running for huge gains, but more of there was one play in particular where the pass rush came in and he just slid himself in the pocket and made a very accurate throw. The other thing is he seems to have a pretty good arm in terms of how hard he could throw it down the field. Jeremy Fowler quoted an executive saying that his accuracy is a problem when he's under duress. So maybe that is the case. He seems pretty accurate in this game in the senior bowl, but it's only a couple of throws. I just thought that his pocket presence in the way he moved around and made throws looks

pretty good. I don't know where Desmond Ritter is going to go. If he's going to go as high as the other two, I think probably at least as we stand right now, Sam Howell will go ahead of them. And Sam Howell was just under pressure the whole time. He was holding the ball a little bit too long and he had to run a number of them. And Sam Howell was just under pressure the whole time. He was holding the ball a little bit too long. Uh, and he had to run a number of times, didn't get a lot of great throws off. Um, but he, you could tell the one thing about him is that he was very strong,

uh, that he's not a huge guy. He's not like super tall, but he's 220 or something pounds. And McShay wrote that he didn't have wow moments but he was more consistent than the other quarterbacks and McShay wrote that he had Sam Howell over Desmond Ritter coming into the week and now he feels better about that Jeremy Fowler wrote that he got mixed feedback some scouts liked how he aggressively threw down the field others thought that he wasn't as good so I think what we walk away with here is Malik Willis is probably QB one and really impressed the league with his physical skills when they got to see him up close and the rest of the guys we'll see. But it looks like the order and

where Matt Corral goes in this, I don't know, because he was obviously not at the senior bowl. So where he fits into this, I'm not sure, but I think what we walk away with is teams are starting to end draft people who cover the draft are starting to get excited about these quarterbacks, particularly Willis and Pickett. That's where we're at. Whether that means that any of these guys becomes a superstar, I don't know. But if you're thinking about the Vikings making a trade of Kirk Cousins and drafting one of these quarterbacks, Pickett and Willis are probably at the top of your list. But we will have plenty of draft experts on to discuss where these guys stand. I think that they showed at the Senior bowl that there's some talent there.

And it's not this draft class where as soon as they snap the ball, they just fall over. So as people have made it sound sometimes. Anyway, well, we'll have another Hot Routes-ish type of episode with Paul Hodowanna coming up. And next week, Courtney Cronin, Chris Trapasso. We'll see if there's any other Vikings news related to coaching changes. Mike Pedden is reportedly on the Vikings radar, which I know Green Bay people don't seem to love Mike Pedden. I covered him in Buffalo and he was quite good in 2013 and Green Bay ranked 13th and

9th in his, in two out of his three years there. One year they were pretty poor as a defensive coordinator. Kevin O'Connell actually played with the Jets when Mike Pettin was under Rex Ryan. So maybe that's the connection. That's just a report that's out there. There's nothing official on where Kevin O'Connell will go. The Vikings have lost their quarterback coach, Andrew Giannouko to the Bears. Phil Rauscher, their offensive line coach, is getting hired by the Bills. There has not been any word about Andre Patterson or Keena McCardle, who have maybe the best chance to stay. I would be surprised if Andre Patterson stayed.

I think that they'll look for a new defensive coordinator, like we're already talking about, with potentially Mike Pettin, and then they'll make a change there. We'll see. I know that a lot of people have asked me about that. I don't know. Normally, if you're a new coach, you come in, you name a new staff, but sometimes there are holdovers. I think that McArdle probably has the best chance because anybody who worked successfully with Justin Jefferson, you might want them to stay. So there's a little bit about the Senior Bowl and what's going on there. We'll get more in depth as we go along.

Courtney Cronin was at the senior bowl, uh, Christopher Paso will be breaking it down. So look forward to that for next week. And we've also got a super bowl to discuss as well. And, uh, your offensive coordinator for the Rams will be, uh, the next Vikings head coach. So we'll have a chance to discuss what the Rams have done, what Kevin O'Connell's role has been in that and, uh and all of those good things. All right. So here's my conversation with Drew Dintzik.

He comes from NBC Sports Betting, also has a podcast as well, and a really smart and kind of fun guy to talk to and thought we would have a little fun here after some very intense times of talking about a new GM, a new coach, arguing about Harbaugh, all those things. So the interview starts off with me asking Drew whether he would up or lower or keep the same the odds had the Vikings, of them winning a Super Bowl, had the Vikings hired Jim Harbaugh. Thanks, everybody. I would downgrade their odds. The reason I would downgrade their odds reason I would downgrade them slightly is because I think for you to get to a Super Bowl I think you need a coach who's going to push the envelope I think you need a coach who's going to kind of capitalize on the high variance stuff

who's going to be more a little bit more aggressive in terms of going forward on fourth down uh and you know because you're the underdog right now. Like you're, you know, you're not, you're not going to, you know, go in there, you know, go into any given season and expect to win 13, 14 games without catching a little bit of positive variance. And I think the path of the Vikings getting to the Superbowl the next three years is the one score games go their way. And that's kind of on the back of, you know, catching a little bit of a fourth down luck, a little bit of turnover luck, because right now, at least, and, you know, for the near future, I don't know that the roster is good enough, deep enough to be able to expect, you know, a more sort of old school way of doing things coached to be able to take these guys the distance. Well, I was going to ask you about that too, because when you try to decide on like preseason odds and what team has a chance to take that big jump, I mean, everybody in the gambling world is looking to be the person who nails the Bengals, right? And I think that, right? I mean, but I

think that in some ways is foreseeable, right? They draft the quarterback and then all of a sudden they're able to spend money and they're there. So how do you figure out the odds or the chances or spot the team? Because the Vikings are not there right now. They've had two losing seasons back to back. We've never had a minute in Purple Insider's existence over 500. So someday we'll get there. Maybe week one we'll get there and be over 500 for the first time since I started this. But, you know, I guess I wonder how you figure out when a team

is ready to pop, because I can't get a handle on whether the Vikings think they're actually really close or not, or whether they think they need a longer route. Hiring Harbaugh would mean they think they're close. That's a great point. The decision does give you a decent signal or indication in terms of what that front office thinks of this current roster. And yeah, the factors that I'm generally looking for in terms of a team popping are, you know, are you going to get a meaningfully better performance out of your quarterback in this upcoming season than you got last season? And there are a couple of ways you can do that.

Did you upgrade the quarterback position via free agency? Did you upgrade the quarterback position via draft? Or did your young quarterback now at a stage where he is, you know, you've added, I mean, I'm saying this in the hindsight of knowing that the bangles have done it this year but like have you put a you know a set of uh weapons around a talented quarterback in a way that he's going to be able to really achieve his potential um and two years ago it was the buffalo bills they bring in Stefan Diggs. All of a sudden, they have a bona fide set of weapons in the receiving game.

They have an offensive coordinator, M. Dable, in that year who's pushing the envelope in terms of what he was calling that offense. And Josh Allen's performance in and of itself improved. A little bit improbably, but it improved enough and it was stable. And so, you know, those those factors all combined to launch the bills from, you know, maybe this team could be good to second best team in the AFC last year. And I think, you know, similarly this year, you know, you see the Bengals draft Jamar Chase. You're right. They spent a decent amount of money in, you know, in free agency trying to fortify a defense. Really, actually, the third year in a row, they had spent a lot of money in free agency trying to fortify that defense. And, you know, you take enough shots in that market. Ultimately, you potentially should expect to find some, you know, diamonds in the rough there.

And, you know, while I think almost certainly most of the share, if we're going to divide up the pie of credit, most of the share for the Bengals getting to this point goes to Joe Burrow and his continued evolution as a play, you know, as a play executor and the, you know, at the NFL level. But yeah, what the what the offense is called, what the, you know, what the front office has done to fortify that roster certainly matter as well. And so I think if you're looking at the Vikings and you're trying to figure out, is this team going to pop? I think you try to evaluate, are we going to upgrade our offensive coordinator role to, to a, you know, an individual who's going to call a more plus expected value offense. And that is to say, I think to a large degree, the Vikings put themselves in a difficult position,

even this year, with sort of the play sequencing, lack of aggressiveness when they had a lead. And, you know, just really, you know, yes, you have, you know, an all-universe running back in Dalvin Cook, and you want to utilize him as a playmaker. But, you know, still running into stacked boxes and having an unimaginative red zone package for him, I think really limited the Vikings' ability to kind of

really score as many points as this offense was capable of. And that has made Kirk Cousins look a little worse than he probably is. And I think if the right offensive coordinator finds a home in Minnesota and you're calling an offense that features Jefferson Moore and, and in just in general limits the, you know, the wasted downs on long down and distant, you know, early down long distance running into stack boxes, then you could see a jump in this offense. And at that point, the sky's the limit in a week NFC. Hey everybody, I've been making my meals from HelloFresh.

And I have to tell you, I cannot make enough of these things. And if I can make them, literally anyone can. With HelloFresh, you get farm fresh pre-portioned ingredients, seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep, skip the trips to the grocery store, count on HelloFresh to make home cooking easy and affordable. That's why it's America's number one meal kit. One of the nice things for me as I'm grinding the football tape is that HelloFresh cuts back on the time spent in the kitchen. Meals are ready in around 30 minutes or less. Plus, their quick and easy meal options, including 20-minute recipes, low prep, easy cleanup.

They provide an even faster route to putting food on the table. You guys know we love stats on the table. You guys know we love stats on the show. How about this one? HelloFresh is 72% cheaper than a restaurant meal of the same quality. And you can save on average over $65 per month when you order HelloFresh instead of grocery shopping. That's more money to put toward your NFL draft guides. How about that? We've been cooking HelloFresh meals here in the house for the last couple of weeks. Just made the Parmesan chicken the other night,

and it's a game changer, guys. So go to HelloFresh.com. That's HelloFresh.com slash Insider16. HelloFresh.com slash Insider16. Use the code Insider16 for up to 16 meals for free and three free gifts. fresh america's number one meal kit the issue with some of that is that we kind of take what a team was last year we always say well if you just do this to that team but the problem is they have a bunch of free agents

leaving and they have not a whole lot of money to keep them or keep anybody or sign anybody else if Kirk Cousins stays. And this is where you run into the same thing with Cousins and why it's seven years of him starting in the NFL with the same results is it's always, hey, let's just take what we did last year and then we'll add this to it. But then something else goes wrong because you couldn't afford to keep everything together. And the offensive coordinator thing is definitely true. And there's no doubt that mike zimmer held back his offensive coordinators from leaning into cousins i think in part because when they did lean into cousins he threw a bunch of pick sixes in 2018 it's like this always this whack-a-mole thing of

can we solve this problem or that problem which is what i was going to ask is how would you put odds on it differently of the vikings Super Bowl, keeping Cousins versus drafting the first quarterback off the board this year? Yeah, the talent evaluation folks in the space are going to have a better answer for this than I will, because I really don't follow the college game as much. It doesn't interest me nearly as much as the NFL. And I've seen these guys play. None of them really jump off the page at me. But, you know, I would have said the same thing about Josh Allen.

I would have said the same thing about some of the other quarterbacks who have turned out to thrive at the NFL level. So there may be a guy in this draft who absolutely does check every box and by year three is playing at a Joe Burrow, Josh Allen type of level. And that obviously would far exceed what you're going to get out of Kirk Cousins in the next three years. Far exceed it. And so if you want to take a gamble and you want to go down that path, I think that's a completely reasonable decision making from a franchise standpoint. The idea of keeping cousins around

and the impact that that has on your roster flexibility and what you can do, particularly in terms of investing on the defensive side of the ball where you're looking a little weak and going forward. You know, I mean, that's a that's a huge trade off. And I think a lot of people would look at the way NFL teams succeed at this stage of the way that the salary cap era and they say you can succeed one of two ways. You either you know, you either hit the jackpot with a young quarterback and use all of your extra excess, all of your extra assets to fill up the roster with top tier talent. Or you get a player at the very tail end of his career, who's willing to play for, you know, below market like a Tom Brady. And, you know, you do the same thing around that kind of a player. And, you know, if you can talk Kirk Cousins into some vision where he's not as, you know, as impactful on the bottom line of your team's ability to fill the

competitive roster, maybe you have something there. But he would have to buy into that, obviously, pretty wholeheartedly, or else you run into a situation in a year or two years where you're like, well, why did I give up this money if we're not even going to make the playoffs? So there's certainly a delicate dance, I would say. And history would tell us you're better off gambling on a, on a rookie quarterback. The problem is, you know, and actually maybe it's not a problem. Maybe the fact that you have a Justin Jefferson,

who's a pretty clear top five wide receiver and you have an Adam Thielen and you have, you know, some building blocks in terms of, you know, a set of weapons that looks an awful, if you squint, it looks an awful lot like what the Cincinnati Bengals have offensively. And so, you know, it's, it's not crazy, certainly, to think that you could gamble with a young quarterback in this draft and be better off than going with cousins. But, you know, that's, that's why they pay the new GM the big bucks.

Well, I was going to ask you about that, about how you go about separating supporting cast, offensive coordinator, head coach, all those things from quarterback talent, because by the PFF grades, Matt Stafford played exactly the same this year, which is hilarious, right? He just like, hey, he has the same grade

that he had with the Detroit Lions. He threw the same interceptions. He had the same amazing throws. And yet the guy is here in the Super Bowl instead of at six and 10. And you're just like, well, Matt Patricia was their coach before. And now it's Sean McVay. You couldn't make any bigger of a jump. He did have good receivers, but they were hurt a lot with Marvin Jones and Kenny Galladay, mostly healthy receivers. One gets hurt. You add Odell Beckham. It's like, how do we separate all these things? Because that to me has always been the essential Kirk Cousins question. The difference between the two, one of them is, was a number one overall draft

pick with a rocket arm and some mobility playmaking ability guts. The other one doesn't have those things as much. And, uh, that's, that's how I've always thought of it is there's only so much you can push Kirk Cousins till you hit the ceiling, whereas some other guys don't have that. Yeah, this is a super fair point. And my general evaluation of him through half of this last season was he's pretty clearly a top 10 guy. And, you know, and as the season went on my opinion kind of deteriorated and i don't know if that was because of his play or just the team play overall

and um you know stafford was absolutely an upgraded situation in terms of talent that was around him on top of the fact that yeah the coaching was a clear upgrade he went from a guy couldn't hold an nfl job to one of the guys, you know, guy now in his second Super Bowl with the second quarterback, you know, who's now a more successful coaching tree than Belichick, which is amazing. You know, that Belichick has yet to have an assistant move on and make it to the Super Bowl like they already does, which is unbelievable.

And so, yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a pretty, you know, it's pretty obvious to me that coaching matters somewhere in the ballpark. I guess if you had to make me simplify it, quarterback talent as a metric or just a quarterback performance in terms of what you can do, 40% of the pie, coaching, probably 20% of the pie. and then i would put uh the uh you know the the talent level of the skill position players around you at about 30 which you know and when it comes to the vikings you can check that box confidently um and then uh you know the last 10 i would say this is more the x factor organizational stuff uh and uh you know, what do you have going on? What's going on with your defense, really?

And there are very few players who are good enough on the defensive side of the ball to really kind of qualify as like, you know, you're going to get a certain level of play year after year, and it's going to matter. It's going to be repeatable, and that defense is going to be good. And the Rams have those guys uh which i think helps but the vikings and not not should not not seen them uh at least uh based on what we got the last couple years and even then the rams dipped from being number one to more of a mid-pack with some high end ability type of uh you know defense where at the big moments aaron donald can sack

your face but like other than that they've just been okay uh which kind of says a lot about defense and some of the vikings flawed thinking when they signed cousins was oh our defense will just come back and be the same and it wasn't it was just okay and it wasn't great anymore um for the following two years so let me throw a couple of like little, little bets. Would you make at you? We can have some fun with this. Over under 0.5 Superbowls, the green Bay Packers ever win for the rest of eternity. If Aaron Rogers leaves,

I have to take over for, cause it's the eternity and the long tail to the over. If you constrain me to 10 years, I'm taking the under. I'm not really, I guess I was neutral to good in terms of my rating of what Matt LaFleur has had done in his NFL tenure up until that playoff game where I thought he was principally responsible for the failures. And now that's basically two years in a row that they're out of the playoffs because of some of the decision making that he made in the previous year and then the lack of adjustments that he made against the Niners. You know, that game was imminently winnable for Green Bay at home against a depleted team, you know, in your type of conditions. And, you know, you couldn't make

the right adjustments to get your offense going when you're the offensive coach. You know, so I think my impression or my bar is lower on the floor than the market, probably. And my bar is a lot lower on the, you know, the decision making in terms of how they're rostering that squad. I mean, a lot of the tension between Rodgers and that organization is because of what they've done the last two off seasons now, that really three, last is because of what they've done the last two off seasons now that really three last three off seasons they've kind of completely squandered any opportunity to massively upgrade or overhaul this uh you know this roster and they're just running it back out there and you know the the picks for the Jordan Love pick the AJ Jordan Love pick where

they gave away assets to go take that guy is a real head scratcher. The A.J. Dillon pick was a head scratcher in particularly when you look at the last two drafts. There were so many good wide receivers, so many. And they couldn't get anyone who could be a bona fide wide receiver to across from Devante Adams. Like, what the heck? So, yeah, I can understand to a degree. I don't understand everything about Aaron Rodgers. Don't get me me wrong there's a lot of very weird things I don't get about him um but uh certainly the uh you know the frustration with the organization I get that um you know and so you know I I wouldn't take the same avenue of, you know, holding the team hostage for the duration of this last offseason

because you're upset about it. That's not necessarily the right way to go about things. But I can understand why he would be frustrated. And I think him leaving seems pretty likely, honestly. Put it maybe 60-40. And so, yeah, him gone. Are they going to win the Super Bowl? No.

Even in sort of the wide open NFC, their best bet is to deal Rodgers, deal Adams, get as many assets as you possibly can. But then what that brain trust has done with the assets in the draft the last handful of years has me very dubious that they will make the correct choices the uh aj dylan picks something every time he has a big run i'll see packers people be like oh because she's stupid for criticizing that picker like have you not looked around at all the other running backs like they're all doing this man uh yeah as opposed to

hey maybe you should have drafted like debo sam or something. That would have worked out for you. I don't know. Yeah. And it's not like Debo Samuel was some random pick like Cooper Cup. I mean, it was like right there. Right there. Yes. Jordan Love went before T. Higgins.

A.J. Brown, I think. A.J. Brown. Yes. I mean, I haven't looked at it in a long time. And I think even after this season, it's going to look even more insane. But the list of wide receivers who went in round one and round two after Love is like scary to think of on the field with Aaron Rodgers and Devontae Adams. Yeah. On the show, we call these things galaxy braining for teams based on the meme.

And that is what that was. That was a galaxy brain pick, especially since Jordan Love was probably more of a second-round prospect, according to all the people who know stuff like that. But how about this one? Would you bet on the next five years a Super Bowl appearance from the Lions or the Bears? In the next five years, would I bet on yes or no or one of those two? One of those two. Which one would you bet, Lions or Bears?

Oh, my. If you're sitting here coming from the future and you're like, hey, in the next five years, either the Lions or the Bears are going to the Super Bowl, who are you taking? And you're giving me even odds. I would go with the Lions just because I like the general vision that they had in last year's draft process. They basically did enough to get buy-in from the players that they were moving in the right direction while fortifying the trenches, so to speak, which is a cheap investment.

And like, and if you're going into a season where you're ultimately, you're not intending to win games, that's what you want to do because it sets you up the next year to have great draft assets on top of the fact that, you know, you, you really are kind of getting your big bodies, your, you know, you, you really are kind of getting your big bodies, your, you know, your, your, you know, it takes, it takes years for a guy like Penny Sewell to develop into an NFL body and to have, you know, you're expecting that guy to have a 10 year career when you draft him, where you drafted him. And so you do that now, you let them have a rookie year whatever happens happens you know that and you

know you flip yeah and then you know down the road you're investing in your quarterback and your skill position players when you expect those guys to contribute at a younger age like that vision like that checks out that you would go about it that way uh and then to see the way that the lions players in general bought into the Dan Campbell experience was you couldn't deny it. Like they played hard for that guy. Now, they're not great. There's an enormous talent void. But I look at the Bears as the cupboard is bare.

No pun intended um the some of the contracts they have to players who cannot make an impact at the NFL level at this point is pretty dire um and you know the the Justin Fields experience was not great this season but I can I will listen or understand if you say hey that was more because of Nagy than it was fields. And then he will continue to develop. But that is a much tougher ask to rehabilitate that roster and to get, and to develop fields as a prospect. Then what,

then when I think they already have a headstart and they have some amazing draft assets this year in detroit chicago also gave up a lot of future assets for a lot of players too like they're not getting around this i get the sense that this is a little bit of a weak draft um really edge rusher is the only sort of immediate impact player available in this year's draft for whatever reason um so maybe the Lions might have gotten a little unlucky in that they are so... They're ready to invest now and really turn this

offense into something competitive, or at least to start to field that process. But the quarterback's just not there. The wide receivers just aren't really quite there. So they may be kind of out of luck in that regard. But if one of those two teams is making the Super Bowl in the next five years, I'm going to say it's the Lions. I agree, and I think that the Lions would be extremely wise to draft an edge rusher and draft a corner or whatever

receiver and not pick a quarterback this year because I feel like they're fine to play decent football with Jared Goff as long as they start improving and then there's a moment where you're ready as a roster and that's when you trade your next three first rounds to go up and get the best or second best quarterback and and you're sort of set to go it's like what philadelphia did with carson wentz that roster was ready to go they weren't going to run sam bradford back out there and they said we got to get our guy and i think that detroit can do that and hand their guy and and really cleveland did too and this almost worked with baker where remember when people were like why didn't you draft this quarterback or that quarterback so they could give the quarterback a decent roster.

I think that's a good plan. Chicago, the only thing is that I never underestimate the second or third year of rookie quarterback contracts. It's just like, it looks so bad. And then, oh my God, where'd they get all that cap space? Oh, it's because they're not being a quarterback. They're almost like we're talking about with Vikingsikingsy where you go do they really think that next year is they kind of did this with the khalil mack trade where they were like we're gonna win right now and then let's give up all our draft picks so vegas can screw them all up

yeah yeah yeah absolutely uh yeah that's a it's a if you yeah if you are the bears you now have a young quarterback who you desperately need to develop. You have an aging offensive line. You have an aging defense. You have a lack of skilled position players around him. So you don't really have anything. And honestly, what you need to do is accumulate draft capital. And I don't know how the hell you do that like what yeah you're probably gonna have to strip down and try to trade some of your guys who are in win now sort of space for draft capital if you are going to be aggressively

trying to rebuild you know tear it down and rebuild um but even then like i'm not sure the organization and the people but if you know the general manager has a lot of sway obviously but there are people above them who may not be exactly thrilled if they truly do tear it down to the studs. And so them kind of existing in NFL purgatory for five years seems plausible. Yeah, no, I totally agree. I think that that's what often happens to teams that desperately try to swing for championships in one year.

And the Rams made it it work give them credit but you know the vikings tried this a few years in a row and ended up with the same results one more for you yeah over under 3.5 quarterbacks traded this off season i'm gonna take the over on that um also am i good at this am i good at this yes oh yeah these are these are good lines yeah absolutely for the eternity on that um also am i good at this am i good at this yes oh yeah these are these are good lines yeah absolutely for the eternity part that made me overplayed my hand i know that was a hopeful question because packers never winning a super bowl again i'm sure it would be delightful to those in the uh in the minnesota area um the uh area. The fourth quarterback is an interesting one. There are a lot of moving parts this year.

You can see it with the coaching. I think the coaching is kind of a leading indicator of this. The fact that we have turned over coaches on almost half of the NFL right now is absolutely mind-blowing. This has got to be – I don't have the numbers in front of me, but this has got to be the biggest coaching turnover year that we've had in a long time. And with all of these new coaches, the likelihood that we have a high turnover year for quarterbacks, I think, is pretty likely as well. Especially because there are so many teams that you would point to and say, well, they don't have quarterbacks figured out. And so three and a half is a fair number, but I think we'll see four.

And I would say in terms of likelihood, who is – this is starting quarterbacks right oh yeah sure yeah so i mean i'm not calling gardner minshu yeah there'll be some of the gardner minshu stuff yeah there'll be like some gardner minshu stuff too um but uh yeah shoot we had to retire also so tampa bay and pittsburgh are gonna have to fill some pretty meaningful holes. Yeah, I think Aaron Rodgers is absolutely a candidate. Deshaun Watson is a candidate, of course. Garoppolo will definitely be traded. Garoppolo will be traded. There's three pretty likely ones right there.

The ones we don't see coming are going to be interesting. Matt Ryan may get traded. I don't know what the NFC South is going to do. NFC South is weirdly in absolute shambles right now. But yeah, I could see people calling about Kirk Cousins. Yep. Right now, I would say better than 50% chance he's traded. Better than 50? Yeah. I think so. Yeah. I now, I would say better than 50% chance he's traded. Better than 50? I think so, yeah.

That's pretty incredible. Teddy Bridgewater might find a new home if Denver upgrades. You could see. How about Russell Wilson? Absolutely on the trading block right now. There's a lot of guys that could be on the move for sure. I guess, what do you think the chances of Cleveland calling their old buddy now who has taken over at Minnesota and trying to swap QBs there? Would they listen to that? Would they take a cheaper Mayfield at this point and try to roll the dice with him and send Kirk to Cleveland?

I've been very on the fence in this idea because I don't like Mayfield's personality. But think about this. If you want a space filler quarterback, you want Ryan Fitzpatrick. He's just the greatest dude. He knows the deal. He's going to just go play and not be a problem. With Baker, it's just all about Baker when you have him in your franchise, and Cleveland has discovered this.

I don't know if you want that as just a one-year, he's going to take this space. I'd rather have Marcus Mariota, who's more of a sort of do-your-job type of guy. But the thing that I don't know, and I could never really get a feel on because Kevin Stefanski is so vanilla and sort of straight-laced, is whether he would want Kirk Cousins or not. I mean, they had a pretty good year together in 2019. They went to the playoffs. They won a playoff game. You could argue that Cleveland's roster is just as good or even slightly better than the Vikings, though maybe they need another weapon or two there.

But, you know, I mean, he could look at that and say, look what I did with this guy before. And we have the cap space to do it. And Baker's driving me crazy. Why don't we just because at very least, you know, Kirk's going to come in and play. He doesn't get himself hurt all the time. Right. He does create drama, but it's more of like sort of corny drama. Put him behind an elite offensive line, too.

Right. And that's something that Cousins hasn't had since he was in Washington. So I think it makes sense on a lot of levels, but the answer is if they go to Stefanski and he's like, oh no guys, I don't want the Kirk Cousins 8-9, 9-8 experience. I would totally understand because Stefanski, Gary Kubiak, McVay, these guys have had Kirk and they've all ended up with the same results. That's a fair point. That's a really fair point. And, uh, I think if anything is an indicator,

the fact that Shanahan went into last year's off season process and decided, Hey, um, we need to trade all our future assets so that we can get a guy that has a higher ceiling and whether that ultimately turns out to be true we'll find out but uh um certainly like that mindset existing with Stefanski does check out like that could be very much like you know like hey like forget you know forget a game manager we are going uh we need a Josh Allen if we're going to compete with Josh Allen we need a Pat Mahomes we're going to compete with Josh Allen. We need a Pat Mahomes if we're going to compete with Pat Mahomes. I think that mindset may be a little contagious among the very good NFL coaches this season. Not only that, Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow are now in your division. But also, desperation is a hell of a drug, my friend.

Yeah, I mean, honestly, the Baker Mayfield conversation is going to be fascinating all offseason because if the quarterback musical chairs happens and Cleveland is stuck with Mayfield

for 2022, that could get cancerous. Yes. Yeah, for sure. It's a really glad we could get together to do this man is super fun. And I love your different perspective from kind of like what we usually have on the show, which is reporters, football players and stuff. I think you, you really do a great job. People could follow you on Twitter at whale underscore capper,

which if I hadn't kept you for so long, I might ask for an explanation, but that is your Twitter and they could find your work, NBC sports bet and, uh, bet the edge podcast. You do great stuff, man. Thanks so much for coming on the show. This is really fun. I appreciate it, man. And, uh, best of luck to the Vikings. I hope they realize their potential, uh, in the coming, uh, coming five years.