Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Should the Vikings be interested in Russell Wilson?

Episode Date: December 30, 2023

Matthew Coller answers fan emails and talks with Vikings fans about a variety of Vikings topics, mostly centered around Russell Wilson's potential fit and how he compares to bringing back Kirk Cousins or drafting a QB Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. How are you doing on a Friday night? Let me correct that real quick. And we've got bowl season going on. We've got a Vikings game on Sunday night football. We've got a new starting quarterback. We've got the Packers here. All sorts of stuff to talk about.

So I figured I would jump on live here on YouTube and answer any and all questions from Vikings fans. We can have a conversation about what's coming up next. Maybe we can discuss a little bit of the future of the quarterback position. I have actually done, by the way, a really bad job of answering emails that people have sent me recently, and I apologize for that. So if you go to purpleinsider.com, send me an email. I try to get back to people, whether it's on the show or actually just responding to your email, but it was Vegas, it was Cincinnati, and then I visited my in-laws in LA,

and then back here, and a little bit hectic when it comes to that. So I've got a couple of emails that I want to respond to, including a couple about Russell Wilson and his situation and whether that would apply to the Vikings. So I think that'll get the ball rolling on our conversation. So let me answer some emails and then I will jump into the comments and take your guys' thoughts on what we're talking about here. And of course, we can always talk more Vikings Packers, more Jaron Hall, which, you know, should be a pretty interesting way to spend new year's Eve is to watch another quarterback. I'm going to call it his debut anyway. I know that he made

his debut, but it's hopefully it'll last longer than just two series. And it will be a real and full and complete debut for jaron hall so let me jump into these emails first and then we'll take the comments from the comment section we'll start with uh sarah here who i met in las vegas by the way and her and her dad listened to the show awesome uh very cool when i get a chance to meet people who listen to the show so that that was that was great we talked ball for a little while in Vegas. Sarah says, with the word that the Broncos are parting ways with Russell Wilson after the season,

do you think it's a good idea to pick him up for a year? So that's the interesting part, right? Where it's like, what will it cost to get Russell Wilson? And does that make sense? Does he have enough left? Would it be cheaper than Kirk Cousins? Would it be more expensive than Kirk Cousins? Would he be a fit with Kevin O'Connell? Do we think that Russell Wilson is kind of washed or did he play well enough this year by a lot of the traditional statistics? He actually had a pretty decent year,

but when you watched him play against the Vikings, it did not look like the same Russell Wilson that played for the Seattle Seahawks a couple of years ago. There was a statistic that I bumped into. It was a little bit compelling on Russell Wilson. We have now learned that Kevin O'Connell, regardless of who is playing quarterback, wants the ball pushed down the field, right? If you're going to do it with Nick Mullins, you're going to do it with just about anyone. And that has long been Russell Wilson's biggest asset is his ability to throw the ball deep. So this year for the Denver Broncos, he threw 60 passes that went over 20 plus yards and had 112 quarterback rating and 92 PFF grade when throwing over 20 yards,

even throwing over 10 yards, he had an 88 PFF grade and 113 quarterback rating. So when he pushed the ball down the field, he actually was pretty successful. But I also think that what Denver was trying to do was kind of limit how much he had to do. They ran a lot. They ran a lot of play action. And overall, they threw a ton of short passes and then tried to hit a big one every once in a while, which worked out pretty well for them. But he still averaged under seven yards per attempt. That would be concerning to me.

He did scramble much better than he did last year, but I'm not really sure that it was the same dynamic scrambling. There were a few plays here and there. There were old Russell Wilson, but was it the Russell Wilson that could take you to a Super Bowl? And then we get back to like, how much does it cost? I think that a lot of quarterbacks can play with Justin Jefferson. I think that Russell Wilson can still throw the football. But after it went as ugly as it did, and then we're talking about the age factor as well, you've got to project forward.

And is he going to be willing to sign a one-year contract like you mentioned? I have a tough time seeing that because there are a lot of teams that are looking for quarterbacks. This has been part of our discussion about Kirk cousins, where when you look at Atlanta, you look at Pittsburgh, you look at the Raiders, like there are teams out there that will need quarterbacks. So you would be competing against those teams. Minnesota though, can offer a really good situation for a quarterback that's looking to maybe prove to everybody that he's still got it. And when Russell Wilson had his most success in Seattle, they had DK Metcalf.

They had Tyler Lockett before that they had Doug Baldwin. They always had good wide receiver duos. And I don't think it was ever a fit with Sean Payton and Russell Wilson. So I'm a little bit on the fence on this one, because I think if you're going all in, you better be ready to win the Super Bowl. And that's been part of my Kirk Cousins analysis is can you pay Kirk Cousins and actually compete for the Super Bowl? I find that hard to do just with the salary cap situation, the number of players that, you know that the Vikings need to resign or the positions that they need to fill. Daniel Hunter is a free agent. That's either going to cost them a lot or cost them a lot to put somebody else in there if they're using the

draft capital on a quarterback and not an edge rusher. So if you're going to get Russell Wilson, you have to believe that this is the final piece of the puzzle. This guy can win a championship this year or next year. Well, he's still got enough left in the tank. And I don't know if the roster can be in that place while still paying Russell Wilson. But, you know, John asked a similar question. Is KOC's offense built for a Kirk Cousins type quarterback? Would there be any point to grabbing a mobile quarterback in the draft or getting Russell Wilson? So this has come up for sure. And I find it hard to believe that Kevin O'Connell would not want playmaking, would not want mobility. And I always thought that part of the reason that Sean McVay went and got

Matthew Stafford was the dynamic element to his game. Because you look at Jared Goff, he's a huge dude who throws the ball really hard and is pretty darn accurate from the pocket. But when anything goes wrong, Jared Goff crumbles. Matt Stafford makes plays. Stafford is still making sidearm throws and doing Mahomes stuff. He was doing Mahomes stuff before Mahomes. And I kind of figured that that was what they liked. Now, that's not running. That's not mobile.

But that's playmaking. And Joe Burrow falls under that same category as somebody who is mobile within the pocket, who can make plays out of structure, who can make special throws when there's nothing there. But as far as a running quarterback, I don't know that it would take a totally different thing because we can't really judge it off of Josh Dobbs. And Russell Wilson is not a running quarterback anymore. Anyway, he's a scrambler when he's got an opportunity but you are not designing run plays for Russell Wilson for the most part they are they're mostly just scrambles and they always really were but especially in his state now being on the older

side he's going to scramble he's going to get down he's not taking off on like read options or something where he's going to plow up the middle or try to do what Lamar Jackson does. That's just not who Russell Wilson is. But I think that every coach, every coordinator knows, even if it was Bill Walsh back in the day, who was the ultimate, like plug it into Joe Montana and have him execute it. They all know that sometimes stuff breaks down and you need somebody to do something special to do something unique which is actually what happened against the Vikings where the play kind of broke down Wilson moved himself in the pocket just threw a 50-50 ball up into the back of the end zone and

Cortland Sutton made a play but you could definitely see him doing that with Justin Jefferson if this was something the Vikings were interested in but I have trouble thinking like that Kevin O'Connell who especially was a running quarterback himself in college would be like no I want my guy to stand in one spot and throw from that one spot it has come into my mind though someone like Michael Penix who we're going to watch in the college football playoff not really a scrler, not really a playmaker outside of the pocket. Would that be OK with Kevin O'Connell for a guy who can kind of stand in there and distribute the ball and deliver it? I don't know. I think that every coach wants somebody who's going to be able to bail them out when something goes wrong. I don't believe we can use Josh Dobbs as a test case because Josh Dobbs just didn't know the offense well enough to operate the fundamental pieces. If you drafted Jaden Daniels, you would build the offense around Jaden Daniels. You weren't able to

build an offense around Josh Dobbs because he just showed up in the middle of the season. Could they have tweaked it a little bit more? Probably. But it wasn't like they had all offseason to build it around somebody with that type of mobility. If they got Russell Wilson, but especially if they got an actual runner like Jaden Daniels, I think they would. A couple more emails, then we'll get to your comments. Matt sent me an email, said, am I the only one that noticed Patrick Jones showing up in the Lions backfield several times on Sunday? Wonder if he is the next man up for DJ Wanham. I would suspect that he is the next man up and that we're also going to see some Andre Carter, though I'm not sure Andre Carter is really ready to play a lot in NFL games.

He just might have to because there's nobody else having lost Marcus Davenport and DJ Wanham. Patrick Jones has played over 500 snaps this year and of players with over 500 snaps by PFF at the edge rusher position, he is 60th out of 60. I did notice him in the Lions game and unfairly, by the way, was penalized for the hit on Jared Goff. That was a bogus penalty, I thought, and didn't think that he did anything wrong. He was in the backfield a few times. But I also think that he tends to get manhandled a lot in the run game. And that's where they're really going to miss DJ Wanham the most is he was an above average run defender.

And he's not the biggest guy. So I think just him playing violently and getting more confident, understanding the game better as he's gone along actually made DJ Wanham a pretty good player. I mean, being an average player at your position, eight sacks, you know, you get a 60 something grade by PFF, like that's decent. You can pair that with Daniil Hunter. But when you're talking about somebody who's grading in the 30s by PFF, that means they're getting beat a lot. And there's a lot of negative plays.

It should be a pretty big concern going into this game against the Packers that DJ Wanham is not there. And DJ Wanham was playing like 800-something snaps this year. He was in every single down type of player. Now they have to try to patchwork that thing with almost nobody who has above average experience in the league. It's going to be pretty hard. So yes, in that game in particular, Patrick Jones did have a couple of plays in a bigger

sample. I would be pretty worried about him playing 70 snaps or 60 snaps in a game. So we'll have to see how Brian Flores tries to work around that. They also don't have Jaqueline Roy for this game, so their depth at the defensive tackle position is really rough. You've got Kyrus Tonga and Bullard and Harrison Phillips are playing banged up. That's the type of year that it's been.

Even when somebody is playing well, like DJ want them, he ends up getting pretty seriously hurt. All right. Two more real quick. And then we'll get to your comments. An email from Joe. Do you ever compare Kevin O'Connell versus Zimmer's offensive stats in 2021

versus 2022? Not much of a difference. And KOC is billed as an offensive genius and then this email diverts to a different direction which is my bigger question do you think that quacey what do you think of quacey's 2022 and 2023 drafts so the difference between the offense in 2021 and 2022 is that kevin o'connell leaned into Cousins and the passing game and the explosive passing game, trying to push the ball down the field more often, and also leaning on Kirk Cousins as the main driver of the offense. Like this offense is driven by passing and by the metrics

when Kirk Cousins was in their expected points added through the air was very good from really 2022 through week eight of 2023. That they were not an elite, elite passing game, but a well above average one in terms of the amount of total value, which does bake in the fact that they were throwing the ball all the time and that they have the best receiver on earth that also plays into it as well. In 2021, it was a pretty average offense that really struggled at times when they were off of their opening script, but that kind of happened at times in 2022 as well. I think what it comes down to is the differences in philosophy, of course, a run first in 2021 when delvin cook was already showing signs of not being the same guy and yet they were still leaning into that run

first run first but i mean you have the same quarterback and it's really been very similar throughout his career no matter where he's been whether it's's been a Washington or if it's been any of the years with different offensive coordinators or it was Clint Kubiak or it was Kevin O'Connell. If you're working with the same exact quarterback, there's different things you can do, but you can't really fundamentally change the strengths and the weaknesses and how Kirk Cousins operates as a quarterback. I also thought that there was a really big learning curve in 2022. They went through a number of games early in the season where it was very up and down. And you could tell that Cousins and the receivers were still trying to learn exactly how Kevin O'Connell wanted the offense run.

And I think they started to figure that out much more in 2023. Even though they won all those games in 2022. And they talked about in the second half of the season, figuring that out. Also, it has to be factored in that in 2022, they played a lot of really good defenses. You all saw Netflix, you all saw Kirk Cousins get smacked quite a bit and they still finished, I think what seventh in scoring, which puts you right in the range that if they had had an elite defense, they would have been a legitimate Super Bowl contender. And they really lost, not because of the offense,

but because their defense couldn't get a stop for Daniel Jones. And there you have it. So, I mean, I would take Kevin O'Connell's 2022 offense definitely over 2021. The fact that Adam Thielen was starting to slip a little bit. Delvin Cook was starting to slip. The running game wasn't as effective. Yeah. I mean, if you have the same quarterback, it's not going to be wildly different. This happened with the chargers and Justin Herbert, where they got Kellen Moore and there was a lot

of like, Oh, okay. Now they got Kellen Moore and now everything's going to change. It didn't really because it's still Justin Herbert and he still plays the same way. Folks, I hope you've enjoyed listening to us talk about prize picks this year, but if you've missed it, here's how it works. You go to prizepicks.com and it is simple. You pick either more or less between two and six players stat projections, and that's it. Now you're playing so if it's x number of yards for a quarterback you just decide are they going to throw for more or less than that number of yards but it works with lots of different options receiving yards touchdowns even field goals all sorts of sports as well prizepicks.com slash purple go there use

the code purple for the first deposit match up to $100. One of the reasons I like PrizePix, it is very simple to use. You'd see how we do it on the show real quick and easy. And then we talk about our picks and also not expensive either. You can turn $10 into $250 by nailing just a couple of picks. So go to prize picks.com slash purple, the code purple daily fantasy sports made easy. Now, as far as what do I think about Kweisi Adolfo Mensah's drafts in 2022 and 2023,

it has occasionally come up on the show, but in the totality now also in this email and I couldn't fit it on the screen. It was mentioned that Ivan Pace and I couldn't fit it on the screen. It was mentioned that Ivan Pace Jr. doesn't count as a draft pick. He does count. I know he was not drafted, but you can't do that. You can't be like, oh yeah, the, one of the best players they got. No, no, no. You can't include him when you're analyzing what Casey Adolfo Menta has done in the draft. You most certainly can because they paid $300,000 for him. So they outbid everyone else.

So they sought that guy out and went and got him and brought him in and he turned out to be really good. So that was a very intentional move to get Ivan pace. So when we look at the, the two drafts and what they have here, Andrew Booth jr. Still to be decided. Like he got in the game after not getting in for a while,

played pretty well last week. We'll see what he brings this week with two injured corners and so forth. But that's been a little like still to be decided. Trey Wayne's through two years was not decided. We're all set on Lewis scene. Ed Ingram has had a much, much better year and looks like a long-term player for them. So they've got a starting guard. Caleb Evans has become a starting corner. Ty Chandler is their starting running back right now. What he becomes, I don't know,

but I think we all see the potential. So three starting caliber players from 2022, a star in 2023 in Jordan Addison. Makai Blackman has had a very good year. Jay Ward has started to get on the field. Jaqueline Roy, it's a very small draft class. So out of the two draft classes, they've come away with a starting guard, a starting corner, actually two starting corners, a starting running back, and a star wide receiver.

And also, by the way, traded a second round draft pick for a star tight end, a superstar tight end, who was one of the best players in the league this year. I don't know. I mean, I certainly the first round pick at 2022 went wrong, but other than that, that's a lot of key players that they've put together through the draft. So I don't know. I mean, would you give it a B so far? You can't give it. A lot of people act like because Louis Scene went wrong that they just get an F. But you can't really ignore.

Oh, and a starting linebacker. I forgot that I was going on the rant about Ivan Pace. So a starting linebacker, two corners that look going on the rant about ivan pace so starting linebacker two uh corners that look like they're parts of the future a star wide receiver and a starting guard and maybe a starting running back it's a lot of players that are key parts of the future so but one pick did go really wrong there's no question about that uh and last email here that i got then i will get to your comments. From Jordan says, is it unreasonable to believe Brian Flores is a better coach than Kevin O'Connell?

Let me stop you right there. Yes, it is. Yes, it is unreasonable to believe that. Let's see. The volume of KOC criticism wouldn't be as loud if fans didn't have such strong opinions on Brian Flores. I think Brian Flores has done an absolutely amazing job this year, an A-plus, phenomenal, phenomenal job as the defensive coordinator. No question about it. Deserves consideration for the future. But to say that because he's done a good job with his side

of the ball, that he is a better head coach than Kevin O'Connell doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. I mean, we have a small sample size of Flores coaching in Miami and he did a pretty good job there. They had winning records. But to argue that like the best coach is the defensive coordinator when O'Connell has had a lot of overall success in these two years. And then the second half of this year has been entirely blown up by backup quarterbacks. I mean, are we supposed to think that if a different coach is in here that after losing Kirk cousins, it's wildly different? Like, I don't know. I mean, I also think that in the future, if you have your head coach as your offensive coordinator, your play

caller, and he's connected with your future quarterback who doesn't tear his Achilles, then that's going to be a good thing, even if there are flaws. And something that I find myself just thinking about a lot when I'm watching other teams is, didn't they used to say about Andy Reed that he couldn't manage games? Doesn't Andy Reed run weird trick plays all the time? Doesn't Sean McVay blow timeouts? Like doesn't Bill Belichick not know how to like manage a game anymore? I mean, or, or how about a quarterback? There's a lot of different nuances to every coach. Earlier this year, I saw Browns fans didn't like Kevin Stefanski and things that he was doing with the backup quarterbacks. Then they have a pretty easy schedule for being honest. And Joe Flacco throws some wild deep balls and all of a sudden like Kevin Stefanski is going to be the coach of the year. That's just kind of

every coach. Mike Tomlin has this where people criticize that he doesn't have enough hand in the offense. Like every single coach has something that all of their fans who watch them all the time don't like about that coach. They have stubbornness. They have different game management or play calling tendencies or the way they manage players or whatever it might be. There's no coach that I've ever seen where all their fans think that guy just does everything perfect.

In fact, what fun would talking about football ever be if we thought the coach did everything perfectly? The bigger picture on Kevin O'Connell has been, I think that he, as an operator of the entire organization, has made this place somewhere where players want to be and they've fought to the end of these games. I think that had they pulled a Jets where they just get killed in a bunch of games, we'd probably be like, ah, well, they lost their quarterback. What are you going to do?

But because they've been so close, we're nitpicking away, trying to look for every reason that it went wrong. Now that doesn't mean they've done everything right. And after games, if you've listened to the post game show, you've certainly heard me rant about different things why isn't this being used this way can they ever throw a screen pass like you know stuff like that but the bigger picture is that they've hired somebody that you can have as a head coach for a long time if he's paired with the right quarterback and that's what it usually comes down to and uh we'll see what happens as far as that goes in the future. Maybe it's Russell Wilson. I don't know.

But I am really willing to wait before I start sounding any alarms on Kevin O'Connell. Because this has just been an incredibly difficult season to deal with from stuff that is really hard to control as a head coach. And, hey, look, the New York media, I think Robert really hard to control as a head coach. And Hey, look, the New York media, I think Robert Sala is a pretty good head coach. And the New York media is asking him why he's not mad enough. Like I saw that on Twitter. Why aren't you mad? Like, you know, I don't know. We just do this when, when coaches lose their quarterbacks, uh, Hunter says, uh, is Russ Russell Wilson more likely to be a short-term option than Kirk? That is something I really don't know. Because Wilson is coming off this kind of ugly situation with Denver, and Kirk is coming off an Achilles.

And I would tend to think that based on both of their ages, that neither one of them would be a long-term option. Yet, when you consider the desperation from franchises that feel like they're right there and like, like Atlanta and like Pittsburgh, like they're right on the edge of being great, that there would be bidding wars for their talents and that they would want multiple year deals and pretty big money still.

I mean, Russell Wilson is going to go. His agent is going to go to teams and go, all right, I know you want a short-term deal with Russell Wilson, his agent, is going to go to teams and go, all right, I know you want a short-term deal with Russell Wilson. Let me show you the backup quarterbacks from last year. Let me show you your other options. Ryan Tannehill's always hurt, and his team benched him. Josh Dobbs will be a free agent.

Hey, Baker Mayfield maybe, but he's going to cost probably a lot more money now. Who else? Who are the other free agents other than Russ and Kirk? And teams are going to cost probably a lot more money now. Who else? Who are the other free agents other than Russ and Kirk? And teams are going to pull out their checkbooks. I mean, that's how I think of it. I could be wrong about that because the NFL clearly colluded against Lamar Jackson to lower quarterback prices. But even with Derek Carr, there was a lot of interest. Derek Carr could have gone to the Jets and he ends up with New Orleans with a pretty big contract. Geno Smith has one year. He gets a pretty big contract.

I would expect that Wilson and Kirk Cousins will still have a lot of interest. Jason says, can we leverage Russell against Kirk or vice versa in negotiations if when both are available no yeah i mean i think that both of them are just going to have multiple teams that are talking to them about being their quarterbacks because the way wilson played this year well it was not the old russell wilson like super bowl caliber it was still a heck of a lot better than mitch trubisky it was still a heck of a lot better than taylor heineke and Desmond Ritter or, or Aiden O'Connell or hurt Jimmy Garoppolo. I mean,

there's just, there's going to be teams and I wouldn't be surprised if he wants to, Wilson wants to go to the Raiders to get a little revenge against the Denver Broncos, but there's just, there's going to be teams that are very interested. And I don't know if you can really play one against the other and say, well, we'll just go get Russell Wilson if you don't sign our contract, Kirk.

But Russell is going to look for the biggest deal as well. My concern mostly is when we look at this timeline and ask ourselves, is it time to go all in? Is it time to push all the chips to the middle of the table? And like, if you look at Stafford's deal, Stafford's deal is really favorable from a cap situation for like two years. And then the three years after he's gone, it's a nightmare for the Los Angeles Rams, but they don't care. They got their Superbowl and he's playing really well, but they're, they were in their Superbowl window. And then probably when they brought him back, they thought, oh, we can keep this going, and they haven't really, even though they're competitive.

But they won their Super Bowl. Again, like, who cares? That happened with Joe Flacco and the Ravens. They won their Super Bowl. They gave Flacco all the money, and they just, whatever. We got our Super Bowl ring. This guy's got a lifetime contract here. So if the Vikings believe that this roster is right on the cusp of being a

legitimate Super Bowl contender, going to San Francisco, going to Dallas, can you play those teams if you just have Kirk, if you just have Russell Wilson for next year, or is it going to need more than that down the road? I tend to think it's going to need more than that. It's not just plop Kirk back in here and profit. I went through the roster, but there's a lot of holes. There's a third wide receiver position. Their number three and four wide receivers are both free agents next year, Brandon Powell and K.J. Osborne. So you're going to need somebody to be there.

You're going to have to make a decision on Daniil Hunter. Is Jordan Hicks coming back? He's a free agent. If he's coming back, he's played really well. He's going to need somebody to be there. You're going to have to make a decision on Daniil Hunter. Is Jordan Hicks coming back? He's a free agent. If he's coming back, he's played really well. He's going to want money. Is Harrison Smith retiring? Are you replacing that by just making Metellus a pure safety? That seems like a mistake.

Going to need more interior pass rush. They haven't gotten any of that. DJ Wanham has a serious injury. I don't know when he's coming back. So you need another guy. Like, it's starting to add up, right? And it's not locked in that the corners are all set. You might need another corner. You might left guard Dalton Reisner could cost $10 million. So all of these things have to factor in to, if you were going to try to bring in, you know, someone like Russell Wilson or bring back Kirk Cousins.

This is a good observation by Daniel. The Vikings organization is indeed where washed up quarterbacks go to die. It's ridiculous. McMahon, Warren Moon, Randall Cunningham, Jeff George, Donovan McNabb, Brett Favre. Now you're absolutely right. And that would Russell Wilson would a hundred percent like for, for just the, the thematic nature of it, that would make a lot of sense. But the unfortunate part of that always, or has always been except for Favre who put them right there in Cunningham, but it's mostly been, it can only get you so far. Although, Hey, maybe that's the argument. Hey, with Randall Cunningham and Brett Favre, you're right there on the cusp why not bring in uh russell wilson steve says i don't

trust quacey to draft a franchise quarterback he'd choose the wrong one uh vikings need a new g i don't i don't get it we just went through the drafting and i'm having trouble other than the one pick which was wrong what evidence do we have that they can't draft the franchise quarterback? What GM is great at drafting a franchise quarterback, by the way, is there some GM who's like, I got it. I mean, maybe, maybe Ozzie Newsome in Baltimore, but Baltimore is my favorite example of how ridiculous drafting is because they draft Joe Flacco. I think he was 18th overall or something, wins a Superbowl, great quarterback for them for a long time. Ozzie Newsome was their GM. And then in 2018,

Joe Flacco is getting toward the end of his career and they decide to draft Lamar Jackson, but not with their first, first round pick. They drafted a 24 year old tight end Hayden Hurst before they drafted Lamar Jackson I mean there and that's is there a better run front office in the NFL than the Baltimore Ravens and yet that's what they did because drafting is very very hard and when we go through the history of drafting quarterbacks it's's very, very hard. Did anybody think, like maybe somebody thought Zach Wilson was going to be this bad, but he sure looked good to me in college. Justin Fields looked horrendous at the beginning of the year,

and then has looked better, but how good is he really? I don't know. If he goes to Atlanta, does he maximize his skills and actually be good or like what right i mean drafting is so difficult because circumstances play into it so much and there's only a handful of guys who are going to be worth picking at the top so you could say well i don't trust the gm to draft one well there's only going to be like five so you're picking out of five guys and the one that you like the most, you're going to select. And by the way, it's going to be Kevin O'Connell selecting this quarterback. It's not just going to be the general manager because O'Connell has to pick the quarterback that he likes the most. And because the one that he wants to work with, that he believes he can maximize the one that he believes

he can communicate with, because that's what he's all about. But I mean, think about this. Here's how random drafting is. Tell me, does San Francisco understand quarterbacks and quarterback play, the 49ers? They drafted Trey Lance. They traded their whole dang draft for it. Three first round picks. And then they end up with a seventh rounder.

Are they geniuses or are they stupid like they have a seventh rounders in the mvp conversation is that brilliant or is that or they have no idea what they're doing the reality is playing quarterback in college and you guys will probably end up hearing this rant for many times if we're talking about drafting a quarterback how about washington by the way they drafted rg3 and kirk cousins and kirk cousins by the way they drafted RG3 and Kirk Cousins and Kirk Cousins had the way better career I mean what like I don't know Dak Prescott's in the MVP race he's a fourth round pick uh Jalen Hurts everyone hated that pick go take a look at all the draft analysts and what they said they hated that pick and then Jalen Hurts becomes a Super Bowl quarterback a lot of

draft analysts thought that Patrick Mahomes didn't a Super Bowl quarterback a lot of draft analysts thought that Patrick Mahomes didn't have good footwork a lot of draft analysts thought that Josh Allen was only being drafted because he had a big arm and couldn't play quarterback and here we are and at the same time a lot of people thought Sam Darnold was going to be amazing it's really about picking one that you think will fit, giving them the absolute best situation, and then praying. That's what it's really about. Because playing in college, they don't even have headsets. They don't even have headsets. They're looking over at people grab it. This literally happened in the bowl game. They're looking over at assistants and

backup quarterbacks grabbing their crotch to send in the place. And then in the NFL, you have to get the play call in your headset from the coach and deliver it in front of 80,000 people to your, your teammates with two or three different options. You have to make checks at the line of scrimmage and the coaches and just signaling to you what the opponent they're also stealing the signs of the like think about how much different this is can one can one gm draft them better than

the next i promise you they can't and i just i remember when uh uh bill walsh was talking i think it was bill walsh was you know as you know greatest coach of all time if it's not belichick and bill walsh was talking about this guy, Trent Edwards, who played at Stanford played for the Buffalo bills. And he said, you know what? I see a lot of Joe Montana in him. And that's the great, that's the greatest coach. And that's not what happened with Trent Edwards. That was not Joe Montana. It's very hard, very hard. You pick somebody who has great traits, who's smart, who's got a good communication ability, who has the right fit for what you want as an offense.

You give them Justin Jefferson and Christian Derrissaw and Brian O'Neill, and then hold onto your butts. That's what you could do. Drew says, are the Vikings a cursed team since 1961? Yeah. Yeah, they are. But what are you going to do? I mean, I've always thought with the curse thing, it's funny. I don't even know why that's coming up right now. But with the curse team thing, that the odds of all the things that have gone wrong

for the Vikings over the years going wrong, it is so outrageous. Like Dante Culpepper and Teddy Bridgewater both having knee injuries as they're in their prime. I mean, how many quarterbacks have ever in their prime, in their 20s, had their careers go sideways because of an injury? Not many.

And yet you got two of them right as you're on the cusp. I mean, you think about if Dante had continued to play through 2007, 8, 9, as they were building that roster, what that would have looked like. I mean, and that doesn't even begin to talk about field goals and everything else. So, yeah, they probably are. Now, a few years ago, a friend of mine traced back. He was on the show, traced back the curse to an nfl trophy they won the nfl championship when it was nfl afl and they lost it so i think maybe that's what the curse comes from but uh

you know i don't know i don't know i'm sure i'm sure that any vikings fan thinks they're cursed though uh tim says go oh and two and you're picking around 12th that is the thing that uh a lot of conflict and i noticed this yesterday from the friday mailbag if uh by the way if you don't know about the newsletter purple insider newsletter you can go sign up at purple insider.com get all the articles right into your email that i write from out tco performance center so i probably don't do enough self-promotion of that, but that's where you can get that. And every Friday, a bunch of subscribers ask questions. And the biggest thing was, is it okay if I root for the

Vikings to win? And then other people are saying, is it okay if I root for the Vikings to lose? Well, number one thing I would say is it doesn't matter like whatever's going to happen is going to happen whether you root for it to happen or not won't make a difference but should you be upset if they lose and there's a lot of people that say look there's just no way I could ever be okay with losing to the Packers totally understand that but there's a compelling case that if you go into with Jaron Hall and you are picking in that range, that's just outside the top 10, that you can make a much stronger play for a quarterback in the draft, whether that means trading up in the first round or whether that means just getting the first guy past the first three guys, which sometimes has worked out.

Even if you look at the order of quarterbacks taken, talking about how random it can be, the order of quarterbacks taken doesn't often predict, you know, Mahomes, Josh Allen, who's better than those guys, and those are not the top picks. Even like Tua and Herbert, there are several teams. Those guys were at the top, several teams, including Washington. It was just like, nobert there are several teams those guys were at the top several teams including washington that was just like no we don't need those guys we're gonna pick a pass

rusher instead of those guys so sometimes it's the third quarterback sometimes it's the fourth sometimes it's the first and if you don't get caleb williams or drake may which seems pretty impossible can it be jayden Daniels and a trade up? Or do they like another quarterback after that? Does Quinn Ewers come out? Do they like Pennix? Do they like Bo Nix? You know, so there will be those other options potentially for them there,

which is a lot easier than if you draft 20 seconds. So that is absolutely true. The way I look at it is you should probably just kind of throw your hands up. Like, I don't know, whatever's going to happen. If they make the playoffs, it's a pretty darn remarkable accomplishment to go through all this and make the post-season would be incredible. And it would mean a lot to a lot of people inside of the building. Playoffs are great for the fans and everything else. But if they go 0-2, you can't really be too upset with moving your draft status up by 10 spots. The only thing that would be bad would be if they were to go 1-1. 1-1 doesn't really help

you out a lot. You lose to the Packers, you beat the Lions playing Teddy Bridgewater or something, and then you draft 16th? That doesn't really help. Melissa says, Kirk has never been better than Russell Wilson. They came out of the same conference at the same year. Wilson destroyed Kirk in college and in the NFL. They played in college like a long time ago, So I don't know if that has any relevance, but I also don't know their record off the hand of who played who, when with him and Russell Wilson.

So I'm not sure that one makes a big difference, but as far as their careers go, that also might not matter that much because when you're making a decision for the quarterback of the future, you're really talking about what's next, not what's happened before because Russell Wilson over the last two years has not been a better quarterback than Kirk cousins over the last two years. Wilson has a borderline hall of fame career. I would not say the same for Kirk, but he's got, he's got a super bowl ring and

he's had years where he you could make an argument for mvp for russell wilson so he's like borderline on that hall of fame discussion that's for his career that's for years ago that's not for next year you're signing him for next year you're not signing him for what he played at north carolina state or wisconsin like so you know, that's the hard thing is, is Wilson a healthy Russell Wilson in a really good system that pushes the ball downfield a good idea versus a Kirk Cousins who's coming off an Achilles injury?

If they're the same price, which one would you rather take? Like, Kirk has played better more recently, but Wilson is healthy and had a really good year throwing the ball downfield. Melissa says Kirk is already on the books for 29 million, 28, I think, dead cap. And why would he take a cent less? So this is actually complicated because he can push that dead cap space out if he signs a multi-year deal. But the thing is, he has to sign the multi-year deal before he hits free agency. Once the contract runs out and he goes to free agency, that is on the books and it's over. So he has to sign really before he goes to free agency or they're going to take a $28 million dead cap and add 35, 40 million on top of it,

that would be terrible. So I think that we're going to get a decision fairly quickly into March before he hits free agency, that we will know where they're going to go with this quarterback decision, because once he hits free agency, then they can no longer spread that out. That is on the books, signing him or not. So that makes it kind of interesting. As far as taking less, well, of course, he's not going to

take less than that. I think that the number that you need to use is Daniel Jones, $40 million. That's the one where it's hard to convince me that Kirk Cousins is taking less than that. Why would Kirk Cousins take less than what, why would he take less than what Daniel Jones got? Why would he take a Gino Smith deal or even a Derek Carr deal when he played better than Derek Carr over the couple of years, you know, leading into when he got hurt. So that that's the hard one for me is making it work financially where you can sign him and spread out the deal, but still make it favorable for the salary cap for the future. That's what, that's what is challenging there, um, about that situation. So hold on one second here. I'm just going to pull something up. Well, that's not what I'm trying to do.

Okay. Just, just, just checking on the over the cap situation there. Well, I'll have to pull that up later and making sure I've got my prize picks for, for later as well. Cause I have not given those for the week, but I'll keep moving down. So, uh, Bradley says, Matthew, you have a question. Why can't we stop worrying about competing for super bowls, but focus on drafting the guy who could be in the conversation for MVP every year at quarterback. Well, I'm not, I'm not really sure that I, that I quite understand the question. Um, like, do you mean like every year as in go into the year

and try to just get in the dance? I think that's what you're saying is like a lot of what this franchise has been has been an argument toward, hey, if you just get in the playoffs, then you've got a chance, which is not really true. I went through the wildcard winners in my lifetime, the teams that were wildcard and then ended up winning the Super Bowl. There is one that does not have a Hall of Fame quarterback, and I'm assuming Eli Manning becomes a Hall of Fame quarterback.

The only one that was not was the Baltimore Ravens in 2000. The other ones were like Tom Brady with the Bucs, which was a weird situation because it took him half the year to figure it out with the Bucs. It was Pittsburgh. It was Aaron Rodgers. It's just like, you're not winning as a wild card more likely than not. You usually have to win your division. So that's part of it that I would agree with. If that's what you're hinting at is you can't just play to like hope to get in and then just get super lucky and win the Super Bowl because that almost never happens. And as far as being their focus to try to draft someone,

I mean, that's always been my thing is you can't win the lottery unless you play. And that's how I feel about drafting quarterbacks. Like you can't hit on that guy who's going to compete for an MVP every year or whatever, unless you try to draft one. And you usually can't build a strong enough team to win a Superbowl because it is a lot about the, the quarterback, but it's not all about the quarterback as maybe Justin Herbert shows us. So if you're talking about like building the complete team,

the quarterback has to fit into that financially, which is the whole thing about Kirk cousins. Lee says, Ben Gessling wrote that JJ has been a strong advocate for Kirk. Would you guess the percentage chance he'll be back? Yeah, I don't, I mean,

Jefferson's advocating for Kirk cousins is an interesting thing because Jefferson has repeatedly said, I love Kirk Cousins, care about him. He's been great for me in my career. He's a great quarterback, but it's a business. Like has, has always sort of been either the vibe of the conversation, like I'm not making that decision or he's directly said that before when we've asked him about Kirk Cousins' contract. I also think that the idea that Justin Jefferson is making this call is totally false. Like, who's making this call? Is Kevin O'Connell.

That's what I think is making this call about who the future quarterback is going to be. And, of course, the Wilfs who will listen to Kevin O'Connell. I think even more than the general manager, more than the scouts, more than the rest of the staff, because that's the guy who you got to pair him with. So Jefferson's opinion on this. And also people are concerned that if they pick the quarterback, Jefferson doesn't want,

he'll just leave. If only that was how it worked, but it's not, that's not how it works at all. There's franchise tags. He's got to play next year on the fifth year option doesn't really have any other option he can sit out training camp all he wants but as you saw from nick bosa it's just so much more favorable to sign than it is to try to force

your way out so as far as percentage chance i'm at a coin flip right now i would say a total coin flip with kirk cousins because his agent is going to try to figure out before free agency, how much someone else would give Kirk Cousins. And if he thinks it's more than the Vikings would, then he will go to the market and he'll get that money. But he's got to figure that out before free agency starts. Not that there would ever be any conversations behind the scenes of what teams would be willing to pay for someone, so forth. Deontay says the thing about drafting quarterbacks, you have to keep trying until you find the guy. Yeah, totally agree. Totally agree.

And sometimes you find them in places that you don't expect. And sometimes you find them at number one overall in the draft. It's Joe Burrow and he takes you to the Super Bowl. And sometimes it goes completely wrong. And it's very hard to figure out which one that's going to be for the Vikings. If they decide to draft quarterback, that's what everyone's always afraid about. But in my mind, it's like, I don't know if there's a great metaphor for this, but it's very simple in my mind is if you pay Russell Wilson or you pay Kirk Cousins $40 million a year, then your chances of winning the Super Bowl are pretty darn low,

but you know your chances of making the playoffs are pretty high. But if you draft a quarterback, your chances of being really bad because the guy stinks are fairly high. Although they've won games with Nick Mullins and and uh josh dobbs so i don't know but you know but if it's if it's somebody's not that good and you get stuck that could be really miserable as everyone has mentioned with christian ponder for example but the high end of it is you can compete for a super bowl the reason reason one, if not the entire reason, the main, one of the main reasons that Brock Purdy is in the MVP conversation is because Brock Purdy doesn't cost anything. He is so cheap for the San Francisco 49ers that they can have Christian McCaffrey,

Trent Williams, Nick Bosa just signed. They have added players, Javon Hargrave. Like, why do you think that's happening it's if you had a 40 million dollar quarterback that's not happening uh i think they signed debo samuel as well it's no coincidence that the philadelphia eagles with jaylen hertz were able to bring in a.j brown and load up on their defensive line and everything else like pay all their offensive linemen to stick around like this is it's an argument that's been made a hundred times, but you can find a bunch of examples of it. And I think that Hertz and Purdy also show you that if the guy meets a certain baseline and you can put the team around him, you can legitimately compete for a Superbowl.

Even if Jalen Hertz is only the ninth best quarterback in the league, but if he's the ninth best quarterback and Kirk Cousins is the eighth best quarterback, one of them costs nothing, the other one costs $40 million, who's winning? I mean, if the game was just about this guy's better than that guy, well, it would be totally different. But I think that's what makes it so tricky to talk about. Bulldog 13 TV says, this season is funny. Dobbs makes O'Connell look like a quarterback whisperer

who can absolutely mold a rookie quarterback to he isn't the guy because he isn't adaptable and wants his system run over the quarterback skill set. This is what backups will do to us, Bulldog. You are exactly right. It's exactly, I mean, that's the perfect synopsis is what he did in Atlanta was incredible. And I would even say it's just as impressive the very next week to have schemed it up for the new Orleans game.

And then they play an actually good defense, which this is the Joe Flacco thing. It's probably the Tommy DeVito thing. A lot of times it's who you're playing makes a big difference. They play the Raiders and the Bears, two defenses that have been phenomenal in the second half of the season. They don't score. Then they change quarterbacks.

Then they play a terrible defense and put up 400 yards, but Mullins can't stop throwing picks. So you think it should have been better. You go to the next guy. That's why, you know, you're looking for your franchise quarterback, I guess, because they're just, you know, you're looking for your franchise quarterback i guess because they're just you know you're just chasing your tail and you're just kind of hoping uh that something clicks but all the quarterbacks are basically the same and there isn't a scheme that magically works for backup quarterbacks if there was then quarterbacks wouldn't make $50 million, right? So old and slow, feeling that, says never mortgage the future for a quarterback or anyone.

It's too much of a crapshoot. Take your quarterback. Take quarterbacks often in the draft, the shotgun approach. Yeah, I mean, so I think that you can be in a position, and then this is interesting because when you think about San Francisco, San Francisco's roster was so strong that they actually were in a position where they could mortgage their future, and it actually didn't mortgage their future at all. it ended up not hurting them in the very short term. Now in the longterm, it may hurt them. That's very possible. But in the short term, it did not hurt them because they had a lot of cap space and because they were a super,

super good team. So they were able to survive, uh, which is interesting, right? Like yet they mortgage their future because they had already built such a strong foundation of a Superbowl champion Super Bowl caliber type of roster that they were in a position to do it. That would be maybe a point about the Vikings.

Do you feel like they're in a position to move up and get Jaden Daniels or something and give away those draft picks? There's probably arguments for yes and no. You can fill up a defense a lot easier than you can find franchise receivers. That's certainly part of the argument, but they also have multiple spots where they are going to have to spend some money or hit on draft picks or develop somebody

in order to have a roster that's that good. But yeah, I agree with you though. If you're trading three, but the only thing is if there is a massive difference between like quarterback three and quarterback four. So think of it this way. Like if, if the league believes that Jaden Daniels is a top three quarterback, he's right there with the other guys, but Bo Nix is the 47th best prospect. Maybe it's worth it. It is a crap shoot, but when you look at second round picks,

Jalen Hurts is really an outlier. And probably a lot of that was tropes about how he could only run the ball, which was not true. Actually, he was a pretty darn good passer in college and maybe got underappreciated for that. But with that and Lamar Jackson, like usually those guys aren't there unless the NFL just loses its mind and doesn't realize that being super talented is good. I don't know. So anyway, anyway, let me get to some other stuff. Bradley says, Matthew, where does mediocrity come from? Although they're trying, yes, they're spending money at the end of the day. The results not reflecting the investment, it's ownership.

So the ownership question is always hard for me because like there were times where they could have tanked and they didn't want to tank. That's absolutely true. At 2020 was the time. Does anybody even remember 2020? Like 2020 is just so distant of a memory. But, you know, that was the year. If they were going to do it, they could have moved on from Kirk, could have sunk to the bottom.

I mean, honestly, no one would have remembered because it was 2020. But they didn't. They tried to run it back. They tried to bring back Kirk. They tried to bring back Zim. And it just didn't work. But overall, in the history of this team, really the problem is exactly what you think it is.

It's like they didn't hit on Christian Ponder. Had they, they probably are able to build a really darn good roster around him over the subsequent years. And then Teddy Bridgewater got hurt. And had they not had Teddy Bridgewater get hurt, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, that's a window for Teddy Bridgewater. Now you could say, oh, well, he wasn't good enough. I don't know. I mean, Case Keenum got them to the NFC Championship.

That's how strong their roster was. And Teddy never got to play with the full version of Diggs and Thielen, where they were stars. And so it's hard to say how that would have played out. That's kind of bad luck. And then after that, they had a decision. We just went to the NFC Championship. And look, I was not big into this, as has been brought up maybe a few times over the years, but you could see where the ownership would say, all right, we're quarterback away. We're going all in on Kirk cousins. That's what Denver thought too, with Russell Wilson. It doesn't always work. Sometimes it does with Matthew Stafford, but that was their big swing, their big attempt to try to win a Super Bowl. I don't think that that was, we want to be mediocre. We want to be just okay. But I think that they were chasing that bad

decision or let's say the decision that didn't work out. They were chasing that over the years to try to make it work. Well, if we just bring them back at this number, then we can sign this guy. We just take another shot at it this way. We just draft this player. We just sign this guy and then maybe it'll work, but they really should have probably thought about the sunk cost situation. Like you can't really chase a bad decision. I think gamblers talk about that. Like don't chase a bad bet with another one or whatever. So, you know, now we're in a position where they had another choice, another fork in the road. Do you move on from all the old players before 2022?

You take another shot at it. Again, this is a pretty good option there to move on and to try to reset it. And maybe the history would have been different if they didn't. But I think it's hard to say this ownership is just clueless or foolish or handling this whole thing stupidly because they hired a GM and head coach who have been able to largely split the difference and set them up for the future throughout this season by eventually moving on from all those players without necessarily tanking. Maybe they should have going into this year. I don't know, but it's always hard to me to try to bring it

back to them. When you think about the facilities, when you think about the stadium, when you think about the player happiness, the people that they've hired to run the organization right now to say, oh, they don't know what they're doing. That's a hard one for me. I think as far as ownership goes over the larger picture, they have a very good ownership, but they really need to just get the right quarterback

who's going to take them somewhere. And that's the hard thing because we don't have a lot of control over that. Let's see. Jesse says, it's what Jefferson wants in the end, and he wants Cousins. See, we don't know that. We don't know that. Justin Jefferson can both say, I love Kirk Cousins and have that be true, but not be like dying on the hill of we I love Kirk Cousins and have that be true, but not be like dying on the Hill of, we must have Kirk Cousins, Justin Jefferson and Kirk Cousins have won how many

playoff games together? That would be none. So, you know, I don't know, like what is it? I'm not saying that Justin Jefferson doesn't love Kirk Cousins. I totally believe him when he says it, that that's his guy and that's his quarterback and so forth. But I think you're trying to put a lot of words in his mouth by saying that he like only wants Kirk Cousins to come back. I just don't think that that's necessarily true. So anyway, High Times KG says, bring me michael pennix i have become very intrigued very intrigued by the idea of michael pennix i really like his character i really really like the way that he throws the football uh and when you're talking about a pocket quarterback who can throw it with anticipation into tight windows who could come in after playing a long college career

and potentially fit right in quickly. Maybe that's Michael Penix. I mean, he's done a really good job at Washington, but it's not the NFL, so it's very hard to say. I think he's got an NFL arm. So Drew says, let's grade Kweisi Adafomensa. Well, if you want to grade the overall picture, and I'm going to stay with this and we'll see where it goes. The overall picture, they didn't extend Kirk Cousins and he tore his Achilles. So that was probably a good idea.

Gives them the option, at least if they don't want to bring him back. How's Delvin Cook performing? Not so good. Moved on from him uh eric kendricks is on a losing team with a bad defense they uh did not bring back adam thielen who's been okay but jordan addison's been better than adam thielen they drafted jordan addison smart decision when you probably needed some defensive players but they let those guys develop um they have found a young foundation and a core for this team that if you put in, and also the offensive line, by the way, getting Reisner, Ingram has developed, bringing back Garrett Bradbury, actually a very smart decision.

So you're pretty well set up to put a quarterback into the offense and have that player be able to take off if they're any good at all. So I don't know. I think that, uh, I mean, you can't give anybody, nobody gets an a, if you're not in the playoffs, nobody gets an a, if you're not competing for a super bowl, it doesn't work like that. But as far as how well they have transitioned out of this team is super old and can't win to what they need to do next. And can they be competitive? I think they've done a very good job. But there are always going to be people who don't think so.

And I guess that's fair. But I think objectively, they have done what they wanted to do, which is move from the old into a refreshed roster that could be good for the future. So anyway, well, let me give you my prize picks. And then I want to say one more thing at the end of the show. You guys have been great as far as, oh, wait, let's see here. Let me get one more question in here from Sparky. Is Jaren Hall in because KOC is throwing in the towel and seeing what we got, or is he actually thinking this will provide a spark and see if we can win a few there. There's definitely

no throwing in the towel with Kevin O'Connell and this team. Definitely not like this. Look around. You got Harrison Smith. I mean, you got Justin Jefferson, Brian Flores. There's no throwing in the towel. The reality is if somebody plays an even halfway safe game with the football last week, the Vikings win against Detroit. Very likely win. Can't say for sure. But four interceptions, trying to make wild throws that in no way can Nick Mullen's arm make those throws.

Clearly Josh Dobbs just didn't fit with what they wanted to do offensively maybe maybe at the end of the day we'll say you should just play dobbs the whole way but also they've been seeing if you remember mike zimmer's famous quote they've been seeing uh what did he say i see i see a kellen mond every day in practice they've been seeing jaron hall every day in practice and i i think the idea is that Jaron Hall will play safer with the football, but also has a better arm than Nick Mullins. So if he's ready to handle the offense and he's at home, so he doesn't have to deal with the noise. So if he can make the checks and changes at the line of scrimmage, get the plays in, get to the line of scrimmage, he has better

traits, better physical traits than Nick Mullins. and he's probably going to play a little safer than throwing four picks. I think he's doing it because it gives him the best chance to win. I don't think this is just evaluation mode. I think he believes that it gives them a better chance to win than Nick Mullins just whipping the ball all over the place. And, you know, I feel bad for Nick Mullins. The guy has really worked hard to even have an NFL career. And the dude knows football super, super well.

He can operate the offense. He knows where to go with the football. It's just the arm talent is just not there. So, all right, let's get Price picks. So for this week, I have two of them. And I was trying to come up with a third one, so I'm going to scroll while I'm talking here. But the prize picks that I went with,

I went with Jaron Hall for less than 222 yards passing and Ty Chandler with more than 12.5 yards receiving. And my reasoning on that is I think that they're going to want Jaron Hall to tighten it up and to play more of a conservative game, throw underneath a lot more, control the ball, try not to get the defense out there a lot after they were on the field for 77 plays. And Ty Chandler is going to be the dude catching the ball a lot. And because those swing passes get a screen going, I think this is finally the week we see a successful screen for Ty Chandler, but you know,

throwing, throwing out of the backfield to Chandler, I think is a good play and 12 and a half yards. It's not much. He's also RB one at this point over Alexander Madison. So those are my two prize picks. You can go to prize picks.com. It is very,

very simple. You just pick more or less yardage totals, touchdown totals, even field goal totals. That's all you got to do. And if you use the promo code purple, then you get a match of a hundred dollars up to a hundred dollars match. And it's very simple to play. It doesn't cost a lot of money. If I hit on both of these, it'll be 20 to make 60 bucks. So it's not like you're having to, uh, you know, go take out a loan to play prize picks. So make sure you check that out. Those are your dead, super crazy locks of the week. Sharon Hall, less than two 22

Ty Chandler, more receiving yards than 12 and a half. All right. Last thing I want to say on the show, uh, is a congratulations toousins, who is our Corey Stringer Good Guy Award winner of the year, where the media gets together that covers the team every day. And we vote on one player who has been the best to deal with from a media perspective. And we gave that award to Kirk Cousins. And it was very, very, very much deserved for Cousins even though of course he's had to miss the second half of the season but we talked to Kirk briefly as we were giving him the award and he said that he felt this year more relaxed himself and said even maybe the Netflix

documentary brought himself out of his shell a little bit when it came to being at the podium answering questions and after his injury it's very rare that players do a press conference after an injury, much less talk with the type of openness about his feelings about the injury, what he went through physically, and to take you through the entire process of being carted off and talking to his teammates and then learning about the Achilles and all that stuff. And Kirk Cousins has just done a great job this year of helping us in the media that covers the team every day, tell the story of the 2023 Minnesota Vikings as crazy as it has been.

So I appreciate Kirk. And especially this year, I had an opportunity to do a story with Kirk. If you want to go check it out, I put it on been. So I appreciate Kirk. And especially this year, I had an opportunity to do a story with Kirk. If you want to go check it out, I put it on Twitter where I wrote about his unique relationship with his hometown newspaper in Holland, Michigan. And he still has a friendship with that paper. He still subscribes to it. He still reads it about how the Holland Michigan football team is doing. And Kirk gave me time when he absolutely didn't have to. A lot of starting quarterbacks only talk at the podium. That's it. They don't do many one-on-ones. If they're going to do them, it's in the summer. It's usually with the big newspaper and not necessarily the purple insider, but Kirk gave me time for that article and really was helpful in telling that story.

And I know that he does that for just about everyone. So he has been a pleasure to deal with over the years in general, but especially this year with what he went through. To be open and honest about it, he was very deserving. And I also want to give Kirk credit this because I think it'll be on Vikings.com. But he talked about Corey Stringer as well. And that's what the award was created for, was to honor Corey Stringer and what he means to the Vikings organization. And Kirk talked about Corey Stringer and his importance for player safety, which is just it can't be said enough how much that event changed the way that players were treated in training camp and the safety of players during training camp and even beyond that. It was a seminal moment and he understood that.

And Corey Stringer's wife also reached out to him as well to congratulate him on that award. So it's a it's a very prestigious thing. A lot of players, Dante Culpepper, Ben Lieber, who you guys might know from the media, has won it in the past. Patrick Peterson last year and this year, a very, very deserving Kirk Cousins. So can't say enough how much I appreciate dealing with him and his help to all the media now and over the years. And he may have joked about the potential of us talking to him again at a press conference in March. But, you know, we'll see about that. So anyway, thanks so much to everybody for joining in. A pretty big audience here for a Friday night.

Hopefully you guys had the bowl game on in the background. I'm going to go watch that. And thank you so much for watching slash listening. And we'll catch you guys later after Packers and Vikings.