Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Should the Vikings still be scouting QBs? And the deep dive into the Jaguars you didn't know you needed

Episode Date: December 2, 2020

Matthew Coller gets together with Will Ragatz of Sports Illustrated to talk about whether the Minnesota Vikings should still be considering first-round quarterbacks this offseason after Kirk Cousins has played extremely well in recent weeks. Does his cap hit still make it difficult to win with Cousins or has he improved? Which first-round QBs would be worth spending the pick? Plus we talk with John Shipley, who covers the Jaguars for SI and he breaks down how they have falled apart since 2017 and why they are actually in good shape to rebuild. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and what they think you can be. I'm Grant Wall, and this is American Prodigy, ready to do, from Blue Wire Podcast. Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, along with Will Regettsts who covers the Vikings for Sports Illustrated. What's up, Will? Not a whole lot. Just getting ready for a big game against the 1-10 Jaguars. How are you? Yeah, I mean, you could just feel the tension in the air all week, really in the Twin Cities

and maybe throughout the entire Midwest. Yeah, I mean, you know it's going to be a game that might be more interesting i'm sure we'll get into this that that i saw that nine and a half spread and i think that's what it opened out i don't know if it's moved at all and i was like that that seems too high for this vikings team which hasn't blown anyone out this year except the lions who might even be worse than the jaguars in some areas i really think think that that's true, especially coaching. I don't even think that the Jaguars are that poorly coached from the games that I've seen from them, which one was last week against the Browns, caught a little bit of that one just looking through the tape, and then the game that they played against the Packers, where they were

decent even though Jake Luton was incredibly bad, and then Mike Glennon comes in and can at least be mildly an NFL quarterback, which might be all it takes to put up 20-plus points on the Minnesota Vikings. This is the thing. Anyone who is short of Ben DiNucci or the receiver that played for the Broncos, if you don't pressure them and you're not really particularly good at coverage and the only thing you can really do is send third-down blitzes as a defense like you're probably going to give up a lot of points and a lot of big plays even if it is mike glennon so i'm not confident that they just blow out the jaguars because i think any team can move the ball against the vikings yeah and if it was jake

luton like the sixth round rookie from oregon state i would feel a lot better because i think mike zimmer would have a great chance to just get in that guy's head and confuse him with all kinds of pressures he hasn't seen before. But Mike Glennon's been around for a long time. He's the definition of a backup NFL quarterback. But if you stick around in the league for long enough, I mean, there's a reason for that.

I think there's a possibility Gardner Minshew comes back, but it's probably going to be Mike Glennon, who I looked it up. He's faced Zimmer's Vikings one time in 2014 with the Buccaneers and didn't go very well for Mike Glennon. But that was six years ago, so we'll see. But, yeah, like you said, I mean, he's a competent NFL quarterback. The Vikings haven't shown any ability to put pressure on anybody over the last two games.

They didn't touch Teddy, really. They didn't touch Andy Dalton. The defensive line is just not fearsome at all right now. I know people are talking about DJ Wanham and Hercules Madafa coming along and looking all right, but they're still not consistently applying pressure by any means, nor are any of the defensive tackles. So, yeah, and with the running game that they have with James Robinson who's a great story the undrafted uh undrafted rookie out of Illinois

State I mean they're just gonna try to control the clock and sustain drives and I think this could be a closer game than you think although the Vikings should be able to put up plenty of points on the Jaguars defense especially with Adam Thielen's back the Jaguars defense is dead last in terms of quarterback rating allowed so I am 100% with you that there is no reason that they can't put up 30 plus but the idea that I sort of was I don't know I don't want to say laughing but the idea that the Vikings all of a sudden figured out how to get after the passer because Nick Foles and the Bears offense was very confused one night, was sort of like, come on, guys, let's be realistic here. D.J. Wanham right now, so this is a funny stat, actually.

I just pulled this up. D.J. Wanham is 56th among edge rushers in terms of pressure rate. 53rd, though, is old friend Yannick Ngakwe. So, you know, it's like we missed uh, we, we missed out on the Yanni Kingakwe revenge game, but he also is not that good. And that's why they had to move on from him. Um, but what I wanted to get into with you, aside from just sort of looking at how bad the Vikings defense is at getting after the quarterback was our skull searching. The last time you and I talked, we got into loving to watch Zach Wilson

who now by the way has just shot up draft boards and the Vikings weren't going to have a chance anyway since we discussed Zach Wilson but my question for you Will is as an enthusiast of college football as you are have you still been skull searching even though Kirk Cousins has been blazing hot and playing really well lately played great against Carolina played great honestly against Dallas outside of the final drive of the game do you think that the Vikings organization is still looking at quarterbacks was ever looking at quarterbacks and should fans get any hopes up for that or should they say you know what actually Kirk is good now I mean what where

do we stand with this yeah I mean it's it's the million dollar question and it's tough for me to know I would guess honestly if I'm just trying to get in the mind of of Rick Spielman and the Vikings brass like I think they're looking at what Kirk Cousins has done recently and and like you meant you mentioned I don't know if they were ever really looking at quarterbacks. They probably were a little bit when Kirk was struggling. But now, I mean, he's playing really, really well. And he's, like, in all the advanced metrics you look at, he's fifth in PFF grade, top seven in whatever yards, average yards, adjusted yards per attempt,

things like that, depth of target. Like, he's playing legitimately well. And we have to give him credit for that. He's improved in certain areas that I didn't think was necessarily possible for a 32-year-old quarterback to improve in. Like he still had a couple iffy moments in pocket awareness. There was one of the final plays against Dallas where I think he could have stepped up in the pocket. I think it was that last fourth down, although that was a weird play call where all the routes were deep into the

sideline. But the pocket awareness and the mobility and stepping up and making plays on the run. And I think we've seen him kind of take that to a new level and he's kind of become emboldened. Like, hey, I can move around. I'm going to keep doing this. And he had a play where he rolled to his right early in the game

and threw back across his body deep to the end zone to Tyler Conklin despite having a check down wide open right in front of him. That was a great, like, Mahomes-esque throw, but something you wouldn't have seen from Cousins earlier this year or the last two seasons, I don't think. And he's running for first downs. I mean, all of the Lamar Cousins and Kirk Vick jokes on Twitter are great every time he

scrambles for 12 yards. He's legitimately, like, not a terrible athlete. Like, he can move a little. I think people forget that. He's not Nick Foles or Tom Brady by any means. So I say that to say that, yeah, he's playing really well. And with the area that the Vikings are going to end up in the draft, which right now I think is, like, 14 or something, but if they keep winning, could be late teens, could be early 20s if they sneak into the playoffs.

I mean, you're not getting one of the top four quarterbacks. Those guys are all going to be gone, I think, potentially within the top seven or eight picks, depending on how you feel about Trey Lance slipping a little bit since he played one game this year and no one really knows what to expect from him. But, yeah, Zach Wilson, that was really fun. I was super cool watching him earlier this year and thinking, oh, I tweeted, like, oh, Zach Wilson, future Vikings quarterback. Like, that was just wishful thinking because that kid is so much fun to watch. But the Athletic just had a mock draft yesterday where he went second overall ahead of Justin Fields.

And I think that's legitimately on the table now. Fields has been good this year, but he's shown some things that maybe make you second guess with what Wilson has shown. So I think those are the top three. I don't think Lance gets out of the top ten because some teams are going to talk themselves into this potential. So if you're the Vikings, you're probably not trading up, especially with no second-round pick.

I mean, especially with – it's Kirk Cousins' contract situation too. Like even if you were going to draft the guy, we've had this conversation for the last few months. Even if you were going to draft the guy, you're probably sitting him for a year or something because you just can't get out of this Cousins contract. So I think the way he's playing, they're going to talk themselves into, all right right let's

let's draft an offensive lineman or a defensive tackle or something and I know some Vikings fans are going to still want that quarterback because they've seen that Kirk doesn't sustain this level of play and he there's going to be probably some sort of regression coming and he's going to have Colts or or Falcons games again but yeah I can't see them I mean I can't see them taking like a Kyle Trask or a Matt Jones in like the late first maybe maybe they'll actually take a quarterback in like the middle rounds instead of taking like a Nate Stanley in the seventh but I don't know and maybe they maybe they even wind up trying to extend Kirk to lower the cap hit and then I don't know about that I think he's been playing well but I think you do want to

sort of you don't want to make the same mistake again if you can still call it a mistake what they did this offseason there's something with Cousins that I honestly love analyzing which is it's never what you think it is like when he plays the worst game he's never like that i mean he's not that bad but when he plays the best games he's not that good either it's it's amazing because his good is oh my gosh this is a franchise quarterback like you said he made great throws the game-winning drive he made made good decisions and even just moving around more in the pocket, though I will warn everyone, careful what you wish for because cross the body throws from Kirk Cousins on the move is not something you want all the time. So just you know that there's something

coming with that. Let me give you another stat that's kind of wild and I wonder about the influence this has on his numbers and his performance and how repeatable the performance is because this year the Vikings have faced or will face this week against Jacksonville in terms of quarterback rating against the 23rd, 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th, 30th, 31st, and this week 32nd defenses in terms of how they're playing in coverage. And I think that that helps. I really think that that helps. And I did a piece for my website looking at this even closer.

And when Kirk plays against a bottom 10 defense and quarterback rating, let me get his record here. He's got 116 quarterback rating for himself and is 17-4-1 as a Viking. He murders bad teams, and they've had a stretch of these bad teams and they actually will only face one top 10 team the rest of the way, which speaks to him being able to sustain it for this year. But then I think next year, can you really count on this happening again?

At some point you are going to, well, Matt Patricia got fired. So immediately the lions are tougher to face next year and going forward so I think that there will be a lot of people who still want the Vikings to look at a quarterback but I agree with you if this even mildly continues the rest of the way and they are either one game out of the playoffs at the end of the day or make the playoffs there is no way they draft someone in the first round who's a quarterback because they are going to

look at it and say we're one piece away we're only this away and they've kind of approached recent drafts like that in some ways i think the garrett brad perry pick is the we're one piece away it's a you know zone blocking center i think they'll do the same thing with a three technique with a defensive end something like that and i will probably stay on the same place that it's a good idea to do the Jordan Love thing, albeit, you know, maybe get a better prospect than Jordan Love was. I think he was more of a second rounder. But what the Packers did, I think you should still be considering that.

But I think the odds of that happening have now gone basically into the tank. Yeah, I would agree with you. I mean, this team could legitimately be i mean you could talk yourself into it all day they could be very good in 2021 getting the hunter back getting anthony bar back having michael pierce they're going to lose a couple pieces because of the salary cap situation but i mean yeah i think they're going to talk themselves into that like hey let's go get a defensive lineman or something that's going to just put us over the top when and they think that kurt cousins can be the quarterback

to do that and it's such a fascinating conversation because they're going to be fans who are never satisfied with kurt cousins because what they've seen in almost three-year body of work and even going back to his time with the was Washington professional football team that like they're never going to be satisfied they're going to always want the Vikings to draft someone and I think there's a lot of merit to the idea of drafting someone but it's not as simple as going out and Kirk's your Alex Smith and you're just going to go get a Patrick Mahomes because that's a once in a lifetime prospect it's not as simple as just drafting a Dak Prescott in the fourth round like it's not I don't know when you when you round. Like, it's not – I don't know.

When you have Kirk Cousins, you have this – I don't even want to say stability because he's been all over the place, but you know that you have a, at times, top ten quarterback, a veteran who is very accurate, who has improved his pocket presence, who can make all of the throws, really. It's not always going to be greener on the other side of the road or whatever that phrase is. Like, it can get worse.

And when you have the pieces around them, you still have Eric Hendricks and Harrison Smith, and you have Justin Jefferson playing at such a high level, and Adam Thielen and Dalvin Cook. Like, you don't want to risk wasting it. And this is how I think the Vikings are thinking. They don't want to risk wasting it. And this is how I think the Vikings are thinking. They don't want to risk wasting that year in 2021 with all those pieces on a rookie quarterback who might struggle. So I do think that there's a lot of reason to advocate for drafting someone who you think has

upside, stashing them, because quarterback is the most important position in the NFL. And you need to have some sort of succession plan unless you believe that Kirk Cousins is going to be the guy for the rest of the 2020s which I I don't know that even with the way he's playing right now I don't know if there's enough evidence to support fully buying in on him like that especially with the price tag that that would accompany for each of those years it's only going to go up. So, yeah, it's a fascinating conversation. Like you said, he never seems to stay one thing for that long. He's never going to be September 2019 Kirk or even October this year Kirk for that long.

He's never going to struggle like that. But then he's not going to just rip off eight straight games of being awesome. There's going to be questionable decisions. And I know he hasn't thrown an interception really in a while you think he's done one since like week six or seven or whatever it is but he did throw 10 earlier in the year and some of those were his fault some of those some of those were like hail marys are off greasy johnson's hands but some of them were legitimately bad, like head-stretching throws, and he still fumbles sometimes. And it's just a weird place to be in if you're the Vikings, because can you ever win a Super Bowl with Kirk Cousins?

I mean, I think if everything broke right, I mean, the Niners got there with Jimmy G last year with having one of the most dominant rosters, gonna it would take everything being perfect and Kirk stepping up and having a good Kirk run for a long sustained period of time and I don't know if that's gonna happen in the NFL with the way that things just always seem to go bad so I look at you know the Philadelphia Eagles in 2017 the the Rams in 2018, and how they took those rookie quarterback contracts and fully took advantage of them. And they spent a lot of money to strengthen the heck out of that roster.

And even with San Francisco, Garoppolo did not have a $30 million cap hit, which Kirk is going to have next year. He had something like $19 or $18 million. So he gave them room to spend and room to go get a Richard Sherman and if you look at those teams that made it they just they were so solid and they were able to go out and get an Elshon Jeffrey a Patrick Robinson if you remember him the nickel corner that uh picked off the pass and uh you know that happened um so uh it's in a book if anyone wants to buy it um but uh you know, so like filling out the roster to have every position be essentially strong around your quarterback who is good but not Mahomes good is a very, very difficult needle to thread and almost impossible when the salary cap is going down and you still have to pay him that giant cap hit.

And that's where it gets really, really tricky because they're going to have to spread the losses over a number of years so that cap hit isn't going down for one year and then shooting back up to the moon where you're going to be fine now they might add a 17th game so that could happen and that could kind of even things out I expect that to happen actually so you know I mean it's not a franchise ruiner to have him it just makes it really difficult to be good enough and if you have the rookie quarterback contract and then they add the 17th game and then you're moving out some older pieces like riley reef and moving in younger players and you can spend the money in free agency to fill out your roster it's really this sort of push and pull but if that guy ends up being good

if you get trey lance and sit him for a year and then in 2022 he's good like you are golden at that point and you have a chance to win the Super Bowl every year after that as long as he's on his rookie contract so I think it is a very difficult decision but I always look at where Zimmer and Spielman stand and how anytime this team has a down section of their schedule or whatever or a big loss to green Bay as in last year, their job statuses are, they come up and it's always a thing. How much pressure is on those guys, hot seats.

And when you're in that situation, what Kirk does is he keeps you around. Kirk always makes sure that you're seven to nine, eight and eight, nine and seven. He's never going to have a four and 12 or three and 13 season, even when they start one and five. And that guarantees you that you can always be in that mix and you can always sell, Hey, next

year, we just need this one thing to go right. And like you said, you get Hunter back, but you might lose Anthony Harris. That matters. You know, you might lose Riley reef. That might matter. It could, um, reef has been good this year if Ezra Cleveland isn't or whoever, right? So it's always this sort of whack-a-mole of fill one problem, not able to fill the other problem because you don't have the money, and you sort of end up in that 2018-2019 spot for the next couple of years if you don't decide to draft a quarterback. Yeah, it's the type of decision and the type of just overall broad question

that makes me happy I'm not running an NFL franchise. Yes. That seems very difficult to do. And, like, that's the thing. You have Kirk Cousins and you know that you have that veteran stability, but are you even going to get Daniil Hunter back? Because he might want, like, $25 million or whatever it might be. I'm not necessarily sold on that becoming a huge issue this offseason

with him coming off of neck surgery. But, yeah, you don't have the cap space when you're paying Kirk Cousins it's $31 million next year and $45 million in 2022, which I bet they would try to renegotiate somehow. Yeah, you extend him at that point, right. You extend him at that point if he's still playing like this especially. But, yeah, you don't have the space to go out and get impact free agents, and that's what we've seen this year.

They were trying to fill all these holes left by the cornerbacks who left and the defensive linemen who left with these rookies, and it's not going to be – they're not going to be instant impact players. Like, I think if the Vikings had been able to go out this year and get, like, Dre Kirkpatrick at corner and, like, a solid NFL, like, veteran pass rusher and, like, defensive tackle and things like that, like, that would have helped. But you just didn't have the space to do that.

And drafting the rookies is good, obviously, because those guys are on rookie contracts. And it looks like the early returns from this class, obviously they seem to have found a star in Justin Jefferson. And I'm still baffled that the Eagles, I was watching that Monday night football game last night, that they took Jalen Rager over him, who has been in a terrible situation. But really, the guy doesn't even catch any passes in college, right?

I don't want to rag on the guy because he's coming off injury too, but he hasn't been able to separate. I don't get it. Justin Jefferson had 1,800 had 1800 yards or 1500 yards or whatever it was last year like I don't understand that but Justin Jefferson great pick super fun to watch every week Ezra Cleveland had some promising results hopefully he'll be able to get back soon I mean Brett Jones has been PFF has liked Brett Jones a lot even though I think he was a little shaky last week. And then Gladney and Dantzler, I think, are just going through rookie corner struggles. I think both still look like they could be good players.

So those things could help. But you don't have, even this upcoming offseason, you're not going to have the space to go out and get an impact-free agent. And you're going to be relying on, okay, let's take this first round defensive tackle from Alabama or Florida state or whatever, and hope that he can be an immediate upgrade. And I don't know how productive that guy would be as a rookie. And same thing with like a defensive end or a safe feeder, a place Anthony Harris, or you're putting Josh Metellus in there or whatever it

is like, you're never going to be able to fill out that that awesome like yeah like the 2018 Rams roster around Kirk Cousins when he's getting paid 30 35 40 million a year so it's tough because you don't want to move on from Kirk and then end up with some guy who's just not very good and then the rookie contract only goes so far with allowing you to build the team if the guy's not very good and he's not maximizing Justin Jefferson and then Justin Jefferson is like hey I want to go play with a good quarterback like who's who's this guy so yeah like I said I'm I'm glad I'm not making the decisions here it's it's tough but we'll just have to see what happens these last five games I guess right if you Trubisky that thing or Josh Rosen that thing, or even I'm not

sold that Sam Darnold is even going to be good with anybody else if anyone else gives him a chance because he's really fundamentally flawed. If you end up with that kind of thing and then your good team is not good because your quarterback drags everybody else down, then you end up all fired. And I think that they know that that so here's my question for you though in terms of rolling those dice the fact that they have Justin Jefferson and that's auto superstar every year he's going to be one of the best receivers in the league the way I look at it going forward there's no reason for me to think this is fluky or anything else the guy gets wide open catches everything and is incredibly good with the ball in his hands. That changes the dynamic for me in terms of rolling the dice,

because I think whoever you bring in there, you have a good, young, right tackle. You have a superstar wide receiver. You have another offensive lineman in Ezra Cleveland that you drafted to build that offensive line around. You have a young tight end that I think will continue to get better in irv smith who was really coming along before he got hurt and a veteran wide receiver i don't think he's going to fall off the face of the earth and adam thielen because of how he wins with the details and his route running in great hands you can give someone right and and i never project delvin you

know you just don't know like how long the running back's going to work out, but let's even say, so a running back who's one of the best in the league, like, in 2022, you could set it all up to hand this person on a gold platter, like, if you screw this up, I mean, and Carson Wentz is a good example, Carson Wentz, obviously not great, but in 2017, the Eagles roster was so good, the guy's playing at an MVP level. Josh Allen, great example. I still don't think Josh Allen's all that good, but you give him digs, you give him Beasley, you give him Brown, you give him a good offensive line, you give him a good scheme, and all of a sudden the guy gets a lot out of it. It's the Case Keenum theory of if you reach a certain level

and you can put all these things around a person, then they can win you a lot of games. And then there's also, you know, there's, of course, if you Trubisky, you're screwed. But if you Deshaun Watson, you're not, right? You know what I mean? So there's like, it's a very risky thing that with you and I is very easy to say, I think I pushed that button because if it blows up, oh, well, right?

Like we're still going to cover the team. But we don't have to go work for somebody else if we get this decision wrong. But I think there's a great argument for it. It's kind of like going forward on fourth down. Like, yep, it's risky, but it's right. Yeah, and I mentioned these last five games, and we saw last year how much that one playoff game in New Orleans kind of probably affected this

this franchise's decision making i wonder how big the difference in the way they approach this offseason will be if they sneak into the seven seed and maybe win a game in the playoffs versus finishing eight and eight or whatever and missing out behind the cardinals or bucks by a game or two like i wonder if at that point if treyrey Lance is there, do you take him? I mean, that's such a – that's the one guy who – Lawrence, Wilson, and Fields are going top five. I'm fully – like, I don't think you can pass on them if you're one of those teams up there.

You can't take, like, an offensive lineman. Like, even if you're, like, the Lions, you can't be like, all right, let's – we got Matt Stafford. Let's not take one of these quarterbacks. Like, there's so many teams that are, you can't be like, all right, let's – we got Matt Stafford. Let's not take one of these quarterbacks. Like, there are so many teams that are going to want one of those three guys. And I think there will be enough teams that, one, will talk themselves into Lance.

But let's say Lance falls and you're at – you're picking where you are right now, like 14, 15, and Lance is there. I mean, if I'm the GM, that's hard for me to pass up. He's the Minnesota kid. You saw the upside. Like, he is a much better prospect than better prospect than a Jordan Love, I think. He's the perfect guy to sit for a year under Cousins and develop and learn the scheme. Then you hand it off to him, and if he's good,

he's got at least the floor of being a really, really good athlete where he can run. He's not a Kyler Murray or Lamar Jackson runner, but he's not that far behind them um if he can if he can throw the ball like he did last year at North Dakota State which admittedly is the FCS like that becomes a really really intriguing guy and that's going back to the whole school searching thing but I'm not taking like again I'm not taking like a Kyle Trask or a Max Jones or someone like that in the mid-teen. I mean, maybe you trade back if you talk yourself into one of those guys, but I don't know.

And this might just be me, like, stereotyping them all as quarterbacks, but they just seem like kind of good, solid pocket guys who maybe, like, their ceiling is like a Kirk Cousins. And I don't know how – maybe that's valuable because they're on the rookie contract and maybe they could play like Kirk Cousins sooner than you might think. I mean, both of those two names I mentioned have been legitimately very, very good this year, Jones and Trask. And there are a couple other options there in the first, second round.

But, yeah, I think if these last five games could – I don't know if that's the way you want to be making decisions as someone running an NFL franchise, but we've seen they did it last year and I don't know, I think it could happen again this year. If they make the playoffs, which a lot of people I think after this Panthers win are like, okay, I don't need a game back. We should pump the brakes a little. They're still at like 20%, 25% by all of the odds forecasters like 538 and ESPN and football outsiders and things like that.

So we'll see. It's going to be a really interesting offseason. But I'm just curious to see if Kirk Cousins continues to play like this over the last five games. I think he's got a great setup. You mentioned Jacksonville can't cover anybody. I think he's got a great chance to do it this week unless it's like a dalvin cook going crazy game which doesn't seem that likely

considering he's not 100 health right now and but then can he do it in tampa bay can he do it in new orleans on christmas day and if he can he wins at least one heck both of those games like you that kirk cousins is your quarterback next year and potentially beyond yep you're 100 right and i think that's a great point about how this team should have made a decision at the by what they were going to do with quarterback long term because you have such a huge sample size of kirk cousins playing quarterback in the nfl it doesn't change it's not going to be different at age 30 to 32 like the guy's going to be who he is and I have the numbers here in the article that I wrote about each season he has had a run just

like this 2015 he had a run of seven games think about how long that is it's a half the season where his quarterback rating was 125.3 in 2015 this guy is not different and he is great when he's great. I mean, just, like, on fire lately. He's been playing. That was the year I think we had, like, he had the, like, Pierre Garcon and Jordan Reed and Brandon Davis. He had a bunch of weapons. If you give him those weapons.6 quarterback rating, Player of the Month award, and I even stretched that out to seven games, and it was still over 125, and yet last year, we got to the end of the season, and fans said, I'm not sure that this is your long-term quarterback, and people didn't want him extended. So he has always done this. It's not really unique, but I think you make a great point, and I think it's a good read on the organization that they just kind of go where the wind blows I mean if like you like you said if they beat Tampa then it'll be like oh well they beat Tampa Kirk has got to be our quarterback long term

and the the good thing about drafting a first round quarterback though is if you have the guy sit behind Kirk for a year then you know is he good or is he not? You get to see him every day in practice. Is he getting it? Is he not? And if he isn't, you just stay with Cousins. Like, you have that option to do it. You can always trade one of these guys. I mean, if they traded Jordan Love right now, they'd probably get, what,

a second-round pick? Like, you can always move the guy out. Jimmy Garoppolo went for a second-round pick. Josh Rosen went for a second-round pick. You can recoup what you lost as long as the guy has – The Jets are probably going to trade Darnold when they draft Trevor Lawrence, and I bet he goes for a fairly high pick. Right.

And so you can – even if it goes terribly like it did with Josh Rosen, you can always trade that guy. Somebody else will be interested. So let me ask you, you mentioned the playoff odds. What do you think? What are you giving them i mean what would you if you weren't like uh having your brain poisoned with mathematical information for odds what would you have given it if we didn't know that football outsiders only says i think 18 or whatever but if you if you didn't know that what would have been your guess

for their playoff odds right now yeah yeah yeah i probably would i don't know i might have gone higher than than what i think those numbers are i i might have gone like 30 35 just because knock on wood i mean if you can't lose this game to jacksonville assuming that you can i mean you can right i guess, you can. If this team has any shot at being a playoff team, they're not going to lose that game. Obviously, if they lose that, it goes down to zero. It's over. But they win that. You're 6-6. You go to Tampa, a Tampa team that I have not been impressed with over the past month. I mean, they got

blown out by the Saints in, I think, the last Breeze game before he got hurt, and then they've been doing the Taysom Hill thing. Then they responded, and they beat up on the Panthers, and I was like, okay, maybe that was a fluke. But the Panthers aren't great, especially on defense. And then they've lost to the Chiefs and Rams, who admittedly are two very good teams.

But Brady has turned the ball over, I think, seven times over the past four games. Just hasn't really looked like Tom Brady. Antonio Brown hasn't made as much of an impact as some people might have thought. They seem to have almost the too-many-cooks thing at wide receiver where none of those guys is really getting going. I mean, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin had solid games last week, but you've got Gronk, too.

I don't know. Then you've got the two division games as well with Chicago and Detroit, which are both very winnable, very losable as well if you're the Vikings. They are. That's what's great about this, isn't it? Like, everyone's games. Losing at Detroit in Week 17 with a chance to get in the playoffs with a win would be the most, like, Vikings thing ever.

Like, Matt Stafford just comes out and, like, he's having a – Lions have had a miserable season, and he just goes for, like, 400 yards and three touchdowns. And that would be on brand. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. But you've got the Saints, too, who – I mean, the Vikings have proven that they can play with good teams. They almost beat the Seahawks.

They beat the Packers. I mean, they didn't hang with the Colts at all. But, like, I would put it – to answer your question, I would put it at, like, 30%, 35% right now. And I was – if they had beaten the Cowboys too, it would be, I think, above 50%. Yeah, I agree. But this team, you just never know when that cowboys game is coming or when that atlanta game is coming and so it's hard to tell me that there isn't another one week 17 would be

apropos but like even if it was against the bears you can't write in a w against the bears i mean any division opponent you beat them by six points and they're horrible and so trubisky comes back trubisky has beat you a couple times. He's not a complete laughingstock. He won twice. They've lost two straight to the Bears at home. I mean, last year was the backups game, but that 2018 game was pretty memorable. Right, yeah. And so Trubisky beat them both times in 2018.

They lost to Chase Daniel before, and they were within Anthony Miller getting his mitts on a ball from Nick Foles of losing that game. So I'm not writing that in for sure as a W. I think that whatever way it's going to go, there will be one win that we didn't necessarily expect against Tampa or New Orleans, and there will be one or two losses where we go, come on, really? The Jags or something like that. It could happen this week. It could. It absolutely could.

James Robinson and the fighting Jaguars. I mean, they've lost 10 in a row for a reason. But to be fair, they lost by two to the Browns this past week. They hung with the Packers. I want to say they've played another team or two somewhat close. They're in some of these games. Right, and it's 2020 you just have no idea like that that's the thing is you mentioned the panthers exactly well they should

have lost to the panthers so the panthers are terrible um it's it is a very a very hard year for figuring out like what the deal is with nfc teams especially um before we wrap up a couple of quick jacksonville jaguars trivia questions um i will give you exactly ten dollars via venmo if you can guess the top five passers in jaguars history in passing yards without cheating oh god Top five passers in Jaguars history. I might be able to get this. Okay. And you mentioned to me that we were going to be doing Jaguars trivia, and I would like to make it clear that I did not cheat.

I did not look up anything. I'm relying on only my knowledge as a 23-year-old football fan who has primarily followed the NFC. But I think I know a little bit about the Jaguars. All right. Madden players, you know. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

All right. So passing yards. Just pure passing yards. All right. Yep. So Mark Brunel. Of course. Number one.

Is number one. David Garrard. Number three. Yep. Byron Leftwich. Byron Leftwich is number four. And this is where it gets tricky. There's someone ahead of both of those?

There is someone ahead of Gerrard. I was counting on that being my top three. Yep. Yep. It is a... This is why I offered actual money, because this one is very tricky. Okay. And I'm not going to give you any hints for this.

Here's what I will tell you, though, a fun factoid. Gardner Minshew is sixth. Okay. So you don't really need to have played for that long, which is why it's going to be. Yeah, so I guess that is a hint for you. It will be some guy who played, like, from, like, 2003 to 2005, right? Although I guess that would probably be, like, Grinnell. But not, like, Chad Henney. Okay, fifth. Yes, Chad Henney. 2003 to 2005, although I guess that was probably like Grinnell.

Not like Chad Henney. Okay, fifth, yes, Chad Henney. Chad Henney? Wow, yes. Okay, I did not look that up. That is the one I thought you had no chance of getting was Chad Henney. If I get Chad Henney, if I get three through five, I should get two. Yeah, if you run the table here, you get $10.

Or 10 betting units, whatever. Yeah, I mean, it's not like – Gambling on a podcast. I'm trying to think of a recent one. It's not Nick Foles who played one year last year. It's not – I'll give you some other great names while you're – Not Denard Robinson. Jay Fiedler went 1-0 as a Jaguar, and he is 14th.

Jamie Martin, Cody Kessler, Jonathan Quinn. Ooh, Cody Kessler. That's another one. How about this? Great story from the Jaguars. Go ahead. No, this wouldn't be two, but they did have Brandon Whedon for a while. Not Brandon Whedon. Okay. And also, I two, but they did have Brandon Whedon for a while. Not Brandon Whedon.

Okay. Also, I'm not sure that they had Brandon Whedon. Did they have him? I don't see him on the list. Wait. Maybe not. Maybe not. Maybe I'm thinking of – they had Justin Blackman,

who was Brandon Whedon's college teammate. So great little story about the Jaguars. Rob Johnson was a second-round pick of the Jaguars out of USC. He played one game and was unbelievable for them in like 1997 and the Buffalo Bills traded a first round pick for him and then kept trying to

start him over Doug Flutie and basically cost themselves a chance to go to the Super Bowl. So, fun little Jaguars connection there from the 90s. Yeah, I wouldn't know anything. Are you tapping out or one last question? I don't know. It's Blake Bortles.

Oh, it is Blake Bortles. Oh, my God. Yeah, Blake Bortles, AFC Championship game, Blake Bortles. Blaine Gabbert is actually seventh, but you do not get $10. But you got Chad Henney and not Blake Bortles. That's wild because that is the one guy who was like their quarterback when i was like paying attention to football the most like outside of like the past two years obviously i think that you get credit for the chad henney you get a return appearance to the podcast all right number eight is quinn

gray by the way okay nice i wouldn't have got that one. All right, I'll give you one bonus here. Name any kicker for the Jacksonville Jaguars ever. Any kicker. Chase McLaughlin. Vikings practice squad. He has not kicked yet for them, has he? Yes, he did.

Oh, did he? Against the Packers. He made a 50 a 50 yarder okay all right that's that's fine the uh chase mclaughlin i yeah i don't think i could name enough like well they had they had so many this year like they had like steven houseka and like some other random people they're they just john john brown was some random guy that yeah yeah i couldn't i don't think i could name one prior to this. I'm trying to look for just like total attempts here. If there's like a – I don't know.

I can't find like a – oh, there it is. Oh, they had like Josh Scobie, right? Josh Scobie. I do not see – there's Chase McLaughlin with three. Kai Forbath. Our guy Kai Forbath was there briefly. Stephen Hauschka you named. John Brown was there you named.

But their all-time leader is Josh Scobie. Yep. And then Mike Hollis and someone named Josh Lambeau. Maushka, you named. John Brown was there, you named. But their all-time leader is Josh Scobie, yep. And then Mike Hollis and someone named Josh Lambeau and Jason Myers, who I remember having really great kick power on Madden. So your great history of Jaguars kickers. This is fun. All right. Well, we'll see what happens.

The best part about going to U.S US Bank Stadium for every game is you have no idea what's going to happen. Plus, they put on all that game presentation just for us. I know. We get the whole, like, in the halls of the North, our four or five. We get that whole video. We get the, like, we don't get the fire because they banned that, but we get the, like, the smoke machine.

Yeah, terrible. Bring the fire. They announce all the starters. That's kind of cool. I know. the smoke yeah terrible bring the fire announce all the starters it's fine that's kind of cool i know he says honestly the halftime like boxed lunches haven't been that bad i missed the the buffet but the uh the biggest downside is that with no fans cheering the fireworks that they set off when they score a touchdown are insanely loud it just echoes through the entire building so when someone goes into the end zone i've been putting my fingers in my ears. Like as soon as this guy walks in the end zone.

Yes, because it hurts. I mean, it's so loud. I never realized how loud that was because fans were cheering and it just sort of drowned out. Yeah, it always startles me. I haven't gotten to putting my fingers in my ears yet. Pro tip. So there you go.

All right. Well, thanks. Thanks for having me back with Chibia an interesting last few weeks and would love to come back again. And you will be back soon. We'll rag it sports illustrated, find them on Twitter and the internet and we'll talk to you again soon. We'll.

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show for the epic Yannick Ngakwe trade, and I guess we'll have to debate who won the trade with John Shipley. This is Jaguars reporter John Shipley, not local editor of Pioneer Press sports section John Shipley. What is up, John? Hey, I'm doing good, Matthew.

How are you doing, man? I am doing good. How are the Jaguars these days, and why do people call them the Jaguars when that is not remotely in the way that it is spelled, and yet people still say it that way? I don't get it. Yeah, no, people love to say Jaguars when that is not remotely in the way that it is spelled, and yet people still say it that way. I don't get it. Yeah, no, people love to say Jaguars.

The most prominent person I can think of to do it is Gus Bradley. He coached there for nearly, you know, four complete seasons, and I'm not sure he ever once said Jaguars in his entire tenure. Like, it was Jaguars every single time. They actually have a segment called Jaguared where they mic players up, and that's what I think of every time. Like, did y'all get that from Gus, or did you just, you know, think of it on your own?

But, no, it's – things are definitely interesting. Sunday – I can honestly say Sunday out of the, you know, dozen or so games of theirs I've covered at home, Sunday was probably the weirdest one because I saw Mike Glennon go toe-to-toe with Baker Mayfield for quarters. And then as we're writing about that, the general manager gets fired. So it's definitely an interesting time in Jacksonville.

It really is, and I want to get into the ins and outs of that and just I'll try to sell you on your team being in a great position going forward, and we'll see what you think of that. But let's talk about the Yannick Ngakwe trade for just a second. You win. I've decided the winner. I have banged the gavel and said the Jacksonville Jaguars win. A great job.

And you know what? He wasn't good here, and he is not very good in Baltimore. And I wonder if you think that there were some smoke and mirrors there with Yannick Ngakwe considering the different players that they had there at the time where he was at his best. It was a beastly defensive line. And I think the Vikings got him in the building, and they looked at a few games of game tape and went, oh, no, no, no, no, nope, nope, not paying that guy $20 million a year. He thinks that he's worth that. He ain't worth that.

So I think they actually did the right thing bailing, even though it looks bad, and the Jaguars clearly won the trade. And now we'll get a decent second-round pick out of it. Yeah, no, absolutely. I actually, when the trade happened, I remember the conversation you and I had where it was we both said, yeah, you know, we fully expect for the Vikings to sign him. I mean, why else would they trade for him?

And to see them make this move, I like you. I actually was impressed by, I guess, just the foresight to, you know, the thing Jaguars have always been really bad at over the years is doubling down on mistakes. And I feel like good teams, when they realize a mistake, they quickly try to, you know, fix it. And I feel like the Vikings are maybe not in every case, but at least in this case, you know, they gave it a quick fix. I'd agree with you about Yannick. I still think he's a really talented player. But when you look at his time in Jacksonville, he was never – the only time he was the best defensive lineman on the team was his rookie season.

Otherwise, you know, Calais Campbell was an all-pro player in 2017. He was their best lineman in 2018, and then Josh Allen was more productive than Ngakwe last year as a rookie. I think when you factor in that Ngakwe's best seasons came when Jacksonville had really an elite cornerback tandem and Jalen Ramsey and A.J. Boye, you probably have to factor that into a bit because I think he still did the things in Minnesota and in Baltimore so far that he did well in Jacksonville which is you know create turnover opportunities but if he doesn't have the stars around him I think this year has kind of shown maybe he's not the dominant player uh he thought he was and that many including me thought he was I I I've been on record I thought he'd be better in Minnesota and I thought the Jaguars were a bit foolish

maybe to not pay him but so far it's looking like they were right. It definitely looks like they were right and the thing about defensive ends that is so tough is that if you get 8-12 sacks people focus on that that is a great number of sacks

but there are 400 something or 500 other plays if you're a pass rusher that you're in on that are going to matter I mean or even I think he was in the 700 and snap counts last year so even for a guy that doesn't play a thousand snaps like Everson Griffin would have that's a lot of plays to not be sacking the quarterback the game-changing strip sacks are certainly a big deal because of how important turnovers are but relying on that from year to year is pretty tough i think he had one year where he had zero yeah you know in terms of strip sacks so those are yeah i i think it went from six and 17 to zero and 18 that just kind of shows how volatile that is exactly you can't say oh yeah he's just

going to strip sack all the time i think he tries for it and that helps a little but um when it comes to the other team's probably going to run a lot and that matters, not to him really. And when it comes to just creating consistent pressure, I stumbled upon the stat that in terms of pass rush efficiency this year, he's something like 53rd in the NFL. That's okay. I mean, you can have a guy who's getting a pressure now and then, but it's not someone you pay $20 million. So they absolutely made the right move in bailing on that. But now if you are the Jaguars, I think we should talk about this first before we get into the game. You're in a great spot for this next draft. I think you already had a great draft in terms of getting playmakers and corners and pass rushers and just lots of things that could potentially

work for you in the future. And then you're looking at a franchise quarterback with no debates over whether to draft one, which is nice to have. And then an additional middle second round pick where you can get what? Three of the top 50 players, including the second or third, or maybe even the first, depending on the Jets. I mean, you couldn't be in a better spot to continue the rebuild than that, and you didn't spend $20 million on an edge rusher who's not that good.

I mean, it is kind of rolling your way for whoever wants to be the next GM. Yeah, no, a good friend of mine, Demetrius Harvey, who's a writer with Big Cat Country, I put out a tweet after Caldwell was fired noting how they did a lot of work because they had to to clean up the cap this year and he put it well he said he did a good job of paving a road that he will never drive on and I mean if you think about it it really is perfect because over the last year the Jaguars had to do two things they had to clean up their cap and they had to clean up their fractured organizational culture issues because just the stench of the Tom Coughlin era was still, you know,

all over the place. Say they had fired Caldwell last year, a general manager would have walked into that job last year. He would have had two first-round picks, but he would have had a mess of a cap, Nick Foles at quarterback, and a defensive end who isn't as good as he thinks he is, you know, trying to get a big-time contract. So just looking at it now compared to last year,

I think the Jaguars are in a significantly better spot. Caldwell did a good job of cleaning up the cap by unloading some contracts that, you know, it hurt the team on the field in 2020, but they were never going to be good in 2020 anyways. So he did a good job of really biting the bullet. And I don't want to say take one for the team because his directive was still to try to find a way to win games while doing that. And he failed to do so and deserved to be fired.

But the way the Jaguars went about kind of fixing those two main issues over the past year, I think it set them up well for the future. And I think that, like you had mentioned, that top pick and no argument for a franchise quarterback, I think that's the most important thing because the last time the jaguars had that was probably 2017 and then they screwed that up and before that 2014 so now they have a chance not to screw it up uh don't i wouldn't count the chickens before today before the hatch but we'll see do you think about ever in jacksonville

how funny it is that the chicago bears are the only team that gets ripped for patrick mahomes and deshaun watson being great and no one ever seems to point out that the jaguars drafted a running back as opposed to those guys and we're totally fine with blake bordles they said no no no blake bordles has looked awful of course through his first couple of seasons, but what he really needs is a running back. That's what he really needs. And not Patrick Mahomes and not Deshaun Watson, who won the national championship on a game-winning drive. Not that guy. No, no, no. We need to keep Blake Bortles getting a running back. I can't believe no one ever talks about the Jaguars for this.

And they only ever look at Mitch Trubisky. I would argue it's a thousand times worse because nobody knows it. Like Mitch Trubisky might've turned out to be great. Nobody knows with first round prospects or any other, but to draft a running back when you have Blake Bortles much worse. Oh yeah. No, I don't even think they're close. You know, people love talking about Trubisky because he obviously plays the most important position.

If you draft another quarterback, you know, over those two guys, you're going to talk about it. But I think drafting one, the idea of drafting a running back at four to begin with is ludicrous. Even if you have no holes on the rest of your roster, you shouldn't draft a running back at four overall. I love watching running backs play. Maybe my favorite position to watch.

I think, you know, despite their iffy value in terms of, you know, what contracts you should pay, they're still super important to teams. You know that as well as anybody with Dalvin Cook. But you don't draft one at fourth overall. You draft one in the second round like Dalvin Cook. You draft one in the third round. You maybe get lucky with an undrafted guy. But it's not even that.

They took a bad running back at fourth overall. They didn't even pick one who is in – I wouldn't even call him an average starter. I'd say he's a below average running back. His most productive years in Jacksonville, his third year was strictly volume, and then he got, I think, three touchdowns, and two of those came in garbage time against the Titans. And then his rookie year, yeah, he scored about 14, 15 times

and had four touchdowns in the playoffs. But most of those touchdowns came from, like, the three- to two-yard line and just him jumping over folks. That's not going to happen. So people definitely should talk about the Jaguars in that pick more, at least locally we talk about it a decent bit. I make sure to point it out every time Deshaun Watson completes a pass. For my money, I think picking Fournette at fourth overall,

even if you didn't have Bortles, that would have been an all-time bad pick. But I think picking him when you had Bortles coming off his worst year as a pro, which is saying something considering he's a terrible quarterback, I think that's one of the five to six worst picks in NFL history. I say that confidently. I agree. People have told me, like, ever, that's a hot take. And I'm like, no, tell me what the worst one is.

Because I'd rather miss on a quarterback because at least then you're swinging for the fences. If you miss on a running back while you have a bad quarterback, I'm like, how do you even defend that? Plus the running back, like, isn't any good so yeah no i'm with you one of the worst picks uh ever i'd say definitely the worst pick in franchise history but blaine got blaine gabbert should send tom coughlin and fernetta of uk roses you know when you think about other teams who made this same sort of mistake like washington

for example they take chase young they pass on tua they pass on herbert and they stick with duane haskins and then they bench Dwayne Haskins like a few games into the next season. At least they took a dominant prospect who will be a huge part of their team for a long time. So you're not going to go back and go, what were you thinking? Because you've got a guy who's probably going to be a superstar at least. Same with even Detroit.

Matt Stafford's kind of on the other side or he's too expensive or whatever at least you draft the top corner at least you took a position of value as opposed to a running back that everyone thought was going to be historically good and wasn't even above average I mean probably like you said below average the other thing the other thing that's interesting to me about the Jags is Jags and Vikings on the same day think they've got a chance to go to the Super Bowl and I remember being in the Philly press box watching the game thinking I can't freaking believe Blake Bortles is going to the Super Bowl I can't believe it like because he's just awful and after that I think everybody said you should probably get a

better quarterback because this isn't going to continue. Why did they decide to hang on with him? And let me even throw like a galaxy brain at you. Maybe it works out better for them that they did because now you're in the position to take Justin Fields, Zach Wilson, or Trevor Lawrence. Yeah, no, definitely. Definitely. I think the big reason they kept Blake is because they legitimately entered the 2018 season thinking that they had a good chance to repeat what they had done the year before. I mean, if you look at the defense, to my recollection, they returned all 11 starters, and if not all 11 starters, it was pretty darn close.

And then on offense, they added a few pieces. They signed Andrew Norwell. They thought they would really run it back, even though everybody on the outside knew that, okay, this isn't sustainable. You kind of got lucky this year. Add a playmaker at quarterback to go along with this defense, and you'll be more dangerous. But they thought they had caught lightning in a bottle, and they could repeat it.

But it just always amused me when they extended Bortles that you had just spent your entire season determined not to let him throw the ball. I think there was one game where he had 13 pass attempts. So you're now making him one of your highest paid players on offense. And that was before he even started playing poorly again. So it just baffled me. And people like to hang on the fact. I remember Coughlin when he got asked about extending Bortles.

He said that his performance in the playoffs was a big reason why he did. They scored, I think it was 10 points against Buffalo, and they, I think, scored three points in the second half against New England. So I'm not sure what performances he was watching. Like, he threw a cool pass to the fullback against Pittsburgh, I guess, but I don't really get why they did that. But, I mean, you make a good point. In a lot of ways, Bortles failing and then Foles failing the way he did and even Minshew failing after them kind of led the Jaguars to this. So you take enough swings at a quarterback position,

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See, I, when the Vikings were 1-5, I was saying, everyone, watch Zach Wilson. Just look at it. You're still saying it. Right. Well, yeah. I mean, I still see some people talking about that dream in Vikings land, but it's just like, even if they lose out, you're not getting him because he's going to be a top five pick, if not the number two pick, which I think is very plausible.

I don't know how much you have had a chance to take a look at those guys, but, I mean, one or the other, you're looking at a potential franchise quarterback. I've sort of – maybe this is a hot take. I feel like I've come around to Zach Wilson potentially being better than Justin Fields, but maybe that's going too far. I don't know. Which one do Jaguars fans want out of the – I mean, obviously, if you can't get Trevor Lawrence and you end up with, you know,

the number two pick. Yeah, no, obviously I, I think people are really down the middle on that right now because I think with fields, I honestly think there's a sense of people kind of getting bored. You know, Trevor Lawrence, everybody's already assumed we'll go number one. And fields, we've now seen him for two years, kind of, you know, dice up college football defenses. So I think people are kind of just waiting for somebody to take his place

as that second quarterback. I think they have – both have really intriguing skill sets. I haven't sat down to break each of them down, but I've seen both of them several of their live games this year. And I think Fields, he's a guy who, you know, he works really well inside and outside the pocket. He is terrific at extending plays and then finding the deep shot down the field, has really good touch. I just think he's a perfect modern quarterback because, you know,

he can win with his legs, he can win with his arm, he can really do whatever you ask of a quarterback. He surely has to fix some things, but which prospect doesn't have to fix some things? You know, even Trevor Lawrence has his negatives. Wilson is – I struggle to say Wilson is higher ceiling just because I think Fields has such a high ceiling, but I think the compliment you can pay Wilson is his ceiling is likely as high as Fields. I mean, just the things the dude does with the football and the different arm angles he can throw from, he really does kind of remind you of like a diet version of Patrick Mahomes in a way. So I think they're both quality quarterback prospects who are worth

the top three picks. And I'm not sure which one the Jacks are going to prefer because they obviously need to sort out their front office and their coaching staff. But I think if your decision comes down to the two of them, I'm not sure there's really a wrong choice. I'm sorry I haven't spent more time on this upcoming contest uh with the fact that uh you know your team is one in ten and the vikings are looking at it like they'll just clear right on by but i have one more futures question for you john

which is 2022 who's got a better record vikings or jaguars thing 2022 I'll go I'll go Jaguars just because in this hypothetical they hire a decent head coach and they don't ruin Justin Fields slash Zach Wilson I'm not sure who the is Kirk Cousins still gonna be the Vikings quarterback in 2022 I think so I think so I'd be surprised if it isn't. Okay. I'll go with Jaguars just because I feel like the AFC South is going to be kind of like, I don't know who the Colts are going to have a quarterback then.

And obviously Watson's still going to be around, but I'll go Jaguars, but I think it'll be close. I mean, just the amount of respect I have for the Vikings as a team, I feel like until they prove that they're bad, like truly bad, I'm always going to think they're solid.

Okay, we podcast in 2022 and break down whether we were right, just like with the Agakwe trade. Okay, here's what I want before we wrap up, John. I want you to tell me exactly how the Jaguars could beat the Minnesota Vikings in Minnesota because we have seen that the Vikings are capable of leaving the door open for teams that are, let's say, less fortunate with their rosters. So give me the path.

How could the Jacksonville Jaguars pull an upset? And then if you want to add in, how upset would fans be if they did in Jacksonville? That's exactly what they don't want, because we're talking about Zach Wilson here. Yeah, no, you should have seen the reactions when the Jaguars nearly tied it against Cleveland. I mean, you had people's entire hopes and dreams riding on a Mike Flynn and two-point pass. I mean, it perfectly summarized 2020 right there. The way the Jaguars can steal a game is, I think, the same way that they tried to steal games against both the Browns and the Packers recently, leaning on James Robinson,

really using him to hammer away for four quarters. They are not shy. You know, a lot of teams will maybe not give their young backs the attention and the ball as much as they should. I'd even argue the Jaguars give James Robinson the ball too much. You know, like he gets fed as a runner and as a passing threat so I think if they hammer away with him for quarters he's good to break off at least one long run or at the very least keep them in positive situations and then defensively if they can force Cook Cousins into some uh turnovers you know if Sidney Jones plays he's been really impressive this year with

the Jaguars it just it just seems like he's a much better fit for their scheme than it was in Philadelphia he's getting his hand on the their scheme than he was in Philadelphia. He's getting his hand on the football a lot. He'll get beat now and then, but it seems like he's always around the football. And then they have an athletic pair of linebackers and Joe Sjobert and Miles Jack, who've combined for, I believe, five turnovers so far this year.

So I think if they can get James Robinson going and force Kirk Cousins into mistakes, I think that's really the path that the Jaguars are winning. If the Jaguars do win, well, I suggested today that, hey, the Jaguars, with how the standings are today, they could win a game and still pick number two overall because, I mean, the Bengals, they have two wins, but the Bengals beat the Jags earlier in the year. And pretty much every response was, okay, but let's not do that.

Right, right, right. and I think the other part is that Chase McLaughlin is back and that's former Viking Chase McLaughlin who will clearly hit at least 350 plus yard field goals against the Vikings people are still in disbelief that another kicker missed a game-winning field goal against the Vikings last week so that that karma has to come back the other way. You can follow John on Twitter, even if it's just for this week. You have great, great content, except for the problem is too many underscores. I mean, it just screams sociopath with all these underscores. You have underscore John, underscore Shipley is your Twitter,

and I just don't know what to do with that. Yeah, no, I wish I could say this is the first time I've gotten that piece of commentary. You're at least the 20th person in the last couple months. I will get it fixed eventually, but I feel like the underscores at this point are becoming a part of the brand. You know, I mean, so many John Shipleys out there. You've got to say them out some way. That's right. That's right.

Well, you do a great job covering the Jaguars. I read your stuff all the time, even though it's the Jaguars. So that says something about you. Appreciate it, man. Appreciate it. All right. Thanks for coming on. We'll do it again.

All right. Sounds good. Thanks for having me. I enjoy it as always.