Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Should we be talking more about TJ Hockenson's extension?

Episode Date: July 3, 2023

Matthew Coller answers questions from Vikings fans, including whether the success of the Vikings' trade for TJ Hockenson hinges on an extension. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Oakley. Express yourself. Build a look that's made for you. When you wear Oakley, there really is more than meets the eye. Try it for yourself. Oakley is not only the best looking, but the best quality. So head on over to oakley.com for more information today. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and this is a fans only episode. In fact, this week is going to be a lot of fans only episodes. So I'm going to need your participation because it's July 4th week and I want to keep the podcast coming. I want to keep talking about football, but I also don't want to ask other writers and analysts and former players and everything else to come on the show during July 4th when everybody's getting their vacation in. But I also want to give you something to listen to if you're traveling somewhere, if you're on a plane, if you're on a beach. So we'll have some episodes and maybe I'm always trying to cut down the length of some of

the answers. Maybe I can go in complete depth with some of them. Although, you know, I guess I go on and on no matter what. So I would really appreciate all the questions. If you go to purpleinsider.com, you can send me an email there. Or Twitter at Matthew Collar is a great place. Twitter still works in the DMs, doesn't always work in a lot of other ways. Which brings me to the next thing that if you sign up for the Purple Insider newsletter, even on the free side, so if you go to purpleinsider.com or purpleinsider.substack.com, either way will work.

And you click on the articles on the website there, you'll see a spot to be able to sign up for the newsletter. Just put your email in. No charge if you don't want to, but you can sign up to get all the articles sent right to you if you want to become a supporter of Purple Insider. But here's what I'm getting to is I'm going to be gathering a lot of the questions now from the chat function that Substack has created. So we're going to make our own little kind of purple insider Twitter, if you will, only for people who know football and enjoy talking about it in a fun way. But also it's a great place to ask me all of your questions. So go there, sign up, and you can be a part of the chat, which I'm always paying attention to, responding to. So if you have direct questions

or topics or ideas, that's a great place to do it. Okay. So again, purpleinsider.com, you can find all of that. And the fans only, it's going to always be a part of what we do from here on. So let me get into your questions. I've got a lot of them from the newsletter chat, actually, since Twitter over the weekend only sort of kind of worked. But then on Sunday, it mostly worked for me. I don't know. Maybe we all need to spend less time on social media anyway. Let us start out, though, from the newsletter chat with Hunter. Would you still

consider the trade for TJ Hawkinson a good trade if he doesn't end up getting extended? What is your perception of the trade predicated on whether or not they get a deal done? Or is it? Is my perception of the trade predicated on that? Well, I would say yes and no, because in the way that he really helped them compete last season, it was a win now type of year. It was a last dance attempt type of season and going all in and trading a draft pick for somebody who really, really helped,

especially in the playoff game where I know TJ Hawkinson got tackled on fourth and eight on the check down. So that's kind of what it's remembered for, but he was absolutely terrific in that game. He caught 10 passes and he was Kirk Cousins' main target as the Giants did everything in the world they could to shut down Justin Jefferson. He could not have been better in the small sample size that they had for Hawkinson, far exceeded any expectations that I had.

And I thought it was a good all-in trade, but I didn't expect him to come out in the very first week and be dominant against Washington and then pick up the offense as fast as he did. I thought that maybe it would be a three, four week process and instead such a high football IQ player that Hockinson was able to make even more impact. So if you were saying, hey, this team is all in, they're really going for it. And they gave up that second round draft pick to get a guy who caught 70 passes between the regular season and playoffs for them. I think that that was worth it on its own, considering the circumstance. We have to kind of go back and

think about when they made the trade, where they were feeling like, look around at the NFC. Is there anything special here? And I don't think at that point yet, we really understood how good Philadelphia was and San Francisco, who knew about their situation, but you're looking at a couple of teams, the NFC saying, who's really special in this NFC and maybe turn around that defense a little bit. And I know that didn't happen, but the logic behind the trade was very sound that there wasn't a lot of special teams. There wasn't a Mahomes or a Josh Allen or a Joe Burrow in the NFC. So why not go for it? Get this key player. And Irv Smith was hurt as well.

Try to lean on your offense, score as many points as you can and have a chance to compete in the playoffs. I cannot be down on that logic, regardless of what happens in the future with TJ Hawkinson, because one of the criticisms that we often have for the Minnesota Vikings is that they're not really going for it. They're kind of making sure that they stay just above average and in the middle, and at least they're in the playoffs, at least that was a move similar to what you would have seen the Rams go for with getting, you know, Vaughn Miller or something, right? We've got an opportunity. Let's take a big shot. Now in the long run, we can look back and say they weren't able to fix the defense. In fact,

it might've gotten worse as the season went along and was totally useless against the New York Giants. And it just wasn't enough, but the offense in that game still will always be remembered for the fourth and eight check down, but kind of unfairly, I mean, more just because that's the reputation of the quarterback, but unfairly in the way that if they get one defensive stop in that game, they probably win. And they just could not get that stop over and over against Daniel Jones, Saquon Barkley, and that offense. But the offense produced behind TJ Hawkinson gave them a chance to win that playoff game. So in my mind, the trade was still a success. The player came in, did a great job for

you and improved your chances to win going down the stretch and into the playoffs. You trade assets for that when you're in a situation, especially since I already think they knew they were tearing it down this offseason. When you're in that spot, all right, take that last shot. Go for it. If it doesn't work out, you figure out the rest later. I will say, though, the trade is maybe a B plus with that.

If you trade for TJ Hawkinson, sign him to a contract extension, and he's going to catch 90 passes a year for you, which go, go look at how few tight ends get a hundred targets. Travis Kelsey, obviously George Kittle does not always stay healthy for a full season. There's like four from last year, guys who had 100 targets. And TJ Hawkinson was right there behind only Travis Kelsey, who's just on a different universe with Patrick Mahomes. I mean, there's a case for, as far as the receiving tight end, that TJ Hawkinson was the best in the entire NFC last year. So if they were to sign him to a contract that was similar to some of the best in the entire NFC last year. So if they were to sign him to a contract

that was similar to some of the best in the league, the Darren Waller type of contract, the Dallas Goddard, say it's between 15 and 17, $18 million per year. It is a lot, but he is one of the best players at his position. And you guys have probably heard me talk about this before that when you have a player

who's one of the top five at their position they kind of transcend that positional value right so if you have eric kendricks he is going to be super valuable for you if you have harrison smith now those positions aren't generally thought of as being the most valuable but it's sort of bigger than that when you have that kind of player i don't know if i I could put Hockets in quite on the George Kittle or quite on the Travis Kelsey plane of tight ends, but he's close when it comes to the receiving impact. The other part of this too for signing a long-term extension is,

and it has been brought up a few times, but I think it's a smart point, and maybe there will be other questions about this. I think there might be. But just when you sign somebody who can catch a lot of passes, but doesn't cost $30 million a year, as you manage the cap going forward, that's important to have a deal basically, because he's a tight end and tight ends just don't have the high end of the price tag, which I don't know why when it comes to Travis Kelsey, but I was looking at comparable receivers and Hunter Renfro was making the same per year as Travis Kelsey, who might be

one of the top five to seven tight ends in the history of football. It's a weird world, the economics of the NFL, but the Vikings can get a deal there if they're able to sign TJ Hawkinson. So it goes from a B plus, hey, you did really well. This guy gave you a lot. He gave you a chance. He certainly wasn't the reason that you didn't go deeper in the playoffs. And if you sign him to an extension, it becomes an A plus trade. A second round pick for a top five player at his position.

That's going to be a huge part of this. He is 26 years old. I mean, this could be five. I mean, we've seen tight ends who are receiving tight ends. Some of them have aged pretty well. So you're talking about maybe five more years, six more years of his prime. And what's the main goal? What does everything filter back into, right?

It's the next quarterback and the situation you can give him. And if you're able to sign hockinson to an extension a five-year extension through the rest of his prime then you're dropping a quarterback in here with hockinson as the security blanket and also a guy who had a lot of contested catches last year you could throw the ball up to him you can use him for yards after catch he's pretty good at running with the football. And then an offensive line that's been built through the draft, the greatest receiver in the world, assuming Jefferson signs an extension, a first round draft pick in Jordan Addison. That's a lot to give somebody. And when we look at the success of a Joe Burrow, a Patrick Mahomes, or a Josh Allen,

there is something that they have in common. And I'm not saying they wouldn't be great or make other people great because they would. But Josh Allen takes his big step when he gets Stefan Diggs it's pretty darn helpful to have Jamar Chase T Higgins Tyler Boyd uh in Cincinnati and then in Kansas City yes they did it without Tyree Kill but they still had Travis Kelsey and when they won their first Super Bowl Tyree Kill so as many weapons and in the biggest moment of the Super Bowl against San Francisco, it's Tyreek Hill run down the field. And Tyreek has an argument for being a top three, four receiver in the entire league. So if you kind of look at it that way, if you can drop a young quarterback into a situation where he's got people to throw to,

it's very advantageous. So it becomes an A plus. You would trade a second round pick for a top five player at any position except for maybe kicker. Maybe this team would actually trade one for kicker. They traded a fifth for a guy who couldn't make the team as a kicker. So maybe it's a sliding scale there. So the point is, I think they did a good job in the moment

knowing that it was not a sure thing if he signs an extension but if he does then it becomes a great trade for Kweisi Adafo Mensah to put on his mantle all right let's go to the next question this one comes from Nicholas M1993 is it possible uh is it possible a Kirk trade could still happen before the season? Perhaps a Sam Bradford type of situation if a contender has quarterback issues in training camp. I tend to think, well, you say it's possible. And so anytime you ask if something's possible, I always want to say, yeah. I mean, anything is possible as Kevin Garnett said, and I would tend to agree with him.

There have been trades and moves and things that have happened in the NFL or in pro sports that I never saw coming in a million years. And how about a Teddy Bridgewater, massive injury and trade for Sam Bradford? I never saw that coming. And if you did, then you need to bet on sports and make a bazillion dollars. So there are things that are unforeseeable. But this one is a pretty big stretch. I would not put this bet down.

In part because the biggest difference between the Bradford situation and the Kirk situation is Carson Wentz. So if the Vikings had drafted a quarterback, say they took Will Levis with the 23rd overall pick, and then they like what they see in training camp and okay, well, Will Levis is playing pretty well. And oh no, the 49ers have all their quarterbacks get hurt because that's what they do. And now they're calling about trading for Kirk Cousins. The other part of it is the no trade clause. So he would have to be going through the off season training camp. He's got his family here. He's got the whole deal. And then all of a sudden, Hey Kirk, by the way, would you like to go play for Arizona? No, that's not going to happen. It would have to be such a precise situation and it would have to be a huge return.

It couldn't just be a second and a third round pick. It would have to be probably multiple firsts that someone was offering. I mean, a first round pick for next year, maybe. But the issue with that is, are they willing to throw this entire year in the trash? Because there's nobody else. There's no one that you can turn this thing over to. Jaron Hall is not going to be ready to play. He might never be ready to play.

And Nick Mullins has started before. And look, if you're a pro tanking person, you're like, I'm very interested in this scenario. Because the last time Nick Mullins played quarterback for the 49ers, they landed a Bosa and he won defensive MVP. So that worked out pretty well for them. Turns out drafting high is good. The Vikings should try it some year ever. But that's probably a bridge too far because there's no one to hand it over to.

There's no one to sell on. This is exciting. This other person is coming in. Even if there was somebody to sign, who could, if there was a quarterback who was out there that was holding out and they wanted a bigger contract and they were waiting to see what was going to happen and the Vikings called them up and said, all right, Brett Favre, come back. But there isn't that quarterback. I mean, Ben Roethlisberger. Now, look, that would make some Vikings history. Phillip Rivers, the recently Tom Brady, maybe,

but now we're talking about scenarios that are probably completely impossible. And that's kind of how I see this one. I look at this season as they are going to try to have the best possible offense that they can have. And they are going to try to have the best possible offense that they can have. And they're going to try to win the division, which they could. And they're going to try to get everything they can out of these young players. And I don't want to discount that possibility because when you look at the defense, there's a lot of questions. And I think a lot of all of us are saying, I don't know. I don't really recognize these guys. I don't know what they're all about.

But last year, we knew all the names, but they didn't really always look like the guys that we knew. And they were so incapable of creating pressure last year. Maybe there's more pressure. Maybe the corners play better. I mean, these are all things that are, you talk about possible. When we start talking about what is possible, it's many, many scenarios. And I think they would look at it as, look, we're going to be able to score a lot of points

and we can have a lot of fun games against good teams, good quarterbacks, and beat the teams that we're supposed to beat and we're in the playoffs. And then you never know from there. That has been kind of the ownership's view on this sort of thing if it's me if i'm playing a video game if there's no accountability whatsoever yeah i would probably tell justin jefferson to you know spend the year traveling europe in a backpack and let us win three games and then draft Caleb Williams. But it's not Madden. It's real life. There are owners. There are reasons why you try to win. And so they're probably going to do that. But you just never know with this league what could happen. I just think that that ship is

probably sailed unless the team who you are trading your quarterback to is giving you someone back. Now that I guess I couldn't completely discount if you're trading cousins for player X, but how many situations, if we go through all the teams in the league, could we come up with anyone outside of the Trey Lance thing? Anyone who they would actually take that quarterback back and feel like they could get the results. The Trey Lance thing, I guess still not impossible. If Brock Purdy has a setback, if they're really unhappy with Trey Lance, they know what Sam Darnold is still, I guess so.

I would not discount that. It's really the one and only scenario, but we're talking about 1% or less, probably less that that would happen now. If it was going to happen, it probably would have happened toward the earlier part of the offseason and not after all of the hay is in the barn, after offenses have been installed. And, I mean, that's how it goes, right? These offseason programs are the coaches installing their offenses. And so it's already in by the time they go to summer break.

They've got a lot of stuff done and you're supposed to come back, know what you're doing and then start practicing it right away. It's not this real deep install process at training camp. That's really mastering it, getting the nuances and being ready to play week one. Does everybody want to throw that away?

Again, can't discount anything, but I think if that was your dream, it's probably gone a little bit sideways. Folks, I know you have heard me talk a ton about my Oakley sunglasses this summer, but the more I wear them, the more I like them. I went on a little summer vacation and spent a ton of time outside in the sun. And let me tell you, before these, I had to squint even when I had sunglasses on. But these matte black prism sapphire polar sunglasses protected my eyes. And I think I looked pretty great as well. I was able to stay outside for hours rather than getting beaten down by the sun like I have in the

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This one comes from Minnesota guy, 11, any cap room left to sign an available pass rusher. Will they, should they thanks appreciate the podcast. I appreciate you, Minnesota guy, 11.

Well, let's go to our trusty over the cap.com. You're not going to believe this. You're not going believe everybody just if you're driving be prepared because the minnesota vikings after moving on from zadaria smith and delvin cook on over the cap.com are ranked let me count one two three four five six seven with the eighth most cap space in the NFL currently. I mean, is there fireworks going on in the background? That's not July 4th. That's the Vikings having cap space, but you know what you want to do with that cap space. You want to put that into a TJ Hawkinson extension, a Justin Jefferson extension, possibly a Daniil Hunter extension, and then see where you're at. Or you're

allowed to roll over cap space, which is how we get to the end of the year. And we hear, well, this team's going to be a big player in free agency. They have $70 kajillion in cap space. How did they get that much? Well, they've been rolling it over. And we'll get somebody who's an expert to explain why that's a thing and how it's a thing, but it's a thing. So if you're trying to prepare for next year and the salary cap, what are we all worried about? The 28 million dead cap hit for Kirk Cousins. But if you can mitigate some of that by rolling over cap space when you've never been able to do that, that might actually be better or worth more than signing a pass rusher. However, if they trade Daniil Hunter and that will be more cap space, they could probably stand. And I'm sure maybe Brian Flores would want this pretty badly to sign someone else.

And I'll pull that up. There are now I think Leonard Floyd did sign someone else. And I'll pull that up. Now, I think Leonard Floyd did sign with someone. So I think he's off the table as the guy that made the most sense, who is still a very good player. But just looking down this list, and I'm sorry if any of these guys have been signed and I haven't seen it or the list isn't 100% correct, but you do have Robert Quinn. Yannick Ngakwe liked it here. Apparently he told people that later that he enjoyed it here. So Yannick Ngakwe, Jadeveon Clowney, not sure if that's really the greatest use of your money, but if you're looking to somebody to kind of fill a role, Justin Houston has played in this type of offense for many years. Melvin Ingram

has played, I'm sorry, did I say I say offense played in this defense for a number of years Vinny Curry plays for every single team uh Jason Pierre Paul I don't know if he retired or he's still out there hey Steven Weatherly it's been a while okay I think I've scrolled too far when we've gotten to Steven Weatherly but there's a couple there's a couple of players who could give you 600 snaps five six s, a handful of pressures and not have to put it all on just the edge rushers who are here like Patrick Jones and DJ Wanham. Although I don't think that's a terrible idea. If DJ Wanham, Patrick Jones, and Marcus Davenport, if those are the guys that are getting all the playing time, then that's okay. But you probably do need to sign someone else if you move on from Daniel Hunter, because if any of

those guys get hurt, now we're talking Luigi Villain and whoever is on the street to pick up or the practice squad or Andre Carter might be an interesting name, but I don't think he's ready to play right now. And then you're just asking him to kind of go get whipped a little bit in the first year. You know, I don't know how that really helps someone's progress to just be really far behind and not be able to keep up. Maybe we'll see something different during training camp, but that's often how it would go with undrafted free agents, that there's a real progress to that that you have to make from year to year if you're ever going to have a chance. So throwing someone in too soon, I think can really hurt them. A point just being that,

yes, if they trade away Daniil Hunter, then they should sign another edge rusher. If they don't, then don't. Davenport, Wanham, Patrick Jones, let's see it. Andre Carter, Luigi Vilele, let's see it. Let's uh who's going to be here for the future and I don't have any problem with that but you're just you're going to need a body and you're going to have a ton of cap space so you might as well bring in a Justin Houston or Melvin Ingram I feel like Ingram's been good for a few years and nobody seems to want to keep him all right next question comes from David who are a few players you've covered or met that have gone on in retirement to do something interesting? Alan Page comes to mind,

but not everyone can become a state Supreme Court judge. Certainly Alan Page is the goat when it comes to what you did after playing football. Off the top of my head, players that I covered is an interesting one because Terrence Newman initially joined the coaching staff. He retired and became a coach. But I think that that life was a little more intense than he wanted in retirement and decided that he wasn't going to do that. Our guy, Jeremiah Searles fantastic career as a broadcaster. He was on the Nebraska broadcast. He was doing sideline for Nebraska football on their radio side.

He's obviously doing this show, a huge accomplishment for him. But even bigger, he's training offensive linemen. He's become a player agent. So, I mean, he's had a really fascinating post-career. Thinking in terms of just Vikings history, there's a few players who have tried and maybe didn't have the most success trying to be politicians as of recently, a couple of them. But we won't get into that too much. But that's one path people can take.

Randy Moss and Chris Carter have both become actually really successful broadcasters. Who had Randy Moss as becoming a very popular ESPN broadcaster on Sundays? I guess I thought that Randy Moss was going to disappear and just go fishing every day for the rest of his life, but he's actually turned into a really fun part of that Sunday morning broadcast. Scott Studwell was a part of the Vikings scouting staff for a really long time. Ahmad Rashad, best friends with Michael Jordan, and also a really accomplished broadcaster for a long time. There's a lot of them, and I'm sure that you could go through. I think, and I'd have to check on this, but Zach Line, the former fullback, has done a lot of really charitable stuff.

But there's a lot of these football players who go on to do great things. And, I mean, I wish I had a list where we could just go through every single one. Like when you go back to your high school reunion or something like, Oh, he became a this. Um, so, you know, I, I, there is a lot, I don't have a, a complete list. I see Brad Johnson is, uh, or at least he was for a long time making trick shots of him shooting basketballs over his head and throwing footballs into his baskets there. Maybe Brad made enough money to just do that for a time. So, yeah, there's a lot of them.

There's a lot of great names throughout Vikings history who have gone on to do a lot of stuff. So that's a good one. And I'll get back to you if I learn about more. I'll do a little more research on that one and check it out. But those are the first ones that come to mind. This one comes from Jeff. I think one reason that Dante Culpepper is overlooked by Vikings fans is the malaise caused by the debacle of 1998. He was an overall losing QB other than one season, didn't lift them up beyond mediocre. Well, yeah, I mean, it's, there's also a part of Viking fandom. That's just a football fandom. That's different today than it was then we have access to so much more information. I mean,

think about this when Dante was playing, they were still blacking out games. I mean, there's, there's that part. I agree with you that in general, though, when Dante came into the league, went 11-5 and put up the type of numbers that he did, I think that it was fair to say this is the next Fran Tarkenton. This is the guy. He's on a video game cover. He's going to take us somewhere. And for a lot of different reasons, he didn't.

You certainly can't put it on him that they didn't. He did his part, which was to have elite offenses and they had horrendous defenses. I think in 04, they were like 26th and in 03, they're 23rd. The ownership did not put up the type of money that the Wilfs put up now to go get free agents, to improve the team and so forth. And then you had the whole Scott Linehan thing from 04 to 05. So, you know, there is a lot of mitigating circumstances there. But also, yeah, I mean, they had a lot of moments during those times with Dante Culpepper that were volatile because he was a volatile player. I mean, I think for the because he was a volatile player. I mean, I think for the time he was one of the best quarterbacks in the entire NFL.

And I mean, that's what I mean. Those 500 seasons, uh, oh three and oh four, you go back and look at how he played and you just do well, you, you can't really pin this on him. And I think it was oh three where they lost like six, one score games or something like that. And we kind of know the randomness, but I think that's not really your point to debate. Was Dante good? Of course, Dante was good. He was not Peyton Manning who could take a team that was good and flawed and win 12 to 14 games with them because he did have shortcomings. And one of the reasons that the defense gave up so many points was that he did get sacked a lot. He did turn the ball over a lot and he was very

volatile. You'll see games. I mean, when you even just go through the box scores, you're going to see some crazy games. And then you're going to see some turnover games, some fumble games and things like that. So the high end was very, very exciting and sort of in a different universe where their defense was good. Their ownership was different just circumstantially. And he had longer than you could have seen a couple of those pop-up seasons. And I don't know how long it's been since we've kind of talked about this, but I settled a couple of years ago on a way to create quarterback tiers. Because what we always want to do is say, well, this guy was number one, this guy was number two, this guy was number three, kind of do it that way. But I've kind of come to look at it as if

you have Peyton Manning, then he's going to play for your team for 10 years and you have 10 shots to win the Super Bowl. Every single year Patrick Mahomes plays, his team will go in with Super Bowl expectations and have a realistic shot at that. Sometimes good or bad luck will impact it, but he's that good. And so that's your generational player, your hall of famer, there is no question you are a GOAT, all right?

So that's like a handful of guys. The next level down is the great franchise quarterback who over a 10 year career will give you maybe five shots that your defense has to be good for him to win. This is like your Phillip Rivers. He's got to have weapons. He's got to have a good coach to really compete for a Super Bowl. But if you've got all those things, he can do it. That's your Matt Ryan.

I put Eli Manning in this same category where you can go through the careers and find five or six seasons where they have a chance. And then the next level down is kind of your Kirk cousins where it's, it's going to be once, maybe twice in a, in a career. If he plays for 10 years where everything comes together and maybe you can Trent Dilfer this thing and win. And I don't mean that Kirk is like Trent Dilfer. I just mean that he's a better comp to Joe Flacco, right? Pretty successful, pretty good quarterback, had some good teams and really had one serious shot and won it. There were probably a few other times that they were there,

but you know what I mean? Like a Joe Flacco level quarterback that gets one or two real shots to win. And sometimes they do. And we've seen that from time to time. And then beyond that is the guys that you simply cannot win the Super Bowl with, but are starters like, I don't know, like a Tyrod Taylor or an Andy Dalton, or, you know, there's a handful of guys where even if you have a great team, it's probably just not going to happen. I would put Dante Culpepper somewhere in between the Kirk and the Matt Ryan tier. So if he had everything right, he could definitely do it. Is he going to give you

five or six shots to win the Super Bowl? I'm not sure. Maybe it's more like three or four. But do any of us think that if Dante Culpepper played for a whole career and had the 08, the 09 teams that got better, that drafted and built defenses and got better, that he wouldn't have had more shots? I mean, I think at the end of the day, maybe he is in that tier of guys that are imperfect. Does anybody think Phillip Rivers is perfect? He's not. That are imperfect, but gave their team a chance maybe five times. And he did make the NFC championship. I mean, so, you know, not, you know, I mean, I do think that the guy goes to Lambeau, beats the Green Bay Packers. Yeah. I mean, he had a chance probably where he would have been given

multiple opportunities to have a Super Bowl team. That's where I would put him. He's not one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. But when the peak was peaking, he was really good. But that's your point was more about this is why he's unappreciated. And I think you're right. I mean, I do think that that 98 thing did not go away quickly, that it did exist over the entire Tice era as kind of this black cloud of we had this chance and it didn't happen. And there's a lot of the players that are still here. And you've even seen that with 2017, when you come this close and it doesn't happen, that does kind of rest over your team. So that's

interesting point about that. I just think that when we look back at Culpepper, he deserves appreciation for how good that run was and also goes under that category of what could have been if more things had been going right with the roster. All right, next question from James. What is an extension for Derrissaw likely to look like? And is he good enough to get that after three years or more years out? Well, yes, he's definitely good enough to get it after this year, because if this year goes like last year, then Christian Derrissaw is one of the best, not just left tackles, but best and most valuable players in the NFL. And you can't just do it once.

You have to do it year after year to be the best. And we'll see if that happens. He did have some injuries, but if he does, then we are talking about elite money. We are talking about Laramie Tunsell type, big time, best of the best type money. Let me see if I can figure out kind of who has the most guaranteed money. Well, there actually isn't a ton. You'd be surprised how few left tackles there are in the NFL that are making massive, massive money right now. But Laramie Tunsell is around 25 mil. And that's where i would put him is it'll probably be something like a five-year 125 with 50 to 60 70 guaranteed it's going to be a lot it's going to be big big money because when you get a left tackle of this caliber you give him all the dollars it has a trickle down effect

that unless your interior is one of the worst in the league, which it has been, usually there's a really big impact to be able to put one guy on an island. And for their future, that's what they're going to hope to do is either see these younger guys progress or they're going to replace them with veteran players and take full advantage of that. But there is a major impact of, hey, this week you've got Miles Garrett, but that's okay. Hey, this week you're going to face whatever guy, Vaughn Miller, that's okay because this guy can slow him down. Brian Burns, that's okay. This guy can slow him down. There's really something to that. And he plays such a big role in the next quarterback. What would make a quarterback feel better than having the best left tackle in the NFL or whatever top five left tackle in the NFL? So yeah, I think after this

year, they'll be pretty confident in saying his pedigree, his talent. This isn't a small sample size thing. This isn't random. He's going to show up and be great year after year and that they'll sign him to an extension, but he has to do it again this year there can't be this oh well okay he was really great and then he kind of fell off um but yeah i think that he's in that line doesn't seem like a player that doesn't care uh watching him last year and the way that he took that huge step i think it really said something about him because his first year was very rocky, came in with the injury, and he had to just be thrown into the fire. I thought he did well with that. But then when he came back and every practice, he was just looking dialed in and competing. I think that's really a

reflection of who he is. I think he's going to be a great player for a long time. So yeah, they're going to sign him and it's going to be a lot of money probably after next year. I don't know that there's going to be the same type of debates that go on like Justin Jefferson. It's probably a little less complicated. It's like, this is what you came for. You came to become one of the best and one of the highest paid. This one comes from Rat Trappin on Twitter. I think more people should be advocating, if not all in, for a Hawkinson extension. It's a no-brainer when you combine the salary cap cost relative to the same price as a receiver. So yeah, this is what I started to touch on at the beginning of the show. But just to flesh that out a little bit more, when you compare the receiver prices, and

I'll pull this up right now since I have overthecap.com up here. The receiver prices when you look at per year. So how much these guys get? Oh, actually, you know what? I was in the wrong spot. I was in free agency when I was talking about left tackles. I can get a few more here. Okay.

Anyway, no, we won't worry about that. Yeah, but there are just when it comes to tackles 25 looks like it's kind of the number so anyway well let me circle back though and click on uh tight ends versus wide receivers so when we look at wide receivers per year um there's a lot of guys who are getting huge huge huge money and we're talking about $30 million is where they're pushing. And when you compare that, let me take a look here, what the contracts are. Tyreek Hill, 30, Devante Adams, 28, Cooper Cup, 26, AJ Brown, 25. I mean, those are your top wide receivers. Very, very expensive. Your top tight ends in comparison, let me pull that up here, are a lot less.

Let's see. Per year, 17 is Darren Waller, 15 is George Kittle. So think about how valuable George Kittle is to San Francisco. He's half as expensive per year as Tyree Kill. That's a pretty big deal. So if you have somebody who contributes majorly to that offense in the passing game, and you can pay almost half or a lot less at a discount, I don't think he's taking 15 per year, but it's probably going to be 18, 17. I think he wants to reset the market. I'm sure his agent does after what he meant to them last year to get paid more than Darren Waller. Waller signed last year, right at the beginning of the season. I'm sure he wants to top him, but let's say it's 17 and a half. Compare that to Tyreek Hill. But here's the other way to look at that is, so even if we say, all right, well, there's a reason

for that. It's that receivers are more valuable because they go downfield. And I agree with that. But when we look at wide receivers and we scroll down a little bit, so not 20 million, but we go to 16, 17 million and we find a little over 10. Let's go over 10. And we find your Valdez Scantling, your Corey Davis, your Curtis Samuel, Michael Gallup, Hunter Renfro. I mean, look at what Odell Beckham got, $15 million. And the guy hasn't even played in a long time. Christian Kirk, $18 million. Deontay Johnson, $18.3.

These guys, relative to the top players at their position you know down the list for talent and yet still making more than the best tight end in the league that's kind of the hack that they could get here the salary cap hack where he's going to contribute just as much as some of those receivers except for at a better price so yes there should be advocation for just advocating, right? Advocating for a TJ Hawkinson extension. No doubt about that. Yeah, but I appreciate that. Yeah, that's just paying.

That's rat trap and paying attention to the salary cap and finding this kind of pocket there. And I think that it won't be long before tight ends start to catch up. But I guess we've been saying that for quite some time and it hasn't happened. Jimmy Graham was fighting that fight a while time and it hasn't happened. Jimmy Graham was fighting that fight a while back and it never really came to be. All right. This one comes from Matthew. Now that you survived the Taylor Swift concert, didn't survive, had a lot of fun. It was a good time. It was a good time. What sorts of things do you plan on doing during the weeks before training camp kicks in any trips or some ball? Well, uh, definitely playing some golf. Um, weather has been great, crazy hot,

which works for me. Excuse me. Uh, yeah, so definitely, definitely some basketball, some golf, trying to get outside as much as I can. The other thing is that, you know, I'm also going to move, which if you've noticed, if you've watched on YouTube at all, my background is kind of empty. Just a couple of, you know, soda stick posters taped to the wall. Well, there's a reason for that because I'm moving and hopefully creating a cool podcast studio. That'll be a lot of moving and hopefully creating a cool podcast studio. That'll be a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. If any of you have moved, I shouldn't have used

the word fun. It's going to be a lot of work to do, and I'm trying to do it all before training camp. So that's going to take up a really big amount of my time. But you know, trying to get in maybe a show or two before training camp starts and just make the most of the summer every day when it's still nice out. My life doesn't end with training camp. You know, it's kind of typical workflow after that. And I could still have some fun, go kayaking or whatever. But it does kind of flip that switch from us just hanging out here, chatting, talking about whatever

to, all right, it's time to fight over wide receiver four, baby. That that's what happens. So anyway, yeah, but very typical stuff, nothing special. Just, you know, I always say that you guys are totally free to ask questions about what I do, what I like, things like that. But unfortunately, I just am not that interesting with some of my responses. Like, well, what are you going to do in these last few weeks of your life before training camp kicks in? I don't know. Same stuff I do every day, Pinky, if you get the reference. Anyway, thanks again to everybody for these great questions.

Really fun episode. And again, that Purple Insider newsletter, purpleinsider.com. Just click any of the articles. It'll take you there. You could sign up for free. You can also sign up for the paid side and get every article sent to you every day, basically, especially for training camp, a really good investment. But if you don't want to, but you want to participate in the Purple Insider chat,

it's for cool people. We're not going to fight you like a crazy bot on Twitter. So if you want to do that and you like what we do here, go ahead and sign up for that. So thanks again to everybody for all the contributions as always. Please send more questions because this week it's just going to be me and you. Maybe I'll go live on YouTube a couple of times, but I'm not asking anybody for their help for this week. I think everybody wants this week off. So, all right. Thanks everybody. And we'll talk to you again soon.