Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Star Tribune's Ben Goessling takes us inside the Vikings' decision at quarterback

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

Matthew Coller talks with Ben Goessling of the Star Tribune about whether the Vikings' brass was on the same page about letting Kirk Cousins walk and their approach to trying to trade up to get a quarterback. Plus is there anything to Justin Jefferson rumors? https://surfshark.deals/PURPLEINSIDER Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here and joining me on the show, Ben Gessling, Vikings beat reporter for the Star Tribune. What an off-season it's been, Ben. Have you been busy? Having a good time? We're not used to this, signing players on day one of free agency, talking about quarterbacks legitimately in the draft. This is different, man. Yeah, it's moving at a speed that we are not terribly accustomed to around here at least in terms of uh the changes at the most important position in the game and that is going to drive i mean we're not even close to done i mean this is

going to go for the things to talk about the things to chew on are going to go for a long time. So, yeah, lots to discuss today, and I'm sure we'll have plenty to chew on for weeks, months at a time here, maybe even years, depending on how we evaluate the quarterback thing that may be coming. Well, it usually doesn't happen as quickly as it did for someone like C.J. Stroud, where they know right away, which gives us lots of content to cover a quarterback but let's not jump the line here because I want to go back before we get to the spot where we are right now and of course it can always change very quickly on us when I record a podcast but I want to go back to the decision because the way I feel about this offseason Ben is that it's gone

perfectly to plan how we would have drawn it up from the day Kweisi Adafo-Mensah and Kevin O'Connell got here. To compete, to slowly tear down last year, move on from some of the older parts, and then now to draft a quarterback. But the decision was muddied up by Kirk Cousins' love and appreciation for the way that he played in 2022 and then the way he was playing right before he got hurt and i think the biggest question that a lot of people had going into the decision 2024 the biggest in the country in my opinion uh for decisions uh but uh like going into it there was a question if they would bring back Kirk, if they would pay his dollar figure.

So take me back first through that decision to where we got now and what went into that process from your understanding. Yeah, it's interesting because they wanted him back. I mean, they talked about that fairly publicly. But in negotiations, my understanding is there was a pretty firm line just as there was last year. And a lot of that was the guarantee structure. When he talked to us in January, he said the structure is the most important thing and that's everything but not the dollars. That was not an accident, I don't think, because a lot of that was informed by what happened last year. They were willing to guarantee the 2024 season for him or through 2024 last year.

It would have been guaranteeing 23, guaranteeing 24, not guaranteeing 25. My understanding this year is that they were willing to guarantee 24 again and probably offer some guaranteed money into 25, but I don't think that would have been a full guarantee. And they have had a lot of these, where it's guaranteed at one point

and then it becomes fully guaranteed later, kind of these rolling guarantees they like to use. I don't think it was the no question about it, you are getting two full guaranteed years thing that he got from the Falcons at any point from the Vikings. So when you go there, he is going to say, okay, well, I'm going to go look at my options. And I think they knew that once he got a chance to do

that, it was going to go how it did. Because if they were going to get something done with him, it probably would have happened before he got to the open market. Sounded like the offer he signed from Atlanta, which would have been a very hard offer, I think, for anybody to turn down, came in late. Sounded like that came in just a few hours before he signed it, or at least the discussions kind of got to that point Monday morning. And obviously the Falcons make him an offer that he can't refuse, and he's gone. But my sense is that the Vikings were fairly clear and fairly firm in where they wanted to be,

because a lot of this was going to be affected by what they do next. I don't think they were going to ever give Kirk Cousins the type of contract that he got from Atlanta that effectively takes the Falcons out of the quarterback market in a lot of ways. I mean, Kirk Cousins, in more ways than one, got them to sign away their ability to get the next guy, at least in this draft. I don't think there's any viable, sensible way for the Falcons to do that. The Vikings were not willing to go that far. And they said, we want to give ourselves the option to get your successor in here.

And if you want to come back, we want to have you back. We want to have you kind of be the solution for now as we work on the solution for later, but that is a weird spot to put the quarterback as well. And I think they knew that. And ultimately he found the offer he found, but they, for all of their interest in having him back had parameters that were going to be tied to that. And they didn't really move off of those parameters very much from my understanding of it. So it always struck me that if Kevin O'Connell had it exactly his way, he would have Kirk Cousins as his quarterback for 2024. Well,

Drake may or JJ McCarthy or whoever sat on the bench and watch Kirk operate. And then they would be ready to turn it over. But the thing is in football, Ben, you don't always get what you want. You can't always draw it up perfectly. And I know that everybody loves the quarterback who sits for a while because we've looked to our East and watch it work for Aaron Rodgers and Jordan Love and of course, Patrick Mahomes as well. is how O'Connell feels right now about this situation. Because if you're O'Connell, you would have looked at 2024 like, all right, let's get some defensive players.

Let's push some money down the road. Let's have a competitive season so I don't have two losing seasons in a row. A seven-win season does something to coach brain. Because the way the NFL works is if you have one or two down seasons, then they just fire you. But I think that if the Wilfs are smart about this and that if they have some patience in watching the plan come to fruition that O'Connell shouldn't feel that terror. And I also think with the situation, the Vikings can put

a quarterback in right now with Sam Darnold, you could still win games with Sam Darnold, not 13 games, but games. And if the quarterback that they draft is ready to go, then everybody could be talking about you the same way they're talking about the Texans because of the situation that you could put the quarterback in. But I understand from Kevin O'Connell's perspective that there is so much more work to do now. I mean, he could have had a couple of Cabo trips if Kirk is there, right? Like, I don't need to change the offense a whole lot, but now, like, whoever you draft, you better really design that and tailor that to a young quarterback.

Yeah, especially if it's Jaden Daniels or somebody that plays completely differently than what you have wanted your quarterbacks to do and what you have constructed your offense to be. It is going to be a busier offseason for him in that sense of it. I agree with you, though, about the Darnold side of this because Darnold does not come in here with any equity. He does not come in here with any sort of tie, goodwill, financial or otherwise that makes you have to start him. If you draft Drake May, and Drake May looks terrific in training camp, and you're like, this guy's ready to go now, let's put him on the field week one, there's nobody that's going to be sitting there pushing

for, no, we have to stick with Sam Darnold. We love Sam. He's got all this history in the fan base, all this tradition of success, all of these things. There's none of that. So if you get somebody in here that you feel like you hit a home run on and this guy is ready to go, there's nothing keeping you from putting that guy on the field. That would have been a different story with Kirk. And I think if they had done it, if they had signed Kirk, you obviously know he's your starter and you're moving forward with him for this year. And certainly it makes it easier for Kevin

O'Connell, the guy that has to call the plays, is on the offense, make it all work in the locker room, all of those things. But I did always kind of wonder, and I heard a little bit of this even last week, that this scenario they were trying to pull off, this two-step that they were trying to do where you sign Kirk and then you draft his replacement in the same year, the trick to that was always going to be how is Kirk going to feel about the idea that the highest drafted quarterback in Vikings history probably is sitting behind him in the quarterback meeting room and sitting over his shoulder. If they move up one spot in the draft and take a quarterback, that quarterback is the highest drafted quarterback in Vikings history.

Never drafted anybody higher than Dante Culpepper in 1999 at number 11. So if they stay where they are, they match it. If they move up, it's the highest quarterback in Vikings history. So Kirk Cousins, say he starts the way he did last year or the team starts the way it did last year or the team starts the way it did last year, where he's thrown for a lot of yards, but they're losing games and they have some of the turnovers that they had. How quickly is the fan base going to be calling for the replacement to come in? And I did always wonder, how is Kirk going to feel about that? And how is

that going to inform the negotiations I think I asked him at the end of the season you know what do you think of this idea that they're going to draft somebody and he said something kind of well I understand that they would do it they'd be silly not to look at it he never really said oh I'm great with this this is going to be you know we'll make it work I'm totally fine with this kind of an arrangement he basically said I understand where they're coming from but then when you get to the negotiating table, I do wonder how much that changed, how willing he was going to be to come back and what kind of terms he was going to be willing to accept. So all of that, I think, colored the negotiations.

I think it colored how they would have tried to put this thing together. And in some ways, having a Sam Darnold that you can kind of just push aside whenever you're ready to do it, it maybe makes it harder in the short term for Kevin O'Connell. But I think there is a little bit of a silver lining there in the sense that that player is kind of easy to lift out of the situation when you're ready to go there. So I was thinking, as you're talking about that of a time early in my broadcast career, where I had two jobs that I thought I was going to have as offers. And one of them dropped out and I was kind of mad about it. And I was like, oh man, I wanted that one more than the other one. So I ended up taking the other one and it worked out way better. I think the guy who took the other job got fired after like a year, it was a total disaster, whatever. And I was like, oh man, well, thank goodness that I ended up with this. It's sort of the same way where like in, you could see in a

coach's mind where it's like, okay, I've got Kirk and I'm good. And then come back and we'll draft the quarterback. I'll develop him on the side with a square jaw. Joshown. We'll set him over there, and that'll be all great. But as you mentioned, in practice, it's different than in your imagination where if you start two and four, and he comes into U.S. Bank Stadium, and they're chanting, Drake May, Drake May. And not only that, but you also wouldn't have had the player that you were going to draft at 11 who you needed to help you right away. So you probably weren't going to be that competitive anyway. Also, I mean, let's talk about the future cap situation.

They can put any amount of dollars into 2025 for any of these contracts, which we'll talk about in a minute with the players that they've signed. But now they can say, all right, we don't have the cap space right now, but let's structure it for the future. They can get whoever they want. They could make a trade for somebody if they wanted to. Their flexibility is so much more open for the future because of this. And then they don't have to be turning it over to J.J. McCarthy in 2026 and be going, oh, yeah, but we do have that dead cap. It's like twenty eight million. Right. So after this, after after this year they're rid

of it and now they can bring somebody else in and get them going right away plus whoever they draft gets to feel like the guy right off the bat you are the guy but but we got to talk about the draft part of it so they make this trade with the texans and then i assumed ben that i shouldn't even do a reaction podcast because there was another trade coming. What is what is your what is your sense for what is going on with the trade for Houston and what that means for next and maybe a timeline for this? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting to me because I don't for a second think they made that trade with the idea of, well, let's just give ourselves two swings at it in the first round. I think that trade was 100 percent made with the idea that you're taking those two picks and probably another first rounder and trying to move up to get your quarterback. I think that has been their approach the whole time.

They're not going to take a half measure and say, well, this is the guy that's here. We don't love him, but he's available to us. Let's just take him and try to make the best of it. I think the plan here is let's swing for the fences. Let's get the guy that we're in love with and do what we have to do to get him. So I think this trade was 100% about moving up to get who you want to get. There's been a lot of discussion over the weekend about did Kweisi have kind of a handshake

agreement with one of those teams in the top five you know maybe the Cardinals at four maybe the Chargers at five about moving up to go get your guy my question with that I guess would be if that's the case can you bank on that I mean they have more first round picks to play with than any of the other teams that would try to move up. But if that's going to be the way it goes, why wouldn't you just go get that done? And kind of like you're saying, turn around, make sure you have it, make sure you lock it in. Maybe they are still trying to see what they can do, trying to play a few different teams against each other to see what kind of offer they can get. But it is, I think there's a little bit of risk in it. There's probably pieces of this that we don't know. There's probably things, discussions that

are happening that make them think we're going to be fine with getting to where we need to get to, to get the quarterback we want. I am, if you move up to four with the Cardinals who don't need a quarterback that feels a little risky to me in the sense of if it goes Williams Daniels May then you're J.J. McCarthy you don't really get a shot at any of the other guys I would think the hope would be to try to get to three with the Patriots but you know maybe there's still a little bit of negotiation that has to go on there. I would think you'd want to be no lower than three, so you sort of assure yourself you're getting one of those three, whether it's, well, it won't be Williams. At that point, it's either Daniels or May, and then if you like McCarthy better, you can play with that too, but I would think you'd want to give yourself at least the option to get one of those guys.

My impression would be that Drake may, if you can get him would be the guy that they would kind of say, let's go. I mean, I think they like him a lot and I think he fits really well. So that's the name that I kind of keep an eye on is how, what would it take for them to get Drake May? And when I'm putting together the puzzle pieces uh as you know we got like the yarn and

the clippings and everything we're just putting it together but it's always sunny guy where he's doing all the the scenarios and this fits with this and it all fits together this kind of thing cliff kingsbury worked with kyler murray running quarterback marcus mariotta was signed by washington to be their backup okay got rid of sam howell more of a pocket quarterback all of this is sort of looking like jayden daniels right for them yeah uh that that they're bringing in somebody who's worked with a running quarterback before how well he worked with that running quarterback may be up for debate but uh now number three though is so interesting because if i'm the New England Patriots, I want also to be able to pick my guy if they want a quarterback.

So part of this discussion has to either be talking them out of a quarterback or talking about some other maneuvering where they move back to 11 and then back up to four. Because I don't know, there's something about the Patriots that screams J.J. McCarthy to me. It could be that their legendary quarterback was from Michigan. The whole idea of the world. Yeah. Like, yeah, right. He's a winner, that kind of thing. You know, like that would, you could see Robert Kraft being like,

oh yeah, it looks like a shorter Tom Brady. Whereas I think, and you mentioned Drake May, I think that your instincts are similar to mine on this with Kevin O'Connell, that he would want to go up to three to try to guarantee himself Drake May and worst case scenario, Washington surprises us. And you still get Jaden Daniels, but I think there are tiers to this. I think Caleb Williams is in his own tier and he's number one with a bullet, but then the next tier is clearly Daniels and May. And after that, there's a drop off to JJ McCarthy. I think the Vikings should be fine if it's JJ McCarthy, but I just look at Drake Bay and I go

Kevin O'Connell. I mean, the way that he throws the football and that was like, we heard this from O'Connell when we sat down with him at the combine I mean he said number one is how you throw the football that and which of course makes sense but sometimes gets lost in the wash of draft analysis but uh give me your your take on that because I feel like this whole thing has to be to try to get Drake Mack yeah I think it is and I think they have watched him I think they have liked him for a while. I think even last year when they talked about moving up, they were always going to be a little bit reserved in how aggressive they got because they knew that this was a really good quarterback class. I mean, even last year, I had conversations with people thinking, yeah, this is already in their mind that they have this

kind of ace in the hole with Williams and May at the top of that 2024 draft class so when you're looking at it that way when you're looking at you know even this far back of how are we going to play all of this how are we going to negotiate with Kirk Cousins in 2023 and 2024 there is a plan that I think has certain people involved. And it's not just, like I say, it's not just this, well, you know, whoever's there, we'll be happy to have them and we'll move on and make the best of it. I think this is going to be whatever we have to do. Let's get the guy we want. And I think Drake May is that guy. I think Drake May fits very, very well with what Kevin O'Connell wants in a quarterback.

Certainly has the arm strength and I think probably a little bit of the panache to make some of the throws that he always wanted Kirk Cousins to make. I mean, he would kind of allude to this every once in a while. And Kirk would talk about it a little bit, too. This kind of friendly needling of, hey, you can trust yourself a little bit more here. You can be a little more aggressive. You can put the ball up to Justin Jefferson when we need you to do it. You heard a little bit of that dance happen with those two over the last couple of years, and I think with Wes Phillips kind of involved in that conversation as well.

I don't think you would have to urge Drake May into that as much. You may have to pull him back, but I think the guy that thinks I can throw it over the middle 18 yards on the field and put it on a spot is the kind of guy they want. And working with a quarterback that already has a lot of that thought process involved is probably a good place to start from. I think that's a lot of what makes May a good fit for what they want to do. Folks, have you ever heard of test driving a phone network? I did not make this up.

It is an actual thing. And U.S. Cellular is letting you test drive their network for free for 30 days. You can try out U.S. Cellular wherever you have that spotty service, like on your commute to work, that one spot in your house where your service dips. Test drive U.S. Cellular at your kid's school on parent-teacher night. Okay, maybe still pay attention, but by all means, make sure you test it. It's as easy as doing a little boop, boop, boop on your phone. That was me getting the app to try it out. I know great sound effects there. Test drive us cellular award-winning network for 30 days.

Us cellular built for us terms apply awards based on open signal, independent data, visit us cellular.com for details. And I don't think that you need a drunken draft goggles to put them on and see Matthew Stafford and Drake I mean he is he is such a big guy that was another thing I was looking at like his size is actually similar to Eli Manning so he is a big dude and then the way that he throws the football the risks that he takes the gutsiness but another part another part of it, Ben, too, is that I don't think that Kevin O'Connell wants anything more than a quarterback he can develop and can be his guy. And, you know, he did that to some extent with Kirk Cousins,

not exactly in a development, but make his guy and kind of be on that same page. But the fact that Drake May is young as well, and, I mean, he's coming from a program that was not that great, didn't have great teammates. He's going to have a pretty big learning curve, and I think that's what we're talking about with Sam Darnold. But to take a young player with these raw tools that are Stafford or Eli Manning-esque, along with that mentality that you can take risks

and put it down the field with these receivers it all just ties in now it's just making it happen and i because i if they did that the offseason gets an a plus for me i i don't even know what flaw we could even find in it if they were able to trade up land drake may rebuild parts of the defense and have their cap set up for next year to look as good as they did and they even even added a good running back. I mean, so they got, you know, every box checked if they can get to the finish line with this trade up and get their guy. Where do you think, or let me, let me phrase it this way. How bad did Kweisi Adafo-Menson need this to happen? Because I think that from his perspective, we, he seemed nervous that Kirk was going to say yes.

That's how he's always seemed. And I think that this was his plan from the very beginning. And it is being executed the way that he wanted to do it. And this is why I always tried to say, let's be patient. Okay, the 2022 draft, total calamity. Let's see it all come to fruition before we judge this. But I also think that from his perspective, we know what happens to GMs who try to work around a Kirk Cousins contract.

It's not easy. And you end up looking dumb sometimes because you have to sign Marcus Davenport rather than Jonathan Grenard, which is a much safer and a much better pickup. So I think from his perspective, he needed this to happen in order for him to execute his vision for this franchise. Yeah, I mean, they came in in this weird spot where this competitive rebuild, the phrase that you will hear us use more than you'll hear Kweisi use, because I think he vowed last week, he said that phrase, which I'm never going to use again. I assume that's the phrase he was referring to, was competitive rebuild.

That was always a tricky spot to be in because they didn't have the cap space. They had all of this dead money from years of Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer trying to kind of save their jobs and have a competitive team on the field, knowing that they were not built for a full teardown and nobody would have the patience for one with that group. If they had brought everybody back, it would have kind of continued this weird thing of, of you have to hit on every draft pick. You have to hit on free agent signings.

You have to be able to massage contracts every year. It is not a big margin for error to do that. And we've heard Kwesi kind of alluded to that at times of, you know, this is the way we've chosen to do it, but this is a really tough way to do it. And I think the fact that they, I mean, you can even go back to last year with Eric Kendricks, Adam Thielen. They did not push any of that money into the future. It was not, let's make these guys post June 1st cuts so that we can save some of the money and kick it down the road.

It was, no, we will take the hits now. We will get this thing reset. I think there has very much been a mandate, if not from ownership, I think Kweisi has interpreted part of his job as I need to get the cap reset. I need to let some of this stale air out of the building so that we actually have some maneuverability to do what we want and build a team that is young and affordable and all of these things. I do think he has looked at

it that way. And I think the Wilfs to degree, have been intrigued by this thing of, well, if we get a young quarterback, you get four or five years of financial cheat code if the guy is good. So, yes, there was interest in Cousins, but I think all of these things that we're talking about did create a little bit of a buffer in how far they were going to go. And we have seen GMs, we've seen coaches in the past, we've seen the previous regime say, well, you know, I know we weren't probably supposed to do this, but man, Anthony Barr really fits well in our defense and he's having second thoughts with the Jets. So what the heck, let's just go do it. This was not going to happen the same way with this group, I don't think. I think there was certainly a firmer boundary to this whole thing. And some of that was having a young quarterback. Some of that was the cap ramifications of Kirk Cousins versus a young quarterback. So all of that led to this kind of,

I mean, we heard him talk about it, this like, yeah, we want him back, but it's a negotiation and we have our interests and he has his, and it kind of has to be on our terms or at least compatible with what we want to do if he is going to come back. And I think that this is something that we just sort of cruise by. You bring up the Wilfs here and they've taken a lot of arrows from the fans for not ever being willing to tear it all down. But I do think in this case, we have to go back to even last offseason to give them credit, because what we know is that if they want something, then that's going to happen, which is how it works in the NFL. Don't you know, don't make that about a Minnesota thing. No, that's going to happen, which is how it works in the NFL. Don't, you know, don't make that about a Minnesota thing. That's absolutely everywhere.

Then the Johnny Manziel ended up in Cleveland is Jimmy Haslam wanted him. Right. Okay. That's what we have to do. Right. So like, this is, this is how life works in, in the big city of the NFL. But last year they allowed Kweisi AdafMensah to move on from those older players. And how many times would you say a team wins 13 games and then says sayonara to multiple pro bowlers? I mean, what?

That was like five pro bowlers they let walk out the door. That is a very rare thing. And I think that the reason that they're most set up to succeed is because of that. Because once again, with the, the like god closes the door and opens up a window josh metellus emerges all of the sudden ivan pace jr gets his opportunity we saw some young players start to emerge here and how about jordan addison as well being their first round draft pick i don't know if that's the case if they're not losing adam theelin they probably would have just run that back and drafted somebody else.

So I think that sometimes you're afraid of what is behind door number two, when in the NFL, it tends to reward you for saying, you know what, a 32-year-old wide receiver or a running back who's kind of washed, it's time to move on from those guys. And you can ultimately set yourself up for a better position and i think that's why when i look at this whole thing the 2025 cap situation is kind of like the ace in the hole i think for this team where it's like right now you're seeing a little bit of it jonathan grenard is day one signing andrew van ginkle these are good free agents but sometimes khalil mac becomes available via trade or tyreek hill or davante adams or whatever and suddenly you can be the player in that situation i think we could look at what miami did with those things they trade for bradley chubb

like that's sort of now a model for the vikings it's not just who you could sign but it's also who's miserable player or player they don't want to pay or can't afford to just who you can sign, but it's also who's miserable player or player they don't want to pay or can't afford to pay that you can acquire. So to me, that is the biggest element of this that we have to give credit to the ownership for is allowing it to get there, like seeing the part one, part two, part three of letting those players go. Yeah, I agree. Because this has not been the way the Wilfs have wanted to do it.

And maybe they are not. And I'm sure when we hear from Mark Wilf in a week at the owners' meetings, he won't be conceding that this is going to be a rebuilding year. Even if you look at the state of the division, you look at the state of the roster, and you have to probably say it's more likely than not that it will be a rebuilding year. But they have not ordinarily

been the team that signs off on that idea and maybe some of it is if there's a quarterback behind door number two which i suppose the times that we've seen them at least flirt with this would have been 2011 when they had a draft quarterback. They missed on that pick, obviously, with Christian Ponder. 2014, first year with a new coach. They take Teddy Bridgewater. That was not so much of a hard rebuild because they still did some things at free agency that year, but there was more of this vision for the whole thing around Teddy Bridgewater and Mike Zimmer

kind of building that partnership together. Obviously, that didn't happen because of Bridgewater's knee, and then you pivot to Cousins. But I wonder how much of it was being able to show them, hey, this is not just a teardown for the sake of let's hope we hit on some picks. There is a plan to this of let's get our quarterback, let's reset everything around that player, and then let's go from there. It has been a while since they've been willing to do this.

So I think some of it is credit to them. And I have to think some of it is credit to Kweisi for being able to explain it and say, this is where I want to go. This is what I think we can do with this and kind of being able to sell the plan. Because I do get the sense with the Wills that if the people they've put in place say, this is why I think this needs to happen and why I think it's the best course of action for our franchise, they're not so stubborn that they're going to say, no, I don't care. I want to do this because this is what I watched Parcells do in the 80s with the Giants. I think they tend to be, well, if you think this is the best thing for us and you think it's going to work and you've explained it to us, then we're going to support it and we're going to be behind you. And if it doesn't, then we'll deal with that later. But I do think they are the types of owners that let their football people kind of advocate for what they want. And when it makes sense, like I think it did here, there is, I think,

there's enough runway to get that plan in the air, so to speak. So the way that Kweisi described it was essentially presenting options to them. And of course, they're going to pick the overall direction, but that makes sense to me. And maybe you push one option a little bit harder than the others if you're Kweisi Adafo-Mensah, but he understands it. He understands this advantage that we've seen teams getting. And I think it was Robert Mays of the Athletic who tweeted out something like 11 of the last 12 teams that went to the Super Bowl, 11 of the last 12 Super Bowls have featured a team

with a quarterback on a rookie contract. We all know that by now at this point. I think it's one of the major reasons why Vikings fans are so up on this idea rather than saying, whoa, whoa, he got rid of our quarterback, but they've seen it work for so many other teams. Hey, those San Francisco 49ers are pretty stacked.

Oh, is that because their quarterback makes $800,000? Like you think that Javon Hargrave was going to be there if he was making $40 million? Probably not. Now, here's one thing I've had a weird feeling over the last week, I would say, Ben, which is I'm having trouble finding the holes or the flaws. And so many times when you and I have done podcasts over the years, we've been tearing it down.

We would say, oh, well, they're missing on this. They're making this mistake what are rick and mike doing and you know mike's losing the locker room and rick's trading for chris herndon and our you know pet's heads are falling off we just got like all these things over the years and i'm like now thinking wait do i do i sound like too much on board with this uh maybe because we had talked about this exact plan for a long time. But before we get to Justin Jefferson, I want to talk about an update there. But what am I missing? Am I missing something here? Am I missing something?

Is it if they don't get up to number three or number four, is that the sort of thing that could go wrong here? Like what am I not seeing that I should be criticizing but I'm not? Yeah, I mean, I think at this point, it's hard to criticize it. The criticism could come if they miss on the pick. If they either don't get up to get who they want, or the guy they take turns out to be a bust. Because there is certainly that possibility. And history would suggest to us that one or more of these quarterbacks

at the top is going to bust you're probably not looking at the class of 1983 where it's like hall of famer hall of famer 10-year starter 12-year solid play i mean you know that that was kind of the actually three hall of famers in that class and then another solid starter with with Ken O'Brien you're probably not going to get that you might but history suggests that that's pretty unlikely so if you end up with the quarterback that busts in this then you have a problem because we've seen this cycle we saw with Christian Ponder where it's well we have to at least play the optics game long enough that people think we were right about him. And maybe Kweisi wouldn't do that to the degree that Rick did. But they spent – I mean, Rick spent so much time talking about that 2012 season finale

where Ponder had a number of big throws. Aaron Rodgers threw for like 370 and was throwing darts all day. But Ponder hit, I think, a deep crosser to Jarius Wright. And, hey, this is the sign that he can be the next guy. And his numbers compare favorably to Drew Brees and Eli Manning through year one and two. I mean, you heard a lot of those things. And then ultimately, they realized Ponder's not the guy. So we lose a coach.

And then you have to start this whole thing over. That would be the banana in the tailpipe, is if the quarterback busts. And then you're either playing this game of trying to convince everybody that he's not a bust, that you just need to give it more time, or it's how do we reboot this thing if we have given up our 2025 first rounder, you're not giving up on the new guy that quickly. But say you are investing assets into this guy and investing reputation certainly into this guy and investing reputation,

certainly into this guy, and then you have to go back and do it again. That's where the questions become, okay, you missed the last time. Are we going to allow you to do it again? I mean, with Rick Spielman, the answer was yes. And then yes, again, and probably yes, one more time. But are the Wilfs going to do that with this group? And what types of decisions get made by people who are motivated to save their skin? I think that's always the question. We saw that at the end with Zimmer and Spielman was when your motivation becomes, I'm trying to save my job because if I get this right for the long term and it becomes somebody else that gets the benefit of it, what good does that do anybody? That does start to change things. And we've seen all of that life cycle of miss a quarterback, try to hang on,

try to put it back together, and then it's just try to save a job. We saw that cycle. So that's the one thing I would say. But sitting here now, it's a good plan. It's just everybody has good plans on paper. You've got to make them work. Folks, if you don't know what a VPN is, you might actually need one and not even realize it. If you already know the positives, you also might not be using the right product.

In either case, you want to check out Surfshark. VPNs keep your information safe and anyone who tries to track what you're doing online will not be able to do so if you are using Surfshark. IP addresses, what you're searching, what games you're playing, or what shows you're streaming will belong to you and you only. Plus, if you use a VPN, you can virtually travel the world from the comfort of your own home, and Surfshark gives you over 100 countries to choose from. Once you change your virtual location, you'll be able to bypass censorship and restrictions, find your favorites on Netflix, Hulu, Disney, and other streaming services, and even access new libraries to watch even more content.

Can't see a YouTube video because of your location? Use Surfshark VPN. Can't access that one website to buy limited edition sneakers? Use Surfshark VPN. Try Surfshark today totally risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Get Surfshark VPN at surfshark.deals slash purpleinsider.

Enter the promo code purpleinsider for three extra months for free. You heard me right, three extra months for free. That is surfshark.deals slash purpleinsider. Yeah, and I'll bury this take 35 minutes into the show that I think that Bill Belichick and Mike Zimmer are basically the same guy, but one had Tom Brady. And we all know this, that you are a genius or a fool

based on whether that quarterback is great or not. That's why Kirk Cousins was always so difficult because he made geniuses out of offensive coordinators where people would say, wow, Kevin Stefanski got this much out of Kirk, hire him. But he made fools out of head coaches because at the end of the day, they didn't win enough games. And if they draft a guy who doesn't work out, everyone is fired. I think we all know that. But the thing is, what's the other option? I mean, the other option was doing the same thing over and over again and ending up with the same results and the same results are probably fired anyway. And other than that, I mean, what, Russell Wilson, you want to be Pittsburgh? Yeah, no. I, when people were bringing up Justin Fields,

I was like, what? Like Justin Fields, do you want, again, do you want to get fired? Like the only way to do this is to try to draft that guy and put him in the best possible position. And this is what I'm leaning on here, Ben, is that the Vikings are not going to trade Justin Jefferson to Cincinnati. I don't know where that comes from, but that was a thing for a minute because it is so absolutely vital to the success of the player, of what they have around him. And if you just went back and like totally changed things around,

think about it this way. What if Christian Ponder had Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, Kevin O'Connell from the start? Now, is he ever a great quarterback? And Michael Jenkins and Jerome Simpson. And then he doesn't lose his confidence. And he game manages his way to a bunch of wins because he's got great receivers. What if Teddy Bridgewater, who, by the way, was throwing to Charles Johnson

and Mike Wallace? What if Teddy Bridgewater came along at a different time where they had Diggs and Thielen, and, of course, his knee didn't explode? He did have Diggs and Thielen just on the bench, which is the funny thing. Right. It took him half of a month to see, hey, Diggs is pretty good. We should play him. It took Charles half of a month to see, hey, Diggs is pretty good. We should play him. It took Charles Johnson to get hurt.

Cordero Patterson as well, sitting on the bench and watching bad wide receivers. Although, shout out Jerry's right, who's a good player. JJ sat on the bench for two weeks. Not as good as Diggs and Thielen. But the point just being that when you look around the league, there's a couple guys who are transcendent. I really think that you could take the roster from the Keanu Reeves movie, the replacements and put Josh Allen on there. And he would win a lot of football games. I do not think that that

is the case with most quarterbacks. This scenario allows the highest percentage chance for your guy to succeed. And that's all they can really really do so I know that it always ends up in being fired if it doesn't work out but as far as process goes having the whole thing set up for the guy kind of actually reminds me of Carson Wentz in Philadelphia he wasn't even that good but they gave him like Elshon Jeffrey, Torrey Smith, the best offensive line in the league, a running game, Zach Ertz like you're doing everything you can to make this guy succeed. Yeah, I agree with that. And I think it's easier to get there when Kirk Cousins was not their pick or their free agent signing. They did not have reputation staked in Kirk Cousins. They inherited

Kirk Cousins. So it becomes a little easier to say we're moving on because there's not the admission that we were wrong or it didn't work out quite how we wanted that is attached to it when you weren't the one that signed him. So I do think that changes when it's the guy that you draft, but it also is not plausible to expect somebody that inherits a team, a new coach, new GM, to go much longer without making a stamp on the quarterback position. They were going to do this at some point of, we want to get our guy and we want to develop this thing in the way that we want to. And the way that it works out too is, if you sign Justin Jefferson this offseason, most of the years of Justin Jefferson's prime are going to come with a cheap quarterback.

I mean, you are going to have Drake May or whoever it is that you take in the first round under a cheap deal through 2028. And that's going to bleed a lot of the cash of the Jefferson deal out. And then you're going to have to make a decision on Jefferson probably again, but that's fine. You'll deal with that in four or five years, but most of his prime, most of his big 25, 26, 27 years, you were going to pair him with a quarterback that's on a cheap deal. And in the case of Drake May, you would be pairing him with a quarterback that does not turn 22 until the end of August. So there is a lot of financial alignment in doing it that way as well. And, you know, we have seen a lot of teams get to this point with, do we have the expensive quarterback or do we have

the expensive receiver? The Packers got here with Adams. The Chiefs got here with Tyreek Hill. They obviously picked the quarterback. Both of those quarterbacks are going to be gold jacket guys that have Super Bowl MVP trophies. So that's a little different conversation than it is with Kirk Cousins. But you may have that discussion. They hope to have that discussion in five years if it's Drake May versus another deal with Justin Jefferson. But you can deal with that. The Chiefs showed us this year. You can deal with that if you have the quarterback locked down. So I think even those conversations

get a little bit easier to do it that way. And ultimately, even if it's a little bit of a bumpy road in the first year of it, I think financially it makes a lot of sense and puts them in a much different, probably much better spot financially than they were for most of the time that either of us have covered this team. Oh, my far, it's always been a discussion of like waiting for you to tweet out how much cap space they have,

every structure of every contract looking, are there void years? There better not be. Ah, there's void years for Dean Lowry. Dang. Like, you know, that's a, that doesn't have to be a thing now into the future or those void years don't have

to kill you now in the following season, if you do have to put those into a contract. So, uh, on the Justin Jefferson front, uh, here's what I've been saying on the show, Ben, everybody just take a deep breath, just sit on the bench for a little bit. Just chill. Just relax. Justin Jefferson will not sign until he knows what they're doing. Well, that's great because he was never going to sign today anyway. He was going to sign in August or early September.

The way that these have played out historically is they always get a little ugly and they always get resolved at the end. And everybody goes away a little ugly and they always get resolved at the end and everybody goes away a little happy and a little unhappy. And I think that that's, what's going to happen with Justin Jefferson, the same way it went with Nick Bosa, that it's so benefits him to just sign a contract that we'll get there. But along the way, you have to really ignore the noise because every insider wants to be like, could something happen here? Most of NFL content is built, and I'm guilty of this very much.

Could this happen? And you're like, well, in this case, I don't think anything other than him signing could happen. But am I wrong in the way that I have been talking about? No, you're not. And I think on the NFL content front, it's the nature of the beast when we cover a league that plays 17 games and not 162. You spend more time in the NFL than in any other sport talking about what could happen or what might happen or, I guess, digesting at a deeper level what did just happen.

Because there are just fewer things that actually happen than other sports in the pure sense of this game was played, here's how it went, here was the score. We don't have as much of that to go with. So there's a little more of that built into the nature of this particular beast. But no, I don't think that you're wrong by telling people to take a breath because, number one, these things don't get done in March. they get done when it's about time to go to training camp or it's about time to get ready for the season I don't think after last year when Justin Jefferson turned down a deal that would have made him the highest paid receiver in the league to hold out for a little bit more money which is his right to do it it was two years out

it's fine but then you get hurt and then you see the risk you are taking by not signing that deal. I think the fact that he missed as much time as he did, if that happens to you in your free agency year, that's a different story. I don't think he will turn down the money at this point because ultimately all of this stuff, we can talk about positioning as much as we want. But in the end, it comes down to a 24-year-old staring at a check, staring at a contract that has, we will give you this much with this many zeros in it, in a signing bonus right now to say nothing of the base salaries. You will get a check next week for this much. And you can either choose to walk away from that, or you can say,

I'm taking that and I won't have to think about money for the rest of my life, no matter what happens if I manage it the right way. So I think it gets done. I think there's every incentive for it to happen, both on his side and theirs. And I get it that you'd want to understand what's going to happen with the quarterback.

I just don't see it as an issue because the timing allows that to happen anyway. They're going to do what's going to happen with the quarterback. I just don't see it as an issue because the timing allows that to happen anyway. They're going to do what they're going to do at quarterback. I think they will keep him abreast of what they're going to do. I think that's fine, but I don't think ultimately him making the quarterback pick is going to happen, nor is it going to need to happen to get him to sign a contract. I just don't think it's that big of an issue. It is one of those things where everybody

has a vested interest in either carrying a certain side of it or just digging it up again for something to talk about, whatever that happens to be. The motivations for that don't have a whole lot to do with how this actually goes. And I think in the end, whether it's July or whether it's August, he will have a deal done and they'll be doing the press conference with the Brohugs and everybody will live happily ever after, they hope, beyond that. So I don't see it as an issue whatsoever. Well, and yeah, that's how I've been looking at it. And it's just that we've gone through this many times. We've just seen it play out and it always has drama. And then at the end of the day, everybody says, all right, it's kind of like the, the office scene where they're all pointing finger guns at each other. It's just like, well, I'll, I'll leave. Like, and then they're like, no, you won't. Cause you can't, cause there are franchise tags. And it's like, what are you doing? A quarterback is like, it's not your business. You have nothing to do with that. I'm the GM.

You know, it's kind of funny, but we'll get there, I think. And if we don't, then I'll be quite shocked. I do have a present for you, Ben. Okay. To finish the show, the Minnesota Vikings hired Josh McCown. What a dream come true. I mean, all the years we've talked about Josh McCown in different ways. Now he's here. I can't wait to meet him. We haven't met him yet. Just I'm excited. This guy

has been everywhere. And what I want you to tell me is all the places he's been. So I have his Wikipedia page up here on my phone and it's got listed all of the teams that Josh McCown played for. And I feel like it should be even more here, but how many of the teams can you name that Josh McCown played for? So we're looking for a total of 12. Is that right? Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, technically 13 because one was in another league. Oh yes. Yes. There was like a UFL thing or something.

There was, but that counts if you don't get it. I'm going to pass on that one for now. Okay. I'll give you that one. In 2010, he played for the Hartford Colonials of the UFL. Shout out to the UFL. Great league. Denny Green, Dante Culpepper in that league.

Yeah. We can do a deep dive on the hartford colonials another time but i'm sure it was an epic run with that franchise uh we have the cardinals as any vikings beat writer would know he played for the cardinal yeah through a notable touchdown pass to nate pool um the browns which is where he would have met kevin o'connell correct 2015 2016 yep the jets where he met sam darnold and the other half of that meme with them fixing their hair. Yeah,

it's a great meme. I mean, it is. It is. But they caught that. Are the, are the bucks in there? The Tampa Bay bucks are remember that he had an epic run with another

team that you haven't named yet and got a pretty big contract to be the quarterback of the Bucs, and it didn't work out too good. But who did he have the epic run with? Now you should remember this. Epic run. It was like a seven-game absolute heater for Josh McCallum. Yeah, gosh, who the heck was that with?

It's not far from home. Oh, the Bears. That's right. Yes, the Bears. Yes, that's right. Yes, he did have a crazy run with them. They've had a few guys that they've made momentarily famous with some of those types of runs, like Jim Miller.

I think that was the guy in 2001 that they just – they won 13-3 and caught every possible break, and I think that was the guy. Well, they had Kyle Orton where he threw like nine touchdowns and they won 13 games. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they've had a couple of those kind of seasons.

Rex Grossman and so forth. Yes. All right, so you got some work to do still here. Titans, I think, right? Did you say Titans? Yeah. He was not with the Titans. No.

Okay. So let's see here. Texans? Texans is correct. Yes. 2020. Yep. Okay.

So that's six. Was he in Buffalo at one point? He was not. He played in a playoff game with another team, though. Yeah, let's see here. Quarterback got hurt. He came into the playoff game. It was his one and only playoff game.

Played pretty well. Wow. All those years, he only had one playoff game. Gosh, why am I getting stumped on these? Quarterback got hurt. That would be the Philadelphia Eagles where he came in. I was going to say, I know there's an Eagles thing in there. Was there a Seahawks in there?

There was not a Seahawks. He played receiver briefly for a team, though, that you haven't mentioned. Gosh. You're going to have to sharpen up your McCown. This guy's in the building. It's kind of hard. There's some I didn't remember, but this one I did. The Colts were in there, right?

The Colts are not. He played receiver briefly for the Lions. Oh, yes, yes. And then there are some other ones. Do you want another guess or two, or should i reveal some of the other ones we should i will take like one more guess but i am doing poorly enough at this that we should cut it because it's not that interesting for people to listen to um yeah it feels like there has to be like a is there a bengals in there there's not a bengals but you're sort of like barking up the right tree so i'll just take you through josh mccown's career

here start off with arizona then to detroit oakland which i kind of uh yes miami carolina Miami, Carolina, Hartford Colonials, 49ers, Bears, Bucks, Browns, Jets, Eagles, Texans, and then was the quarterback coach last year for the Panthers, and now he has arrived with us at TCO Performance. It's a storied run. He's sort of the quarterbacking equivalent of Levon Hernandez, where it's like he's picked for everybody. And he's got a lot of stories, a lot of information, a lot of knowledge to carry on from all those years. Cannot wait to run through some of that with him.

Ben, great stuff. Except for I'm disappointed in the McCown guessing. I'm a little disappointed in myself too. I got to be honest. Well, you know, you've been focused on some other things over the last week or so. A busy week. I got half, but then kind of fell apart. Yeah, yep, yep.

Well, you would think also that random guessing would actually do well for you with this, but you just – Seriously. Like, there's enough teams that you think you just got to bark up the right tree with some coach that's been around a long time that brings them in. Just throwing darts like the NFL draft. Anyway, great stuff though, Ben. And the Vikings Access podcast, the must listen to with you and Kramer. And of course the Star Tribune. Really don't have to tell people where to get that.

So great stuff as always. And we'll see each other down at the owners meetings and we'll go from there in a very interesting off season. Thanks. Sounds good, man. Thanks for having me. Always fun.