Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Star Tribune's Mike Rand talks about quarterback hindsight

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

Matthew Coller talks with Star Tribune's Mike Rand about hindsight and quarterbacks. How do we judge whether the Vikings should have picked a QB or not? And then Matthew answers fan questions pertaining to Danielle Hunter's future and which QB would fit best with Kevin O'Connell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by PrizePix. Go to prizepix.com and use the code PURPLE for a first deposit match up to $100. prizepix.com, code PURPLE. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, along with Mike Rand of the Star Tribune, and also has launched a new newsletter where you talk about your feelings, the Friskelating Dusklight. What in the world is that? I didn't know you were going to talk about that. Yeah, it's – how do I describe it?

Yeah, it's the Star Tribune Substack. I've been like – I've had a lot of like creative kind of energy lately. So it's like I just – obviously, I'm not busy enough with a podcast of my own and writing at the star Tribune and doing all this other stuff and dad life. But I write up a little bit about dad life, a little bit about kind of modern life. Um, yeah, it's been a lot of fun. And the first gliding desk light is, you know, it's basically like a long elaborate, not inside joke, but it's basically like a, a line from one of my favorite movies, the Royal

Tenenbaums. It's basically like a fictional book from The Royal Tenenbaums. Oh, okay. Because I wondered, I haven't seen that movie. And I was like, I don't know what this is supposed to be. The reason I brought it up was to compliment you on it. I think that your writing going outside of just looking back at how the twins may have let go David Ortiz or something

has, I think you've shown a new skill here. And I was thinking that some people would really enjoy that. So I appreciate that. Yeah. Yes, please do check that out. So anyway, speaking of what the local team should have done, that's why you're here. I wanted to, I wanted, I've been thinking a lot about the draft. You, I'm sure you're shocked by that drafting quarterbacks and so forth. It's Senior Bowl week, so we're kind of in between football games, waiting for the Super Bowl, and then all the big stuff that starts to happen with the Vikings offseason.

And it's been on my mind, as I can be snarky from time to time, watching the playoffs and thinking about, well, the know, the Vikings could have had that guy. Or, you know, maybe the Vikings should have drafted that guy instead. Or, hey, you know, if you just take a swing at a quarterback. Or, hey, when your quarterback is mediocre and can only get you the first round of the playoffs, then you draft Patrick Mahomes. Sometimes it works out for you. There's been a lot of that. So what I wanted to, may I go on?

What I wanted to ask you, and then we'll get into some of these from recent vikings history i wanted to ask you fundamentally when is it okay to look at your team and go you should have done that you should and especially as it pertains to the quarterback position when is it okay to second guess that's a good question right because like it's the quarterback position feels so fluid like unless you're like green bay and you have this bizarre succession plan where you replace your hall of famer and make a guy sit on the bench for three years and then you you know bring in a guy and he immediately has success like it's it's a crapshoot right like and a lot of the hindsight is like well you already had a guy and he immediately has success. It's a crapshoot, right? And a lot of the hindsight is like, well, you already had a guy.

You didn't know what was going to happen. I think one of the ultimate hindsight moments is Vikings fans like to complain about, oh, they should have drafted Aaron Rodgers in 2005. Look at what happened. It's like, well, they had Dante Culpepper. Dante Culpepper had one of the greatest seasons a quarterback has had in history in 2004. They didn't know the boat scandal was going to happen. They didn't know he was going to tear his knee in 18 places. Like that was, you know, that's judging.

That's like going back and saying, well, you should have I think it's fair when like you get to a point and you're like, okay, I think it's fair to say, look at, look at Kirk Cousins' second contract. Should they have done that? I think that's where you start to be like, that's fair. I think what's maybe not fair is to say, oh, you went to the NFC title game in 2017. Why didn't you draft lamar jackson in 2018 like i think that would have been great like they they were certainly in a position where they drafted i think 30th that year and lamar was taken 32nd like that would have set them up for a great future but i don't know if that's realistic okay so that's a great place to start because i wanted to go over some of these and try to re-engineer whether fans and maybe me are allowed to be snarky about it because the Lamar Jackson one is one that I think you could have seen coming in a few different ways. I mean, number one is quarterback sometimes drop in the draft, even if they are good. Right. And he was a project quarterback, or at least that's how it appeared. I don't think anyone could have predicted that he would be as great as he was as fast as he was, but they were signing cousins to such a

short-term contract that it felt like they were just going all in for this like 2017, 2018, and not necessarily for the longterm. And they already had a team that could compete for the NFC championship. So if you've got a rare opportunity to take someone with the potential over years to be great. Now this does take a lot of explanation. So I could understand where you might say, all right,

well, okay. Once you've said all that, but at the time, this was something that I thought about a lot. And you could even take it a step further and say if they had brought back case and teddy and drafted Lamar Jackson that that option was very real and on the table yeah I agree with that that's where I think you could say hindsight

you're like okay um see if case Keenum can do it for another year you still got teddy on his rookie contract at that point or fifth year option i guess it would have been in 2018 um so you you've got this like hey run it back with case see if the magic is real but then draft a guy for the future like that you're not going to sign cousins to 84 million guaranteed for three years and then draft a guy in the first round to sit behind him that's not realistic but signing case keenum to like a two year middle of the road deal, which is like, I think what he got with Denver. I can't remember what exactly his contract was with Denver, but it was probably something like that. Like two years, $30 million, like 20 guaranteed. I don't remember exactly what it was, but like he

got paid off of that one year. Um, they probably would have struggled somewhat in 2018, but you know what? Uh, 2018 wasn't great anyway they were eight seven and one they missed the playoffs like that that's the one where you could say if they had decided they didn't want to go all in on kirk cousins you could have bridged it by saying let's let's try this let's like do a little bit of the dabble in in this lane in that lane which is maybe what they're going to wind up doing this year to a certain degree we'll have to see there is a point to be made that they didn't know lamar jackson was going to be picked 32nd so that's another thing that we now know and we found out on draft night but most mock drafters around that time had him in the middle of the first round so the front office may have felt like

these quarterbacks are going to go off the board, but there were five that were taken that year. So there was a lot of potentially available players that they could have gone after had they decided to bring Case Keenum back. I think this connects back to pressure on front offices. When you win, there's so much pressure to win again that even if they should have been thinking all right well will this guy really get us over the top or not and and look there was a good argument for it for for kirk cousins because the whole team basically was coming back but if you took a little bit longer term of approach you would have ended up with lamar jackson and i think i think it's one of those that is probably more hindsight

than at the time. Uh, but I still felt like they could have drafted Lamar Jackson at the time, because you should always be looking multiple years out. And that sort of felt like they were trying to, you know, make up for Terrence Newman aging or something by drafting a cornerback. And, you know, I forget what they picked. Who did they they oh they picked brian o'neill after that so yeah it's mike hughes and brian o'neill right right right and brian o'neill was great right away when he was put in so i mean obviously offensive line no one's going to argue with that now there's another sort of what if quarterback situation connected to this that never gets brought up never gets i want to hear it i want to hear it the sam bradford trade does not get talked about ever because sam bradford played okay and it wasn't his fault that they fell apart in

2016 that was tj clemmings fault uh the whole offensive line was terrible they had like they played like 12 guys that year everybody got hurt it was terrible when you go back, though, and they make that trade, and you look at the next year's draft, it has Patrick Mahomes in it. It also has Deshaun Watson, who we didn't know had his issues, to be very, very polite. Is that regrettable in hindsight? Is that one we should actually criticize more for making that Sam Bradford trade or not? I mean, it's viable. I mean, I think they thought, you know, look at, you kind of put yourself in Rick Spielman's position,

which, you know, I don't always like to do that, but let's put yourself in Rick Spielman's shoes, right? They were coming off, they were 11-5 the year before, had just won the NFC North. So I think, again, we're talking about the pressure to still win to still sustain kind of what you had bridgewater had a you know a good year in 2015 but he was he was you know kind of we didn't know what he was going to become at that point but they didn't have much behind him obviously right so they're they're kind of making a panic trade they're like oh my god like we did not have a plan b so that piece of it you're opening a new stadium um you know it's the new billion dollar stadium you got that piece of it piece to it but from a pure football standpoint yeah they

rushed into it right like giving up a first round pick in what what was the pick it was in 2017 it must have been right because the trade happened like right around the it was right around the state fair it was like very like late in the late in the hole i think it was at the state fair when i heard that trade went down it was late in the whole thing he didn't even play week one right it was uh who played it was sean hill played in week one and then then it was uh then bradford took over and right played well they started that year five and oh i mean we tend to forget that they started five and oh so that team definitely had potential the year after that they go to the mc title game so the you know specific things broke down but yeah hindsight you could say did you need to take that big of a swing

or could you have just gone into like waited for cutdowns or found a team with a backup that was like ah this guy's probably not going to play as much as we thought he was going to be we need someone who's at least a little bit better than sean hill or something like that and try to go that way. I think there's an argument to be made that that's fair to be criticized. So I was on my way to the state fair just days after moving to Minnesota and the news broke as I was arriving to talk with our friend Patrick Royce on 1500 ESPN. Yeah, that was my first time on the air. Minnesota was breaking down a trade that had just happened with the Vikings acquiring Sam Bradford. And at the time, and this was me just arriving on the spot, I thought it made sense because they had won the

division the previous season and had brought back a big portion of that team. And when you had a defense of the caliber of theirs, which we had expected to be top five. And I think ultimately finished top five. Then all you needed was a game manager type to put you in position to potentially compete in the playoffs. So I understood it. But I think in hindsight it doesn't reflect very well at all. Because Sam Bradford ends up getting hurt. Case Keenum ends up going to the NFC championship and the strength of that team the year after was so strong

that even if you had drafted a rookie in the first round, that player might've been able to come in and play right away with a team that strong. And it did, it did hurt them. Now the guy that ironically, the guy that was used for that draft pick was Derek Barnett who got a sack in the Super Bowl to end the Super Bowl on the field at US Bank Stadium because there's always a hilarious connection but that one that one I think was much more understandable and Sam Bradford turned out to be a really good fit and if he doesn't get hurt at the beginning of 2017 we might have been talking about the Super Bowl minnesota vikings yeah i mean that's possible although you know you look at that year case keenan was what like second and total qbr that year like he had this this year out

of year out of nowhere and was you know was spectacular for them that year but yeah it's it's all this like this whole connected chain where I don't know where you want to start, but it's like you can go back as far as you want. Do you start at Favre, and then Favre breaks down. They've got no real succession plan, so then they've got to draft Ponder. That doesn't work out, so they've got to draft Bridgewater. Bridgewater gets hurt, so they've got to go to Bradford. Bradford gets hurt, so they go to Keenum.

They don't believe in Keenum long-term, so they sign Cousins, and now they still got Cousins. Somewhere in there, they haven't really taken their shot in a decade at drafting their guy. They've just kind of patched it together and then had Cousins for the last five, six years. So it's interesting. You almost wish, knowing what you knew about that team, and I'm sure Mike Zimmer wishes knowing what he knew about that team, that they had somewhere in there identified their next quarterback of the future, because then you've got your cost control for another four years. Then you don't have to spend 28 and 35 and however much you're spending on

the quarterback. You've got those wide open spaces that he liked to talk about at the 2018 combine, instead of this kind of confined window where it all falls apart and they can't pay the guys on defense and they just kind of get old at the wrong time so much of this is unforeseen knee injuries now sam bradford maybe you could have predicted but with teddy bridgewater for example like would you go back and maybe draft Jimmy Garoppolo? Probably because Jimmy G got a team to a Super Bowl, similar strength. Like you could debate how good he is, but similar type of situation where they were defense, run the ball, and then the quarterback just has to do enough. But I still feel like Teddy Bridgewater was the best of the quarterbacks that they could have taken at the time.

Teddy, Derek Carr and Jimmy G. have taken at the time teddy derrick carr and jimmy g and i think he was on that track or at least equal or in the ballpark but maybe maybe better considering what he was going to have at wide receiver eventually um versus what he had in 2014 and 2015 i think he could have become that good of a quarterback maybe a jimmy g type and yet the knee injury happens to them and it sends them into a mad scramble and And then it's a mad scramble once again, when they make the decision to move on from case and bring in Kirk, because the owners want to get back to the NFC championship and they want to get over the top this time. And everybody thinks that the roster is really great. Now that is defensible because it would have been hard to

convince me when they signed Kirk cousins, that they wouldn't have been in the playoffs in that 2018 season where it becomes harder. I think is recently to defend, not taking shots at a quarterback specifically. They resigned Kirk in 2020 coming off the 2019 season. The whole team is rebuilding. It didn't really fit with a veteran quarterback who was kind of in a win now spot. So I went back and looked about the quarterbacks that they could have taken. And there's not a lot, though. This is kind of a bit of the issue is there's Jordan Love, Jalen Hurts, Justin Fields or Mac Jones, Kenny Pickett, Will Levis.

So there hasn't been a lot of opportunity there for where they were drafting to be able to take these quarterbacks. I think it really comes down to they should have gone into a full rebuild type of mode to have a draft pick at the top at some point and never did that. And that's the problem when you've got a ownership that doesn't want to do that. Like they never want to be three and 14. They don't want to do that. Nobody wants to go three and 14, but they don't want to even have the pain of one single year where they're irrelevant because, you know,

that can dilute the fan base, things like that. And, you know, you've got a coach and a GM that probably got into self-preservation mode at a certain point, right? You've got, you had the Zimmer in the playoffs every other year, 15, 17, 19. It's like, Hey, if we're going to keep our job, it's like, it almost felt like every other year they were like, Oh, they're kind of on the hot seat. And then it was like, okay, in 2020, you could say, well, it was the pandemic year and you know, things didn't go the way they wanted to, but

they just got, they just, you know, the year before they'd won a playoff game. So let's try to run it back. And then 2021 wasn't any good, and then they finally had to clean house and get rid of those guys. But they never really did the rebuild. They never really committed to something else. That quarterback didn't really commit to that full-on rebuild, and they really haven't even yet. They're trying to still straddle this line, this competitive rebuild we always talk about. With Quasey's words, I don't know if that's motivated so much by him again, as much as it is the Will family not

wanting to do a rebuild rebuild. But it is interesting that they could have made different decisions at a certain point, even if the quarterback wasn't there, even if the quarterback didn't ultimately end up being someone they could have taken. You're right. They might have had a season somewhere in there where they were bad enough that they could have gotten the quarterback that they now have for the next 10 years which they just don't right now so all of this leads me to this point okay uh this is this is 17 minutes of looking back at the recent history only to make this very point that throughout the time that i've been here there's been a lot of reasons to do what they've done at quarterback to where it's really hard to second guess totally and say

why did you sign cousins or why did you trade for bradford because they always had a reason they always had a roster or they always had pressure on the people who were in charge, or they wanted to justify a decision chasing, like at the gambling table when you chase your last loss and so forth with the Cousins decision in 2020, that they need to stop doing that. And now is the opportunity that you could always justify it before. But I have a very tough time justifying it now.

And I think at the key center of this is Kweisi Yadafomensa and Kevin O'Connell's job security. And I think that if you allow them to not have so much pressure just on next season and say, you know so forth. If they have more of a multiple year idea for the decision makers coming all the way from the top, then they can make smarter decisions when it comes to this and more long-term decisions. How do you view that? Would you agree with that? I do. I mean, and I think I don't like their prospects in 2024.

And that's part of the reason why I don't think re-signing cousins makes a ton of sense like i feel like he probably would be their best quarterback option in 2024 just from a pure hey who's the best player they could probably get right now to play quarterback for them in 2024 it's probably kirk cousins like they're not going to be able to get into the top three of the draft i know they have the number 11 pick but they have the unfortunate distinction right now of of having of being far enough up that they could probably trade up to the top three in a lot of years. They happen to be in this draft right now where the top three teams all

need quarterbacks and are almost definitely going to draft quarterbacks. In most years, someone up there doesn't need a quarterback anywhere. There's like Arizona some year, like somebody up there doesn't need a quarterback. You can go up there and get it if you need it carolina did it last year with with the bears um but now you got the bears you got washington you got new england they all need a quarterback in the worst way so you're not going to be able to get up there and do that so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to think okay well you know run it back with kirk cousins maybe you can go 10 and 7 things like that like maybe but this roster has a lot of holes it has a lot of deficiencies like why not hit reset right now and get a little bit you know get a little bit worse next year to get a lot

better in hopefully 25 26 27 start the clock on your rookie quarterback. Figure this out somehow, however it's going to work out. Fall in love with Michael Penix Jr. or Bo Nix or J.J. McCarthy. I don't know if you can. I don't know who you're in love with. If you're the Vikings, if you love any of those guys enough that you're going to build around them, but start the clock with somebody. Move this thing forward because just a couple more years of Cousins, it's only kind of delaying the inevitable you're not you were never a super bowl team with prime kirk cousins with better players around him what makes you think you will be now i mean that's a great point is that when they signed kirk cousins and even through his first couple of seasons that is in the prime of his career and in 2019 i think think that was his best season where he really performed

at a super high level with Kevin Stefanski. And that was really their last shot where you could make an argument that the rest of the roster was strong enough to take you deep into the playoffs. It did not turn out that way. And I think they got a particularly bad matchup against the 49ers who had just an amazing defense that year. They shut down Delvin Cook and so forth, and sometimes that's how the playoffs work. But if you compare what they did in 19 to anything they've done since, including the 13-win season,

they outscored their opponents by 100-something points that year. They had an elite running game that year. Cousins had something like 107 quarterback rating. They have not been able to repeat those things. And now you have to make a bet on an Achilles and age. And you and I know a little bit about aging. So it's a yes, very much.

I woke up with a sore neck, stiff back, and I didn't even do anything. And I'm also about the same age as Kirk Cousins. So I know what's going on. And I'm also an elite athlete. No, I'm not at all. So it's a little bit different, but historically it's not friendly to anybody except for breeze Rogers, Favre Manning. And that's it. Even other Manning, Eli Manning, first overall draft pick by this age, he was done. Matt Ryan, top overall draft pick. By this age, he was in a lot of trouble. But how about this, Mike?

Let's just say, Kweisi calls you, as he might. He says, you know, your work in the Strib is average, but this new newsletter has really changed how I feel about you. So I want your opinion. Friscalate me with this. We're going to sign Cousins because the owners told us we have to how do we win how do we win what's the plan what do we do well you gotta you gotta improve the run game right like at this point the only thing that can probably extend someone like that who's got a

great grasp of the offense right and he was having a good year we forget that they started one and four sometimes but they were they were coming on they had beaten the the 49ers and the Packers in subsequent weeks and they were you know they were playing pretty well at that point you look there's hindsight they're like yeah they might have made the playoffs at least if cousins had been healthy that entire year there I think I saw a stat the other day that their run game DVOA has been 27th each of the two years under Kevin O'Connell. That's not getting it done. And some of it is scheme.

Some of it's the interior of the offensive line still hasn't been fixed. Some of it is they just didn't have great running backs last year. And the year before that, Dalvin Cook was maybe losing a step. They got to fix the running game. So I'd say if you are going to bring back Kirk Cousins under any circumstances and you're not sure how much you're going to get out of TJ Hawkinson next year because, hey, he had surgery for a torn ACL six months before the start of training camp, you got to fix your running game to give him any chance next year

because you got to stay out of those situations where they can just tee off on the guy who's coming off an Achilles, who's never been that immobile, have never been that mobile in the first place. So that's how I start to fix things. Maybe whatever money you have in free agency left over from after paying Kirk and his cap number probably wouldn't be that much different next year if you're paying him than if you're not paying him because he's got a $28 million hit for the dead money. If you still got some of that $25, $30 million left over, put it into some guards, please find some guards

who can start your run game and put some actual investment into the run game. Cause that's, I think how you could at least get yourself out of the box and be a more well-rounded team. And look at Detroit, look at San Francisco. They run the ball. You don't have to, you can still throw the ball a lot. It's nice to be able to run the ball too. Yeah. I think, uh think when we talk about, you know, the NFL of course is driven by passing efficiency. There's no doubt about it.

Kansas city's in the super bowl again with the greatest quarterback of our generation. However, it is really nice to run effectively. Really, really nice. And, and you,

you don't think my homes probably loves it when he hands it off to Pacheco and he like plows forward for seven yards. It's a great, it's the greatest time of his life because he doesn't have to do anything. And they just get free yards. The Vikings made everything hard on their quarterback quarterbacks this last year. And I think that's right because you're going to have to have a truly elite offense, the defense, there's no way to fix it in one year. Here would be my idea. You saw you sign cousins to a two-year deal and you still treat this year like a rebuilding year now you can't tell kirk that but and you have to hope

that the achilles stays tied up and that it doesn't affect his play too much and you still have to aim for 2025 but your hope for 2025 would be that you drafted the UCLA edge rusher, and he's a freak monster, and that you've gotten your salary cap right, and you've scheduled his biggest cap hit to not be that season. So you can make some sort of trade for some disgruntled superstar somewhere else. And that you've got Jefferson locked up, but not as expensive yet. Addison, fully healthy Hawkinson. You've developed some sort of running game along the way. And Brian Flores is still your defensive coordinator. I just don't see a path to being great in 2024. So to me, it would be try to be average enough

to be in the playoff hunt again and really aim for 2025. But to me, that's like a fireable offense to take that approach. If you're bringing back Kirk Cousins and if you're Kirk, you got to be like, why should I come back to that? If that's going to be your plan? Yeah, I agree with that. And I feel like, you know, there's a lot of tentacles to that, but like, are you drafting a quarterback at some point in that scenario? Or like, are you, here's a question for you. Like, are you comfortable signing Kirk cousins to two years with, you know, all are mostly guaranteed and still drafting a quarterback this year?

I would probably wait until next year. I would probably not do it this year because I need to get that freak show edge rusher. Cause my plan is to try to compete for the super bowl in 2025. So I will draft the quarterback before 2025 develop him through that season hope we win the super bowl and then turn it over to him and let kirk walk i don't know i mean you maybe you're looking for an alex smith type of situation at that point but i couldn't justify drafting because a rookie's not going to make that big of an impact no matter what you take it's not like a first round or second round or whatever they spend in 2025 they probably can right so that would have to be the thought process i think yeah i think that's true i think

the the hard part is i think that the vikings like this draft class and they've kind of like gotten themselves to this point where they've talked themselves into hey this is our shot to get the quarterback and they weren't quite bad enough this year to get it and they got this kind of weird 28 million dollar you know dead money hanging over you with with kirk cousins so maybe the play is what you're saying like i i've tried to talk myself into could you draft a guy this year anyway you You know, in the second round, maybe panic slides to 42, something like that. You let them sit for two years, learn under cousins, things like that. But so much of the value of the, of the young quarterbacks, isn't just that they can be good.

It's that they're cheap and you want that as much, as much of that as possible. So maybe you do wait until 25. I'm not deep enough into the 25 draft class to know how good it is. I'm sure there's going to be guys that people love at some point, but are you really going to be in a spot where you can get that guy in 25 though, if you have Kirk Cousins right now, because if you bring back Kirk Cousins, even if you're in kind of this Matthew Collar mini rebuild, you're probably not going to be any worse than you were this year, right? You're still going to be, your floor is still at least six or seven wins. What do you think they do? Ah, that's a tough one. I mean,

I think they might just have to keep Cousins. I think that's maybe going to be, it's not the most fun answer, but I would feel a lot differently. I guess I would feel a lot differently. I guess, I guess I would feel a lot differently if you saw a viable path for them to drop, to get into the top three. Cause I think they would love to do that. They try to kind of explore that a little bit last year, and that would have been pretty costly. Um, I just, I can't imagine one of those three teams saying, yeah, we'll pass on our quarterback of the future. so you can come up here and get that. We'll push that down the road because all three of those teams need quarterbacks so bad. I mean, maybe you could say the Bears could keep Justin Fields, but first of all, they're not going to make that trade with the Vikings.

Second of all, I don't see how this is even a discussion. They're going to do the Caleb Williams thing and they're going to trade Justin Fields. How can you do that? So if you can't get up there and I don't know what they, I don't know how exactly they feel about Pennix or Bo Nix or JJ McCarthy. I kind of fell in love with Pennix for a little while, but that national title game kind of scared me. Like, I guess what it would change my mind a little bit too, is knowing exactly what they think of that kind of next tier. Yeah. And it's hard to convince uh anybody that what you think of a quarterback doesn't matter aside from and i don't mean you i mean them i mean the league what the league thinks of these quarterbacks usually doesn't matter to whether they work out or not we just gave a bunch

of examples a lot of i mean everybody would have redrafted lamar jackson and patrick mahomes number one overall or josh allen uh youomes number one overall or Josh Allen uh you know number one overall but there was always questions there's always a reason not to there's a reason not to draft Jalen Hurts right there's always a reason not to draft the guy so what they have to believe in is their own ability to not identify quarterbacks I just can't see the Vikings with their former quarterback coach looking in the mirror and saying, you don't know. I could do that because I have looked at this

in 100,000 different ways, and I can never identify something that points to which quarterbacks will succeed or not, other than just the pure fact that the league is good at identifying which guys should go in the first round. That's why first-rounders

have way more success than seventh-round like brock purdy but aside from that i'd like them to just believe in the idea that taking one is the right way to go and then try to pair that with somebody who hedges a little bit like a gardner minshu or sam darnold or baker mayfield yeah i mean i've got no problem with that approach. I know from talking enough with my colleague, Ben Gessling, that they're not just going to take somebody that they think could be okay. They need to be in love with somebody. They need to think that this could be their special guy, that this could be their difference maker.

They're not just going to take someone because they're available or because they could get them. So that is where the conversation changes a little bit like i i've got no problem with it but they've also gotten themselves into trouble with this in the past like hey you can take the next christian ponder um you could do that um i don't think that's the right way to go and by the way i think i saw something the other day i can't remember where i saw it on on social media but the vikings have never drafted a quarterback in the top 10 in their entire existence i can't remember where i saw that but i thought that was interesting too like this if they've somehow swung some deal say

say the draft got weird but here's the thing too like they got to make a decision on cousins like six weeks before the draft so all of this is that that complicates it too the best quarterback that they took i mean shout out to tommy kramer Great, great quarterback. But Dante Culpepper, people hated it. When they did, they should have drafted Javon Curse. Why are they drafting a quarterback when they already have one? And he was the best quarterback they had until knees for whatever reason in this state. I don't know why, but that does happen. So, yeah, the many ways that they could approach this uh i think the

one that they won't is my favorite which is pick whichever guy you like who's available take him and if he doesn't work out then take somebody else next year and but can you sell that and can you sell that to kevin o'connell who might be a bigger stumbling block than the wilfs honestly because you have to convince him that it's got to be his guy and it's got to be the guy that he wants to be in lockstep with for the rest of his life. And my thing is, you don't have to be that. And look, Kyle Shanahan tried to draft his and spent three first rounders on it. And now he's playing a seventh rounder in the Super Bowl. So that is the life of uh right sometimes you never know and you know but the flip side of it quacey you know quacey would love nothing more than to be able to

trade down from 11 and still take a quarterback that would be his that would be o'connell's nightmare and quacey's dream right there uh considering how little draft capital they have in the top 100 uh they may have to try to do that so maybe that national championship game will play in their favor i don't know lots of ways this could go but i enjoyed our second guessing conversation here mike and again okay work at the star tribune meh great newsletter no i'm just kidding uh you are one of my favorite people at the strip so i'm just giving you a hard time but people know where to find you appreciate it it, Matthew. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for coming on, Mike. Catch you later. Folks, if you've been listening to the show, then you know how much fun we have

been having with prize picks this year. Just go to prizepicks.com slash purple. Use the code purple for a first deposit match up to one hundred dollars. And let me tell you how it works. If you haven't heard us talk about it enough yet or you haven't tried it yet. Very simple. There are yardage totals on prize picks. You either pick more or less and boom. Each week has been a roller coaster ride of fun. And the best part is that when I have a bad week, I didn't lose much. It doesn't cost much to play. You can turn 10 bucks into 250 very easily. And if things go sideways for you, you're not out a whole heck of a lot of money. That is prizepix.com slash purple, just more or less on yardage totals. And you are in prizepix.com slash purple, the code purple for a first deposit match

up to $100. A lot of you have been sending me DM questions or questions at purpleinsider.com. And I haven't gotten around to making a fans only episode recently. So here you are. If you can't participate in the YouTube chats and so forth, I still want to make sure that we get everybody's questions in. So the best way to contribute to a fans-only episode,

go to purpleinsider.com or go to my Twitter at Matthew Collar. Just send me a direct message and I will get it there and make sure I do my best to answer your questions on one of these episodes. And with a long off season ahead of us, we're going to have a lot to talk about as we go forward. So anything and everything for you is on the table. So let's dive right in to the questions that I've been a little slow in answering, but we'll get to them now. And I

appreciate everybody who took the time to send them. So here we go from Ryan. Does Daniel Hunter fit the Vikings time horizon? And when will we know we're going to very likely know similar to Kirk cousins at the start of free agency, because we haven't talked about it very much as it pertains to Daniel Hunter, but he actually carries a dead cap hit if the Vikings move on from him as well. The minute he hits free agency, I believe it's $14 million in dead cap hit hit the Vikings. So it's very unlikely that they would take a $14 million dead cap hit and then still circle back and sign Daniil Hunter. So it really comes down to getting an extension done before the start of free agency. So that's kind of when we'll know is that week leading up to free agency. If they get

an extension done, then, then he's coming back. Obviously, if they do not, then it is extremely unlikely that he would return as far as whether he fits the time horizon, it's a difficult question because Daniil Hunter is 30 years old, which is old but not ancient for an edge rusher. We've seen many edge rushers in the past go well past the age of 30 and still be very good contributors to their team. I think, what, how old was Vaughn Miller when he helped the Los Angeles Rams win the Super Bowl, but also Vaugh Von Miller, a cautionary tale that when he fell off, he fell off extremely hard.

And that's been the case for most rushers where they'll have a really good season and then all of a sudden it's kind of over and they don't have the same juice as they did before. And we are talking about somebody with an injury history that might concern the Vikings as far as signing him to a long-term extension. But I think Daniil Hunter kind of fits everything all the time. He fits every team. He

fits every situation. He fits every scheme. He played really well with Ed Donatel. He played even better with Brian Flores. He played great under Mike Zimmer. It doesn't seem to really matter what you do with Daniil Hunter. He's going to succeed. And if you look at the way the man is built and how he takes care of his body and also how he gets his sacks, it's not necessarily the quick twitch muscles where he's flying by somebody on the edge. Usually he's overpowering them or he's beating them in some sort of technical way

with hand fighting or whatever spin move that he has concocted. So he kind of strikes me as a player who could continue to have success through a dip or a rebuild type of season and then come back on the other side. I think the question would be for Daniil Hunter, do you want to be the entire pass rush again? Because unless the Vikings can spend a lot of money and sign other pass rushers, then he's going to have to carry a very heavy load. And Hunter might also want to go to a team that's going to be favored to win the Super Bowl because he's going to have all sorts of interest if he hits free agency. And this team has continued to kick the can down the road over and

over and over with Daniil Hunter as it pertains to his contract. They've never seemed to want to go all in. And at some point, if you're Daniil, you've got to say, well, I'd like to be with somebody who isn't just dating and wants to actually get married because the Vikings have been on year to year with him. And I think we finally saw some of that frustration from Hunter last year when he held out a couple of days at training camp before reworking his deal. And there were reports even up to the last minute that the Vikings were still very strongly considering trading Daniil Hunter. So I think from his perspective, he might just want to hit the free agency market.

He might want to go try to chase a championship with a team that's looking for one more edge rusher. But as far as whether he fits the timeline, I think he still does because if we're projecting him forward and we don't know as much about his medical situation as the Vikings, but if we're projecting him forward, he doesn't strike me as one of those players that will just lose quickness and fall off the face of the earth. He looks like a guy who's going to have an extended period of being a great rusher. But at the same time, when a guy has 16 and a half sacks before he's ready to hit free agency, the price is extremely, extremely high. I still think that they could do this, especially if Kirk Cousins did not come back and they could give him a very good paycheck.

And even if he had a high cap hit, we talk about this with Jefferson. Sometimes it's okay. If you have some expensive stars on your team, everybody doesn't have to be wildly cheap. I mean, go look at the 49ers and the Chiefs. They have a handful of players who are very expensive. You just can't have a million of those guys and an expensive quarterback. But if the Vikings were paying Hunter, Derrissaw, Jefferson, that's not too many, as long as they could build around those guys in some sort of crafty way with good free agent signings and drafting. But if they were to move on from him, they have so much to replace there, but they would also have the cap space that he leaves behind more so in 2025 to be able to do it. So yeah, I think it's very much on the edge, and I think

that they will have an offer for him. But the way things have worked in the Kweisi Adafo Mensah, Kevin O'Connell era is that they seem to put a price on a player. And if that, that player does not agree to the price, they're usually not going to come down. They're going to stay where they're at. So it will be on Daniil Hunter to decide, can he get more elsewhere or is he going to stay with the vikings i know that this man obviously cares a great deal about the vikings really loves being here but there's at some point where the market is so much higher than what you're getting offered that you have to go out and see so yeah i think that they could make it work with him but i right now would lean toward

him not coming back. I guess we'll have to see how that works out. But if they sign him, I won't say, oh my gosh, this win now move, what are they doing? Because the projection for where this thing is going is you're supposed to compete, really truly compete and build a stacked roster by 2025. And I think he would still be good until that. All right. Next question comes from john do we just have to believe in the process of quesadilla flamenza and kevin o'connell or are we going to

be a middling team for the next couple of seasons i mean that is the fundamental question that is on everybody's mind john i think everyone is thinking. Are you going to do something that looks like where you were headed from the beginning, which is to take apart the roster, fix the salary cap. You hope to gather draft picks, but they spent some on TJ Hawkinson, but try to rebuild through the draft and through young players and through cap space around a rookie quarterback contract. Everything that they did leading up to this point says that that was the plan. When they arrived here, they gave Kirk Cousins the shortest extension that they possibly could. And then after he had a great season in 2022, the Netflix audience loved him. He had comeback

win after comeback win. He and Kevin O'Connell seemed to be on the same page and Kirk Cousins had more joy and more fun and endeared himself more to the fans than he ever did before under Mike Zimmer. And they didn't give him a contract extension because they had a number. And when Kirk Cousins would not agree to that number, they did not move. And it might be very well the same situation here where they are going to put a number on what could we bring you back for and still spend money around you to try to be competitive. and that will complete the plan, the competitive rebuild plan with a draft pick in April. And so if that's what ultimately happens, then I would believe in that process as being the best possible version of a competitive rebuild. Would you have liked to hit on a couple more draft picks?

Of course, from the 2022 draft. And maybe that's one of the things that makes it a little bit harder is when you've got so many holes on your roster, there's probably an inclination to say, gosh, we really need that quarterback back because without him, our roster is not going to be able to take us somewhere. But we've seen that story play out a bunch of times. If you have just enough good players to form a starting lineup that's competitive, you probably don't have enough players to play 17 games and then multiple playoff games. And we witnessed what a couple of injuries on defense did to this team.

They need a longer term, over a couple years, build around a cheaper quarterback contract and maybe somebody that is a little more gifted in the art of escapability. I was watching today on Twitter, some highlights of Fran Tarkinson, and I thought, you know, scrambling quarterbacks are the rage, but it still worked way back then, didn't it? So, you know, I think that if they complete that from start to, I don't want to say finish, but from start to the point of moving on from Kirk Cousins, then I would give them a major thumbs up and say, you did exactly what you said you were going to do. Now, I think of course, that going into 2022, they could have

started this process faster or earlier. Doesn't necessarily mean tank, but meaning moving on from the old, bringing in the new. I don't think that Delvin cook or Adam Thielen or Eric Kendricks performed in 2022, like they did when they were in their primes. And if they had moved on, they could have started finding replacements for those guys then, but they didn't. That wasn't the plan that ownership hatched from the time that they were hired. They wanted to run it back and they won 13 games in doing so. And if the timeline ends up working out, like you won 13 games, then you won seven and drafted your quarterback. Then you had a rookie quarterback season where you were competitive or whatever happens. And in 2025, you have the expectation of being a serious

contender. Then I would have to say, like, trust that, believe in that. That was the right way to go. Who knows if it's going to work out because we've gone through this a million times with a rookie quarterback. But if you hit on that guy, then you have a great chance to build that complete roster that we've been talking about and talking about since the 2017 team disbanded going into 2020. But if they bring back Cousins, then it's a lot harder to believe in what you called the process, because what is the process? I thought I understood it. I thought I understood it from everything Kweisi Adapomenta has said since he got here, where he's laid it out in numerous press conferences,

and probably will do so again at the combine well i'll be there by the way and very very interested to hear the tone of the brass at the combine as it pertains to where they stand with cousins and the draft and all that sort of stuff but if they bring him back then it will look like they just took a different road, that they panicked, that they deviated at the wrong time, right when you had a chance with a draft that has multiple quarterbacks expected to go in the first round. So the trust factor, it really depends on this huge decision that is about to happen right now. And if they do bring back Cousins, then I'm going to have to see it. I won't be convinced by words.

I won't be convinced by signings. I will only be convinced as we actually see the team on the field, succeeding, winning the division, going deep in the playoffs, that that was the right move because we've seen it so many times. So the process will be very puzzling and confusing if they do end up bringing back Kirk Cousins. Connor says, KOC signed a four-year deal that would be up for renegotiation after next year, although you could do it now if they wanted to. How much do you think that him wanting Kirk back is to win eight or nine games

to keep ownership happy? Well, let me, let me put it this way about Kevin O'Connell and Casey Duffel-Metsa. One thing that they have going for them is their culture. And that is a brutal cliche in the NFL. Everybody talks culture all the time. And it's sort of this nebulous thing that

all coaches come in and say, we're changing the culture here. We've got to have a great culture. But when we pick it apart and we say, what is this really? There's a lot of tangible things, including the way the team continued to play. Think about the losses that they had toward the end of the season. Think about the last game of the season. They could have had the doors blown off them when they went to Detroit, but they had the ball with a chance to, I believe, tie the game. Yeah, tie the game late when Nick Mullins threw an interception. Look at the way that they played. Look at the way Justin Jefferson played in that game.

He didn't have to play in that game. Justin Jefferson could have said, I'm not playing in this game because if I get hurt, forget this. And he went and balled out and they had a good, a very competitive football game at the end. They battled, they barely lost to Cincinnati. They barely lost to Detroit. that there was cracks in the foundation, that players were questioning the coaches and the management, and there was guys head-butting. I never got that sense. We didn't hear any sort of little jabs and everything else. And trust me, after you've done this for a while, you've got pretty good radar when you're hearing those things.

And it didn't feel at all like this team was coming apart. In fact, they believed in themselves, I think, all the way through until they were officially eliminated. That ties back into the coach. And it appears, and it's harder to say with the front office, but it appears that the operation in general is more inclusive toward having everybody involved in decision-making and all those things that they were trying to sell from the very start. So the last question was about process. If you are the ownership and you're looking at the operation and the health of the operation, do the players buy into the coach? Can he keep them all pulling in the right direction? Can the general manager have everybody doing their job in the front office and contributing to the decision-making and then ultimately trying to go in the best way possible at every single decision, every position,

every free agent, every draft, whatever it is. And look, is that sort of a kumbaya utopia sort of thing? Yeah, a little bit. And ultimately, Kweisi Adafomensa is responsible for what happens. But just from a, how is this running? Did it hit a rough spot when you lost Kirk Cousins? Of course it did. It was bound to, but that shouldn't put anybody on a hot seat. And if they are executing their competitive rebuild plan, the way that it was laid out and the players are still buying in and you are playing competitive football, then I don't see a reason for ownership to look at this thing and say, oh, they had a six win season with a

rookie quarterback. You're all fired. I mean, I think about Buffalo and Sean McDermott a lot and what they did with getting Josh Allen. And the fact is they made the playoffs, then drafted Josh Allen, and then had a very tough year. Remember, they came to US Bank Stadium and won in 2018. After they'd had the doors blown off them in the first couple of weeks, they kind of looked like a mess. And Josh Allen didn't have the best first year, but he showed a lot of signs. They made progress.

They fought through it. They built around him. And they got through a down year without putting somebody as a head coach on the hot seat and i think if you look historically there are lots of coaches who have gone through downturns who were very competent coaches and had to bounce back by rebuilding their roster because there's only so much that a coach can do when you don't have the horses to actually compete. And they have to keep that in mind. And maybe the best example is probably Marvin Lewis getting

multiple chances to rebuild the Cincinnati Bengals and was successful in doing so. He made them a contender with Carson Palmer before he got hurt. That's going back a ways, but then did it again after some down seasons around Andy Dalton, when they could draft and they could put together some really good players. So if everything is functional, you should be patient. You should give it time. We shouldn't always be existing in this world of, Oh, they had a down season fired. Now my feeling on that is different. If you push all the chips into the middle of the table with Kirk Cousins. Then you are making a bet, which everyone is responsible for, from the general manager

to the coach to the ownership. They're all responsible if they make a bet on Kirk Cousins. Then if you win eight games, then you all should be let go because clearly you couldn't sell ownership on the right direction or you didn't make the right direction or you didn't do enough coaching-wise, general manager-wise wise, whatever it is to make the owner's direction work around Kirk Cousins. So I'm kind of of different minds on this, but I think that if Kevin O'Connell is terrified of being fired and that's why he wants Kirk Cousins back, I would direct him to the 2021 season and ask what happened? What happened there? The last person got fired in your position when they failed to make the playoffs at eight

nine with this quarterback. Are you sure that you want to take that risk? Another thing is to this four year contract thing is brought up pretty often. I don't care about it because in the NFL, everything is year to year. This whole warm, fuzzy feeling around the culture could change really fast. A lot of times the culture of an organization is only as good as its leadership in the locker room. And in recent years, the Vikings have had actually really good leadership in the locker room. I think that Justin Jefferson practicing every day in training camp,

things like that. I think Kirk Cousins over the last two years really took on a totally different role within that locker room as being a leader. Brian O'Neill, go back, they had Patrick Peterson, Eric Kendricks, a lot of great people were leading in that locker room. But if you lose some, or you bring in some that don't fit very well, things can be a little more dodgy. And I think about 2017 had an incredible locker room. 2018 did not. So sometimes it's hard to maintain and live and die on that culture. But as long as the operation is moving along the way that it was supposed to go, there's no reason to look at this group and say, oh, you had a down year.

Let's just get rid of you. That's not the type of ownership that I think the Wilfs have ever really been. In fact, they were more patient with Mike Zimmer than they should have been by about two seasons more patient than they really needed to be. So I think that they'll have the same feeling for Kweisi Daffel-Mensah and Kevin O'Connell. But a lot of that depends on what happens next. so i think that they'll have the same feeling for quesadilla fomenta and kevin o'connell but

a lot of that depends on what happens next uh this one comes from nathan do you think washington going with a defensive head coach affects their odds of trading out of the number two pick i think that you nathan really want that to be the case uh do I think that that's the case? No, I don't. I think that one of the most attractive parts of that job is that you get to pick Drake May or Caleb Williams or Jaden Daniels, and you get to build your franchise around that player. I mean, if I'm looking for jobs to take and I'm ranking jobs to take. Now, Washington is suddenly a good job to take despite all the years of being a terrible job that no one should want. Also in part, because their owner comes from the NBA, I think they're going to have a much more long view of how to build a team that's

a championship contender. I mean, they are the process 76ers. This is their owner. So this is the same guy who would be willing to take time and rebuild a team. If I'm a head coach, I am very happy to go to a place where I'm going to get a top quarterback out of the draft and then have time to build around him. But I don't see any world where they just stick with Sam Howell. I mean, if they were to draft a wide receiver, an offensive tackle, and I don't know that there's

any edge rusher that's ranked that high, but they did this once before and it cost them Tua or Justin Herbert, where they decided that it was more important to get Chase Young and stick with their current quarterback situation than it was to pick super get chase young and stick with their current quarterback situation than it was to pick super high at the quarterback position. And man, if they had picked Justin Herbert, then Ron Rivera might still be coaching there. I think that was that him. Yeah. He was still coaching there when that happened. Right. So that would have been a totally different world. And somebody said on Twitter, maybe it was Mitch Swartz, who was the former offensive lineman. Somebody was talking about how many coaches who got fired this year would not have been fired if

Patrick Mahomes was their quarterback. And the answer is probably Josh McDaniels still finds a way to get fired because he can't be a head coach in the league, but everybody else still has a job and probably went deep in the playoffs. And you know who knows that? Dan Quinn. Because when he went to the Super Bowl, his quarterback played like an MVP. Everybody in the world knows it. If you get that guy, you have job security and you get to be known as a genius in the NFL for a long, long time. So I don't think that it helps that the team, in my mind, the team you have to look at is

New England. Would new England be willing to say our roster is so far away that we need to think a couple of years out, or would they be on the opposite and think we need to get Kirk cousins and offer him whatever he wants? Cause we need to compete because Robert Kraft wants to win, does not want to lose, or we need to sign Baker Mayfield or something and trade out of that pick and get multiple picks and multiple wide receivers or offensive linemen to put around Baker Mayfield or Kirk Cousins. They have not been brought up at all as a Cousins location. I totally understand why. I don't think he's a Boston type of guy. I think he's much more

of a Midwest type of guy that might not want to be in a market that's that insane. But I mean, I think from their perspective, if they're looking at a Mayfield, looking at a Cousins saying we'll spend whatever, because we don't ever want to have a season like that again, then you might be talking about them potentially trading out. I still have a difficult time seeing that, especially going from number 11 to number three. And we don't have to relive how Dobbs mania costs the Vikings their playoff or their draft position, but it's not easy to go from that position all the way up. So what they have to bank on is maybe four or five being the spot where you could go up if Daniels drops past the top two.

We don't know for sure that the NFL is as high on Jaden Daniels as we are. I mean, think about Justin Fields was projected as a top two, three quarterback. We've talked about the Will Levis thing at length, but also even Mac Jones was discussed as being the pick that the 49ers traded up for. And they ultimately did not. It's not a hundred percent totally locked in that everyone looks at Jaden Daniels and says, we want that as our franchise quarterback. And I just use the example of Washington passing up on Tua and Justin Herbert. So you never know. It's hard to figure out, but I don't know if a defensive head coach changes that, especially a guy who had gone to the Superbowl on the back, largely of his amazing quarterback. Sarah says, do you think that the reason I keep seeing our

general manager saying they want Kirk back is that he doesn't think he'll be able to trade up in the draft. So this one connects with the last one. Well, uh, I think that the reason you would say you want Kirk cousins back is because the opposite sounds terrible. Like if you were to say, if you're Kweisi Daffelmensa and someone asks you in an interview, Hey Kweisi, uh, do you guys want Kirk back? And he said, look, man, I've been looking to get out from under this guy for years. Let me tell you, first thing I wanted to do when I got here was cut him, but they wouldn't let me. That would be a bad look. In fact, one of the first comments that he had as GM, unfortunately for him, in that USA Today piece,

was talking about how Kirk Cousins is just good and not great, which I'm sure went over super well and was a great first impression for everybody. So he's really trying to avoid stepping on toes. He's trying to avoid insulting a quarterback that has the respect of the ownership, the locker room, the head coach, and whose reputation over the last two years since this group came in has been one of a guy who's been very clutch and has played the position extremely well uh it's something that you don't hear me say much on the show because ultimately check down on fourth and eight at the end of the game but

her cousins played really well in that playoff game against the new york giants and probably deserve to win the game the way that he played. And so you can't look at that quarterback and the numbers he's put up, the way he's led them to wins, the toughness he's displayed, and how he won over the locker room over the last two years and say, no, man, I can't wait to get rid of that guy. It really comes down to a matter of with this group, with Adafo Mensah and O'Connell, just what we were talking about earlier, time horizon, timeline, where the organization stands, with this group, with Adolfo Mensah and O'Connell, just what we were talking about earlier, time

horizon, timeline, where the organization stands and the risk that goes along with Cousins being an older quarterback. But you're not going to disrespect him if you're Kwesi Adolfo Mensah. And the other thing is too, that you never know when your owner knocks on the door and says, you know what? I changed my mind. I was watching some Kirk Netflix and we decided we want him back. Make it happen. See you later. You would be amazed how often that happens in the NFL. And then a team does something and everybody goes, huh, that's kind of wild. I don't get that. Well, sometimes that's an owner knocking on a door and making a move themselves and calling their shot. I remember

there was a story way back when of the Buffalo Bills owner who decided that he wanted the Bills to draft Willis McGahee. Despite the fact that Willis McGahee had torn apart his knee and no one was going to draft him in the first round, he decided we're drafting him in the first round because I like him. And then they did it. So sometimes, you know how we do all those things, the analysis, the breakdowns and everything else of positional value and all draft capital and everything else. Sometimes an owner can just say, here's what I want. And if you're Kweisi Daffel-Mensah and you display any sort of disrespect toward Kirk Cousins, and then the ownership comes back and says, actually, we want him. That's going to be pretty uncomfortable, I would think.

So there's no reason for him to say anything negative. It reminds me a little bit, possibly, we'll see how it plays out, reminds me a little bit of the Delvin Tomlinson situation. Last year at the Combine, Kweisi Dalfomento was asked about Delvin Tomlinson, and he gave a long answer about why they wanted him back. He made no bones about it. We want Delvin Tomlinson back. He said that they both have collections of shoes or something, and he would love to keep talking shoes with Delvin Tomlinson,

whatever it was. I think it was shoes. And yeah, they let him walk because the price was too high so that's what we've gotten a lot of even with you know somebody like daniel hunter where it's a lot of compliments we want them back but at the end of the day you know players are very human and have feelings and that matters and the whole culture thing. But you brought in a guy with an economics background to understand the commodities that are players and to understand and put a finger on what they're exactly worth. So with Kirk Cousins, that's what it ultimately

comes down to is if they are thinking, just for example, two years, $70 million, that's our number. And Kirk Cousins' agent goes to the combine and he has a couple of conversations with a couple of teams and they whisper two years, $85 million. Then if you're Kirk Cousins, the numbers there would represent that someone values you a lot more than your own team does. And it would result in him leaving. But if he says, Hey, that's about as much as I think I can get. And I love it here. And I think we can win. Then he'll come back. And that that's, I feel like that's what it comes down to unless they just totally sandbag him, which they might, I don't know, unless they just say, yeah, for us, it's two years, 40, but that would be disrespectful too. So I, I don't know. It's that negotiation. I would love

to be part of it and then come back and tell you guys about it, but I'm not. So we'll have to see how that plays out. But I think that's why he said so many complimentary things as far as trading up, it will be difficult. And the one thing that just concerns me a bit is when I hear that they only want to draft a quarterback, if it's going to be their quarterback for 10 years, I just don't think that that's necessary. And I think the Philadelphia Eagles are the greatest example of this. They draft Carson Wentz. He gives them immense value for a couple seasons, even the seasons where they won nine games or so he was playing well, not as well as he did in his second season. But I think he had maybe back to back nine

and seven seasons where he kind of grinded it out with that team as they slipped as a roster post 2017. So he gave them really good value. He was a hit. He was a successful draft pick. Does that mean he was a 10 year quarterback? No. And when they decided he was too expensive, they drafted another guy and they put him in like, that's kind of the way you have to manage this in my mind, but teams are always looking for perfect, but I don't think that perfect should be the enemy of good enough to compete for a super bowl. If you get that guy and put everybody around him. So that that's how I feel about that. But they may be thinking

that they only want their 10 year quarterback, but you might just wait and wait and wait. And, uh, that never comes because that those opportunities just can pass you by. And the other thing is too, I mean, there's all these stories about how the chiefs were obsessed with Patrick Mahomes. They were going to do anything under the sun to get Patrick Mahomes and all that. But you know, he still, he still dropped past a bunch of teams like quarterback evaluation. Do you believe in yourself? If you look at Bo Nix at the senior bowl and go, I don't know. You also have to factor in that nobody really knows how that's going to work out once somebody gets there and the improvements that they have to make once they get into the league. Anyway, this from Jerry says, I'd be curious about your thoughts on who the guy KOC would

like. Who would he want? Which quarterback? Well, I mean, everybody would want the top two. There's nobody who would not want the top two when it comes to Caleb Williams or Drake May. And with Jaden Daniels, I'd be very curious about that, his opinion. But I mean, we're talking about somebody with special tools, like really, truly special tools who I think will need to develop as everyone does in the NFL and sharpen those tools. And it might be a little more joggy at times.

Like there might be more mistakes than there is with someone like Lamar Jackson, for example, who's become a quarterback who protects the football and can throw from the pocket and can do just about anything. That took years. Lamar was very young when he was drafted, which allowed for a big development track. With Jaden Daniels, it might not be that way. It might have more miscues and misreads and things like that off the bat than you might have with someone like Bo Nix or Michael Penix. But the upside to that is somebody who could be an absolute force. I mean, let's just say like what you saw from Justin Fields in the second half of the season is probably Jaden Daniels floor. And that's still good enough to win a lot of football games with on the rookie contract, et cetera. And with great wide receivers as well. That's the floor, I think

for Jaden Daniels. But if you're talking about the guys who it's more realistic that they could draft, I could see an argument for all three quarterbacks. As far as Michael Penix goes, when you look at the windows that Kevin O'Connell is asking his quarterbacks to throw through, a lot of times, look at the, what I like to do is go back and watch the coach's film from the all 22 back angle. You can see a lot of times. Look at the, what I like to do is go back and watch the coaches film from the all 22 back angle. You can see a lot of times what the quarterback sees. And sometimes Kirk Cousins is throwing a ball with a ton of anticipation where the guy hasn't come out of his route yet. He's got to throw it before he makes the break. You just trust he's going to be

there. Well, Michael Penix is really good at that. And then sometimes you need your quarterback in the Super Bowl, like Matthew Stafford, to just wind up and let one rip a no-look pass to Cooper Cup over the middle where it whizzes by a linebacker or something. Michael Penix can do that too. I think he's got really good poise, maturity. I think he understands football extremely well. All those things would gel with Kevin O'Connell really, really well. Now with Bo Nix, he's a little bit more tricky because he's not quite as big as Penix and his arm isn't quite as big, but he's very good at executing what he's asked to do, where if you draw it up, he should be able to make it work. He's not flawless, of course,

and he's not six foot five. But at the same time, I mean, accurate enough to get it to open wide receivers over and over again, did not take sacks, didn't have a huge amount of mistakes. And even when you saw him at the senior bowl in a very small sample, he could get the ball downfield. If it's Justin Jefferson on his deep throw that got dropped, Jefferson is catching that ball and going for 50 yards. So he showed that he could push it downfield. And he also is just very good at finding the underneath stuff open, which the Vikings, they like to push it down the field. But think of all those TJ Hawkinson plays where it just takes a good decision and being on the same page.

I could see him liking that. And with JJ McCarthy, tools, tools, tools, right? It's all about, he's got a big arm and he's a good athlete and he's supposedly a real smart kid. And so can you take that and mold that over a year on the bench or something or on the fly to make him into a really good quarterback. I would tend to lean toward my first impression was that Michael Penix was the best fit. I think I'm going to stick with that, that he is the best fit.

I've kind of moved back and forth with some of the draft analysts, like, Hey, if they think Bo Nix is a better prospect and he's going higher than, okay, then let's talk ourselves into that. I haven't seen too much McCarthy going over those two recently, but if they higher than, okay, then let's talk ourselves into that. I haven't seen too much McCarthy going over those two recently, but if they do it, okay, let's, let's see it then. If they let the number 11 pick go to a defensive tackle and then they trade back up, then all right, let's do that then. I mean, I think there's a lot of different ways they could go with these three players that would make it a good fit with O'Connell. Really all three of them. There's not none of the three would I say, Oh, terrible fit, terrible, terrible fit. I think Jaden Daniels is actually the hardest fit

to see because we haven't seen aside from Josh Dobbs for two weeks, a true scrambling quarterback. And there is a lot going on in on in O'Connell's offense, but Pennix is probably the best fit. And then Nix and then McCarthy, that's how I've got it right now. Very much subject to change. And they probably won't tell us or anybody else would be my guess because, Hey, remember last year, we went down to the final minutes, not knowing for sure whether they actually would pick Will Levis or not. And they ultimately didn't like him. A couple more questions here from Corey. If I think you mean does sitting a year increase success for a quarterback? Seems like the quarterbacks who sat more often were successful. Yeah. Or yeah. Okay. Sat more

often than not were successful starters. So when it comes to sitting a quarterback for a year, I always am for it. It's often not possible, but I'm always a hundred percent for it. Not just because of Jordan love or because of Patrick Mahomes being big successes from developing over a couple of years on the bench. It's really just because being a rookie in the NFL is so incredibly difficult. And if you're not truly ready for it, then you can get destroyed. It can ruin you right away. And some guys who started right away, they wouldn't have been successful if you sat them for 50 years. But is there a transition into the NFL that could have been a little easier for somebody to understand how it's supposed to work, understand how a playbook's supposed to work, develop some of the passing stuff that maybe they could have

used after a year? And we used to see in the NFL, a lot of quarterbacks develop, they would get drafted in the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh round, and they would develop and ultimately become starters. I was just watching a game with Mark Brunel or I've brought up Matt Hasselbeck before, or, you know, Jake DeLome, like there was an era where it felt like a lot of those quarterbacks kind of popped up. Tom Brady would be one of them. And I don't think it's a total coincidence that quarterbacks who had some time to develop had a better chance. That said, I would also point to CJ Stroud,

Dak Prescott, Ben Roethlisberger. There's been a lot of quarterbacks through the years that have had success right away it really depends on the person Jordan Love was an interception machine in college he still occasionally as you saw in the playoffs will let it rip into more traffic than he should have a little too much belief in his arm but he was not ready to play when they brought him in if they brought him in he threw 20 interceptions, that might've been really bad for him. And, you know, look, who knows on somebody like Marcus Mariota,

if he would have had more time to develop or whatever number of other starters that didn't work out. There's probably a couple though, at least. I mean, Justin Fields may be one of them who played for a tanking team and his confidence had to be at zero when he started in the NFL. It took him years to start looking like he understood what he was doing. Geno Smith is another one, was not ready to come in and play right away. And then years later,

he's an above average NFL quarterback. So I'm a big believer in that, but here's the problem. If you draft Michael Penix and he's going to be 24, I'd be fine with still developing him. I think the quarterbacks can play until they're 35, so that's okay. But is the ownership going to be okay with it? Is the GM going to be okay with it? Are the fans going to be okay with it? Do you really get that much time in the NFL? You might be developing your quarterback for somebody else if you have a really miserable year. I mean, I just think that that's kind of how it goes.

So it all depends on the guy and it all depends on the situation. Could the Vikings pick JJ McCarthy and play Baker Mayfield for a year and then turn it over to McCarthy? Yeah. I mean, that seems like a good situation to me or Gardner Minshew or, you know, some, someone else that seems like a really good long-term solution to me. The NFL has just lost its mind when it comes to anything long-term though. Heck Dante Goldpepper didn't play at all. That first year came out blazing as a sophomore. So yeah, I mean, I'm with you. I like it when

teams do it and not everybody needs it. Anthony Richardson weirdly didn't need it. Everyone thought he did. And then he didn't when he showed up in the NFL. So everybody's different. Everybody's needs are different, but you have to be willing to identify that and not force somebody into a situation they're not ready for. Last question from Andrew, what 2000s Madden game is your favorite to go back to in the off season? Personally, I'm a Madden 07 guy. For me, it's very easy. It is Madden 05. I think that is where the Madden series peaked. You can certainly make a case for Madden 04, very similar games. Madden 05 had the quarterback vision which i turn off and do not

use because it was just way too wonky to try to figure out but uh that game had just it had like the sports talk radio in the background with tony bruno and it had a great training camp all those things that you would do the off season was as realistic as it got with negotiating with players. I thought they started to do a better job with the draft pre-scouting. You could go in and pre-scout your draft picks and you'd get some of their ratings before you decided to pick them. Very intricate game. I just don't understand how Madden 05, which is now almost 20 years ago, can be a better game significantly than the present version of Madden. And look, if you love Madden currently, that's great. It's still a great game. It's still super fun. It's football. It still operates fairly well, but the recent Madden's that I've played, the other stuff is kind of missing. Specifically the training camp leading in developing your players, developing them with

XP points doesn't mean anything to me. It was really fun to go out there and kick field goals and make your field goal kicker better and things like that. And look, you know, I don't know if that was one of the years where you could transfer in your draft class, but I think it was. So you could play the college game and then transfer in your draft class. I mean, wow, that's a lot of good features. So yeah, I've, I've actually got quite a few games this off season that I'm going to be messing around with, but that will not take away from the coverage here at Purple purple insider. And look, if you want your questions on a fans only episode, it is very easy to do go to purple insider.com.

Also, if you get a chance, if you're listening on the podcast side, leave a review there. If you like the show that always helps it bump up algorithm wise. And if you're watching on YouTube, like subscribe, all those those things they all help the channel so i appreciate you all so much and we will see you soon thanks everybody