Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Bears got Justin Fields and Aaron Rodgers wants out -- what does it mean for the Vikings?

Episode Date: May 2, 2021

Matthew Coller is joined by his former teammate and current 1250 The Fan host Ramie Makhlouf to talk about whether the Chicago Bears made the right decision in trading up for Justin Fields. Ramie is still skeptical about Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy being in charge, even if he believes Fields is a good prospect. Plus what does the future hold for Aaron Rodgers? Does Ramie expect him to play for the Packers this year? Why did Green Bay handle things this way instead of just trading Rodgers? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizway or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. The show is always presented by Scout Logistics and Symbolia, your stock market for sports. Joining me, my former teammate, a Chicago Bears fan,

who now does a show mostly focused on the Packers, but used to talk about the Vikings, and maybe eventually will land in Detroit, just to cover the entire NFC North. Rami Makhlov, what is up, Rami? Not much. You've got sponsors, huh, Collar? Yeah, real ones. Look at you. Wow.

There's commercials in this show. You have like a cash register sound effect every time you do their sponsoring. That's big time, man. Look at you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. People probably wonder where you're doing your work now because they likely used to listen to you and I be on the air. So I mentioned that you're talking about the Packers.

Why don't you quickly update people on yourself, and then we will talk about the NFC North and the drafts. I am doing my own afternoon show, Collin. Believe it or not, they have entrusted three hours just to me. I have no co-hosts. It's just the Rami show. Weekday is 3 to 6. Back at my co-hosts. It's just the Rami show weekdays 3 to 6 back at my old station in Milwaukee 1250 AM The Fan if you're not

in the Milwaukee area. Odyssey app is how you can check me out. I'm also getting, you mentioned, lifelong Chicago fan, born and raised in the Chicago area, getting some weekend shifts at our sister station and the station I grew up listening to in Chicago, 670 to Score.

You can also listen to that on the Odyssey app. So I'm sort of – I'm like straddling the border of Illinois and Wisconsin, Collin, but it's something I've been doing for a long, long time now. It's just in a more professional sense. Yeah, that's great, and I'm really happy for you that you ended up back in the saddle pretty quickly of being a sports talk host. It's much deserved, much deserved.

Thanks. And since no one else could stand you, they had to give you your own show, which is great. But no, that's the thing that people make fun of you the most for is laughing at your own jokes, but this is perfect now because you don't need anyone else to laugh. Exactly. Now I can just laugh at my own jokes. I can pretend only I am funny. I don't have to pretend you or Mackie or Judd or any of my other former co-hosts are funny.

Great. It just makes so much more sense now than it does. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Well, since I miss us working together, I wanted to get together with you today to talk about Justin Fields and the Aaron Rodgers drama. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to throw it out to you. Which one would you rather start with, your Bears getting Justin Fields?

Let's start with the Bears. I've been talking so much about Aaron Rodgers. I'm not going to run from it. And actually, I'm kind of enjoying it, the Bears fan in me. And, just Kyler, you and I both agree as sports talk radio hosts, petty, pettiness and drama and infighting and storylines makes our job so much easier and so much more fun. So on a couple levels, I am enjoying the Aaron Rodgers thing, but let's just take a break

from it for a second and talk about the Bears and Justin Fields. Okay. So here's my question for you. I realized that you were not as excited as the rest of hashtag bears nation. Um, but let, let me just tell you though, I thought that they,

with that move gave themselves the potential to win this entire draft and change their franchises fate with quarterbacks forever. It's a staple of you coming on the show and me making you talk about Shane Matthews and Jim Miller. And then the many, the many quarterbacks that they've drafted and brought in the only one with the potential to actually win something recently was Jay Cutler. And he was the most talented.

And even though he had some downside to him, he almost got in there once, which is what you hope for. But the Rex Grossmans, you have to get insanely lucky to end up in the Super Bowl with somebody like that, like the Bears did once, and that doesn't really happen anymore. So even though you might look at it and say, boy, the Bears generally don't know what they're doing with quarterbacks, so is this guy any good? At very least, I think with his talent, Justin Fields gives the Bears the potential to have a

franchise QB for a long time. And I like Justin Fields. I like Justin Fields a lot coming into this draft. I didn't understand why he was falling down so many draft boards. But Matthew, first of all, with the history that you just went through, do you blame me for being hesitant to believe in or buy into any Chicago Bears quarterback? Let's start there. I don't think you can blame me, but as far as Justin Fields specifically goes, if I agree with Ryan Pace about a quarterback,

I have to question myself, man. Okay, so even though I liked him, I like him a little bit less now. I just have, I have some doubts now because I just don't trust Ryan Pace's assessment and evaluation of quarterbacks. But put that aside for a second. The main reasons I don't like this are, A, it indicates to me that Ryan Pace, the general manager, and maybe Matt Nagy have job security beyond 2021, almost no matter what happens on the field, and that they just bought themselves that by trading up to get Justin Fields.

And that bothers me because those guys don't deserve that. They haven't been good enough at their jobs to have any job security heading into this season. And also, I'm not saying that Mitch Trubisky is as good as Justin Fields or was as good as Justin Fields coming out of college. That is not what I'm saying. But, Matthew, you and I have both agreed, and we've talked to Sage Rosenfeld about this, that there was more to get out of Mitch Trubisky than what Matt Nagy did. And Matt Nagy was just

stubborn and not creative and refused to change his playbook or change his offense in any way to fit Mitch Trubisky and play to his strengths, which was his athleticism. Now, Justin Fields has more strengths than Mitch Trubisky does beyond his athleticism, but that's a big strength of his. Is Matt Nagy going to do the same thing again and try to pound this square peg through a round hole? I always talk about the fact that everybody thinks that great quarterbacks just happen, that they just appear at the NFL level and they're great. Matthew, I don't think any quarterback has ever been great that didn't have an environment to flourish and be great in.

And I have my doubts about whether or not Justin Fields has that environment. And Ryan Pace gave up a bunch of future assets, so now he's going to try and put a winning roster around Justin Fields without those future assets. And based on his history, I just don't have a lot of faith or confidence in him that he can do that. So that's why I'm not as in on this Justin Fields thing as most of Bears nation is.

It has little to do with Justin Fields, more to do with the Bears, Ryan Pace, and Matt Nagy. Okay, so with the Matt Nagy point, I think that that is legitimate and a big concern because if you look at someone like Andrew Luck, I think, was able to overcome some of the issues that were existing with the Indianapolis Colts. He took a team that won one game and won 11 the next year, but Justin Fields is not an Andrew Luck-level prospect, or he would have been the first or second quarterback off the board.

And so I think that that is fair to say that you need an environment for him to succeed. And with Matt Nagy, it took until the last half of the season of Trubisky's final season to do what Sage had talked about, which was run bootlegs and do play actions. And he had asked Mitch Trubisky to stand back there with four or five wide receivers and, you know, throw it all over the place as if he was Cam Newton or something. And even Cam Newton, it took until I think what,

North Turner was his offensive coordinator for about a half a season before he got hurt when they started going, you know what, maybe we shouldn't make Cam do absolutely everything. And then, so there was only this kind of small window of that. And, uh, I think that that is absolutely worth questioning because if Matt Nagy says, ah, now I've got my guy to throw in the shotgun and just let him stand back there and, and, you know, memorize my 2000 plays or whatever Matt Nagy

was famous for in his first year, and then everybody kind of figured out. I think that that would be a big mistake. I always looked at Justin Fields as a perfect fit for the Minnesota Vikings offense that runs rollouts and play actions for the San Francisco 49ers that do the same things, but I think that that's worth wondering how is this going to work out? And we've seen this with other people with Ryan Tannehill is a great example of that, where I actually look at Ryan Tannehill as a similar quarterback to Justin Fields. He's a good athlete and he's got great arm talent, but he does not get rid of the ball quickly. He has some shortcomings. And once he's

set up in the right offense, he works out really well. So I think that that is a very reasonable concern. And with someone like Justin Fields, you basically get your four years to stack your roster and to win with your rookie quarterback because that's your best window to win. And so are they in that window to win with Justin Fields? I don't know, because the roster seems to be fading a little bit, doesn't it? And, Matthew, I want to believe. I want to believe in Justin Fields. I do.

I see this as, like, I want to believe in Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy even. I see this as, I always say, like, no matter who you vote for for president, you should hope that they're the greatest president ever, because that's good for all of us. We all prosper. And as much as I, as much disdain and distrust and disbelief as I have in Nagy and Pace, I hope that they prove me wrong and that they've learned from their mistakes and they can be better moving forward. This is like a guy who's just a terrible boyfriend or husband, Collar, who he cheats, he lies, he comes home with flowers.

Like, I'm not saying you should drop the guy right away. You don't drop the guy. Maybe you believe that he's turned a new leaf, he's learned from his mistakes, and he's going to be better moving forward. And you can look at those flowers as a sign of hope that maybe he is that guy. But the flowers alone don't do it. Like, Justin Fields and his draft class is bringing flowers over. Like, cool, it makes me happy.

I see it as maybe a sign of hope that things are going to change and will be better. But you've got to show me that you've changed and that things are better before I'm going to totally buy into this. Okay, I like that. I like that of I like that. It's bringing home flowers. You get, uh, the, the makeup is Justin Fields. Oh, you didn't fire me. Let's make up. Uh, yeah, that's, that's, that's good. But from the talent of the player though, to get Justin Fields where they got Justin Fields

and the fact that Carolina and Denver passed, which really blew my mind, Rami. I mean, honestly, I still am really not over it. That Carolina would say, no, no, we're good with Sam Darnold, who's 1,500 passes into his career and hasn't shown a thing. And Denver to say, no, we're good with Teddy Bridgewater, who we're not even sure how long his knees will work for. And last year I thought that Teddy was maybe better than, you know, some of the numbers or the win loss record would show because Carolina was so

horrible that he's not playing quarterback. If they had gotten, had, you know, a rookie or a backup in there, you know, maybe they would have been drafting at the very top, but to go cornerbacks over just a few, I mean, from that perspective, you look at it and say, yes, the current administration is problematic, but if you don't win pretty quick with Justin Fields, you'll probably get a shot at having someone else coaching Justin Fields.

Yeah, but I think Pace and Maggie probably get two years, at least, of Justin Fields to show what they can do with him before they're shown the door. Because the McCaskies, the they're shown the door, because the McCaskey's, the brain trust of the bears has shown patience and loyalty to these guys collar. They, they have. And I think that not only is this a sign that they, that they'll get a couple more years, at least I think even, even, even me who's sitting here and saying, I have no trust or faith in those guys. I think it's unfair to let them draft a quarterback and then not give them at even me who's sitting here saying I have no trust or faith in those guys,

I think it's unfair to let them draft a quarterback and then not give them at least two years to develop him and see what this thing could be. You know what I mean? So yeah, eventually they should win if he's a franchise type quarterback and if they don't break him before the next regime comes along. But it just bothers me that they have that job security after what we've been through. I said when I was on the score in Chicago five days before the draft, I said the worst case nightmare scenario for Bears fans in the draft is if Ryan Pace is allowed to trade up and get a quarterback. And not because of the quarterback who he might select, but because of the implications, what it means, and the fact that he's going to give up future assets to do that.

And now we have Ryan Pace shorthanded in upcoming drafts, trying to put together a winning roster. And that doesn't seem like a winning formula to me, Collin. From the long-term perspective, though, if Justin Fields maximizes his talent, you could have a great quarterback for a long time. And so from that perspective, I see the angst and why there is total reason to have that angst. Although, I mean, the Bears have made the playoffs recently, so I would throw that out there that they've made it more recently than the Vikings

and eliminated the Vikings last year. It was a seven seed color. All right. You're right. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not doing the seven seed shuffle. Man,

you know what though? Nobody does participation trophies like football people. Don't they? They're like, we made the playoffs. Okay. And you're like, is that good?

I mean, is it, do you get a championship trophy for making the seven seed? I add what? Eight and eight. No, I, I don't think, I don, do you get a championship trophy for making the seventh seed? And what, eight and eight? No, I don't think you really do. Well, before we talk about some Aaron Rodgers drama, just this year, though, should they play Justin Fields? I feel like they have to if you draft him this high

and Andy Dalton is your other quarterback. But they did make the playoffs with a quarterback who was worse than Andy Dalton last year, where are they at? Because I don't feel like they're a team that is like the New York Jets, where there's no expectations for next year. I feel like Bears fans should expect them to be fighting for that participation trophy playoff spot. I would love if Justin Fields looked so good in training camp and the preseason leading up to the year that he just won the job for Mandy Dalton. That would be great.

But I got a feeling, Matthew, that if Justin Fields becomes the Bears' starting quarterback in 2021, midseason, it'll be because things have gone so badly that that job security I just talked about for Pace and Nagy is suddenly in question. And now you're throwing that kid in there, not because you think he's ready and he gives you the best chance to win, but because you're trying to save your ass and save your job and he might not be ready, or you just might not have a good enough team out there for him to go out and prosper and get his career started off. I don't want him becoming the starting quarterback of the Bears under those circumstances. If he wins the job from the jump, great. Awesome.

I don't want him being run out there to save Brian Pace and Matt Nagy's jobs in 2021. That's not that's not fair to put that on that kid well i think that what the bears would hope for is maybe it turns into an alex smith to colin kaepernick type of situation where they actually said that they actually said that they talked to andy dalton and and laid out the plan for him to justin fields to eventually be the bears quarterback and they're trying to follow the kansas city blueprint of going from smith to mahomes Yeah, Smith, I meant when he was in San Francisco, when Alex Smith played and then they eventually, like midway through the season, went to Kaepernick, and then Kaepernick eventually became their long-term starter.

But, yeah, the Smith to Mahomes is also poor Alex Smith. I mean, Alex Smith from, let's see, maybe his fourth year on or something, had a win-loss record of like 80 and 30. Yeah, all the guy did was win. Yep, and then, right, he just didn't get his team over the hump in the playoffs and for legitimate reasons that he wasn't dynamic enough to take them deep in the playoffs. But it's always incredible. It's like, ah, yeah, you don't want that Alex Smith.

You want the next guy. It's like, man, Alex Smith had a great, great NFL career, but it's funny that he ends up being that guy. But, yeah, when he was in San Francisco, I think maybe he got hurt and Kaepernick came in midway through the year, and then they had to decide do we bring back Smith or Kaepernick. So, yeah, it's unfortunate that that happened to Alex Smith a couple times. All right, well, let's talk about Aaron Rodgers here

because Vikings fans are very happy with their haul from the draft. They got, you know, a number of good players. Their team passed on a potential franchise quarterback, which will be discussed by me for the foreseeable future, but you could come away and say the Vikings won the draft, simply based on the fact that Aaron Rodgers was telling his team that he wants to get out of town. So what did you make of that situation kind of finally coming to a head after a long time where it seemed like there had been head-butting between Rodgers and the people in charge in Green Bay? Collar, I don't know if you remember this, and I forgot this, but almost exactly one year ago, you and I were sitting not in the same studio,

in separate studios because of COVID, but doing a show together after day one of the NFL draft. And we were talking about what the rest of the NFL world was talking about, which was what the Packers did trading up to get Jordan Love. And I said to you, this could be a terrible recipe for the rest of the NFC North in 2020 because a pissed off, spiteful Aaron Rodgers who feels he's been slighted, has been doubted, and has to go out there and prove himself to the team that drafted him of all teams could mean a very good Aaron Rodgers, MVP level Aaron Rodgers out there on the field.

And you said to me, Matthew, well, and then what? So he wins a bunch of games for the Packers? How does that show up? And I said, and then force his way out of Green Bay. And I was just throwing that out there like a wild, high-in-the-sky, like nuclear-button, scorched-earth, like scenario. I didn't think it was that realistic when I put it out there and honestly this whole this whole off season since the NFC championship ended and Aaron Rodgers has been talking about his life being a beautiful his future being a beautiful

mystery him and other players on the roster having uncertain futures in Green Bay, as he said, after the NFC Championship game. And just looking at his contract situation, along with the fact they drafted Jordan Love last year, the Packers weren't into Aaron Rodgers, committed to Aaron Rodgers, to the tune of more than $17 million beyond this season. That's a dead cap hit next year. And after that, it gets even cheaper to move on from the guy if they so choose. And they didn't restructure. They didn't extend. They did that with every other veteran on the, literally every other veteran on the roster that they could have restructured or extended to make cap space in this off season where just about every team was trying to make cap space. They did it. And they didn't do it with Aaron Rodgers.

And I was telling people, and a lot of people in the Wisconsin sports media and who cover the Packers were telling people, something is going on here, guys. There's got to be a reason that they haven't done this yet. And a lot of Packers fans were in denial. They were saying, it's just you guys in the media trying to stir things up, making something out of nothing. I was like, all right, man.

And then when the news breaks on Thursday, Collar, you know me. I will drop an I told you so on you when I told you so. And I wanted to. I wanted to do that on Thursday. But, A, I didn't want to pour salt in those wounds and lose listeners. And B, I was, I don't know that I can say I was right because this was far worse than even I thought it was Matthew. This, this got much more bitter and, and, and hateful and, and, and as, and the divide is much wider and greater than what I thought it was before we

found out what we found out on Thursday. Yeah. And then there was a Charles Robinson report that Rodgers would stay if they fired the general manager, which is truly amazing. I mean, this is not just your regular old bitterness. Think about it. Think about it. This dude is, I think it was Mike Freeman who called him a world-class grudge holder. I wouldn't be surprised if Aaron Rodgers was sitting there on day one of the draft last year, feeling embarrassed and feeling like Brian Gutekunst was trying to push him out the

door and saying, you're going to embarrass me and push me out the door on the second biggest stage to the Super Bowl that the NFL has to offer? No, wait a year. I'm going to go out, put up MVP numbers, then embarrass you and push you out the door on the second biggest stage to the Super Bowl that the NFL has to offer. That is a very Aaron Rodgers-like move. Call it petty, call it whatever you want, but that is right out of that dude's playbook. Hey, everyone. Anybody who listens to the show knows that Sam and I may not be scratch golfers, but we love to have a great time playing golf.

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You will love it. Plus, keep your eyes and ears out for our giveaways going on on this show as well on social media. Follow them at SodaStickCo on Twitter and at SodaStick.com for your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. Code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping. Yeah, you know it was supremely intentional to wait until draft day for Aaron Rodgers and presumably his agent to tell Adam Schefter, hey, here's what's going on. So, right, they could, in a way, it felt like either pressure Brian Gutekunst

to draft a wide receiver for him. I mean, they passed on Elijah Moore. They passed on Rondell Moore. There were other wide receivers who were there, and they went with a cornerback to almost dig in even more and say, no, sorry. But you're right, though. Jason Wildey was on here before, and he talked about the same thing as you. Like, you know, when there's something going on, the media is not making it up.

I mean, when somebody doesn't restructure their contract, when it makes so much sense to restructure their contract, you go, all right, there is something happening here. And then all of a sudden it sort of culminates in this explosion of a report about how he wants out. Here's where I think the Packers made a mistake, Rami. I think they should have just traded him. Like now here we are with that.

It's like the office scene where everybody's got their finger guns out and it's just looking at them. It's just like how do you win if you're the Packers? If he comes back, then he's not happy with you. And it's, I think, a different level of not happy. He also is 38 and could retire and has enough money and has enough talent to go do whatever else he wants. Right. That's what I mean.

It's like he could do a lot of other things. I mean, we've seen other guys like Michael Strahan create this media career for themselves, which you could totally see for Aaron Rodgers. He's got enough money. He's got enough money. He's got enough success. MVP in your last season doesn't sound too bad. I mean, the only reason that I think Aaron Rodgers would come back is because he was so close to getting back to the Super Bowl and it didn't happen that that would drive him crazy from last year. But other than that, he's kind of got more leverage here because he just doesn't have

to play. You know, it's not like even when Carson Palmer was, you know, still in his 20s or maybe early 30s and said, I don't want to play for the Bengals. This is a guy whose career is almost over anyway, and he could just hang them up. So yeah, I don't get why the Packers didn't just trade him. If you traded him to San Francisco and got the number three overall pick and took Justin Fields or Trey Lance, is that not good for you? Because that seems actually quite good to drop a rookie into a great roster. Yeah, but I think they still believe in Jordan Love, Matthew, because you're right. Why not trade Aaron Rodgers? But at the same time, let's look at the other possibility if if you didn't like what

you've seen from Jordan Love in the first year in a Packers uniform and he never got on the field but they see him in meeting rooms they see him on the practice field blah blah blah and you wanted to to smooth things over with Aaron Rodgers then you keep Tim Boyle around who they were very happy with having as their number two quarterback and just just trade Jordan Love and erase any drama, erase any doubt from Aaron Rodgers' head, and throw a bunch of money at him at the same time that you trade Jordan Love. And everything is fixed, Matthew. The reason that we're here, that we're at this impasse,

is because the Jordan Love plan is still in place. Don't think that they're going to go. I don't think that they want Trey Lance or anybody else. As a matter of fact, Matthew, I don't think that the Packers draft Jordan Love last year without scouting not just last year's quarterback draft class, but a window of probably three or four years of quarterback draft classes and pinpointing that guy as

the successor. That's the only reason you make that move when Aaron Rodgers still has as much left in the tank as he does as many years left on the contract as he does. If they liked anybody or if they were even intrigued by anybody in this year's draft class, they put pulling the trigger on drafting Aaron Rodgers successor. They put that, they put that off for another year. They don't need this drama unless they really, really believe in Jordan Love as their next quarterback. I've been saying this whole time. If you want to compare this to the Brett Favre

situation, when that was going on, everybody assumed, myself included, that the Packers were just so frustrated, so done with Brett Favre and the will he or won't he act when he would every year talk about retirement. And I'm sure that got on their nerves. But Matthew, you're willing to put up with that if you have a Hall of Fame quarterback. The reason they were willing to move on from Brett Favre was because they had Aaron Rodgers and they believed in Aaron Rodgers. It wasn't about the guy that they had. It was about the next guy the whole time. And in this case, it's not about the guy that they have in Aaron Rodgers. It's about the next guy. And they will push Aaron Rodgers out the door if they believe in Jordan Love, regardless of what happened, regardless of how happy he is, whether he's over the moon and couldn't be happier in Green Bay, or whether he's disgruntled and wants out. They'll keep Aaron Rodgers as long as they're not sure about Jordan Love. And as soon as they're sure about Jordan Love,

they'll push Aaron Rodgers out the door. Right, which is why I think they should have traded with San Francisco and gotten Trey Lance because, like you said, if they were totally confident that Jordan Love could be their guy, then they would have traded up and they would have taken Kyle Pitts. By the way, dog barking in the background means dog puns. That's the rule on the show now. That means in your next comment, you have to work in dog puns.

Okay. And also say hello to your dog. He's wonderful. So if they believed in Love, they would have traded and gotten Kyle Pitts at the very top of the draft right or whoever it would have been let's say that that would have made sense but trading up to get a quarterback was never going to happen then they got their quarterback they are convinced that they have their quarterback Matthew whether you believe it or not whether

I believe it or not whether Packers Nation believes it or not, they're convinced they got their quarterback. Okay, so how do we think – Everybody's barking up the wrong tree. There you go. Okay, I was waiting for it. I was about to lead you into another answer and be like, let's see what he does with it. They are barking up the wrong tree.

So let's put odds on it. Let's give it a number. Do you believe that it is a 25 chance rogers doesn't play for the packers again 50 75 90 do you think he plays for the packers again i'm about 80 sure he does play for the packers again wow it's it's a 38 million dollar dead cap hit to trade him this offseason matthew what i think happens is because a Aaron Rodgers does not want to be the bad guy. He very much does not want to be the bad guy among Packers fans when this divorce finally goes down.

That's why he hasn't just looked into a camera or sat into a microphone. I want out. And he's tried to play the nice guy. Well, not necessarily the nice guy, but at best, he's just taking, you have to read between the line type of shots at the Green Bay Packers to this point and hasn't gone scorched earth publicly. That's why he leaks this out the way that he does. to play this game of chicken with the Packers from now until training camp, not look like the bad guy, and then show up to training camp and say,

guys, I never said any of that. This thing never got as bad as everyone made it out to be, blown out of proportion, fake news, media hyping things up like they always do. If you want to know about Aaron Rodgers, just ask Aaron Rodgers. That's his playbook, Matthew. It's a playbook that a certain reality star turned politician kind of perfected. LeBron James has adopted it. Aaron Rodgers has adopted it, that there are things out there about you that you don't want your people to believe. You just deny, deny, deny, and say, ask me about me,

and you'll find out everything you need to know. So that's what he's going to do when he shows up to training camp. And they're going to play nice for a year. And the next year when the Packers can get out of Aaron Rodgers' contract somewhat affordably, he'll be given what he wants. They'll get what they want, start the Jordan Love era, and everybody will go their separate ways. But he's playing for the Packers in 2021. Yeah, okay, so it's really down then because the dead cap hit part of it is worth factoring in that that would not be great for the Packers. Although, I mean, if you had Jordan Love still as your quarterback to turn it over to, you wouldn't feel like, oh, no,

we're spending $75 million at the quarterback position or something. You would at least have that cheap quarterback to maintain the roster that they already had. So it basically comes down to, is he going to retire or is he going to actually play? And I'll throw out this just to have it on record that I think this is possible, that Aaron Rodgers says, I'm not playing for you this year. And then next year, they sort of reassess it, and he says, I want to come back and play for someone else. And then they trade him.

So he doesn't play next year, and then they trade him next year, the year after, and then he comes back and plays in 2022. That's what I'm going to throw out as sort of the wild scenario. See, if he sits out or holds out, Collar, then he loses half of Packers nation he he he oh I mean he plays for someone else I mean they trade him no but you're saying he's you're saying he sits out this year yeah he sits out this year and then comes out and comes back next year in place for another team I think Aaron Rodgers wants to leave Green Bay still in the good graces of however many Packers fans he can stay in the good graces of. He does

not want to leave here as the villain and as the bad guy the way that Brett Favre was very willing to do when that divorce happened. Aaron Rodgers has done everything he can in his career on and off the field to not be Brett Favre. Matthew, I've told you before, I think Aaron Rodgers could take more risks as a quarterback and probably be better for it, but doesn't because he doesn't want the label that Brett Favre had on him of mistake prone and losing his team games with interceptions and blah, blah, blah.

He goes very out of his way to not be number four, and I think that that continues with the way that he handles this divorce from the Packers. He tries to make it a little bit more clean, a little bit more amicable, or at least make himself look better than Brett Favre did on his way out. Okay, speaking of quarterback drama, the Vikings decide not to pick Mac Jones, which is – I'm just going to throw this out there because I get this tweet a lot where people will say like, oh, I wanted a mobile quarterback. So I'm happy with not picking Mac Jones, but you got a mobile quarterback that has

like a 5% chance to work out or 10% chance to work out as opposed to a first round quarterback, even if not mobile, that has maybe a 25% to 40% chance to work out, just based on history of where you take these guys. And there have been plenty of not incredibly mobile quarterbacks recently who have won. Phillip Rivers, even with what was left of him last year, was in the playoffs and the Vikings weren't. So I'm just saying, there are still non-mobile quarterbacks who are winning in the NFL, especially if they have rookie contracts. So I think that that's more rationalization of people just wanting to agree with the Vikings' decision because by the odds, if you're going pure odds,

that was their best chance to find their future quarterback. So moving on from that, though, Kellen Mond will now come here. Everything seemed like a passive-aggressive comment about Kirk Cousins when they were talking about Kellen Mond will now come here. Everything seemed like a passive-aggressive comment about Kirk Cousins when they were talking about Kellen Mond. Well, he's mobile. That's great for our offense. And he's kind of like Teddy. It's like when you're talking about a new girlfriend or boyfriend. You're like really reliable and trustworthy. Super reliable and trustworthy. Right. Yeah, she doesn't seem like a cheater.

But it was truly fascinating. And, you know, I guess you could look at it as like hedging a bet a little bit because they're not clear with what Kirk Cousins is going to do. But I think it signaled to me that the organization has not viewed these last three years with Kirk Cousins as being enough, nor should they, with missing the playoffs two out of three years. And they've just said, look, if we're paying a guy this much who has limitations, it's just going to be very hard to win. And with his contract, it's sort of the culmination of everything that you might have to move on. But the fact that they didn't come away with a guarantee they were moving on

or a guarantee that they're not moving on, it feels very Vikings-y to have one foot in and one foot out, Rami. Yeah, just leaving the door open for if they want to move on from Kirk Cousins, which honestly, I don't hate that tactic, Collar. You know what I mean? And I don't hate if Mon doesn't work out for them, then going into the draft class last year, and you still have Kirk Cousins under contract, you take another swing at the quarterback position if you don't like what you saw in the first year from that kid. One thing you kind of have to

give the Packers credit for, they haven't always done it gracefully, but they've always tried to protect themselves and give them insurance policies at the quarterback position. They were constantly, now not always in the first round, like they did with Aaron Rodgers and more recently with Jordan Love, but you look at the Packers and the way that they have used draft capital, legitimate, valuable draft capital on quarterbacks when they still had Brett Favre, when they still had Aaron Rodgers.

And it's the smart thing to do, Collar. You know what I mean? So I get where you're coming from, that you would have liked to see them commit to going one way or the other. But to me, you have a more than serviceable quarterback in Kirk Cousins. And you have him under contract for the next few years if you so choose. I'm sure there are outs in that contract if you like what you see from this kid that you just drafted. And if you don't, then you have the insurance policy of a solid guy in Kirk Cousins

until you do draft and find and develop the next guy. I don't hate that route. Finding quarterbacks in this league is so hard, dude, and such a crapshoot that really your best shot is taking as many cracks at it as you possibly can. Hey, everyone. I want to tell you about our friends at Scout Logistics. And I really do mean it when I say friends. They are fans of Purple Insider over at Scout Logistics.

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check out ScoutLogistics.com or call 855-217-2688 extension 232 to connect with them directly to find out how Scout Logistics can minimize risk and overperform and go the extra mile for your company. What they have is a quarterback who's just good enough to make sure they don't draft a quarterback high or don't have that opportunity. That could be that's what they have but hey man when the packers drafted aaron rogers the next year they kicked the tires on vince young in the first round and then settled on brian braum in the third or fourth second i think yeah it was oh yeah second round that's right yeah i remember the espn coverage saying, oh, this clearly shows they don't believe in Rodgers.

No, it's just, like you said, hedging your bets. It's just the more Ted Thompson, the former late great Packers general manager, he would always say the more swings I get at it, the more chances I have at a home run because he just loved stockpiling. He was talking about draft picks in general when he made that famous quote, but I think it applies to quarterbacks too. I think that definitely applies to quarterbacks. It's your best chance at swinging and hitting and getting a home run

is to just get as many swings as possible. Yeah, and I think that the Vikings drafted the right quarterback to be a swing, so I don't want to say that I think they made a huge mistake in Kellen Mond. If you're going to do that route, then take the guy who runs four, six and who has a strong arm as opposed to, you know, somebody who's just sort of, you know, Ian Book or whatever. I mean, Ian Book is fast, but like Ian Book's just not as good of a prospect as Kellen Mond. So from that perspective, I think they took the right guy if you're going that route. But yeah, it just, it feels to me like you have to just make a decision and go with it,

and they didn't really want to do that. They didn't really want to push the chips to the middle of the table, and so now we kind of wait. The one thing I would say to their benefit is that in today's world, Rami, and the out you mentioned is the fact that Kirk didn't have a no trade. So they can trade him after next year if they want to with not too much cap penalty, I believe. I'd have to check on that. But they could trade him next year. And I think it's like $10 million of dead cap. So really no big deal if they decide to trade him next year. That's your way out of this.

The other thing is, though though it is such a funny quarterback world these days that you know maybe i don't know like maybe ben roethlisberger ends up your quarterback if you want to move right like you just have no idea which quarter like once tom brady went to the bucks everyone went oh yeah i guess quarterbacks can move to other teams and then they started trading them all over the place and whatever so and really we shouldn't i mean tom brady shouldn't have opened our eyes to this, Collar. There is a long list of Hall of Fame quarterbacks who did not finish their

careers where they started. I mean, most recently before Tom Brady, we saw it with Brett Favre. We saw it with Joe Montana. Like, we really shouldn't be surprised by anything when it comes to this Aaron Rodgers situation that they find themselves in right now. It's always been kind of a crazy carousel and a soap opera at the quarterback position in the NFL among the best in the league. Yeah, no, that's true.

And I think the teams have gotten a little bit even more savvy about the rookie contract thing, but also just being more willing when you're not 100% believing in a quarterback to just say, no, we're going to trade him for somebody else. And I'm thinking of Los Angeles and Detroit just swapping quarterbacks. Like, yeah, we're going to do that. And there are more quarterbacks who are saying, let me try to find some place at the end like, you know, Favre did in Minnesota. So before we wrap up, Rami, so the Bears drafted Justin Fields. Their previous draft pick quarterback was Mitch Trubisky.

I want you to try and tell me, and I'm going to go through the list, and I'll try to give you some hints here, previous drafted quarterbacks by the Bears. So I'm going to give you the year and the round, and we'll give further hints. Okay, you're springing this on me. You're putting me on the spot. I like to give you – I couldn't have you on without a little Bears quarterback trivia. This will happen every time you come on, trust me. Without torturing me. Okay, in 2014, the Chicago Bears drafted a sixth-round quarterback out of San Jose State

who played. He threw 48 passes as a Chicago Bear. Played? 2014, yes. 2014 San Jose State quarterback who had, let me just say, sort of an ironic name for someone who plays sports. No. Sixth rounder, San Jose State.

I'm drawing a complete blank. San Jose State, and he actually played? He got on the field? Yes, but not a ton for the Bears. Oh, oh, oh. Did he? Oh, what's his name? He came in the NFC Championship when Jay Cutler got hurt.

Am I thinking of the right guy? I think so. Maybe not. Oh, what is his – I can't think of his name. This is David Fales. David – yes, that's the guy. He's the one who came in. And people – and much like Taylor – is it Taylor Heineke for the Redskins last year?

Yes, yes. Heineke for the Redskins last year? Yes. Little white guy gets in a playoff game, has a nice showing, almost wins, and everybody jumps on the bandwagon and thinks. They were actually people who thought that that kid should take Jay Cutler's job after that NFC Championship game in Chicago, Collar, believe it or not. Okay, 2011, a fifth-round quarterback out of Idaho who never got into an NFL game. Idaho? Idaho.

He was 6'4", 240 out of Idaho. Not Boise State? Idaho? Idaho. Okay, 6'4", 240, so he was a big boy. Big boy out of Idaho. 6'4", 240. So he was a big boy. Big boy out of Idaho. You'd think I would remember a big – I have no idea, dude.

I block this stuff out, man. I have a painful history as a Bears fan when it comes to quarterbacks, and I block out the trauma. This is Nathan Enderly. I have no – that name is not anywhere in my memory banks. Anywhere. That was not stored to the memory banks at all. Okay.

I'll go through a few more here. 2010, another quarterback who never played went to Central Michigan and was a sixth-round Bears draft pick. And he was like, he put up huge stats in the MAAC at Central Michigan, and people were talking about him as the sleeper, like, oh, you got to keep your eye on this sleeper quarterback. They shoot him in the sixth. Yes.

And he's not one of them. No clue. I'm not even going to try to think of this one. I have no clue. That's great. Dan LaFever is the guy. I actually do remember that. That's somewhere in the memory.

If you, like, if you, if I shook hands with him right now, I wouldn't know who he is. But the name is stored somewhere in the memory if you like if if you if i shook hands with him right now i wouldn't know who he is but the name is stored somewhere in in the memory banks okay well i'll go through three more three more yeah three three more and i think you'll get two of them maybe all three okay this quarterback uh played a lot for the chicago bears ended his career with the Buffalo Bills, went to Purdue, and was taken in the fourth round in 2005. Kyle Orton, baby. Another guy who people got way too excited about and thought was the answer when he was mediocre at best.

Very quick Kyle Orton story. So he comes to the Bills. He wins a couple of games. He grows a hilarious mustache and would smoke stogies after the game. So it became this thing of like after the game, taking pictures of hilariously mustache Kyle Orton with a stogie. He got the Bills back in the playoff race, so everybody started like making shirts and everything.

Oh, we're so excited. Kyle Orton's our guy. And then just completely melts toward the end of the season. He gets to the end of the year, and it's the final press conference day, the locker clean out, and Kyle Orton is nowhere to be found. So it's every other player except for Kyle Orton. Kyle Orton goes to the radio play-by-play guy of the Bills and says, like, you know, hold up your microphone or whatever.

And he says, I'm retiring. I'm not going to play anymore. And then disappeared. He never spoke to the media. He literally went to the radio play-by-play guy said record this i'm retiring and then left amazing it was amazing because we were like outstanding because i was working and i was working as a producer and i and i was like uh the the play-by-play guy had his own show similar to how PA does here in Minnesota. And so

he like said from down, you know, down the line is what they would call it when you're not on the air, but you're coming through the board. And he said down the line, like, uh, Kyle Orton just retired to me. So, um, maybe we're going to want to start the show with that. And I was like, excuse me. Um, what? Uh, okay. So it was like, you better listen to the beginning of the show with that. And I was like, excuse me? What? Okay. So it was like, you better listen to the beginning of the show, everyone, because your quarterback's retiring. All right. This is the last one because Rex Grossman was 03 and I won't make you guess that one, but 2004 Ohio State quarterback who did play for the Vikings was taken the fifth round. Oh, what is that dude's name? Winning record as a Chicago Bear quarterback, 3-2 in 2004.

Big success at Ohio State, I think. Was that when Eddie George was there? Maybe it was. Was it Hoyer? It was not Hoyer. He only played for one year, and that was his pretty much whole NFL career. But he was memorable because he was very good at Ohio State, and they were really successful when he was there.

Yeah. Actually, this is the opposite of Enderly. Like, I have the face in mind, but I can't give you the name. I do not know who it is. This would be Craig Krenzel. There we go. Fifth-round Bears quarterback. My guy, Craig Krenzel.

Well, you did terribly, but I knew you would. Thank you. Thank you. I don't think anyone remembered Nathan Enderly. Who the hell would bother remembering Nathan Enderly and why? Rami, it was great to catch up and have this conversation. We will do it again. We have hot routes for the summer.

Oh, yeah. We'll do a lot of hot routes in a while. You know what? You're going to be hearing from me because the week after the draft, I always like to go around the NFC North. You're my Vikings guy. So I'll be talking to because the week after the draft, I always like to go around the NFC North. You're my Vikings guy. So I'll be talking to you this week on my show. I am good to go.

Great to catch up with you, and we will talk again soon. Thanks, man. Sounds good, dude. See you.