Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Dalvin Cook narratives are weird

Episode Date: July 2, 2023

Matthew Coller and Jonathan Harrison talk about the strange nature of national commentary surrounding Dalvin Cook. He's being called an elite player, yet there seems to be very little interest in his services. Plus will the Vikings' RB rotation out-perform Dalvin and much more... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Oakley. Express yourself. Build a look that's made for you. When you wear Oakley, there really is more than meets the eye. Try it for yourself. Oakley is not only the best looking, but the best quality. So head on over to oakley.com for more information today. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Hot R here on purple insider matthew collar and jonathan harrison here and uh jonathan i want to start the show we got a lot of football to talk about we've got some uh fill in the blanks from pro football talk headlines which i know we had a lot of fun with last time and you have maybe spent the last several days prepping on the best possible answers.

But I think I want to start with a Patrick Royce tweet. Actually, this is really important. Really important to my life and my well-being. So there was a story from Reuters that says this. Exclusive, aspartame, one of the world's common artificial sweeteners, is set to be declared a possible carcinogen next month by a leading global health body pitting it against the food industry and regulators. That sounds pretty scary, especially for those of us who consume a lot of diet soda, especially Diet Coke. But, you know, Diet Dr. P is always in the house.

And here's here's Patrick's tweet. This may be one of the greatest tweets ever sent in the history of this website. Okay. Patrick wrote, this wonderful product is the sole reason my mind remains sharp in my 78th year on the planet. It gets me going in the morning, relaxes me at night. My one bout with the vid had very mild symptoms. Thanks to Diet Coke. It is the next year of the gods.

Thanks for all you do for me. Diet Coke. That is. And I said, there's never been more truth ever. Look, I'm just taking my chances. I do so many other things to try to stay healthy in this world like eat a taco bell all the time i'm just gonna take my risk but i just wanted to point that out that i don't believe i've ever read a more perfect tweet than what patrick royce crafted about diet coke look but

you know what aspartame i don't care i don't care we're just going for it i i'm gonna tell it that that tweet is so couched in like they think it might be maybe according to one person who is gonna maybe say a thing like look i don't care it's delicious it's wonderful and uh i'm gonna go forward am i am i wrong for just going forward with diet Coke and every other diet soda throwing caution to the wind with whatever the heck is in there? No, you're not wrong. You, as, uh, as was the popular phrase, probably what, 10 years ago, you really only do live once. So, uh, why not just have at it, man? Like you, you're, you're a runner.

You won't run. You take care of yourself well enough. I mean, you can have this one vice and if it possibly has a carcinogen then it possibly has a carcinogen but you do well enough to take care of yourself you're allowed this one thing that might be risky who knows i mean you you really only do live once so might as well just live it up here's what i want to throw out there it's funny that we're saying these things about diet coke like not cocaine right so you're like you're in shape you can snort a little blow and be fine all right also i just want to throw out there and i know i sound like the smoker who's like my grandpa smoked for 78 years and he was totally healthy at the end yeah one of his lungs fell out but that's not the point i'm not trying to be that guy but i'm just saying that possible things that might be bad for you

i live next to the airport and i also had to put a thing in my basement to pump out the whatever it is that's in your base you know what's in basement what basement. What is it called? I forget. Radon. Radon. Yeah. I have a radon thing that we had to put in to pump out radon or whatever. You know, there's pitfalls to everything. We all just breathed in Canadian wildfire smoke for the past month and a half. I think we're fine with some diet soda around here. I went for a jog. I waited till the bad air quality, whatever, went down enough. But I was like, I don't know. It says only for old people. I'm just going for a jog i waited till the bad air quality whatever went down enough but i was like i don't know it says only for old people i'm just going to jog anyway so uh yeah caution to the wind on

that but that that is what is on my mind because it's summer but we do have a lot of uh football things to talk about and i want to start with you know something else i'm going to start with the second thing that i sent you in the email just because I saw that our friend Arif Hasan wrote about this as well. And it's a little bit of a weird development in the analyst world. So there's very few news stories in the NFL that are going on right now in general, right? You got DeAndre Hopkins is a free agent. Where's he going to go? I suppose maybe they haven't really noticed the daniel hunter situation because i have not seen that on any of the nfl lives come up very

often it's a lot of deandre hopkins and it's a lot of delvin cook and every time i see delvin cook get discussed the most recent was on the pat mcafee show but also there's been nfl network nfl live whatever he is being talked about as an elite running back still. And then the word elite has been used. And that is a little bizarre to me because the Vikings decided not to have him on their football team anymore. And we know they're not tanking because Kirk cousins is still on their football team. And I just would like to know from the people who are calling him elite where the elite is where it's been for the last two seasons and sort of typical fashion with vikings stuff the outside world is quite a bit behind on what's going on and this

seems like being quite a bit behind and there was this reaction in general of what are they doing cutting delvin cook and we've been reporting that they were going to cut delvin cook since march or trade delvin cook for lots of reasons but in part because the health the statistical factors uh the the age curve all these things and yet you keep seeing it come up it's almost like since he got cut by his team, he's become so much better in the eyes of people to the point where you're hearing commentary that he helped Justin Jefferson, which is patently absurd.

If anything else, it would have been Justin Jefferson helping Delvin cook because teams were playing too deep safeties all the time. And there's, and there's easy places to find this stuff, folks. It's not very hard. You go to the NFL Next Gen, look at how many eight men were in the box. Maybe this should have been our Oakley Stats Focus.

You know what? We should make this our Oakley Stats Focus since we're talking about it, presented by Oakley, which is the sunglasses that I am currently wearing and something we do each week. It's been almost like the outside world has not wanted to look at the numbers with Delvin Cook, with everybody else. That's what we do. If we're making a case, if we're making an argument, if we're going to say a player is elite, we show our work. And with this, it's not just the rushing yards over expected, which I think told a pretty clear story when Delvin Cook had the worst number in the league in terms of total rushing yards over expected. Also the fact that he had the most runs of zero

or negative yards last season. That's a pretty significant factor. The fact that his yards per touch has gone down for four straight seasons, that his 4.5 yards per carry last year was actually not a good number because the rest of the league actually had more running success. So it was much more of an average number since he ranked in the bottom quarter of running backs by PFF grade, which I think is a pretty strong measure since they're watching every play and grading it. This is not the same elite player that he used to be by the numbers. That doesn't mean that the next place he goes, he's going to be bad. I think last year is probably closer to average and maybe he wasn't as good of a fit as he

was with the zone running but it is bizarre to see just flat out ignored all evidence that could be gathered in very easy places to get evidence even just the yards per touch which went way down um you know since his his best years i i don't why do you think this is? Is it because people just want to kind of hype it up? Uh, is it because they like them? They're a fan of it. I don't really understand with almost everybody. We generally look at them and try to analyze it statistically and pick out the trend, but I don't know, does it make for a better topic if you're saying whatever team gets this guy, it's going to be amazing? Because I just don't really

see much evidence that that's the case. I think people only remember the big runs and they don't because they're not watching the Vikings play in and play out like Vikings fans and you and I are. They only remember the big runs against the Colts, against the Bills, those 80-yard runs that flipped the game entirely in the Vikings' favors in those moments that they needed them last season. So I think people are thinking that, oh, that's Dalvin Cook playing and play out, and the last great Vikings running back to leave there was pretty dang good too. But that's not what Dalvin Cook is, especially going into his age 28 season.

This is when we start talking about running backs falling off a cliff, and Dalvin Cook started to show that last season. As you said, it wasn't Dalvin Cook helping Justin Jefferson out. It should have been the other way. But every conceivable stat you can come up with showed that it didn't really help Dalvin Cook out because he just wasn't as good last year. And you can blame it on the shoulder injury all you want but last I checked running backs or people don't run with their shoulders yes running or a show having a healthy shoulder is going to help with impacts and being able to bounce off tackles a little bit better but

he could have run just fine and from everything we saw he was running just fine it's just he wasn't able to be as successful last season for one reason or another and I think a lot of it is just coming down to people only remember the good things they don't remember the bad or the kind of average to bad things that is most of his play at this point and as he said I can't remember which interview it was he said it a couple weeks ago that he's not really in for an offense that passes a lot. He's a three down back and wants to run all the time and be that guy. And sorry, but that's just not NFL offenses that succeed anymore. You're not going to win a Super Bowl by leaning on a running back anymore.

That's just not how the NFL is played today. And you're not going to find that in any offense around the league that is on a successful team. It's just that's not how the NFL is going to be played right now. And as you said, the Vikings played a lot of two deep safeties, so there should have been plenty of success. But there just wasn't. I mean, as you said, the yards per attempt went down for the past three years from 5.0 in 2020 all the way down to 4.4 last year. And that should have been a lot higher considering where the rest of the league was so it for me it's just a lot of people remembering

those couple big runs and those big turnaround games for the Vikings yeah so I was pulling up some more of the numbers and I agree with you that everybody saw what happened in that Buffalo game and remember that big run he didn't have another 100 yard game after that the entire season and going by the PFF grades relative to his carries there was 32 running backs that at least got let me pull up the number I believe it's that at least had 180 carries okay and Delvin Cook graded by PFF 28th out of 32 for running backs that had at least 180 carries. That is not people paying much attention to the actual games that happened. It's entirely name recognition and not trying to, you know, kind of even take two seconds to look into it or

just playing completely into a narrative here. And I think that people in the comments here, I'll put some on the screen, have this exactly right when it comes to Delvin Cook. And again, I want to say that under the right circumstances, I think that he could help a team a lot. I mean, if he goes to Miami and he splits snaps with Raheem Mostert, they have a tremendous passing game. They could split snaps. It comes from the running game that is designed by Shanahan in San Francisco. That's where the roots of that running game are. It could be very successful. So not being like Hayton saying he can't do it, but if you think he's the same running back, if you think he's a lead, if you think that he was making Justin Jefferson better somehow,

like what are we, what are we doing? And and normally I just these things just kind of go right past me because there's so much analysis of football and everything else but with him being one of the main talking points it's just so inaccurate and I think that you know this is something I've thought of as well from Matthew here probably why Kevin O'Connell talks so much about improving rushing efficiency this year right I mean I mean, he talked a ton about that. In fact, by expected points added, I can call this up. I mean, they were one of the worst running games in the entire NFL. And again, this is not stuff that I have like secret stats on.

This is pro football reference. They're 27th in expected points added through the run. Like that's not very good at all. And you know, who knows that is Kevin O'Connell he knows that that running game was not very effective last season with Delvin Cook that it wasn't a great fit and part of it might have been that that it wasn't a great fit but I just want to know if he's so elite like why did they just cut him and you could say they're tanking but there isn't really evidence that they're tanking there's evidence that they're transitioning their roster and moving on from older less effective players oh older less effective players like look

who look who he falls under the category of that they cut it's all guys that were older and either banged up or not at their best uh and so i guess he's different um i don't know it's just weird i try not to get too caught up into the like people are saying, but it's really just every time I've seen it talked about, that's the way that that discussion is gone. It's like, wait, am I crazy? Or did I watch all the plays and not see the same player that we had seen before? Hunter says people who call Delvin Cook, I assume you mean elite, have not looked at the advanced stats nor actually watched Vikings football. They see highlights and say, look at this 70-yard touchdown against the Bills. I think that is absolutely right.

Joseph says name recognition and fantasy. Yeah, I think he had a decent fantasy year last year, all said and done. Something else that I noticed, I was talking about that rushing yards per attempt and how much it went up. And I just noticed this, that last year there were, let me, let me pull this up here. 13 guys who rushed regularly, like starting running back bell cow back 13 of 32 who averaged at least four, 4.5 yards per carry. Interestingly, I went back a couple of years and there were only five. So there were way more guys who are getting more than four and a half yards per carry. So we have this number in our head, sort of like a hundred quarterback rating. Like, well, if you had a 97 quarterback rating, but 97 quarterback rating, isn't what it was even a

couple of years ago. And I think four and a half yards per carry at one time, even five years ago was really good. But now with all these defenses playing way back, there's a lot of guys who are averaging more than that. And that is basically just kind of average. So anyway, it's, it's, you know, it's an interesting discussion because it, I don't mean to downplay how good of a running back Delvin Cook was, but it's also just bizarre that there's no other side of this discussion. The contract that the Vikings gave Delvin Cook was not a success. He had one good season in that contract. It was a rebuild or should have been a rebuild season in 2020. They missed the playoffs. 2021, he started his decline it was just an average running back and then last year below average by a lot of the metrics so you know i don't know uh

i i guess i i just would have thought people would look into it a little bit more uh good question from joseph what's a scenario that would make the vikings regret cutting him. I don't see one. I really don't because even if he goes to Miami and runs for 1,200 yards at five and a half yards a carry, I don't know, whatever, right? That's fine because the goal was to find out what you have in the backfield. And if the answer is you have nothing, that's fine. You know that you need to make a move there next year and in the

future and you're not spending anything at that position i i think that there is so much value in seeing what kenny wong can do seeing how alexander madison is as the main back seeing if ty chandler can play and can be that future guy and even if delvin cook does something really good for another team this team really wasn't in a position for that to matter and even if delvin cook does something really good for another team this team really wasn't in a position for that to matter and also no guarantee that he would have done it for this team uh either but i don't i don't think there is a scenario where they regret it because if they go into 2024 knowing they need a running back they'll draft another one they'll sign another one if you ever look at free agency year in and year out there's always like eight running

backs in free agency who you can manage with and from here on after this is a pass first offense that is what kevin o'connell is going to do and uh i co-sign to that i think that that's the way it should be and so they're going to look for running backs who can catch the ball out of the backfield i think in the future as well so you, you know, I, I, there's another question here from Ryan. Do you think O-line continuity will improve our run game, regardless of who's at running back? That's a good question, but the funny thing is, and I know that there's always going to be factors that go into the PFF grades and that it's not a thousand percent of all truth in this universe it's just people who have a way of grading that graded every team the same way and they graded the Vikings run blocking is very good last year and that to me actually matches up with their skills and you know Ingram

is a big guy he's a powerful guy Cleveland I, is a really good run blocker. That's what Garrett Bradbury was drafted to do. I do think that O-line continuity does help, but I think it helps maybe more in the passing game. That's the reason that you move on probably as you watch the tape back and go, well, they blocked and he didn't get the yards he was supposed to get. Just want a couple more here from the comment section is mckinnon a good example of getting a cheap running back with high impact 100 yeah 100 yes that you can go to free agency well latavius murray for the vikings you can go to free agency and get someone who can help you um let's see one more from Daniel. AD was probably the last running back to get a crazy contract.

If I'm not mistaken, I think Adrian Peterson's contract is still more than anybody has gotten since then at the running back position, which is funny because it was like 10 years ago. It's crazy. And, you know, I don't know what your opinion on this is,

Jonathan. I understand where the running backs are coming from, but that's kind of life. It's just kind of life. If kickers, hey, some kickers are great. The best kicker in the world, Justin Tucker, who wants him more than the Minnesota Vikings in this world? A kicker who makes all of them?

Wonderful. Wonderful. Even from 38 yards or 27 in the snow can you do it justin tucker can how much would you pay for it 40 million no like all the all the positions have value and have a replaceable factor and that's just kind of facts of life when it comes to running back is that there are a lot of running backs who can do the same things. Yeah. And with this and with teams wanting more versatile guys, you're going to find these guys all over the place. You're not going to have these just workhorse running backs who are going to demand the ball all the time.

And they're going to demand big salaries because you're relying on them so much. It's just not going to happen anymore because teams are looking for more versatility in that position. That's one of the things that always bit Dalvin Cook is that he just never was the pass catching back that this offense needed and that it was looking for. And that's going to be a spot where whatever team gets him is going to realize that really quickly is that he's just not that kind of running back. And they're going to have to rely on some of those other guys to do that. And going back to the Jarek McKinnon point,

that's absolutely true is that he is, he is the perfect example of that because he did the run blocking as well. And you saw the impact that he had or the pass blocking as well. You saw the impact he had in the super bowl. I mean, catching, catching a touchdown pass out of the backfield on an incredibly good route that kind of changed the game for the chiefs. That that kind of back is what teams are looking for, and you can find them all over the place, especially on the free agent market late in the season. I mean, those guys are there,

and they have fresh legs going later in the season. And so, yeah, the age of the Adrian Peterson-type contracts is long gone. It's just not going to happen anymore, and I don't see it ever returning because of the way this game is moving towards this pass first offense style that is winning team Super Bowls after Super Bowl after Super Bowl. It's just a big money running back is just not going to be a thing that we see much often. Folks, I know you have heard me talk a ton about my Oakley sunglasses this summer, but the more I wear them, the more more i like them i went on a little summer vacation and spent a ton of time outside in the sun and let me tell you before these i had to squint even when i had sunglasses on but these matte black prism sapphire polar sunglasses

protected my eyes and i think i looked pretty great as well i was able to stay outside for hours rather than getting beaten down by the sun like I have in the past. And now I am confident that when training camp comes around, I will be able to keep both eyes on all the positional battles. Oakley is changing the game and it's allowing to be an extension of yourself and expression of your personality more than meets the eye. So make a sunglasses upgrade today at Oakley.com. Oakley even offers prism lens technology. What is that, you ask? It is a proprietary technology to Oakley and available for everyday settings as well. And if you want to know more, you can do your own research at Oakley and available for everyday settings as well. And if you want to know more, you can do your own research at oakley.com. When you wear Oakley, there is more than meets the eye.

Try it for yourself. I've worn a lot of sunglasses and I can assure you that Oakley is not only the best looking, but the best quality as well. Head on over to oakley.com for more information today. Oakley, express your style and build a look that's made for you yeah they're gonna have to these running backs just make the most of your first contract because even we're seeing with josh jacobs and saquon barkley who are in my opinion better running backs than delvin cook and they're still struggling to get money. So a couple of questions off of this, though. Is Delvin Cook going to outgain the Vikings running backs this year? I don't think so, because wherever he goes, especially if it's Miami,

they're not going to use him like Delvin Cook has been used in the past. And with the way the Vikings look like they're going to go and have a, have kind of a multi running back system here. I'm forgetting the word, but they're going to have multiple running backs in a rotation. It, I don't think that Dalvin Cook, wherever he goes is going to be leaned upon. Like he thinks he is.

And, and if, if Raheem Mostert is the guy behind him, he's going to get a lot of touches as well. So I just don't see Dalvin cook out, outrushing the Vikings, whoever they're putting out on the field this year. By the way,

most of what we said was part of our Oakley stats focus presented by the sunglasses from Oakley. So we appreciate them for sponsoring the show throughout the summer of which I played golf today. And guess what? I brought the shades. I brought the other ones. I just, I feel like these are to look cool on the show ish and sort of just be like, have fun. But the ones that I take out in public are not quite as gaudy. I'm just saying like, but they're not very helpful though

very helpful not the gold ones he's wearing down in brazil right now oh really yeah i mean i'm not on that level i'm not i'm not even on this level that's the thing but they were very helpful because it was actually bright out today with the smoke clearing up a little bit uh one more question off of this who is the oh i i don't think he's out gaining the vikings running backs by the way i i don't think that's going to be the case they'll probably gain like 1400 yards as a group and maybe 900 of it goes to madison and 400 goes to chandler and uh you know i'm very intrigued i have been for three years by kenny wongwu and i'm just going to keep going back to the well until it breaks through and it happens. But when there's a dude this quick and this fast, I'm very interested to see how that battle plays

out for the first time. It has been a long time since I've covered a running back battle in training camp, really since 2017. So I want to know also who the Viking player is that left and did the most damage outside of, of course, Randy Moss going to the Patriots and them having a perfect season. I'm trying to think I've been looking up this one and I'm struggling to come up with anybody who did a ton of damage once they left, especially over the past couple of years, because usually Mike Zimmer had that correct on these guys outside of a couple corner or a cornerback or two, but most of the time he had it correct on when these, when it was time to move on from these guys, the guy I think of the most right now,

recently Cordell Patterson, because he continued to be one of the best kick returners, if not the best kick returner in NFL history with just what he was able to do. And the other teams actually decided to use him from the running back position as well, which proved to be pretty successful, especially in Atlanta last year. So he's my first answer that I can come up with right now is, is Cordero Patterson had,

has created the most damage since leaving Minnesota. Yeah. Like that. You're right. That not too many guys left the Vikings in recent years and then really crushed somewhere else. Yeah. Does Diggs count is a good question. I mean, left sort of.

You get a first-round pick. It turns into Jefferson. I mean, yes. Like he has done the most damage for sure. I guess the part of it is, and you regret it deeply, is another part of it. I mean, with digs, it's the reason you don't regret it deeply is because of Justin Jefferson. Um, this is a great answer here. Case Cook is USFL legend, uh, has been really fantastic in that league. Uh, how about Chris Dolman when Chris Dolman, uh, left the Vikings, he, I just called this up, had 62 career sacks and 83 games after he left the Vikings.

Rich Gannon gets into this conversation many years later, but still rich and enough, but the other guys, Xavier Rhodes, Everson Griffin, Linval Joseph, you know, there wasn't one of those seasons where he went like, Oh wow, the Vikings cut the cord too early. And that guy went somewhere else and crushed it so in recent history yeah there has been um fewer of this and i don't really expect i guess the other part of the question would be which one of the guys that left this year might someone look at and be like oh kind of regrets that that guy has a good season. I don't think Taylor Heineke counts.

I mean, Taylor Heineke had some fun moments that playoff game against Tampa Bay. He's won some games, but he's, you know, I mean, he's sort of been what Taylor Heineke is. Good for him though, career out of an undrafted, but which one of the guys that left this off season has the potential to do the most damage somewhere else? I would say probably Zedarius Smith has the best potential. I don't see it happening for Eric Hendricks because it's the same defense he was in this last season, and it didn't seem to be that good of a fit. Maybe it's a little bit more well-run than Ed Donatel's, and he fits a little bit better out in Los Angeles,

but the same defense factor kind of makes me a little nervous there. Adam Thielen, he's probably going to be pretty decent in Carolina, but that all depends on how Bryce Young adapts to the NFL. Zedarius Smith, though, is going into what seems like it could be a good defense. He's got a really good edge rusher on the other side of him to take up some of the offensive blocking capabilities from the other side. So I think he might have the most impact this season. I don't think it's going to be a very long run for him because of his age and his injury history alone,

but I think he has the capabilities to do it this year. Okay, let me present this scenario to you. Vikings play against Carolina Panthers. Is that week five? I think week four. Week four, I think it is. So they're playing against Carolina Panthers that week five, week four, week four, I think it is. So they're playing against Carolina Panthers. All right. So the Vikings, they're in a little more of a battle than we expect. They at the very last minute, they drive down the field and they

get a lead with about a minute left. They kick off. Carolina gets the ball. Bryce Young kind of driving them a little bit. And there's only a few seconds left in the game. Bryce Young kind of driving him a little bit and there's only a few seconds left in the game Bryce Young rolls out throws kind of a prayer but here comes Lewis scene he's taking a bit of a bad angle Thielen jumps up for the ball keeps his balance goes down the sideline Joe Buck says Thielen sideline touchdown and Carolina beats the Vikings I think it's inevitable right you paint quite the picture there I don't know that Joe Buck would be doing it because I don't think it's a Monday night game but yeah it's it's or or a good enough game to have any good broadcaster probably for that one honestly that too uh more of Albert for that one oh yeah it's

very much inevitable that that's going to happen you let the hometown kid go he goes on to somewhere else all motivated and he's going to have a good game it's just how things play out for minnesota sports teams i i totally agree that that is absolutely what will happen uh when they play each other this season i can see also a kendrick's pick six right very possible uh man that would be a dagger pat Peterson they're not going to play the Vikings but like could be part of a good defense there the one that I agree with this one being brought up Irv Smith Jr. in the Bengals offense there's always been that Irv potential there we've always known about the Irv potential he was clearly not a fit with what they were doing last year here and then the injury happened and he might not ever stay healthy

but if he does he might become a good player and we've just seen this numerous times with tight ends where they go to somewhere else and then they turn out to be you know a halfway decent player or or maximize their potential after a few years so i like that one um but i think that your answer is actually right it's probably zadaria sm The Chargers, if they're really good, Kendricks could be playing deep into the playoffs. That's always possible as well. So anyway, well, a lot of meat on the bone there with the Delvin Cook topic.

On the written side of things, I did a bunch of quarterback rankings for the Vikings. I know you read the article. I included best deep ball, most fun Vikings quarterback, biggest what if, best season. So let's go through those one by one. And I'm very interested in your picks and in the chat's picks as well for these. So for the Vikings, all time Vikings quarterbacks, best deep ball. Who did you pick, Jonathan Jonathan I know you told me to pick differently than you but I I really struggled to pick somebody different than Jeff George I mean you had it correctly

that the cannon the fact that cameras couldn't keep up with the ball's flight path and the flight speed of it was just incredible I think Dante Culpepper might deserve to be up a little bit higher just because when Brett Favre was here, he was a little bit older, didn't have as much of a cannon. So in Vikings terms of Brett Favre, then I think Culpepper deserves to be a little higher. And then maybe Bradford as well, because that guy had an absolute cannon. We only got to see it really for one game in that Saints game at the beginning of 2017. But I think he deserves maybe to be a little bit higher.

But I think for the most part, you got this list pretty correct with Jeff George being at the beginning of 2017. But I think he deserves maybe to be a little bit higher. But I think for the most part, you got this list pretty correct with Jeff George being at the top. I would maybe just flip Culpepper for Favre there. Jonathan, you're not supposed to tell people that I told you to make different picks for me so we could go back and forth. You're supposed to keep that in the email. Sorry. But anyway, now I'm going to have to be concerned what I email to you,

and you're just going to tell the audience. But yeah, I had I had Jeff George, Brett Favre, Dante Culpepper, Wade Wilson and Randall Cunningham as the top five with Bradford coming in as sixth. I think that there is a case for and I guess Favre would probably argue that that San Francisco throw proves that he still had the gas on the fastball probably yeah i i think the culpepper one is interesting to maybe argue for number one because of how much success he and randy moss had throwing deep and randall cunningham too for only one season but sure had a lot of you know success throwing deep to randy moss but culpepper could throw it so high and so far underneath Randy Moss that it might beat out anybody else except for Jeff George. I mean, just, okay, that's good. I can recall Josh Freeman can throw it out of the earth. I mean, that is an old meme. That's like

when memes were memes, when they were first beginning to be meme is that like maybe reddit came up with that one uh that's good so yeah i mean it what really stands out too is when you have guys that had cannons like warren moon or even tommy kramer could really chuck it down the field being seventh or eighth this is the team that might have the mount rushmore of arm strength for all time. Okay. So the other one, let's see, the most fun, who did you have as the most fun Vikings quarterback of all time? Fran Tarkin's in up for one. Brett Favre though, that season was so much fun for me, just as a Vikings fan that year. Totally speaking, just on the field stuff, there was nothing more fun than having a team that was just that good and had that many great moments in the season.

Case Keenum deserves to be up high pretty much as well because of his season as well. His just could-care-less attitude, whether he screws up or not, the fact that his head coach wanted to pull him off the field at all times just because he couldn't stand the risks that Case Keenum was taking. Dante Culpepper, though, deserves a really high ranking as well, just because of the size, the speed, and his ability to just chuck it downfield as we talked about. But the fact that he was just so big and was able to run over linebackers is always a really fun to see thing. I'm going to have Dante Culpepper,

probably two right after Tarkenton with Favre as three and then Keenum as four probably. And Culpepper was a lot of fun to see succeed. When he had great games, you know, he did the celebration and all that. There was a lot of fun. I mean, there are a lot of entertaining quarterbacks on this list. The old school, old school fans will say Joe Capp because even the old nfl films made fun of how joe capp had no arm they were just like what the pat summerall used to do the voiceovers

for nfl films for some of the years and there was one video where he says the only thing on the ball was the logo when joe capp was throwing it like, wow, really slamming the arm strength there. He threw some ugly passes, but you know, ran over people found ways to win games. I also think that Kirk cousins last year, it's like that year is separate from, he was no fun to watch a lot of times during his career, especially when he would have the down games. But last year he was really fun to watch. mean he got hit a lot he always bounced back up had a lot of game-winning drives like exciting plays and seeing the team come around him puts him on this list for just last year alone not super high on the list and Jim McMahon averaged like five yards an attempt and won a bunch of games

that makes no sense and is hilarious and he deserves it just for that. But Fran Targerton is the answer, though. I mean, he won a ton, and he did it by scrambling, running around, making plays. It's just sometimes I wish we had an AI, and I don't want to give AI any ideas because it's already kind of scary to begin with. But more scared of AI than Diet Coke, just to call back to the beginning of the show. But that would make an old football game look like today's football game. And so we could watch it, but it would look like today's. Just have it in HD and just have the clarity of it and kind of the broadcast of it

so we could watch back some of those old games and they wouldn't look like grainy nonsense if you're trying to do it. And we can only kind of live a lot of them through NFL films just to show how good France Arketon was for his day and how much fun he was as a great scrambler, but a lot of potential nominations for that list. How about the best season? What do you think the best season ever by a Vikings quarterback is? I think the top three and not in this particular order, the top three belong to

98 Randall Cunningham, 04 Dante Culpepper in 2009, Brett Favre, but I'm not going to have them in that order because I think Randall Cunningham gets the knock in this category because of the receivers that he had to be able to throw to in Chris Carter, Randy Moss, and Jake Reed. The other two seasons, they didn't have that good of receivers because 0-4 Culpepper had a knocked up Randy Moss. He had injuries. A dinged up Randy Moss, not a knocked up Randy Moss. I don't know what I was thinking. That's a totally different thing.

Glasses are throwing me off, Colin. A dinged up Randy Moss. He had a couple injuries that season so he's relying on nate burleson a lot in that season uh and then brett farve had sydney rice had uh percy harvin and then adrian peterson was up there as well as a guy he threw to a lot uh and vasante shanko as well uh i'm gonna give those two guys the bump over randall cunningham just because of the receivers they had to throw to and the rest of the offense they had to work with. Granted, Cunningham led the greatest offense of all time at that time,

but with what those guys worked with and to have the seasons they had and to lead the seasons they led, I think they get the bump over Cunningham because of that. So it's probably, for me, 0-4 Culpepper, 0-9 Favre, and then 98 Randall Cunningham in that order. And from the history books, 75 Fran Tarkenton wins the MVP of the league. So he deserves to be in that conversation. Joe Capps' season in 69 will just never not be one of the craziest.

Guy shows up kind of out of nowhere in that season. But yeah, I think I would argue for Cunningham here to say that he had the best one because of where the league was at at that time. And the greatest show on turf comes around the next year. So it was advancing a bit, but it was not a put up crazy passing stats league at that time, outside of a few quarterbacks outside of Steve young, you know,

Dan Marino had done it for a good portion of his career, but there were not guys who were throwing for 4,000 plus yards on a regular basis and to do what they did offensively. I know it's Moss and there might be an argument since Jeff George stepped in the following season and did what he did that anybody could throw to moss like that but you know you you look at the numbers it's one of the great quarterback seasons ever in history at at the time as you as you said i tend to lean toward that one because of that and kind of say well look yeah obviously moss is part of it but for the most, great receivers are usually part of all time, great quarterback season. So, and if we put

that element aside, like it may have been harder for the other guys to do it a little bit, but just by the pure numbers who did it the absolute best, uh, I would go with Randall Cunningham. So, uh, very good stuff. Do you want some, Oh, okay. Yeah. Match match games i forgot that i included this but uh i was i enjoyed starting to mild twitter controversy about the taylor swift concert and you got people going first of all i mean get over yourselves yeah absolutely just like there are other things in the world that are exciting other than football i hate hate to tell you, I don't know a lot about them, but nor did I know, nor do I know a ton about Taylor Swift anyway, but the ticket situation was good for us. It kind of worked out really nicely. And my wife is a big fan. So we had

a good time. And so did everybody else there. Cause they went ballistic for four straight hours and it was crazy so i tweeted out that you know it was like the minneapolis miracle energy like 15 different times and what i meant was it and obviously if you read the tweet i didn't say it was better than the minneapolis miracle i just said that it matched that peak insane energy where the whole stadium is just going through the roof a bunch of different times during her show, when she came out, when she played some of the hits. And we are talking about 60,000 people, not just singing along, screaming their brains out along.

And I also want to mention too, she has a band that is is incredible as you would assume that she brings along the best musicians in the world so this band is just bringing it the entire night they have a insane light show they give out wristbands that light up the entire arena they had fire maybe take a hint vikings that you can use fire inside. I know it's not Vikings. I should say Vikings. NFL, Raj, take a hint that stadium shows are using fire. You can too. So anyway, that was the point.

Don't let the Tennessee Titans do it. People intentionally went out of their way to be mad because that's what they do on the internet. That's why they log in. That's why they get up in the morning for some. So I went. So here. But here's the here's the match game to finish the show i got a couple of them we'll start with this so i went to the to

the taylor swift concert some people were mad that i said it had as much energy on multiple occasions as the minneapolis miracle but believe it or not you know people like other stuff the vikings and t swift connections though pretty wild so much that the show when it ended she did blank she screamed digs sideline touchdown the end you know i wish there was like odds or someone made fake odds about what jersey she was gonna wear and she didn't have any viking jersey i was hoping that she would do like purple rain or something i don't think it's really possible because this show is created down to the very second but it would have been cool if she pulled out purple rain or something minnesota

related i like the way to back up what you said about the stadium going crazy i have a friend who works at the stadium and he said the area that he works in he's there pretty much every for every event because he just works there all the time. The area that he works in was shaking during the Taylor Swift concert. It's never shaken before is what he was saying. And all the all the rest of his coworkers are saying the same thing. We've never experienced anything like this. Like, yes, the Minneapolis miracle was crazy, was loud, but it's never been shaking before like it was for Taylor Swift. Also, you have to understand that people who like Taylor Swift like her similarly to how you like the Vikings.

So it's the same thing. It's the same level of excitement. And yeah, there was there was more, probably more energy with everyone jumping up and down and screaming at whatever. Anyway, that's not the point. But kind of the close, maybe the closest thing to Elvis or or something how that would have been with people just going completely nuts and it was uh interesting to be a part of but every person who had actually gone tweeted me it was like no this is this is actually true uh so just an observation but anyway so uh so much with the vikings and t

swift connections that at the end of the show, she blank. I went with kick the 38 yard field. All right, Minneapolis. Good night. Thanks for coming. Boop. And it's good. Vikings would have immediately signed her to a five-year contract. She's got a good leg, that Taylor Swift. swift very accurate would have made every field goal this year vikings would have signed her to an immediate five-year contract if she made a 38 year she nailed it from 38 although greg joseph was great in uh training camp last year and it didn't work out so anyway there's probably hundreds of vikings related answers there but uh anyway i you could go like a mike zimmer reference and say like popped an eyeball or something you know uh sold her super bowl tickets like mike tice you could go with that one um that she oh well here's a good one threw it to justin jefferson instead of checking down

yep yep yep like, like that. Lots of different ways. You know, she left on a boat after the concert could go with that. Goodness. There's directions. You can take that anyway. You want to the people who are tracking her plane when it left though.

Okay. Now you've gone too far. That's a little weird. Screaming 22. All good. Tracking the lady's plane. Nope. But we got to calm down.

I will say the one nutty part where people were like too much for me was the lines for merch. It's a T-Swift t-shirt. Come on. You can buy it on the website,'t you i don't know probably i you can probably get one anywhere you can make one yourself just go on like oh anyway uh you can do it if you want yeah so all right uh the other ones though pft headlines the inane headlines that we love so much uh this one from pro football talk micah parsons dares his opponents to blank what is he daring his opponents to do dares his opponents to oh man why am i struggling

on this one i've had a couple days to think about this i've this is the one i've struggled on the most is this one dares his opponents to leave the quarterback unblocked see if see if they'll do it on him you get i don't know i struggled on this one i stuck at this stuff you know i do i know that's why i've got other ones for that's one of the ways you do it because you struggle so much i got stuff for other for the other ones just not this one i couldn't think of one for this one i went um go to chipotle and have no avocado that's uh or no guac no no no guac at chipotle like dares his opponents i dare you to get no guac okay see that i don't like guac so that'd be me well i know i don't like guac either but i thought it sounded funny like he dare he dares his opponents to like uh try sushi for the first

time they're like all right we're ready to block you and he's like have you ever had it it's like it's better than you think and they're like isn't it raw fish uh there's opponents to run the ball more like his head coach wants any any excuse to take a shot at mike mccarthy i have to man the guys just okay the real answer is to stop him he dares his opponent to stop him it's really rough in the off season for some of these content creators isn't it pretty tough it's i mean you could you could go like he dares his opponents to jump over that creek or whatever, you know, just like, what do you dare, you know, your friends to do? Like ride their bicycle and put a baseball card in it. I don't know.

What do you TP a house? Anyway, Jahan Dotson says, it's my blank year. It's my Randy ratio year. Okay. If Jahan Dotson was even old enough. Yeah. Probably doesn't know what that means. I went,

uh, it's, it's my, I was trying to work this into it. I'm sorry. This one, I kind of botched cause I wanted to make it like it's my year of the dog or whatever you know you're you're you know whatever that doesn't it doesn't quite work

maybe maybe the chat will have to figure that one out better the actual headline is it's my breakout year if you say that though is it really like even if it does become your breakout year you've said it does that really mean you deserve a breakout year because i don't know it just feels like if you have to say it it's probably not going to happen well what but what person's going to be like it's my struggle bus year it's i like i like this from from derrick it's my good hair year i like that i I like that. That's good. That's a good one. That is a good one. Anyway, okay, last one. Miles Garrett looking blank as camp approaches.

Man, the real headline kind of ruins it. So I had looking good, but that's kind of what the real headline is. But, I mean, Miles Garrett looking out of shape as camp approaches because that's just not going to happen miles here just i went with no it's not going to happen i went with at something in the distance miles garrett is looking at something in the distance as camp approaches looking over his shoulder what's over there we got inane headlines uh to spencer's question about the hot routes uh podcast feed the reason is i've been putting our tuesday night shows in the purple insider feed because we have mostly focused on just the vikings in these recent shows that's basically looking at buying crypto is a great

see that's great yeah yeah right that's. That's exactly why we do this. That's fantastic. That's a great answer. Yeah, but that's mostly why is that we've been focusing so much on Vikings in the show that I've put it in the Purple Insider feed rather than the Hot Routes feed, because what it was originally invented for was to go around the NFL week by week, which we will get back to doing as there's like games to talk about and things like that. But since it's mostly just turned into us talking Vikings and messing

around, I figured I would just put it on the purple insider feed. So that, yeah, I should have mentioned that. But it's not dead. It will come back as training camp and the season starts. I think we did it in the like traditional hot routes fashion during like the, the peak of the off season, but just not so much during this kind of dead time. So anyway, that's the answer to that.

Try harder next time, Jonathan, to be more ridiculous when it comes to these. I'll see what I can do. Anyway, good times. Thanks for everybody for participating and for watching. I am going to go watch the links game because it's starting at nine o'clock.

And so everybody enjoy your nights and we will be around very soon. And by the way, anybody watching, if you got fans only questions, I'll be doing some more fans only podcasts. This is a heck of a great time to get your fans only questions in because there's not a lot going on. So I am up for pretty much talking about anything. So feel free to send those purple insider.com or at Matthew collar on Twitter.

Thanks for your help, Jonathan. And we will catch you all later.