Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The important Justin Jefferson questions as we head into camp (A Fans Only podcast)

Episode Date: July 23, 2022

Matthew Coller answers Minnesota Vikings fans questions, starting with a fan wanting to write about football and then moving on to the big Justin Jefferson questions, including whether it still makes sense to pay him top dollar if the Vikings do not have a great year and then onto how many wins JJ is worth versus an elite quarterback. He also answers which stadium in the Twin Cities is the best and why some undersized centers succeed and others do not. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here and this is another fans only podcast. I have gathered dozens of your questions and hopefully I won't talk too long and we will be able to get to them. I feel like the five minute timer has been pretty effective to make sure that I get more of your questions in and I have lots of them as we lead up to training camp. So it's my goal to clear out all the questions that I have and then we can get into camp and we'll get people saying things at press conferences. We'll get players on the field and things to react to and all sorts of awesome stuff and maybe even a last minute signing or maybe by the time I'm running this, there will already have been one and an emergency podcast. Oh, we can only hope the possibilities. So let me open a diet, Dr. P

and let's dive right into your questions. Okay. Our first one comes through the email and this is from Kelvin. Kelvin says, I wasn't sure if this was a question for fans only or just a response through email. I have been a fan of your podcast since you were with 1500 ESPN. And I must say you have been an inspiration for me. Well, that's great to hear, uh, watching you grow the podcast. It gives me hope that I can accomplish the dreams I have for myself. One of my dreams is to become a writer and to craft articles pertaining to sports and other interests. I was wondering if you could provide a little insight into how you got started in the business of sports writing and journalism and the approach you take when you choose to write about topics pertaining to the Vikings. Wow. Okay. Well, I'm glad that my

little podcast here and writing about the Minnesota Vikings could be an inspiration to you. I really appreciate that. That's very nice to say. It makes me feel good. As far as advice goes, I guess that the best place to start is this. It takes a lot of work. I think that when it comes to sports, there can be an idea that it's just like if you know sports and you love sports, that you can make a podcast and you can do a YouTube and you can write articles and then they'll be good because you know sports and you like sports, but that's not really how it works. Now, if you're a person that's a fan of the team and you like to get together with a buddy and

talk about the team and record it, put it on YouTube and have your friends watch it or whatever, that is totally cool. But if we're talking about, um, doing it as a professional in a professional manner, that is work. Uh, that means that you're talking about like going about the process of becoming a good writer, which would be learning how to write. So I went to college for this. I read like crazy. I studied other writers and I wrote an insane amount and still do. So I think that probably every day of my life, I'm writing at least a thousand words. And I don't think that's an exaggeration. I mean, if you are a subscriber to the newsletter, you know how often you get the newsletter. And then I'm working on other projects as well, which I cannot unveil yet.

But when I do, you'll all know what I'm talking about. And I'm always writing, always transcribing interviews, always reading really good writers and studying the things that they do. But there's no easy path. There's no thing that I could tell you. That's really the trick to becoming a good writer. It's you have to put in the work and do the process of getting to be a good writer, which is writing a ton of words yourself and practicing and practicing and practicing. So that might be starting a blog that nobody's going to read just to write every day, to put down your thoughts there, to practice learning how to write

in your own voice. And it's trying to get, you know, opportunity maybe to work with other people who can give you feedback, which is really important to have an editor or to have even friends or the wife or girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever that can look at your stuff and say, you know, I didn't really understand this. Or, you know, maybe you could have written that better. My wife is an incredibly smart person and a better writer than I am. So she's really good at reading my stuff and saying, you know, this part, you maybe want it somewhere else, or I didn't like how you use this quote there

something. So when I do a bigger piece, I'll have her read it and have her be critical. And it helps me grow as a writer. And when I talk to other writers, I ask them about writing and what they think of it. So it's really something you have to kind of really fully immerse yourself in and think of it as every other talent that you would try to have. So if I said today, learn how to play piano, would you just grab a piano and be like, okay, here I go. I'm going to play some Elton John. Like, no, you would try to get piano lessons.

You would listen to piano music. You'd watch it on YouTube, which I'm sure there's a lot of writers who give writing advice on YouTube. And you have to kind of dive all the way in to do it. If you want to take big steps and get better and better and better. Um, and as far as my career goes, uh, I started off just, I went to community college for sports management and then I completed my degree there felt like I didn't really want to go into the sports management, like working for teams and so forth, uh, that I liked talking about sports and debating and arguing and all these things, really getting into it. So I went the journalism route and then I wrote for the school paper and I got an internship at a sports radio station

and I begged them to let me write for their website. And then I got hired in Buffalo. And one of the reasons that they wanted to hire me is because I had been writing on this other website and they liked that. And so then they let me write and let me go cover the American hockey league. And I put the work in to go to every American hockey league home game and a couple of road games. We did some road trips to cover the AHL. In fact, I saw for hockey fans, Nikita Kucherov absolutely ripped the team I was covering apart. And he only spent a

handful of games in the minor leagues, but then became an NHL superstar. But I got to cover one of those games where he scored like five or six points. It was awesome. But it was a lot of work. Like you're going to the games and it's a lot of time on all of my additional things that I was doing, but it gave me a ton of practice of going home from each game and writing a report and putting it on the website and getting feedback from fans and really learning how to report. And I think that's the other part of it too, is if you're going to cover a subject writing wise, you have to put in the work to really cover it, which means talking to people, which means doing a lot of research and studying your subject closely and then being creative to

try to add something new to that conversation. So give you an example would be interviewing Kenny Wong Wu, like I did for the website a few weeks ago, I don't know, maybe a month or two ago about every second of a kick return. So I had Kenny Wong Wu take me through every second from the time the kicker boots it off to what he sees when he makes his first cut, when he's reading his blocks. And I learned a lot from Kenny Wong Wu, but it took a creative idea there where I was just thinking, how can I say something new about Kenny Wong Wu's kick return? Could I have written 500 words that said, hey, look, I I look this up on pro football reference and not too many guys had to kick returns in a season.

That's like 300 words. Nobody cares. That's just a little factoid that literally anyone could have come up with. If PFF put on their website, Kenny Wong will, will be the breakout player of the year. And then I wrote PFF says, Kenny Wong will be the breakout player of the year. I mean, who cares? Like that is just uninteresting, boring, regurgitating what other people are saying. So take your subject matter, dive deep into it, try to think of angles that are not out there and are different, and then use all the technical skill that you have grown from studying writing and you've got yourself a chance. And then take every opportunity that you can get to get feedback. I think that if you do those things with just about anything learning piano learning to play chess Whatever skill you want

Taking that route is probably the best way to go for me. It was many many years of grinding away as a producer bills pre and post game host, uh, minor league broadcaster. Like I had many, many different things that I did in order to kind of get to this point where I can do this every day and do it professionally and have credibility and all those things. Uh, there is no easy route. There are a lot of people on the internet who I think try to make it look like there is, but not if you want to do it at a high level.

If you want to do it at a high level, you can't just kind of wing it. You got to really go through the process to make it just like anything else, just like football. So thank you for that question. I'm really glad to hear that you've enjoyed my work and that it makes you want to write maybe whether it's about football or whatever else you're interested in. So best of luck to you. Next question comes from Shane. Let's say that this year is not a complete tire fire.

Okay. Well, we're stretching already, Shane. Just kidding. Just kidding. But the Vikings end up with six wins. Okay. Well, that is a tire fire. Shane, six wins is a tire fire.

All right, we'll move on. We'll move on. Justin Jefferson says, make me the highest paid wide receiver or trade me. Is it worth paying him $33-ish million a year or getting the best deal you can using Tyreek Hill's five draft picks as a benchmark? Going to assume that if they get six wins, the competitive is removed and it's just rebuild at that point. I think that with Justin Jefferson, he is a guy that you pay whatever it takes to pay Justin Jefferson to stay on your football team. I mean, here's a good way to put this. We all agree that the most important thing is how the quarterback plays. Now, we can debate how much circumstances impact players and whose fault is what and all these other things, right? But we agree that quarterback play, if your quarterback is really good, that you will win a lot of football games, right? Well, so far in Justin Jefferson's young career, when Kirk Cousins throws him the football, he has a 115.0 quarterback

rating. When he throws a contested catch opportunity to Justin Jefferson, Jefferson gets it more than 50% of the time, 51% over his first two seasons. I mean, think about these numbers. Plus, you know, we're talking about Jefferson playing in the slot more. He already plays in the slot 30% of the time and he could easily do more. You can move them to a lot of different positions, but think about that for your quarterback. So when he's throwing to anybody else other than Justin Jefferson, he's worse. And, and, and also, you know, Adam Thielen is, sorry, as far as that quarterback rating stack goes, Adam Thielen has taken a lot of touchdowns. If you gave some of those to Justin Jefferson, I mean, imagine what we'd be talking about for

a quarterback rating when targeting Jefferson and more than half the time that you can heave the ball in his direction, even if he's covered, he's coming down with that football. There is so much value there in having Justin Jefferson that if you have to put that money down on the table to keep that guy and his age, think about his age. He's still so young. I mean, he's nowhere close to the other side of his prime. He's not within five years of it. So if you sign him to a five-year contract, it's all prime years. It's all top-notch. This is the best the guy's going to be. And we see receivers have extended primes anyway. It's not like running backs. Just a Jefferson can do that for whoever your quarterback is for a very long time.

And when you first sign him to that deal, it will feel like, wow, you are going all in. This is crazy to pay him this much. There's other teams that would give you so much and you just came off a bad year. But if you win six, you move on from Kirk Cousins, you draft a quarterback and you give that quarterback a guy who catches more than half of the 50-50 balls and who gave his previous quarterback at 115 rating when throwing him the ball. Like if you are going to move on from cousins anyway, after a six win season, I don't think you want to roll the dice. I think what you want to do is sign Jefferson to that contract, give him to your young quarterback, and then take advantage of the fact that that young quarterback is on the rookie contract. So this doesn't hurt you.

The issue with cousins has not just been that he's been paid highly. It's that there were so many other guys who were also paid highly at the same time. So if you had, for example, moved on from Harrison Smith or moved on from Eric Hendricks or moved on from Anthony Barr when they could have, or Adam Thielen or whomever. And you were able to replace those players with younger guys on rookie quarter or rookie contracts, even if it's a safety, even if it's a wide receiver and those rookies end up hitting, you can make it work with an expensive quarterback contract. Aaron Rogers is the MVP, one of the best quarterbacks in the league, yada, yada, right? But also they got a lot out of Aaron Jones. They got MVP, one of the best quarterbacks in the league, yada, yada, right?

But also, they got a lot out of Aaron Jones. They got out a lot of their offensive line. They got a lot out of some defensive players like Rashawn Gary, and Z'Darrius Smith was not that expensive at the time, and Jair Alexander was on a rookie contract, right? Like Elton Jenkins is a good example, an offensive lineman for the Packers. Who's great on his rookie contract. This happened in new Orleans that in another fans only pod, we mentioned that they had that draft where they get Alvin Camara and what was it? Ryan Ramchick and you know, Lattimore that they've drafted those players and they were on rookie deals.

Well, breeze was very expensive. That's kind of the way you have to do it if your quarterback costs a lot. But in this case, it would be your receiver costs a lot, but it's not hurting you because your quarterback is on the rookie deal. And we talk about circumstances affecting players coming into the league. Give a guy this wide receiver as a starting point. And oh, by the way, two young tackles. That is a good place for a rookie quarterback to begin and come into a team that if they just had six wins, the expectations are not insane for that quarterback. He's got some time to grow. And if you sign Jefferson now, down the road, it might not look as bad in the light of day. Uh, also you could still try to work it out. So it isn't quite as expensive, like right away. So you can kind of

ease into it, or you can plan for the years where those salary cap hits are going to take the big jump. I just think that it, it, I know we're talking about receivers being replaceable, not the best in the league. That's what I mean being replaceable, not the best in the league. That's what I mean. I don't think the best in the league. So our next question relates to this. This is from Pat the Pingu on Twitter. Another fan's only question for you. Most would agree Justin Jefferson is one of the most valuable non-quarterback players in the league. How would he compare to QB players? Is he worth the same amount of wins as a top 10 quarterback? No, definitely not. Nope. Not even close. Think about this. When you talk about wins, how much somebody, how many wins somebody is worth and

wins above replacement. You know, like a quarterback is the best example of this, right? Because if you were to lose Aaron Rogers and instead start a replacement level quarterback, Kurt Benkert, I'm a town, whoever, how many wins are you different? With this Green Bay team that's pretty decent, five, six, seven wins different from an elite top 10 quarterback. How about when Dak Prescott went out and Andy Dalton played? And Andy Dalton is above replacement level because he's a guy who started before in the league and still above replacement level player. And Dak Prescott was worth how much?

A lot. So, you know, I think that when you compare that to receiver, if you have a replacement level receiver, you can get by if you still have very good quarterback play, as we're probably going to see from Aaron Rodgers. So a great quarterback, I think PFF has numbers on this, but I don't know a good way to look them up. They keep their war numbers internal. So they have not like posted those on their website, but if you have a great quarterback, it's probably four or five wins different. So here's another way to put it. If you found out today that a top 10 quarterback in the league, Kyler Murray is out for this entire year. What does Vegas do to their wind total? If their wind total is nine, it must be somewhere around there. If it's nine, it's going down to six or five. That's how much you're worth. I think that's

kind of a very straightforward way to put a quarterback is that's going to move the needle. If Justin Jefferson were to go out, the Vikings could still have a good season. It's not going to help. It's certainly going to hurt a ton, but it doesn't entirely destroy your franchise to lose a great receiver or have a great receiver out. I think Green Bay won every game with Devontae Adams out. That is not to take away from Jefferson's value. It's only to say it's nowhere close to a quarterback. So if a quarterback is worth a top 10, four wins above a replacement QB, a wide receiver might be a win. If he's great, might be one. You might change it. If Jefferson

went out today, theikings in vegas go down what from nine to eight from nine to seven and a half they wouldn't go from nine to four or five but they would if kirk cousins went out they would go down to five wins that's kind of the point about those two positions it's just it's a very significant difference in terms of above replacement, because there are a lot of receivers. There's multiple receivers per team. You could throw to somebody else. Osborne and Adam Thielen are a good combo, probably, right? But no Kirk putting in a replacement backup Mannion.

You are just done with your season. Uh, so I think that that's how they compare, but that is not to take away from the impact of Justin Jefferson on his quarterback. You are way better off. It's just that you can survive one. You can't survive the other, unless you're the Vikings and you have backup quarterbacks, such as case Keenum, Randall Cunningham, you guys know the list. Um, but you know, fun conversation about Jefferson. I think he's worth it. I do wonder what the data is saying about these receiver prices because Tyreek Hill is a good example. Tyreek Hill is older than Justin Jefferson, though.

And also based on some of his comments that have been incredibly idiotic this offseason, I think Justin Jefferson is a far brighter person than Tyreek Hill as well, and maybe more reliable in general. Uh, onto the next question here. This is from a P D B I S S on Twitter rank, the current major Minnesota sports venues, mine, us bank stadium, Allianz field, target field, TCF stadium, XL Energy, and Target Center being last. And our friend here says he has not been to XL Energy Center. It's fine. U.S. Bank Stadium, yeah.

I mean, your list is actually really good. Target Field is hard to beat in the middle of summer. This might be the difference maker. TCF Bank Stadium, I've been to. It's okay. It's all right. I probably prefer the X. I think the X gets really loud for hockey season.

Target Center is fine. I don't see much of a difference between either one of those. Honestly, they're sort of generic arena X for those two. But I think your list is very good. Allianz Field, if you haven't been to a soccer match, really fun. It's like a small venue. So you get to see everything. US Bank Stadium depends on the day. Are the Minnesota Vikings playing the Green Bay Packers with something on the line? US Bank Stadium. But Target Field is so good in the middle of summer on a beautiful day that I would go there

to watch baseball. And since Rob Manfred has been the commissioner of baseball, I can't stand watching baseball. It's just been a disaster. And then his comments about, you know, minor leaguers, uh, you know, they're, they're paid fine or whatever he said recently. Like I've just had enough of that, but I would still go to target field because of how beautiful it is and the great experience. So I think us bank say stadium is situational. Uh, it's probably nothing special against the Detroit lions for a week 18 game. Like it's cool. And you know, it know, it looks really nice, but the loudness is its main feature. You just have never heard anything like that. That's the big thing that makes it super special among NFL stadiums.

So it depends on the caliber of atmosphere. And the other two are great. But yeah, I could take or leave XL Energy Center and Target Center with pretty much every other sports venue in the country, almost. I mean, unless it's a total dump, hockey arenas, basketball stadiums, kind of all the same in a lot of ways. All right, on to our next question from Mark via the email. Let's see, the high drafting of Tyler Linderbaum and comparisons to our enigma

Garrett Bradbury is confusing. Aren't they physically similar? I guess I'm trying to understand why Linderbaum outclasses Bradbury strength technique attitude. Well, first let's check here with Tyler Linderbaum and how they compare physically. So, Whoa. Yeah. Wow. Uh, Linder bomb is actually smaller by his, uh, wow. By his NFL combine, he has arm length, wingspan, weight, and height all underneath the 10th percentile. This is a tiny man. This is a very, very small player for the NFL and right off the bat yes your answer is uh confusing or you're you're confused yeah because somebody that small has not had uh there just aren't almost anyone that small really in the NFL I was going to say hasn't had a lot of success, but they just don't exist

players that are that small at the center position in the NFL. That's what those percentiles kind of tell us. And I think that teams talk themselves into, well, this guy is different. Our scouts love his technique. Our scouts love his smarts, his tenacity, but Garrett Bradbury, I mean, he has, I think intelligence and he's a good run blocker. I don't think he's a great run blocker, but he's good. And he's good in space when getting out there in the screens, uh, in the playoff game against new Orleans. I remember going back and looking at that.

And there's several plays where he was really, really good when running those screens, they might get back to using him more in that way. But the Achilles heel is so bad in terms of just getting run over that it's hard to survive in the NFL. When you are undersized, there are so many good pass rushers on the interior and the strength difference between whoever you're facing at, you know, Purdue versus who you're facing for the green Bay Packers is just a gargantuan gap between those guys. You might face one player who's like 310 pounds or more the entire year. If you're a center at Iowa, you're going to face every guy or have you ever faced somebody who's 350 pounds and ran a four, eight? Well,

we got one in the NFL and Jordan Davis, that's going to be pretty rare in college, but you'll see it a lot in the NFL. And it might be one of those things where they just talk themselves into it. And it ends up exactly the same as Garrett Bradbury. If Tyler Linderbaum succeeds, it would be because the Ravens run the ball a lot, a lot, a lot. Their system has been favorable to offensive linemen. We see that with Orlando Brown, who didn't perform the same when he went to Kansas City as he did in Baltimore. I think that's probably been true for a handful of offensive linemen where it was favorable for them to be in Baltimore. So that might help. The other thing is, yeah, those other parts that you mentioned, like your length and your weight are not your leverage.

They're not your strength. They're not your ability to anchor or your ability to react or shout out a blitz or the many things that go into this. You can have undersized centers, but they really have to have the tenacity, the technique. And that's one part that I think Garrett Bradbury even admitted was missing from his game. He said he was trying too hard to stalemate and wasn't trying hard enough to win in his reps. And I'm just not sure you really see the fire. I mean, I asked Olin Krutz, the offensive lineman for the Bears, from way back in the day.

I asked him, I think two years ago, about Bradbury and being an undersized center. And, I mean, those were the things that you just have to really, really be a plus on is your technical ability. A smaller man can stop a bigger man, but you have to do the technique like to a T you have to read and react and, and have the right blocking scheme and, and all those things. And then you just have to be a violent guy, a really violent guy. So Linderbaum is a different human being than Garrett Bradbury. Would I have stayed away from him because of that size issue?

Probably. Uh, but he's got a chance to, to prove me wrong and, uh, really prove the NFL wrong for letting him drop with those things. It is not impossible, but it would be an outlier if he were to succeed at that size. I've got emails from Jason and Deb here, who I met both of them last year at training camp. So great to hear from you guys. Great to hear that you're still listening. And Jason's a Vikings fan and Deb is a Lions fan, by the way. And they live in the Detroit area. So Jason says, what traits would you prioritize in any potential quarterback in the draft?

The Vikings will not become a serious championship contender until this team lands a franchise quarterback. I appreciate you beating on this drum. And maybe if Viking Nation keeps harping on this QB point, maybe we can speak it into existence. Well, uh, yeah, I, I mean, I haven't spoken into existence so far, but maybe at some point that will happen or it's going to work itself into existence anyway, because the quarterback is 34 years old and very expensive and so forth. So we're going to get to that point. Uh, eventually I think that, you know, in, in another part of Jason's email that I, that I didn't read, uh, but he talks about, you know, just staying with your pick and how he agrees with that theory of mine,

that you stay with your pick and you just take a guy and you don't believe in yourself too much. But if I'm forced to answer the question, this is a, it's a tricky one because physical traits a year ago were the thing that we were all talking about. Well, look at Josh Allen. Look at Patrick Mahomes. It's all about the traits and Mac Jones, screw him. He doesn't have the traits. And then Mac Jones comes out and is the best quarterback of all of them. And it's not particularly close and he's the one without the traits, but he gets rid

of the ball quickly. He delivers it on time. He has great accuracy and they win a bunch of football games. And so there you go. Like now long-term it could be Trey Lance and long-term it could be Justin Fields, but Mac Jones kind of reminded us that you actually have to play quarterback. It's not just, Hey, throw any old physical freak back there. There have been a lot of physical freaks who have not worked out in the NFL over the years. So, but I think if I were to kind of maybe rank them that I'm starting with what type of competitor are you, because we're assuming that you have at least the baseline, but just based on some recent experience and I won't go into it. I've really started to value somebody's personality as a franchise quarterback type. Uh, well, let's, let's, we don't

even have to use an example here necessarily. What about Baker Mayfield? There's a good example. Baker Mayfield has really good arm strength is accurate enough. I think he panics under pressure a lot of times, but even then he can make some big-time throws, and he has all the physical ability to be a franchise quarterback. And yet, he's in Carolina, and his team traded their entire future and their soul to the Houston Texans for somebody else. So why did that happen? Well, there's a lot of he said, he said that has gone on between Cleveland and between Baker Mayfield. But, you know, the man tweets all the time, fires back at the critics and was having problems with certain other players or certain coaches. Going back to when he was in college, there were off-field issues, there were on-field issues,

and Baker seems to take everything personally, every critic personally, and need to get back at everybody and so forth. It just seems like that type of guy that I think that, you know, I don't want to go too far in making assumptions about Baker Mayfield, but I think what we can clearly say is that his personality played as big or more of an issue with what happened here than anything else. And then, you know, Carson Wentz has had this same problem where

two straight coaching staffs after trading him have said, yeah, the guy was pretty much uncoachable and they likely wouldn't have traded him otherwise. Um, I mean, think he played okay enough with Indianapolis. They may have talked themselves into it. Cleveland. Oh, well, he was hurt. They had plausible deniability, but his personality was just problematic for them and always dramatic with them. And he has a, you know, he's got his team or his group who leaks this to this reporter, that reporter. And he's just, it's just constant drama with this guy. You that's really hard to deal with, with somebody who's got constant drama and isn't Aaron Rodgers level talent. The personality is where I would probably begin

toughness, leadership, that ability to connect with other people. Patrick Mahomes is secret superpower is that he's very personable and communicates extremely well. And I will never forget that sideline video from the Super Bowl where Tyreek Hill or somebody, maybe it was, I forget who it was. Was it Byron Pringle or someone dropped a pass or was very upset on the sideline. And he went over to that person and said, we're going to win this. Like, we need you snap out of it. Get back, you know, get over it, get past it.

Let's go. And he was the one that went over to Andy Reed and called the play that ended up going to Tyreek Hill that ended up winning the Superbowl. Like that is personality as much as anything. And we're assuming NFL arm, NFL speed, like those types of things that you can start with that personality. Does somebody have a growth mindset? Are they willing to be coached? Are they willing to learn? All of those things are going to be a huge deal. And then when it comes to the physical traits,

I don't know that you have to be a certain size or shape. There have been great quarterbacks who have been small, huge, fast, slow. What did Joe Burrow run for last year? Like a hundred yards. Joe Burrow is not a running quarterback, but again, personal experience may be influencing this quite a bit, but the ability to bail out your play caller is a big deal in the NFL because plays get blown up all the time by defenses. They send blitzes, they throw things that you don't expect. And that ability to adjust when the play that's called is not open because it is two thirds of the time, but then it's not that other third.

And you have to figure something out. And where Tom Brady was an absolute and remains an absolute God at this is Tom Brady always an absolute and remains an absolute God at this is Tom Brady always knew his check down and you could be like, Oh, who cares or whatever. But if he had to throw 15 times to the running back, because that was the right throw, he would throw 15 times to the running back. Cause that was the right throw. He always seemed to know when was the right time to check it down. When something hadn't gone right, throwing to a receiver and someone wasn't open, he was very quick to snap and throw to that running back and get yardage after the catch from the running back.

Because if you wait too long, then the defender closes in on the check down and you just get nothing. But if you make that decision in a snap, it can work out really in your favor. So that's how Brady deals with it. Rogers deals with it by just throwing it anyway to Devontae Adams and back shouldering things that aren't open. Josh Allen deals with it by running around and running backwards and somehow throwing the ball with velocity to Stefan Diggs. Patrick Mahomes will create and wait and create space for himself to throw the ball. Jalen Hurts will run with it. I don't know if he's going to be a great quarterback, but he can stay in the game by running with it. You need an answer. So it's what's my guy's personality. Can he be a franchise

quarterback? And what's his answer? What's his thing that when the defense gets it right, you still beat them anyway. And, and I, those were the first two things that I would look for. I think with someone like Mac Jones, it's similar to what I was saying with Brady, where it's just Mac Jones has good footwork and he gets it out quick and he's very smart. Like maybe that's his superpower. We'll see long term. Justin Fields already showed it a little. It's the tight window throws and having a rocket.

You know, Trevor Lawrence is that physical capability with Trey Lance. It might be running. You need something and think of all the great quarterbacks ever. They all have an answer. Peyton Manning's giant brain, Steve McNair's ability to run and make plays on the move. And he had great accuracy toward the end of his career that improved just picking out random, really good quarterbacks far with the arm, the gutsiness, uh, the, the willingness to take a big hit when he's about to make a throw, what is their cheat code? What is their answer when things go wrong? And then those other things, the accuracy, the tools, um, you know, they'll kind of take care of themselves. If they're NFL caliber, if they're below NFL caliber, well then enjoy the CFL or USFL.

It's just not going to work out. But I think maybe those things determine it. And that's what, you know, we all missed maybe about Josh Rosen. What was his answer when things went wrong? Clearly nothing, uh, clearly nothing because things went wrong a lot in those first few years and he could not solve them. Um, you know, there's lots of ways that the NFL is looking for quarterbacks, but that is where I would probably

begin. Um, all right. So we'll take a, we'll take Deb's question as well. That was Jason's answer now with Deb. Uh, so, uh, Deb says my boyfriend asked me to submit something for fans only. Uh, so I had to double check and make sure he didn't get his websites mixed up. Yes. Yes. I'm sure some of you are familiar with only fans. That's the joke. Uh, anyway, I'm a lions fan, but somehow we make it work. My question is the Vikings and lions are in a very similar situation where both teams have new unproven coaches and both have lukewarm quarterbacks and both have a history of underachieving, even when having star players heading into the 2022

season, what will separate these teams, which one of these teams will make the most of their roster. And most importantly, can either of these teams make the playoffs between you and me? Are this year's Vikings really any better than the Lions yeah that is a great question Deb and that's a question that I think all of the gambling world is wondering as well because everybody wants to be on top of the Lions situation and you know be the one that picks that worst to second or worst to playoffs team everyone wants to have that big brain. I am not convinced of the Lions yet. I'm going to have to see it. But they just have all the earmarks of a team when you draft high for years

that takes that big jump forward. I mean, going into week one, none of us thought the Bengals will represent the AFC. We thought this should be an easy win for the Vikings. They're going to take down the Bengals, who might be a little better, but they're not great yet. They need a few more years. And then all of a sudden, here they are.

Of course, Detroit does not have Jared Goff. But Jared Goff has not been a joke during his career. He wasn't great last year, but he was very good down the stretch for Detroit at the end of the season when he was healthy and they started to get things going in the right direction. They also, you want to talk about some Vikings fans ask, act like they were the only ones that lost close games last year. I think the lions covered more than they didn't that they kept a lot of games close and lost some in tough situations, including one to the Vikings on a 54 yard kick. I think that team is going to be very competitive. I believe that the Vikings,

because of their veteran nature, that they have a lot more veteran players, a lot more older guys who have been there before have a better chance to make the playoffs. But I mean, this roster is pretty strong. They've loaded up their wide receivers and the offensive line, if it's healthy, is really, really good in Detroit. You give Jared Goff time to throw, he can make a throw. If they won eight games, I would not be surprised. And the same thing goes for the Vikings. If they won eight games, I would not be surprised. I think that they're neck and neck. I give the edge to the Vikings for a better chance to make the postseason. But it's not just that they play for Dan Campbell. It's that they have a roster that was torn apart and is now being built back up.

And what we know about the NFL is it just doesn't take forever to build back up a team once they've gone down to the bottom. So those Detroit games for the first time in a long time might actually matter. Although it did last year when the Vikings lost to Detroit. All right. One more. This is Mark from Texas. Hey, Matthew, enjoy the show. Lifelong Vikings fan living in South Texas fans. Only question I haven't heard anyone ask about with Garrett Bradbury being a good zone running blocker, but atrocious pass blocker. I always wonder why we wouldn't have pulled him late during the game in obvious passing situations like comebacks for

someone who could be a better pass blocker like Brett Jones a few years ago, any idea why this wouldn't be a good idea? I don't know exactly why that's not a good idea. I think if more than anything, the center and the quarterback have to have pretty good chemistry. So they have to be on the same page when it comes to reading defenses, reading blitzes, taking the snap, like they've fumbled some snaps before. You really don't want that, especially out of the shotgun. You don't want fumbled snaps and mistakes like that. But in the spots that you're talking about, let's say that you're down 14 going into the fourth quarter, which means you're going to have to pass every single play. Aside from it's hard to get a guy like Brett Jones warm in five minutes, which maybe that's the case. I don't know because the

gap between them in pass blocking. And I can understand that you would look at Jones and say, he's not a guy that could play full games effectively with the shape that he's in, or that he's going to pretty much derail your entire run scheme. Cause he just can't move all that good that you'd rather have Garrett Bradbury be able to operate your run game and then sacrifice a pressure or two or three throughout a game. I don't know that that's wise necessarily statistically, but I don't know. Well, I guess maybe the best thing I could come up with is that it would just be really demoralizing for the starter. Um, now it's never demoralizing for an interior defensive lineman to be pulled for a pass rusher in those situations or a wide receiver who's a deep threat to come

in for an underneath guy it's not so demoralizing and they're getting paid but there's really got to be something to that that when you're the starting center it's a leadership position and then you're just pulled for a guy who's a journeyman veteran backup and he's going to pass block for the next 15 minutes while you stand on the sideline. I think that part of it is the best I can come up with because otherwise it's not a bad idea. Here's the other part of it. Here's why you wouldn't see it though. Now that situation does make sense because Brett Jones was legit good at pass blocking. It's rare that the backup is better than the starter at just about anything when it comes to offensive line, especially when it comes to something like pass blocking, because normally that's how you get your

job. And even with this year, like we go into camp, we assume Garrett Bradbury's got that position locked down. We don't know a hundred percent sure if he really struggles with the pass blocking and somebody else is better that's got to be priority number one if you're going to lean toward a more of a passing offense that's probably why the Brett Jones example is a weird one because they really should have just played Brett Jones I don't know why they didn't. It was just stubbornness. We're a run first team. This guy can't do the reach blocks, yada, yada. You're just not going to have it too often. You look at what they have now for backups, like Austin Schlottman, Chris Reed. These guys aren't way better. If Chris Reed plays center,

these guys aren't way better than Garrett Bradbury, but he's way better at them, uh, at the screens and at the run game. He's going to get the edge when it comes to that. But in theory, I don't have any problem with, uh, with, with what you're saying. That's probably why you don't see it. But if you do have that situation where one guy's way stronger running, one guy's way stronger passing, you's way stronger passing you probably should do that and i'm not sure why they don't so this is another fans only episode appreciate all of you who have emailed in there will be lots more to come uh always a good time when we can get together and do these and we will do it again very soon thanks guys