Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The latest Justin Jefferson's rumor is insane

Episode Date: May 27, 2024

Matthew Coller talks with Vikings fans about a baffling Justin Jefferson rumor about draft night, when Justin Jefferson's contract is coming and whether the Vikings will have a line in the sand they won't cross with his extension. Is this week the week? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and like we've been doing for the last couple of Wolves games, I come on live to YouTube and talk for an hour about football to get ready for the Wolves game. That's pretty sick. It's one of my favorites, if you've seen me wear it on the channel before. Also, ask for a little bit of forgiveness. My voice is battling a little bit here. So I got the Diet Dr. Pepper. We'll fight through it. I hosted on WCCO Radio the other night and also did a podcast and a couple of radio appearances the same day, and it just imploded like a tire going flat. So I will fight through it. I will grind for

football because we have a very weird and bizarre rumor to talk about. Just before I came on, Pro Football Talk tweeted this out. We caught wind on draft night but couldn't confirm it. Now Charlie Walters of the the pioneer press reports on buzz that the vikings tried to trade up for malik neighbors walters adds that if it happened justin jefferson would have been traded so to read this again pro football talk says that they had quote by, I don't know why he says we, when it's just a guy it's Mike Florio, uh, says caught wind of a potential trade where the Vikings tried it to trade up to get Malik neighbors. And now Charlie Walters is reporting the same thing that there was buzz. They wanted to go get Malik neighbors and then trade Justin Jefferson. And I gotta say, uh, I don't understand this at

all. I also don't understand what the standard is for journalism of reporting stuff, uh, because buzz and caught wind and a bunch of stuff that did not happen is what we're reporting here kind of strange uh what i can't help but wonder is who is it that keeps saying to some people outside of the building that there's a possibility of justin jefferson being traded to specifically charlie walters uh because he's the only one in town or out of town who has ever reported anything. And by reported, it's always been vague. Well, you know, they might. And there's winds and there's steam and there's whatever other weather condition involving Justin Jefferson. But it's never been anything definitive.

It's never been this is what is's never been, this is what is going to happen, or this is what they want to happen. And what buzz is, I have no idea is buzz one person suggesting it. Is it somebody telling him that there was this conversation? And yet here we are on a giant platform of a Twitter that has 1.9 million followers in pro football talk, giving credence to something that is super, super vague and completely implausible. up for a wide receiver when it was blatantly clear to everyone with any sort of understanding of the NFL at all that the Vikings were going to draft a quarterback in this draft. And then what they did was drafted a quarterback in this draft after letting go of Kirk Cousins, trading Justin Jefferson to also then trade up and draft Malik neighbors with the hope that you get an elite wide receiver, which they already have in Justin Jefferson for whom to throw to,

I guess, Sam Darnold, that would take an absurd amount of belief in Sam Darnold for them to do that. And keep in mind, Sam Darnold, who I think does have a realistic possibility of playing well this year, has never played well in his entire career outside of a small six game sample size for the Carolina Panthers at the end of a season where he did not beat out Baker Mayfield for that job. So there really can't be a whole lot of confidence that Sam Darnold is going to be the next franchise quarterback. So that's what it would take. It would take a absurd amount of belief in a quarterback who's never really done anything. It would take them imploding their best player that they've had

on their team in a very, very long time, sending them off for draft picks to take a swing at another receiver who in college was really, really excellent and is very talented, but we don't know if he could play at all. And there have been many good wide receivers drafted high who have not turned out to be good. That is what this report is asking you to buy into the idea that the Minnesota Vikings would consider that that just does not sound even remotely realistic or does not sound like it fits with anything that the Vikings have said or done over how many years now. And one thing that has been made clear is that when the Vikings say that they want to do something,

they do it. And this goes for Kweisi Adafomensa, where he comes in and he says, we're going to go into a competitive rebuild mode. And then they did. And they moved on from a bunch of players in 2022 in the offseason after that season, moved on from a bunch of players to reset their roster and to correct the salary cap. And that's exactly what happened. They told us more or less outright about what their thought process was with Kirk Cousins. We like Kirk

Cousins, but we won't pay over a certain price for Kirk Cousins. Then guess what? Atlanta went completely nuts. The Vikings didn't pay the price for Kirk Cousins, who probably would have come back had they put the dough down on the table. And then Kirk Cousins leaves and goes to Atlanta. They go in front of us at the combine, at the owners meetings, at the pre-draft press conference, and they tell us we're drafting a quarterback. We love this quarterback class. We've planned on this for years, and this is what we're going to do. And then on draft night, guess what they did?

They drafted a quarterback and his name is JJ McCarthy and he's on the football team right now. There isn't a single thing that I can look at that the Vikings brass has told us outright over the last four years that they haven't done. We don't really actually have to play games with this group. They pretty much just tell you, here's our thought process. Here's our idea. Here's what we're going to do. Even when it came to a player like Daniil Hunter, for example, where they took a very similar approach to Kirk Cousins. We love Daniil Hunter, but everything's a negotiation. They drew a line in the sand. Hunter wanted more, got his guaranteed money in Houston. He's gone. They signed a bunch

of players. They have set up the salary cap for next year, as they said they wanted to do when they got here, which was to set the salary cap up so they could have a bunch of space to build around this quarterback. Everything that's been said publicly has come to fruition for the Vikings. And that includes so far, as far as we know, they have told us over and over and over again that they want to sign Justin Jefferson to a long-term contract extension, period. There has never been any waffling. There has never been any wavering. There has never been the, well, you know, we like Justin, but we'll kind of see how it goes. If we go back, Kweisi Adafomenta said a couple of years ago that when he first got the job, he doesn't want to be the general manager if he doesn't have Justin Jefferson on his team. That's

what he said. I don't even want to be the GM if I can't have just the jefferson on his team that's what he said i don't even want to be the gm if i can't have just the jefferson on my team and then we go to last year where they negotiated with just the jefferson a year earlier than you usually ever do with a first round wide receiver normally the only players who get contract extension talks the year before they are going into the final year of their contract. So two years before our quarterbacks. And that was when Jared Goff signed his extension. And we've seen numerous other extensions from quarterbacks get signed as soon as they were eligible to do that. Those are the only players who enter negotiations. In fact, look at TJ Hawkinson, a star player whose team decided not to extend him.

And then he goes into negotiations with the Vikings after getting traded here. And they do it the year before he's going to be a free agent. That's how it normally works, even when the guy is a star player. So the Vikings negotiating with him last year, trying to get a deal done. It was obvious this is what we want to do. Mark Wilf walked out in front of us and said, I will be involved in this negotiation. We want this to happen. Jefferson's going to be a long-term part of our franchise. And then as recently as right after the NFL draft, Kweisi Adafomenta says to us, yep, we're working on it. We're talking with their side. And what we want is

to be able to make sure that when we sign this extension for Justin Jefferson, he can have a whole week to himself, like he gets a whole week for his birthday. That was the way that Kweisi Adafo-Menta talked about this, which then I had heard a little bit, if you want to call it buzz, that's the best way I could put it, just that it seems like things were rolling in the right direction and we even see justin jefferson at the timberwolves game the other night as well so obviously he was in town and my expectation has been to keep the alerts on my phone just in case adam schefter suddenly reports from obviously jefferson's agents or whatever, that they have come to a contract agreement. Wouldn't be surprised if it's this week, wouldn't be surprised if it's

next week. And there's also a possibility that it goes deeper into the summer as often giant negotiations do for these huge contracts with superstar players. There is not a shred of evidence that the Vikings have wanted to or tried to or attempted to move Justin Jefferson. There has been no credible reporter with anything definitive, no Schefter, no Rappaport, not even a little Jason LaConfora or Jay Glazer on this one. The people who are kind of in unique spaces as NFL insiders, no Albert Breer, just these two for whatever reason. And it's never been definitive in any way. It's always just been super vague. And it's been, you know, the Vikings should do this. They should do this. So there seems to be one person maybe within the Vikings organization who wants this to happen and keeps telling people that it's a possibility

that it's going to happen, but there's no one else that has made this look like it's a possibility. In fact, you almost wonder if some of these rumors are meant to undermine the relationship between the Vikings and Jefferson more than anything, because I know from Jefferson's side that I have heard his side does not want things leaked out and debated in the media. So I don't know what this is. Is this meant to upset Justin Jefferson and try to delay these negotiations? I have no idea, but none of it makes a lick of sense. The Vikings planned out their three, four year plan as a front office to draft a quarterback this year that they had had this in mind.

And then they did in JJ McCarthy. So for me, until something of substance comes out from the trusted NFL insiders, until there is any real evidence that this is getting to a point where it's getting ugly, which there hasn't been any of that so far, aside from missing OTAs, which are voluntary. By the way, there's players around the league who are not negotiating contracts, who haven't gone to OTAs because they are voluntary. The heat turns up a little bit if we get to mandatory minicamp and the Vikings end up fining Justin Jefferson, then there will be more to talk about. But as far as this rumor, it just doesn't make a lick of

sense that they would try to use their draft capital, not on a quarterback, but instead on a wide receiver so they could trade away Justin Jefferson Jefferson. It's, it's bizarre and it doesn't remotely pass the sweat, the smell test. So I don't know where, where or why these things are coming out. Uh, I wouldn't say that there's even been enough of them to say where there's smoke, there's fire. And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. And I'll say, okay, I guess I, I misread that situation, but everything that the Vikings have told us they were going to do, they've done. And they've told us over and over and over, we're going to sign Justin Jefferson to an extension.

This battle could get heated. And I do want to remind you that the other negotiations that have happened at this type of level have also included trade rumors. So that includes Nick Bosa. If you Google it, you just go to Google and type it in. I've done this. Type in Nick Bosa trade rumors. You'll find it. You'll find people talking about, hey, are the San Francisco 49ers going to trade Nick Bosa? How about Debo Samuel at one point even requested a trade from the San Francisco 49ers as he was

negotiating with them. This is not uncommon for these things to happen, but my expectation still remains that it will go exactly the way we think it's going to go with Justin Jefferson signing an extension. We have not heard from Jefferson. He hasn't tweeted anything. He hasn't unfollowed the Vikings on Twitter. He hasn't favorited something that says trade Jefferson to the Jets or whatever. So there has been just really no noise whatsoever as we wait for this to happen. But I think it's worth making the point that any player that's been negotiating a major contract extension like this has always come along with some sort of noise

that that player wants to get traded. And I think one thing is that is always guaranteed is if you talk about trading a popular player, it will come along with a lot of engagement. A lot of people will react. A lot of people will respond. A lot of people will click every single time. If you say a player is getting traded and that's the best I can do for why there would be any semblance of a player is getting traded. And that's the best I can do for why there would be any semblance of a quote rumor about this. But when it's steam, when it's buzz,

I'm sorry, you're going to have to bring something more definitive than that to go completely against everything the organization has presented. And also you think just in general about the idea of trading away your LeBron James, your franchise level player who that you one day want to build a statue of outside US Bank Stadium.

That doesn't seem very plausible. And I know that there's going to always be the people who say, hey, you know, it's going to be very expensive and you should trade him. I just implore you to do a few things. One of them is to look at other expensive contracts and how they're structured. And normally it's several years into the deal before it takes off big time. And the big difference between a Justin Jefferson deal and Kirk Cousins is that Cousins was already a veteran player and he signed short-term deals that were so fully guaranteed that they didn't have any wiggle room with the salary cap outside of adding those void years to

it. But with a Justin Jefferson extension, if you're talking four years on top of what he's going to make this year. So technically maybe you even make it a five-year extension, four years on top of the fifth year option year, for example, then you can spread that out much more than you would be able to if it was like a Kirk Cousins extension, making it a lot more manageable down the road, eligible for restructures, things like that. And you're also not paying a quarterback. And you might say, well, 35 million, he's approaching quarterback money sort of, but a quarterback now is making $50 million. So you're still talking about a 15 million gap between your top wide receiver in the entire NFL and a quarterback. Not only that, but when you look over the roster for the Vikings in general, there's

not a lot of players who are making a lot of money next year. They'll probably restructure Brian O'Neill's contract or extend him to lower his salary cap hit. Harrison Smith will retire at some point. Jonathan Grenard will be expensive. Outside of that, who's expensive? And Christian Derrissaw eventually will. Can you afford in a salary cap that goes up every single year enough for two players that

are really expensive? Yes, you can. Eight players might be harder, but two players, when you have a quarterback making $45 million less than the top quarterbacks in the league in terms of what JJ McCarthy is making versus say Jared Goff, of course you can fit that money in. So if you're just joining the rumor is I'll read it again. Uh, pro football talk saying quote, we caught wind on draft night, but couldn't confirm it. Now, Charlie Walters of the pioneer press reports on quote buzz that the Vikings tried to trade up for Malik neighbors. Walters adds, if that happened,

Justin Jefferson would have been traded. And at zero point in that rumor, did it ever make any sense whatsoever, considering that the Vikings had let Kirk Cousins go, they had planned this draft. I mean, think about this. They went and visited all the quarterbacks. They spent endless hours flying to north carolina to meet with drake may flying to michigan to meet with jj mccarthy flying to

washington to meet with michael pennix sit down with them draw up on the whiteboard take them out on the field take them out to. Talk to everybody in their campuses. And they did this to trade for Malik neighbor. It just doesn't make any sense at all. And I think you could probably sense over the last few weeks the frustration that I've had about these Justin Jefferson ideas, trade ideas, the Jersey swap nonsense and everything else. I mean, we're not even deep into the summer and we're already knee deep in BS is kind of the way that I'm looking at it with Jefferson. And again, look, if they suddenly trade him for somebody, I will be very surprised. Once upon a time, I was a little bit surprised that Stefan Diggs was traded by the Vikings, but not like this.

This would be one of the biggest shocks. And also, it would go under the category of the Randy Moss, the Kevin Garnett, the big trades that have seen all-time great Minnesota athletes leave this place. I don't think that the Vikings want anything to do with that infamous list of athletes who have been sent out of here. There's a such thing as Moneyball, and then there's just being completely insane, which would be the case. The only way that you could ever see this happening is if Justin Jefferson said,

I will never sign a contract extension with you. But even if they did that, you're still talking about two franchise tags within the team's winning window. He is such a big part of why you can let Kirk cousins go and draft a quarterback. He is such a big part of the discussion of putting things around your quarterback to make the best possible team. And you're going to send that out for somebody who might or might not be good in the NFL. It's a wild time, folks. It is a wild time. And I just have to go back to the same place that we've been for a really long time since the negotiation started, which is just to say that my expectation is still that they get this done.

I just don't know when. Could come tomorrow. Could come weeks from now. Could come next year. I don't know. But I'm still expecting. I don't expect it to come next year. Just at some point during training camp right before the season,

Nick Bosa took it up to just days before the season. And that's the best I can do because there's nothing pointing to this buzz or steam or whatever word you want to use, having a out and said, I'm unhappy. The only thing Justin Jefferson has said publicly is I want all the money because I deserve it, which of course we all agree with. And he's going to get all the money. So there you go. A completely whack-a-doodle rumor that again, if something ever comes of it, then I'll just shrug my shoulders and tell you, I guess, I guess I misread that one, but it feels much more like there is someone involved in this that wants this not to happen with an extension with Justin Jefferson and keeps leaking stuff, leaking information. But the amount of BS that goes on in the NFL when it comes to this stuff is, I guess why, you know,

certain Twitter accounts can have 2 million followers because it always keeps everybody involved. So there you go. That's certainly one way to get a lot of clicks for your article for sure is to throw in there something with no actual evidence and just buzz or steam. So hopefully it worked. Let's get to your comments here. Any other questions and comments that you have I'm interested in? I'm not going to do the we should trade Jefferson debate because it's in my mind senseless. I don't see any reason to ever talk about it because it's not a good idea. After drafting a young quarterback, it's a much better

idea to have a great wide receiver that can make your young quarterback turn out to be great. There's also, when it comes to Jefferson, there's nothing that I can even look to that says, oh yeah, remember that time he said this? Remember that time he said that? Or, hey, you know, he's been acting this way and the team doesn't like that or whatever. I mean, this guy last year amidst negotiations came to training camp and annihilated everyone. I sat there on the sideline. I stood, there's nowhere to sit. I stood on the sideline in the 90 degree heat and watch Justin Jefferson abuse the Tennessee

Titans and joint practices that he did not have to participate in, by the way, and abuse the Vikings corners day after day after day, even though a negotiation was going on. And now I'm supposed to believe that he wants out that they want out of him. It's just, I don't get it. I just don't get it. So, all right, let's, uh, let's dive into your thoughts. I'm sure that you guys have some, uh, JP says it would be pretty expensive, but the longer we wait, the bigger the price tag. We have to think that by JJ getting

like 35 mil guys like Jamar chase will negotiate after, and we'll probably get even more. Yeah. I'm certain that on the day that he gets signed, he will want to be the highest paid wide receiver in the NFL. Um, and he'll probably want to be the highest paid non quarterback in the NFL. And I would say that that's pretty deserving considering what he's accomplished. And even when they didn't have their starting quarterback last year, he nearly willed them to two wins. That is pretty darn impressive. I mean, it's just, you can't,

I know that we didn't see him for some time last year because he had the injury, but this is one of the most dominant players in the entire NFL of the last decade. And he has been mostly healthy outside of that one injury. He just has been incredible and signing him to a $35 million contract when you have the cap space and you have the opportunity to do that in this window with JJ McCarthy, you don't get rid of players like this. I'll say it a thousand times. When we talk about Justin Jefferson's air, where he breathes, where he lives,

we're not talking about a pretty good wide receiver or a guy that you could just replace with another couple of draft picks or whatever. We're talking about the Aaron Donald type of air where yeah, teams would trade multiple draft picks for Aaron Donald, but you do not give them Aaron Donald. You try to win a championship with Aaron Donald and you could try to use the Tyree kill example, but you'd also have to give me Patrick Mahomes. And by the way, Kansas city's offense was not as good without Tyree kill. Just, I know that they found a way to win because they have the greatest quarterback, but they were not as good in the regular season and struggled. There's a significant drop-off from Mahomes playing in an MVP level to when he

didn't have Tyree kill. And then you do the other side of that though, is your quarterback more likely to be like Tua or like Mahomes? Probably like Tua, right? Tua goes from being on the edge of maybe not even being a starting quarterback for a couple of years by his numbers to a star last year who led the league in passing with Tyree Kill. I mean, the impact of these wide receivers is so enormous that it's worth it. And even the data study that Haley English did for Purple Insider last summer before she was hired by the Detroit Lions in their analytics department, but you can go back and look it up. And she found that he is worth as much as an average quarterback,

which is crazy to think about when you talk about the wins above replacement and the formula that PFF had that she had privy to because she was interning for them and found that he was worth that much. I mean, think about like a wide receiver being as much as almost the quarterback is crazy to me. That's the type of value that he brings to your franchise. It's a deal to get them at the highest price and it's totally fine. So I'm not going to talk about the potential of moving him and whether it would have been a good idea had they traded him and drafted a wide receiver and not picked a quarterback.

I don't even know. Like, how does this even work? Do they make a deal with him that goes to a team where they could still draft a court? Like, i don't even know like how does this even work do they make a deal with him that goes to a team where they could still draft a court like i don't know hey u.s cellular customers i've got some good news so do not hit that skip forward button just yet i'm talking about their special customer event us days what's us days it means exclusive offers just for their customers just to say thanks like twelve hundred dollars off any phone plus three hundred dollars off any tablet no i did not

misread that they must really like you all us days at us cellular exclusive offers just for you just to say thanks right now us cellular U.S. cellular customers get $1,200 off any phone, plus $300 off any tablet. Terms apply. It sounds like one thing that I do know is that a lot of phone calls happen when it comes to the NFL draft. And some of those phone calls, I guess, make their way out into the public. And that's about the best I could possibly do. Jason says, I'm ready for it to be over. Sign him or trade

him. I don't care anymore. I think you do, Jason. I think you do. And by the way, over, like, we're not even into this yet. We didn't even get to training camp. We're not even deep into this negotiation. We're not even deep into this like head budding or ugliness. Last year, TJ Hawkinson went what three weeks into training camp before they were able to sign him to an extension. Daniil Hunter was sitting out. These things happen all the time where it goes into training camp. We haven't even reached June yet. This isn't ugly. This is just annoying to hear about rumors like this, I'm sure for you. But as far as don't care anymore, I think once you watch him get wide open and catch touchdowns from JJ McCarthy again, you're going to say,

you know what? Actually, I am happy he's a Minnesota Viking instead. Mark says they should just get his contract over with. What do the Vikings hate? Great wide receivers. Yeah, there has been some issues in the past with that. There's a history there a little bit with Randy Moss and Stefan Diggs. I don't know what the hold up is. It's usually in the details. It's how long is it? How does the new money get worked out? Do they want a completely blown up next year where the Vikings want next year on the book? This could be a thing where you talk about an extension. So it's a four-year extension, but sometimes a four-year extension is tacked on after the fifth year option year. And sometimes the fifth year option year is renegotiated and that's part of the extension. That could be an element of it.

It could be just details of how much guaranteed money there is and all these things. And we're not near a deadline. So they don't have to cross the picket line for each other. They don't have to come to the table because we're just not that close to the moment where this thing has to happen. In my mind, that is the week one of the NFL season where they're going to travel to play the New York Giants. That's really a deadline because that's when Jefferson would cut off negotiations. It's where they stopped negotiations last year, but we are now several months away from that. So if you're Jefferson and you have even the finest detail, if you want a limousine to come pick you up and take you to practice every day, the Vikings don't

want to do it. You can be like, nah, I won't sign now. I'll wait. I'll wait because we're not near a deadline. And I think there's never been a truer saying than deadlines make deals. And we're just not that close to it. Maybe they view it a little bit as mandatory mini camp. It's a hundred thousand dollar fine. If he doesn't come for three days, trust me, that's not a big deal to Justin Jefferson. He's probably got the Oakley sponsorship paying for that. Uh, and we'll get it back in spades when he gets his contract extension. So even then we're just not that close to it. But I just do want to remind you that if you Google any player who has undergone negotiations like this in recent years, every one of them comes

along with some sort of trade rumor podcasts and people like PFT talking about should they trade player x y and z and sometimes it happens but a lot of times they just sign that player to an extension uh zoomer kev says maybe there was a scenario where the vikings would trade a wide receiver for draft picks but that wide receiver would be jordan addison and not justin jefferson i really don't know i really don't know. I really don't know. How would they trade for Malik neighbors and then also draft a quarterback unless they were trading with a team, they were trading Jefferson to a team that was up in the top of the draft and was going to give them a top draft pick so they could draft a quarterback and then get multiple other picks. I mean, that's the only way you can ever make this work. But also, I mean, he has acknowledged

that he, that there are phone calls that are happening all the time. There was a rumor out there and it was, uh, I think there was truth to this rumor that they were talking about trading up last year for quarterbacks with Anthony Richardson, CJ Stroud, Bryce Young, and that never came to fruition either. And when you go through that one, there was no realistic scenario where they could put enough draft capital down in order to trade up for Anthony Richardson went forth overall, but you're making the phone call. So of course you're making the phone call. That is the only way you could ever try to figure out a way to make this work is if they were trading up for neighbors, maybe like 11 and 23. And I feel like a little bit sad even going through this, but if there was just any realistic

discussion of, all right, you would be trading with, I don't know, would it be like Atlanta or Tennessee? Maybe it's Tennessee. Okay. So you trade up to get Malik neighbors, maybe with the New York giants and you trade 11 and 23 to do that. Then you trade Jefferson to Tennessee and you draft Michael Penix or JJ McCarthy there. And then you get two more first round draft picks back. And I guess somehow that makes sense. But at the same time, everybody just drafted their guy. Like, do you guys remember? I went through this. If you're longtime listeners, you remember after the draft, I went through on profootballrumors.ca or whatever the hell it is. I went through all the rumors right before the draft and all the trades that people,

insiders said were going to happen, all the players that were supposedly going to get traded and all the misses that came out. And it just feels like there's no standard whatsoever for putting stuff out there at this point. It doesn't have to come true. It doesn't have to be real. If there's just even one person somewhere saying it should happen, then it's buzz. It's frustrating to me because I really try super hard on the show to give you my perspective. And sometimes I feel like listeners will want, what are you hearing about this or whatever? I'm not going to make it up.

I mean, when it comes to this, this is not anything that I've heard. So I don't know what to say. I guess maybe I would get farther ahead in this world. If I did come out with stuff like this, maybe more people would go sign up for the newsletter at purpleinsider.com. You can, you can, but I'm writing a piece about the kicker for tomorrow. And now, you know, this gets dropped in here. So Williams says once they decided to move on from Kirk Cousins, that almost guaranteed they were keeping Justin Jefferson. There was no way

they were keeping both. They just need to get the extension done. Yeah, I agree. I mean, that's exactly right. Is once you move on from Kirk Cousins, you're drafting a quarterback. And that's why I mean that the only scenario where this would have even possibly worked is if you were trading him to another team where you could also draft a quarterback and get Malik neighbors as well, which would have just been insane. But they seem to instead just follow the exact path that they went down. And I mean, this makes sense here. JP says Malik neighbors was probably one out of a hundred possible scenarios. Casey planned if they're in the twenties, cool. Take him. That's it. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Yeah. I imagine that you do run through a lot of different scenarios and make a lot of different phone calls. And if at some point

this came up, then I guess maybe it came up. But what does it mean now? I mean, even to put it out right now, what is the purpose? What is the point? It didn't happen. That's not what they did. Even if there was some sort of discussion of, hey, let me throw out. And I do this on the show all the time. Let me throw out something real crazy. And then let's talk about it. Let's see if we'll, let's have this discussion. If that is how this ends up getting out there, but then it doesn't come remotely close to happening. Uh, then what do we do? And then we're just reporting weeks and weeks later that this was some sort of discussion i mean what is the purpose what is he's not malik neighbors isn't a viking justin jefferson has been traded and every indication is that they're going to sign him

so is it just out there to undermine the negotiations i don't really understand what even the purpose what what is this like what is this supposed to do? Hey, this one time somebody talked about something like, okay, I don't, I don't know. And that's even giving it the benefit of the doubt that there's even truth to all rumors. Anyway. Uh, let's see. Uh, Bradley says Sam Darnold or JJ opening day. I would guess Sam Darnold at this point, um, just the way that it looks, but we've got an OTA practice on Wednesday. We'll have a podcast from there. Myself and Andrew Kramer will be podcasting from TCO performance center after. So we'll give you all the things that, uh, happen there. Um, including whether Justin Jefferson shows up.

Uh, I doubt it. If he doesn't have an extension. Dennis says Jefferson wants to win. The Vikings are going nowhere this year. Well, when you sign a four to five year contract extension, your expectation is that you are staying with the team for four to five years and trying to win within that window. Now, I'm sure that Justin Jefferson is frustrated by that, but if he was asking to be traded, why would the Vikings just trade him to a winner? Right? I mean, what

like does asking to be traded doesn't guarantee that you go to any team that's going to be in better shape. If you know, you're getting traded to Tennessee or something. And there's been again, nothing to indicate that he's asked to be traded. And when you look at Harrison Smith coming back and Harrison Smith says the other day, I think that we're better than people think we are. I don't know about that. They might not be a great team this year, but it's very easy to see where if JJ McCarthy clicks, they can be a good team going forward. And it's not like you drafted some schmo as your quarterback, you drafted a guy who just won the national championship. So I'm not sure that that could really weigh into it for Justin Jefferson. And again, even if it did

the Vikings have all the negotiating power here because of the franchise tags. I'm not going to say that it's irrelevant when it comes to whether they can win this year or not, but it's not the entire story. It's really the bigger picture of where the franchise is going to go, I would assume, would be part of it for Justin Jefferson. But he does have to be unhappy. It is a massive failing by the way, by the Vikings organization to come away with zero playoff wins with Justin Jefferson on his rookie deal. And so now they're going to have to work around this in the future because they made mistakes in the past around him with the roster. Now they are doing it the right way. Uh, And doing it the right way should be,

I think, a good thing in the negotiations with Justin Jefferson, that they're building their team in a way where they can spend big time next year, but also compete this year. You know, so I think they've got a better argument for him right now than they would have the last couple years for this team being a legit contender. Dystopian Utopia says Justin Jefferson isn't going anywhere. This is one of the biggest contract negotiations he will ever do in his career. Because of that, he's taking his time and getting as much as he can. Well, that's way too reasonable of a take for somebody whose name is dystopian utopia. That sounds kind of dark or metal. But instead you're just being like a reasonable person. But yeah, I mean, that's, that's how I've always viewed this. I've always

viewed this as let's look at all the other negotiations that happen. There are a couple that have resulted in trades over the years, Khalil Mack. And I mean, at this age, Khalil Mack, but there was also part of that Khalil Mack trade that had to do with where the Raiders were. And there was a cash issue. If I remember being reported, I'm not sure about the details of that, but there was something involved with, did the Raiders actually have the money to give him the cash up front with the guaranteed money, the signing bonuses and so forth. And they, I mean, got a massive return for Khalil Mack, but I can't think of too many other examples of this where it's the player

who's clearly at the top of his craft and ends up getting traded. So I don't, yeah, that means just, we don't see it very much. Usually these players stay. Hunter says Jefferson almost beat the lions by himself last year, put in a top 32 quarterback and they win that game. They probably win both games with the top 32 quarterback. Well, the defense was pretty bad in the second game. So maybe not. Dennis says reality is Jefferson is more in common with Calvin Johnson than Jerry Rice. Dennis, are you the one trying to get him traded? That doesn't make any sense, man, because well, first what like the Lions when Calvin Johnson was playing are not like the Minnesota Vikings organization right now. I don't see that at all. How they function,

who's in charge, what they've done with the roster, what they've done even at quarterback here, moving on from a good quarterback, drafting another one to build around. Calvin Johnson played years ago, a different, I think even a different CBA. I mean, what are we talking about here? That's not, and Jerry Rice, who is in Jerry Rice's air? But if you look at Justin Jefferson's start to his career, it is every bit on par with the great receivers. And if we even look at recent performances, okay, I understand that the Chiefs won the Super Bowl with the greatest quarterback alive,

but who else has been around the Super Bowl in the last few years? A lot of really great wide receivers. Jamar Chase, A.J. Brown has a big contract. That didn't seem to hurt the Philadelphia Eagles from going to the Super Bowl. Debo Samuel has a big contract. That didn't seem to hurt the 49ers from going to the Super Bowl. Julio Jones went to a Super Bowl and was a 28-3 lead away from winning that Super Bowl.

There's been a lot of great wide receivers to go and have success. I mean, you can absolutely build your team around Justin Jefferson and his contract, specifically if you have a rookie quarterback deal, which they do. Ron says, Jefferson trade rumors are on life support and dead on arrival. Yeah, it does. This one does seem sort of desperate, right? Um, this one seems sort of like, I promise there was some rumor.

There was some truth to all rumors. I swear just, you know, banging that drum. Maybe, maybe it's the last breath before he signs the extension. So the people who put this stuff out there can still argue. No, no, no. I was right. There was truth to those rumors. Uh, that's, this stuff out there can still argue. No, no, no. I was right. There was truth to those rumors. That's the best I can do. Let's see. Dave says, I just read T Higgins might not be back. There's a JJ rumor, LOL, but seriously, the NFL owners are not going

to allow wide receivers to start making as much as top quarterbacks, but they're not. I mean, that's the thing is they're not, they're not making as much as top quarterbacks, but they're not. I mean, that's the thing is they're not, they're not making as much as top quarterbacks. If Justin Jefferson makes 35 million a year, which they might not want to go quite that high. I think Amon Ross St. Brown, who's great, was at 28. So if Jefferson is at 33, 5 million more per year. That still puts him $17 million behind where the top quarterbacks are at. The top quarterbacks are 50 million bucks now because in part the salary cap went up. So we've got to readjust sort of like I was reading about, uh, fast food prices the other day. I used to go to taco bell and I could get a Taco Bell, a real, a real man's meal for like eight bucks. Now that's 13. Now there's a lot of factors at that, that you guys can make your own

conclusions about, but that's just how it works, right? So the prices go up as we go along and that's how the NFL works is the prices go up and every new contract that's signed, it ends up being like, man, this contract set the market. Whoa. How about Kirk Cousins? Remember when Kirk signed for 84 million guaranteed and he signed, I think that was 33 a year or something like that. 30 something a year.

And we kept saying that $30 million quarterback, Kirk Cousins, that was only six years ago. Now it's gone up by 20 million for what these guys are making. So if you make 35 million a year as a wide receiver, and also you have a salary cap that can be manipulated and you have contracts that can be manipulated. So how many years would he actually make 35 mil on the cap? Look up Bosa's deal. Look up Brown's deal, AJ Brown. Not often.

And then you can restructure them and you can change them. I think that even Mahomes has already restructured his deal to create more salary cap space. This is going on all the time. It's going on all the time where you're having these guys sign massive deals that on paper look a certain way, but in reality do not actually cost your team that much. If your ownership is willing to put down the cash, which the Vikings ownership in the past has always been willing to do that. 53 strong says you don't want Jefferson unhappy. It's time to pay him. That's why you moved on from cousins is because you didn't want to pay both. I mean, I, of course I agree. It's time to pay

him. They seem to agree. And they keep saying that like, yeah, it's time to pay them. We're working on it. We've talked to their side. It's just that because we're not that close to the first week of the season, then that's why it hasn't gotten done yet. As far as I can understand, uh, as I mean, otherwise I think if the deadline was this week, then it would be getting done. Um, and you know, if he's putting out, you know, completely absurd numbers that he wants, then the Vikings have to wait and they have to keep negotiating it. But it just, it felt like when Kweisi Adafo-Mensah was talking about it at the draft, that it was feeling close was how it sounded. And that's the best that I can do with something like

this. Michael says, my best, my bet is that that jet is that we're going is, I mean, he wants to be called jets. I guess. I don't know if I can go there. I guess you guys can go there. I think I'm just gonna, I used to say JJ, but now I can't do that. So a jet is fine. If you want to go there. Uh, Michael says my bet is that jet gets 36 million plus. He knows the salary cap will go up a lot in the next few years with all the TV revenue. Doesn't want to get his contract beat out by anyone the next couple of years. Yeah, that's going to be pretty difficult because of the players who are getting their contracts done. And Hey, by the way, as we speak, isn't CD lamb also up for an extension? Why are we not

talking about that? Isn't Jamar chase up for an extension and none of these guys have signed their deals yet. And they could be waiting on Jefferson or jets. If you will, they could be waiting on Jefferson. They could also be negotiating with their teams at the same time and, uh, you know,

be discussing that where, where this is going to land and St. Brown sets the market. And now these guys are going to top it. They're better than St. Brown. JP says, instead of talking absolute dollars,

I think it makes more sense to talk percentage of the cap since it's always going up. 15% of the cap makes more sense than throwing out 35 million. No, you're right. That's exactly my point is, well, it's 15% of the cap,

depending on what year, because the first year might be 8% and the next year might be 12%. And it might be three years before they are able to, uh, you know, or not able to before, but before the contract actually reaches that point where he's really expensive and then you're going to renegotiate it and you're going to restructure it and bring down the salary cap. Like even if you look at Tyreek Hill's deal, they can restructure and make it like $20 million a year. And the Vikings will try to set it up the same, the same way. Uh, Dennis says there was no team success. And, uh, that was definitely Justin Jefferson's fault. Um, actually, all the success that they had.

To show you how valuable he was, just look at the 2022 season, or has been over his career. How many games do they win in the 2022 season if Justin Jefferson is not on the team? Is it five? I mean, he was such a massive part of the offense. At times, he was the entire offense for that team. And he is the reason that you think that J.J. McCarthy can succeed because he can do that same thing,

because he has an ability to raise the entire water level of a team, which you can only say for a handful of players. Tyreek Hill is definitely one of them. And Miami paid him with a rookie quarterback contract and led the league in passing and had a great season last year. Stefan digs goes to Buffalo rookie quarterback contract. Josh Allen wins the division four straight times on an expensive deal. He was not cheap when he was there. You can definitely do this, but you've got to do the other parts.

I mean, you have to have a quarterback who doesn't check down on fourth and eight. You've got to have a defense that isn't run by Ed Donatel. You've got to have Mike Zimmer not being insane for an entire season. I mean, like, yeah, those things got in the way, but that's what you have in Jefferson is not the reason that all those other things went down. And really, they probably because of him, when they were throwing to him, they had a good enough offense to beat anybody.

It was just everything else. They didn't run the ball well. The offensive line wasn't ideal, as some of you may have noticed over the years. So but if you have this player and the other pieces, Brian Flores, the defense he's building, the other wide receivers, Jordan Addison, remember Thielen fell off in 2022. If you've got a running game, if you've got an offensive line, Jefferson is raising the level of all of that that could potentially make them a Super Bowl contender. But nobody could do it alone.

But of course they don't pay him the entire salary cap. They pay him 10% of it. So there, nobody thinks that he could do it alone. Uh, for fun says if he holds out, uh, it only hurts his own cause.

He will play with or without a new contract. Let him sweat it out. If his agent wants to play games. Um, yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, the Vikings control the cards because that's the way the players and owners agreed to a collective bargaining agreement.

It's not super fair to players on rookie contracts. Rookie contracts in general is not great for the player. I mean, JJ McCarthy, if he's a top five quarterback in the league, making $5 million, it's not fair, but that's how, that's how they negotiated it. And the way that they negotiate it is you have a fifth year option and two franchise tags to use on any player. They will use them. They know that Justin Jefferson side knows that.

And usually, usually if a player is really unhappy and is trying to fight the fight, then, then we'll hear something about it. We'll hear some noise about it, that the player is unhappy with the way that negotiations are going. And, uh, there isn't a whole lot of indication of that, including Jefferson showing up to the wolves games, uh, with his friends on the team. That doesn't really look like I want nothing to do with Minnesota. Um, Mark says, call me crazy, but I'm 0% worried

about this extension getting done. Not that's not crazy at all. That's not crazy at all. Um, yes, Preston, it is true. They were five and oh, when he was hurt last year, actually that's not true. Uh, that's not true. What, what, what was their record when they, when he was hurt last year, they won, they won the San Francisco game. They won the green Bay game. Uh, they won against, oh yes, Atlanta, the crazy game in new Orleans. Uh, but they lost against Denver. He wasn't back yet. They scored when he got hurt against the Raiders. They scored three points, won that game. I mean, look, we know what he does. We know what he does. We don't have to debate that. I mean, that would be just idiotic to debate how good he is. He's the best

wide receiver in the game. And his impact is massive. They were able to survive as an offense at times, but it was short lived when they did. And when he came back, he made Nick Mullins into a star for a couple of games where if he doesn't, you know, if he doesn't throw that bad interception at the end, we are talking about that as a legendary performance that may have gotten the Vikings into the playoffs. So, but there's, yeah, there's really no conversation about like whether he's great or not he's absolutely great um it really is just when is it going to be what is it going to take and really does this thing actually get ugly because as dismissive as i'm being of a rumor of about something that was a conversation weeks ago

on draft night that's just coming out now with the word buzz to it. Sorry if I'm not, you know, posting that on purpleinsider.com right away, but there is a possibility that it could get ugly and we'll know when that happens. It gets 10% ugly if it's not mandatory minicamp because then they can find him if he's not there. And then it could get more and more ugly as we go into training camp and that's where this is probably a preview of the nonsense

that is going to happen if he's not there on the first day of training camp after signing a contract extension uh jp says the longer jets waits the more he gets paid so who's taking so much time to get this done probably not the vikings yeah no, I'm sure it's his side that is trying to eke out whatever other details, because again, they don't have to do this right away. So, you know, but what you're talking about, both sides have every reason to try to get as much out of this as they can. The Vikings want to try to not break the bank completely and explode the market completely. And Justin Jefferson does want to blow up the market completely. So anyway, we've got about five minutes until tip off for the Wolves.

So any other questions I am happy to answer. Four Funs says he'll get extended and most likely worked out, but could be waiting for other wide receivers like chase to commit first JJ's numbers might adjust slightly. So he's the top paid could be, could be, uh, it's just normally that there's a lot of details that have to get done when it comes to these negotiations. And I feel like I've been saying that over and over since really last year, but it's the fact of the matter is that the sides are going to have what they want for this deal. And they're going to, they've been talking about it according to Kweisi Adafo Mensah. And then you get to

some point where it's like, all right, we got to get this done. Like this weekend, it's got to get done. Lock ourselves in a room because they've been talking about it for so long. Let's work this out. And that to me is right before training camp. I don't like the idea of Jefferson missing mandatory mini camp. You'd like him to be out there with Sam Darnold. However, knowing that it's Sam Darnold as their starting quarterback right now, and we'll see what happens through mini camp. But as far as what we saw from OTAs, I'm less concerned about that because Sam Darnold has been a quarterback in the league before. So if he shows up and it's a training camp, he'll be fine figuring out how to throw to Justin Jefferson. He's done this many times. If they were planning on starting McCarthy, then I would have maybe

preferred that he was here for mandatory mini camp to get that rolling right away. But it's a long training camp. It's a long summer that's still got to play out from here. So there's nothing else that they should do than wait. And as far as what they would get if they tried to trade Jefferson, I mean, I imagine it's a couple draft picks, a couple of first round picks, probably similar to the ballpark that Tyreek Hill got. There has to be a team who's willing to just give up a lot of their future draft capital.

But why would you do that? Why would you try to get first round draft picks when you can just have the best player in his position in the league and then fill out the rest of that around him? This is a championship player that you're really not gonna win a whole heck of a lot if you don't have Hall of Fame caliber players.

Go back through Super Bowl winners, team that go to the Super Bowl, they have superstar level talent they don't they don't just have like a bunch of guys who are pretty good so you're and if you're trading for firsts but you give the team the other team jefferson those aren't great firsts probably if you know when you trade and uh it turned out to be just jefferson with you know the bills trade and all that but uh the bills became very good after after that. So if the bills had given up, you know, three firsts or something for digs, then they wouldn't

have been very good firsts after that because they got good. If you trade Jefferson to someone, you're not getting great first round draft picks. But it's not worth talking about until we have to. And I really don't feel like right now is the moment that we have to talk about this. So we will see on Wednesday if Justin Jefferson is here. I don't know if he will be or not. I don't know if they'll get an extension done. It would be really nice, really nice to wake up on Monday morning, do an emergency podcast

talking about Jefferson's deal, and then not have to have this conversation about rumors ever again. And Hunter makes a point to everyone who suggests trading Jefferson, was it smart of the Vikings to let Randy Moss go? Not so much. Not so much. So anyway, enjoy the Wolves game. As far as prediction, I don't know. I don't know.

No, you didn't. Caleb, you didn't touch a nerve. It just doesn't make any sense to trade just to Jefferson. That's all. It just doesn't. There are very few players in the league who you could trade them one for one for that would carry that type of value and trading for draft picks. I don't know.

You know, sometimes draft picks work out don't know. Uh, you know, sometimes draft picks work out and sometimes they turn into Mike Hughes if they're late round picks or Louis scene. And if they traded Justin Jefferson for a couple of first round picks and those picks didn't turn out to be great, then you just gave away the best player in the league at his prime who could help you win over the next five years for nothing uh i don't think that you want to take that risk anyway all right i have no idea who's going to win hopefully it's the wolves i want a good series thanks everybody for watching slash listening and we'll talk to y'all later appreciate it football football