Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The one Vikings trade idea that should be off the table

Episode Date: February 19, 2023

Matthew Coller answers questions from Vikings fans, to the most likely scenario if the Vikings want to draft a quarterback sometime soon, whether Brian Flores' head coaching experience will help Kevin O'Connell, Matthew's all-time coaching staff and a trade idea that is way too far to talk about... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here. And this is another fans-only episode of Purple Insider. And there are lots of questions to get to, most of which have to do with the XFL. So why don't we... No, I'm just kidding. But the XFL did return this weekend. And before we dive into your questions, I just want to say real quick that it was pretty good product, but where it was really excellent for the XFL is with the instant replay, where this time you got to get the instant replay to happen quickly.

We got insight behind the curtain of what's actually going on with the replay and what's being said with the replay officials. And I just want to say all sports, but especially the NFL should take a little bit of note. Also the XFL kickoff is back. And if you haven't seen it, just take a minute to check it out because I think it would help the NFL if they were to try something like what the XFL is doing with getting the kickoff back to being a big part of the NFL. So there's your XFL update. I won't go through how the games went.

It was up and down, but there were some good plays. And hey, if you were wondering what happened to Jeff Bidette, the old Viking wide receiver, well, not only is he in the XFL, but he's also doing really well in the XFL. In his first game, he had a couple of touchdowns. So there you go. Second chances for many players. And that's why I really enjoy the spring leagues, trying out a lot of things that maybe the NFL needs to consider in the future. So if you get a chance, check it out. Also, they're doing a behind the scenes documentary with The Rock, which I took a look at too, and was actually surprisingly interesting that a lot

of times the behind football, it's kind of the same cliches, but there were some interesting stories with players and even The Rock himself sharing a little more about his own background that I didn't necessarily know about. So there is what's going on in football. The rest is just all of us reading rumors and waiting to see what happens in the coming weeks, the combine coming up. Of course, I will be there broadcasting Chris Trapasso.

This is a little announcement for you guys. Chris Trapasso of CBS sports, who does a weekly show here with us is going to the combine with purple insider and CBS sports. He'll be doing his normal written work there for cbs sports.com but also will be appearing on the purple insider podcast multiple times so i'm really looking forward to that all right so that's all i got for now and i'm sure we'll have more aaron rogers discussions on other episodes about reporting that's coming out with him but for now this is

about vikings fans and what's on their minds as we kick off the off season so why don't we begin about reporting that's coming out with him. But for now, this is about Vikings fans and what's on their minds as we kick off the off season. So why don't we begin with Miles? Miles writes, do you think it would be better to draft a quarterback this year or wait and see where you draft next year and then do it then? And a reminder before I dive into Miles's question,

if you want to have a question of your own featured here on the fans only episodes, go to purpleinsider.com, use the contact us or at Matthew Collar on Twitter. You can send me directly a message and I will put it in the fans only file. So, okay, to your question, would it be better to draft a quarterback this year or wait until next year and see where they're at. And this goes along with some reporting, I believe it was by Albert Breer, that the Vikings are open to this concept,

but also are planning on having Kirk Cousins as their quarterback for at least one more year, which I don't think surprises any of us. Always these things could change. Somebody comes with an offer you can't refuse, but I think most likely scenario, that's what's going to happen. And with this, it entirely depends on how the draft plays out because there's really only one guy that's going to get debated a lot as far as quarterbacks go. And you know who it is. It's Anthony Richardson, that there's going to be debates over

whether Anthony Richardson throws the ball well enough, if he's more of a project quarterback. And some people have asked me if he's similar to Malik Willis last year, where there was a lot of hype about his potential upside, but then at the end of the day, the NFL didn't believe in him. And I think the answer is no, it's not that similar because Anthony Richardson is more of a true first round prospect where with Malik Willis and the rest of that draft class, there were a lot of debates over whether it was worth spending a first round pick on any of those guys. I think a lot of us thought that Malik Willis would go in the first round just based on upside, but Anthony Richardson, I believe is a better prospect than Malik Willis was. And

I know that there will be discussions about some of his statistics at Florida, but he's the exact type of guy that if he were there for the Vikings or within range of a short trade up, he's the guy you do it for because the other quarterbacks, Will Levis, Bryce Young, CJ Stroud, those are top five to seven draft picks in this draft. I don't expect, and this is just based on the draft analysis world, which was wrong last year, but I don't expect based on their caliber of prospect for arm strength, athleticism, production in college, all those things would not expect any of them to really fall big time in the draft. It's really only Anthony Richardson where it could happen.

And if Richardson were to get in the Vikings ballpark, it would probably be a mistake not to make that trade up because it's such a perfect situation. And it's hard not to make the connection with Patrick Mahomes, who was a raw prospect coming out of college. And this doesn't mean he'll be Mahomes. It just means that there's that same situation with Alex Smith, letting him sit for a year, letting him develop and learn to play the quarterback position behind the scenes for one season and through preseason and practice, and then be ready to step in and take the

reins away from Kirk Cousins two years from now. So that ideal scenario, if that were to play out, which you never really know. I mean, when the Lamar Jackson draft happened, I think I thought that Lamar Jackson would go a lot higher than 32nd. Maybe the league smartened up a little bit with some of these guys who are runners and very dynamic runners because there's potential there. And even with Jalen Hurts, they let him drop all the way to the second round. And then he developed his passing over a couple of years to be a really excellent quarterback. So I think these are things

that the league should be and probably is taking a lot of note of. That's the only real scenario that I could make an argument for the Vikings taking a quarterback this year, unless they really believe in Tanner McKee. I just don't know that Tanner McKee has the upside of those other quarterbacks that we talked about where Richardson has the physical upside to potentially be a star, but it's also plausible that they could like what they see and think it's worth a first round pick for the future. But those are the only situations where it would happen this year where they could draft a quarterback. But the more likely scenario is the second one that you described, which is they play it out with Kirk Cousins next year on a short term extension or just let him go through next season and then make the decision in the draft because this year they

are not in an ideal draft position and the quarterbacks are just expected to go very high this year in particular there are a lot of teams that can make an argument for drafting a quarterback in fact there's more teams that need to draft a quarterback than there are first round quarterbacks and that just goes for even the top 10 or 12 draft picks. So it really depends on how things play out. But when you look at Kirk Cousins age and also the most likely extension, which is probably a short-term extension for him, I think that would be the desire of the Minnesota Vikings and assume that Cousins is willing to do that and add maybe another year or two, but maybe they get rid of that no trade clause that allows them to move on or set

it up in the same way with Derek Carr, where technically it's an extension, but they can cut him after this year if they decide that it is time to move on to another quarterback. I think that there's a very thin window of things that have to happen for them to pick one this year, but much more likely would be they're looking at next year. And the other part of this too is draft capital. This year, they just cannot put together a haul unless they're giving up their next, say two first round draft picks, which I don't know if they would be willing to do with all the other parts of the roster that need to be rebuilt. So if I were to put down money on when the Vikings will next draft the quarterback, I would say that is in the 2024 draft, but they are the Minnesota

Vikings. So we should never be completely shocked by anything that happens. All right. Next question comes from DB Josh D on Twitter. Hi Matt. Now that the Vikings have found their defensive coordinator, how about a pie chart on the rest of the off season and how it goes? Offense focus, defense focus, stay the course and keep everyone. Yeah, that's a really interesting question because in the coming weeks, they're going to have to make a lot of hard decisions on who to keep, who to let go. How do you even become cap compliant is a discussion. And I don't know, look into it. If you want to that Zedaria Smith put his house on the market, that may be that he thinks it's possible that they could move on from him after the second half of the season was not the same

as the first. And also his contract is really set up for getting cut. Maybe he wants that and wants to go to free agency again to try to get a bigger deal than he did last year. But I don't see really a path to them doing a lot to the offense. And there, of course, is an argument that has been made many times on this show about drafting a wide receiver. And if the right wide receiver is there, if there's somebody they have very high on their board, you could see it. You could see them saying, look, we're not going to fix this defense right away. Let's try to develop players.

Let's try to spend free agent money there and get a partner for Justin Jefferson. Because I think you saw at times, even on the last play of the season, that another weapon beside Justin Jefferson could be extremely valuable. That was really the story of the season when the Vikings failed in some of their biggest moments was simply that teams found a way to put so much attention on Justin Jefferson that they forced Kirk Cousins to go elsewhere. And sometimes TJ Hawkinson or Adam Thielen or KJ Osborne came through. There's certainly examples of that, but there wasn't a consistent unstoppable one B or clear wide receiver to, to Justin Jefferson

that could beat man-to-man coverage. They could make teams pay for putting so much onto Jefferson. That's the argument that I like to make. And that I'm sure a lot of you would agree with having watched Vikings football and the number of times that there have been great wide receiver twos and how valuable that is to have Chris Carter with Randy Moss, for example, but considering they brought in Flores, considering how empty the cupboard is when it comes to that defense, I would lean toward they put a lot of focus into rebuilding defense. And that would mean creating cap space to be able to sign some players to add to the defense who are veterans. And I think they need probably a defensive tackle if Delvin Tomlinson does not sign an extension. And from his perspective, I don't think there's really a good argument for him doing that because on the

open market, he could push for 13 to $15 million per year. And I'm not sure that that's wise for the Vikings to give him a very, very good player, but an extension for Delvin Tomlinson would be pretty expensive for the Vikings to do. And I think that's going to be his lowest offer considering if he's out for 31 other teams to try to pick him up. So they need defensive tackle help. They need a little more edge rushing than they had last year. Their rotation when it came to the edge rushing, DJ Wanham, Patrick Jones, maybe a little more there in terms of outside linebackers for a 3-4 type of defensive coordinator such as Brian Flores. And he liked in Miami to have rotational players that were coming in and out. So that's going to be a factor

as well. We'll see at the linebacker position what they decide to do, but there's probably some free agents out there that they would like to add as a veteran next to Brian Asamoah if they're going to let go Eric Hendricks. And then in the secondary, they have all young players and Patrick Peterson just doesn't seem likely to me to return to the Vikings. So adding veteran corners could be important as well. And I think that as far as the draft capital goes, number one on the list for the most likely thing that the Vikings will draft is a corner. And number two is probably a defensive tackle. And number three is probably an edge rusher.

And then after that, we get to the wide receiver conversation if we're just ranking them by most likely. So if I had to put down a guess or a pie chart on this, I would say offense focused. And we do need an answer at the center position. So that's worth mentioning as well about Garrett Bradbury. That will have to be something they do, but I don't see much chance that there's big changes on the offensive side. If there is, I will heap praise upon them because we see this all the time. The Super Bowl is 38 to 35. The NFL is not going back, folks.

It's going to continue to be 38, 35 Super Bowls where offense is going to drive the success and teams who rank number one in offense are going to make the Super Bowl and win the Super Bowl. It just that's the NFL from here on forever. If your defense wins championships person, I'm sorry, but they've got a lot of old NFL recaps, NFL films on YouTube. I watch them all the time. That's where you're going to find a lot more defense winning championships than in the

future of the NFL. So if the Vikings were to go offense focused, get a receiver, spend some money on an interior lineman, a center to try to upgrade over Garrett Bradbury, who did improve last year. Lots of credit will come from this show, but I don't know that it's going to happen. So I would say maybe about 20% would go to offense focus that they put anything more into it than a center to replace Bradbury and maybe like an Elbert Wilson type receiver signing where they try to find lightning in a bottle. I guess you could look at Kansas City as a team that found some good receivers in free

agency, but their quarterback maybe changes that discussion that Patrick Mahomes is not the same as what the Vikings will have at quarterback. Defense focused, I will go 60% there that I think there's just going to be a lot of work on that side draft picks. Who would be surprised if even their first two draft picks that are in the top 100, the first and third rounder, or if they trade back, the majority goes to that side of the football as they try to rebuild. So I'm going to go 60% there as far as their cap space and as far as their draft capital and staying the course just

seems unlikely to me. I think there are certain players who might be back. Of course, you know, Harrison Smith is at the top of that list that I think if you're Brian Flores, you're probably pretty excited about him. And Adam Thielen, I would be surprised if he was moved. I mean, it's on the table, I'm sure, when it comes to his usage and his price and his contract that, you know, if those things don't all match up, then he might not be a Minnesota Viking next year. But I'm going to lean toward him coming back. So some players will come back. Some players won't. I assume that's not what you mean with stay the course. By stay the course, it means move heaven and earth and all the cap space in the world to keep everybody. And I think there will be some players going out the door.

That's a great question though. And it's kind of the quintessential question of the off season is who's going to stay and who's going to go. So I'm going to lean toward putting their money on defense, but if they don't and they surprise us, then things could get pretty interesting for this offseason. Folks, I'm dealing with that lull that we all have when the holidays are over and football season ends. So I decided to try something new. It's called AG1 by Athletic Greens.

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slash insider. Check it out. Next question from John. Do the Chiefs help support the strategy or the need to have three plus offensive weapons in parentheses wide receivers to compete in the playoffs. Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And I think that history does too, right? When we look at teams that have, say like the Packers, for example, that had Devontae Adams for a long time, and it was just really Devontae Adams and not too many other guys that were real stars. In the playoffs, there were a lot of games where they were just held down and Aaron Rodgers could not put up huge, huge numbers and huge performances in the postseason. Now, Patrick Mahomes, this version of him is maybe the best quarterbacking that's ever happened in

NFL history. So there's that, but Rodgers is pretty darn good when he was doing it as well and yet a lot of times there would be that one team on defense that was able to slow down the number one weapon and I think what you even saw from Justin Jefferson at the end of the Giants game is that it's not just the numbers and can he perform in that situation because the Vikings offense was still good against the Giants and TJ Hawkinson stepped up in that game. But in the biggest moment, he was double teamed down the field and that wasn't able to be Kirk Cousins' first option, or at least the way that Kirk Cousins plays. Maybe there are other quarterbacks who would have thrown it up

to Justin Jefferson, but it would have been a lot easier if somebody else was wide open. And with KJ Osborne and Adam Thielen, both are good players. I don't want to downplay that both of them are very capable wide receivers, but it's not at this point in either guy's career, it's not the Chris Carter to the Randy Moss. And with the Chiefs, they didn't have that either. They didn't have Chris Carter or Randy Moss, or heck, they didn't even have Jake Reed. Like they didn't have anybody at that level. And yet Travis Kelsey is kind of a wide receiver. Like he's pretty much mostly a wide receiver in the way that he plays. He's always running routes. But they had multiple guys all over the field who proved that they could do their job when called upon. Juju Smith-Schuster was a really good player at one time for the Pittsburgh Steelers, considered kind of a rising

star. And I'm not really sure what happened there as far as him fading from that star status to not get a big contract with Kansas City. But the fact that Patrick Mahomes can deliver the ball in a lot of different situations to a lot of different people. And don't forget, they also have two very good running backs coming out of the backfield too, who can catch the ball on swing passes and check downs and short throws, and then make something of it after the catch. And the Vikings got almost nothing out of their running backs in the receiving game. That's another part of it too. So with Hawkinson and Jefferson, and then someone

like Osborne for the future, if we're talking about that, if he's going to continue to be a Viking, which I expect that he will be, one more guy is kind of like that threshold where it goes up over. And if you go back to, gosh, this really exists for any time in NFL history. Go back to Washington in the early nineties where Mark Rippin wins a Superbowl. It really depends on your age here, but you can really point to almost any situation where Mark Rippin had those three great wide receivers. And then you go almost 10 years later, you have not only the 98 Vikings, but how about the greatest show on turf? It's usually focused around Kurt Warner as it should be because he's

a hall of famer and one of the coolest stories ever, but let's not forget those wide receivers, Isaac Bruce, Tori Holtz, and Azahir Hakeem. If you're going deep into the well, they're having those guys and looking at Philadelphia too, where Dallas Goddard can make contested downfield catches. And then they have two great wide receivers. The more weapons that you can have, the more seven on seven you can turn the game into where the quarterback just can drop back and distribute the ball to the open guy and doesn't have to force it into windows. And you can create a lot of different stuff that way and force defenses to focus on multiple wide receivers. And the big issue for the Vikings before I move on to the next question last year was really that nobody else could go down field outside of Justin

Jefferson. TJ Hawkinson is not a weapon that you're running go routes with and Thielen and KJ Osborne were not consistent downfield threats. Where's the other guy who can go 25 yards down the field on a double move, get open and make a play. They don't really have that. And I think that they should be looking for that. But yes, I think that the chiefs support the idea that having multiple players who are really good receivers. And this might've been also a Patriots thing too, with Tom Brady, where it was like, it was Edelman and it was Gronk, but there was always like two or three other guys who Tom Brady would trust in big situations. I think that's what it really comes down to is having as many weapons as you can get. It's not a

crazy in the woods analytics theory. Get more players who are open. Go do that. There you go. But yes, I think the Chiefs definitely support that. All right. Next question from Zach G. Could Brian Flores be helpful both as an ex-head coach and as an intelligent defensive mind in helping Kevin O'Connell to game plan and play call? Where I think that this can help is that the two guys just seem to see the world similarly. They have a similar way of talking about football. And we saw that in the press conference. And they come from similar roots, having both been with Bill Belichick, Flores obviously much longer as a coach than Kevin O'Connell, but their roots in football come from there. And playing off of each other

is, in my mind, very important. I know Mike Zimmer talked about this with Tony Sperano when he passed away, that that was one of the things he really missed the most about not having Tony Sperano by his side anymore, is having somebody else who had sat in that seat as the head coach to work with and to, like you said, to game plan. I don't necessarily think play call because within a game, Brian Flores is going to be worried about his own side of the ball. But as far as game planning, as far as teaching, coaching, and being on the same page, that was the thing with Ed Donatel and the situation with O'Connell is it just didn't seem like that Donatel was getting the messages from Kevin O'Connell the way that O'Connell wanted them to be received. And communication there, I know we talk about that as sort of like

cliche with this organization, collaboration, communication, like that's their big thing, but it is important. i don't think you can downplay how much you need those two sides of the ball to be interconnected um going forward and having a ex-head coaching experience i also think really matters as well because it's hard for people to understand who are in the building that are assistants, that are players, just how much a head coach is responsible for at all times within an organization. And as Kevin O'Connell talked about looking himself in the mirror from last year and wondering about the things that he could have done better, I've got to think that that was on the list as well, like finding ways to communicate

with his coaches a little better, get his messages across and be on the same page offensively and defensively. And any idea that there was going to be like, you are the offense, I am the defense. Let's just kind of go our separate ways. That sounds good in practice, but not in when you try to put it into play because the offensive head coach is still the head coach at the end of the day. And he's got a vision for what he thinks is the best thing to do on defense. And also there's another part of this too, that, you know, maybe you just kind of saw it a little bit wrong for what fit the personnel. And this is where another thing has to be very important is that these two guys got to put together the personnel together to put together the shopping list for Kwesi Adafo Mensah and the scouting staff

and the pro personnel to go get those those people and those players this year felt like a lot of guys were just out of place and so how does Brian Flores see football from a defensive perspective for what types of players that he needs all like all these things, these decisions should be made a lot together with Brian Flores and Kevin O'Connell. And at least in an ideal world, they will see a lot of those things the same way. And you could definitely make an argument for why that would work based on their backgrounds, their similar age. I think that they just kind of have a similar worldview based on,

you know, only a press conference and seeing them together, but it just, it comes across that way that that connection is going to be better than it was last year. Okay. This one comes from Mark. Let's say Elon Musk bought the Vikings. Does he got any money to buy the Vikings? I, you know, Twitter is a lot of money spent there, it seems. Let's say Elon Musk bought the Vikings and he appoints you GM and asks you to put together your dream staff. Okay, interesting. SpaceX also has a time machine, so your coaching pool is past and present. Who would you hire?

This is a fun question, Mark. Well, I'm going to go with, at the top of this, I think the most underappreciated head coach of all time. And that is Joe Gibbs. This guy won multiple Super Bowls with different quarterbacks. How often does that happen with a backup quarterback in Doug Williams? And then you go back in the day, Joe Theismann, and then more recently, recently in 1991 with

Mark Rippon. I mean, that's really impressive to win Super Bowls with different quarterbacks. And I think that Joe Gibbs, when he came back to coach Washington, the second time when Mark Brunel was there, this is a little history lesson podcast for everybody did okay. Yeah. He did pretty well in modernizing what he had been doing. But if we're talking about the peak of a leader, a creative offensive mind, and in the early nineties, they were one of the first teams to be doing those pre-snap motions with regularity. It's like, not that it didn't

exist, but all the time. This is also a guy who believes in having three wide receivers, which benefited them and I would want as well. So Joe Gibbs would be my head coach. Also the mentality that would fit current players. There are certain coaches that I don't know that they fit with the current style of player in our social media world and so forth. Whereas Joe Gibbs was usually very calm and was not known to have crazy outbursts. He was an X's and O coach top to bottom. He would be my all time pick. Now, as far as running the defense, assuming that these guys are willing to take on these roles in my SpaceX back in time team, you know, I think I'll go with

Bill Parcells. Can I have Lawrence Taylor as well? I don't know if Elon can afford peak Lawrence Taylor, who would make like $50 million a year if he existed now. But Bill Parcells, just one of the most creative, innovative, but also unbelievably good at picking out talent, building a defense, being a leader that is hard and tough-nosed and all those things that he was. But I think Bill Parcells as a defensive coach is pretty easy all time. And how about maybe Don Correale and the Eric Correale offense to go on the offensive side? I think I'm going to go with that. Although Bill Walsh in the West Coast is a conversation there.

Or maybe, I don't know, maybe Mike Shanahan or Kyle Shanahan. Can I have Kyle Shanahan as an assistant? How about that? If I get Mike Shanahan and the whole Shanahan tree with Joe Gibbs at head coach, Bill Parcells on the defensive side, and maybe his former defensive coordinator, Bill Belichick could work with him as well. I think my staff's winning some games there as long as they have a good quarterback. So I guess if Elon Musk ever buys the Vikings and puts me in charge and we go back in time, the Vikings are going to get one of those Super Bowls.

Okay. It's going to happen. All right. Next question comes from RO. Let's see. There's no need to entertain the idea that Kirk Cousins will ever request a trade to a contender because he's 35 and wants to win now. There has never been any indications of that.

Now, that is true that there hasn't ever been any indications of him requesting a trade. When he was in Washington, he just let his contract play out. And this has been something we've talked about a little on the show is from the Kirk Cousins perspective. Would you say, look, if you're not going to sign me to a long-term extension, then just trade me to somebody who will. And so I don't really think it's about the win now type of thing. Kirk Cousins, based on last year, would have a good argument that you can win now here.

I think maybe some of us look at the bigger picture and don't see that exactly. But at the same time, like, I think that if you're him and you know, you have Justin Jefferson, Darisaw, Kevin O'Connell's offensive mind, you're not saying, oh yeah, we're going to lose again, right? You're saying this is a pretty good team and we're going to have a real chance. So I don't think he's, he would be saying if he's looking for a trade, oh yeah, I need to go to the Jets because they're about to win the Super Bowl.

Anybody in the AFC is not about to win the Super Bowl with Kansas City there. That's not a guarantee for next year. It's just a really hard situation. Kirk Cousins on the Jets, are they Super Bowl favorites from Vegas next year? No, they're not. No, you've probably got a better chance.

Well, I don't know about, yeah, maybe even, I don't know. But Minnesota is, you can make just as much of a case for anybody in the AFC just based on what the conference looks like and how hard it is to be in the AFC. It wouldn't be about that. And I'm assuming they would trade him to the AFC. But even if you're talking about going to the Panthers, are they real Super Bowl contenders? Atlanta?

Like, I don't think so. I don't, I think that they're teams that are on the rise a little bit, but not necessarily, or will be soon, but not necessarily like better Superbowl contenders for next year than the Vikings. It's really about the contract situation is the discussion of whether they would trade Kirk Cousins almost entirely about the contract. Because if you're him at his age, what he's got to want is one last contract. As opposed to playing year to year, as opposed to having the uncertainty, he's going to want the Russell Wilson or Matt Ryan late career mega contract. Hey, this is probably my last deal.

Super guaranteed money, like all those things that offers him stability as opposed to the year-to-year that's just me putting myself in his shoes i don't know what he's thinking about his contract situation he does not tweet it some players do but kirk cousins is not one of them so we never really know what he's thinking about that situation. But if I'm on his side, I would be saying to him, if I'm his agent, and again, his agent's better than me, I'm sure doing that job by a million miles. But my thought would be, let's get that last contract. And if the Vikings won't do it, then somebody will. Then we could become a, say,

a jet for whatever number of years or Raider or a whatever number of teams that need a quarterback. And there are many this off season. That's where that discussion comes from. Not so much that we think that Kirk is going to look at the roster on defense and say, I'm going to, you know, hightail it out of here, trade me. No, it's much more about if you're not going to buy into me after a 13 win season, then you're not going to buy into me after a 13 win season, then you're never going to buy into me. And you're always going to do the short-term thing. I'm always going to play with one foot out the door.

Why do I want to do that? So I think that's where that comes from. Okay, next question. JRG, with the report of the Ravens willing to move on from Lamar Jackson, would you trade Cousins and some draft picks for Lamar? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, yeah. Yep, sure would.

Now, Lamar, the thing about him is he's looking at Watson's contract and saying, shouldn't that be me? And maybe even more because I'm not like that guy. If that's how much Lamar Jackson wants, that is really difficult to work around. And we've seen how hard it is to work around a rookie contract. Lamar Jackson, though, with Justin Jefferson on his side, an offensive line that you could continue to build. That sounds pretty good. And if you're going down, if it doesn't work, it's almost like one of those. It would be like one of those NBA trades where Toronto says to you as the L.A. Clippers, hey, Kawhi wants to be a Clipper.

Will you guys take him? And you're like, yeah. And you know that Kawhi could get hurt or he could be unhappy or play half the games or whatever. And so you end up with a five or six seed and there's just, you know, it's not that great, which is kind of what the Clippers have been. But how are you going to turn down taking Kawhi Leonard? Think of the same thing with Kevin Durant. How are you going to turn down taking Kawhi Leonard? Think of the same thing with Kevin Durant. How are you going to turn down Lamar Jackson, former NFL MVP, who's one of the most exciting, dynamic players in the league?

And there are questions as, you know, how he's going to throw the ball because of the last couple of years, it's been good, but it hasn't been MVP level. Is he going to stay healthy where the last couple of years he has not been healthy through an entire season and the Ravens or first round outs this year and last year missed the playoffs. And if Lamar Jackson plays, they probably are in the playoffs two years ago, probably beat the Cincinnati Bengals this year. In fact, you can almost kind of guarantee that if Lamar Jackson was in, they would have won that game considering how close it was otherwise, and that the quarterback made the big mistake in that game. Lamar Jackson's abilities physically just fit so well with the way that the NFL is playing. And I think when you look at what he

has, and I should also add TJ Hawkinson to part of this, if they give him an extension, if you look at what he had in Baltimore, it's not super exciting when it comes to the wide receiver position that the best receiver they've had there is what Hollywood Brown, Sammy Watkins, Rashad Bateman, who has just not really taken that step to being a star. Those guys are nowhere near Justin Jefferson. And I think TJ Hawkinson is similar. And they have an offensive line that ranked very highly when it came to run blocking this year.

Put Lamar Jackson behind that, you have yourself a Super Bowl contender. The problem is, though, you better draft well on the defensive side because you're still going to have a really bad defense and looking down the road. And this is why they might hesitate to do this. Looking down the road, if Lamar Jackson was one of the most expensive players in the league as a quarterback, let's say top three, how expensive is Justin Jefferson going to be? And then can you put anyone else around those two players?

Now, those two guys enough are going to make an exciting team. But if you're trying to win the Super Bowl, last time I checked with the two Super Bowl teams, they had a lot of good players. So that would be the one hesitation I would have. It's just, man, if you're going to have something blow up in your face, have it blow up in your face with an mvp in his prime that's kind of how i would look at that but look if you're a person that disagrees with whether you would do that deal or not i get it i think you've got an argument there but just too hard to turn down for me uh all right this one comes from chris as the kirk and jj justin jefferson contract and age windows don't align the defense needs a complete rebuild

would trading Justin Jefferson not give us the draft hall we need to get started let me throw this out there just right now so on a daily basis since the offseason started someone has asked me every day should the Vikings trade Justin Jefferson and a lot of people in those questions make the argument for it like well you get a lot of people in those questions make the argument for it. Like, well, you get a lot of draft capital back and Kansas City traded Tyree Kill and, you know, he's going to be very expensive soon. There's no scenario where I will ever make an argument for it not being way better to have Justin Jefferson on your team than draft picks and cap space. Justin Jefferson is the best receiver in the entire NFL.

When Kirk Cousins throws Justin Jefferson the ball, he has 112 quarterback rating. The best quarterback rating of the last three years is not 112 by any quarterback. I think it's Rodgers with like 108, and the next best is Mahomes with 103. Kirk Cousins is Rodgers and Mahomes when throwing the football to Justin Jefferson. That's how good he is. He could drive an entire offense himself as he did this year, where there wasn't a lot of other players who were really stepping up, including a running game that was mediocre. And yet they were a top 10 offense because Justin Jefferson, if Justin Jefferson is going to agree to be a Viking for a very, very, very long time,

then you say, here is the Brinks truck. Here is the blank check. Please do that. We're talking about a guy who is in his prime, but just the start of his prime. He has five, six, seven, eight more years. And look at the way that star players of his caliber, like Devontae Adams, sustain performance from year to year with the wide receivers. They're very predictable.

And he's been very healthy. Healthy, predictable, great person for the organization. Everything you want, what you're really looking for with Justin Jefferson is to say yes to your marriage proposal. And then for the next quarterback to get Justin Jefferson. And if you have a quarterback on a rookie contract, it will negate the deal for Jefferson as being expensive. And then they will make each other better is your hope. But really Jefferson's going to make any quarterback better. That's a question that I just really don't have any other answer to. I can't work around some sort of case. And I know people have asked, what about the number one overall pick this year? Maybe, maybe, maybe

no, no, probably not. No, I don't think so because next year they could draft a quarterback with whatever pick that they have and then give Justin Jefferson to that guy. And you could say that there's a lot of good receivers in the league and that would be true. But as far as Justin Jefferson level receivers, and there are analytics on this, I think I referenced in a last fans only episode, the receiver analytics that 538 has come up with that track the player with the tracking device that's in their pads. And Jefferson is either number one, two or three in the league. A.J. Brown, Justin Jefferson, Stephon Diggs, Devontae Adams. These

are not replaceable players. These aren't guys you could just draft and hope. And I think you want to just have everything be with him. I mean, think about the Vikings offenses with Randy Moss in his early prime. I'm not saying Jefferson is quite Moss. There'll never be another receiver who takes over the league like that, but it's kind of like that. It's that level of dominance that he's put together. So there's really no world where you're trading him away and then making the case that, well, you know, you could draft some guys on defense. And if you draft guys on defense with those picks that don't work out, then what? You're just out Justin Jefferson?

Can't make that case. Cannot make that case. But I appreciate that people are trying to put together, like, interesting ideas. That one to me is just off limits. Nope. Not entertaining that one. Next question is from Christian. Do you see any rule changes the NFL will make with the way that the Eagles were doing their

QB sneaks? The answer is yes. Now, whether they should, I don't know. I do see them making a change there. Maybe just because they think it's too easy to just put everybody up at the line and the tush push, you know, just grab his butt and push him forward for a yard that if you, if every team starts copying that and everybody can get a first down on third and one, that it's going to remove a lot of the drama and they want the drama, the buildup of

third and one. I don't like it though, because that's been a really effective play for teams and it's smart and no one's doing anything wrong. As far as I can tell, no one's doing anything that's against any NFL rule. Sorry that defenses can't stop it, but isn't the history of the league. Offense is doing a thing. Defense is figuring out a way to stop it. If everything was unstoppable that teams invented on offense forever, well then instead of, you know, 25 points a game for the average team, we'd have like 45 points, but that's not how it works. When teams start running bootlegs, defenses start putting too deep safeties and that's the whole, you know, just the league, the back and

forth, but maybe they feel that this one is too unstoppable. I do see them addressing this and maybe making it illegal to push the quarterback from behind that would kind of even things out. And then, you know, maybe the Eagles will invent something else, but I don't love it. I don't love the fact that they're just going to say, no, you're good at this. Let's change it. All right. A couple more questions here. Let's see from at the purple flag on Twitter. Why did the NFL get rid of the emergency quarterback rule? Yes. I imagine you sent this question shortly after the San Francisco game. I don't know. And I couldn't dislike it anymore that they got rid of it because it allowed for a position to develop.

Like that position had value on game day, which was, hey, in the worst case scenario, you're the guy. And instead of like a fullback or something, and they should bring this back immediately after what happened with San Francisco, because instead of trying to play Brock Purdy with a torn UCL, somebody else would have been there who's been on the team in his practice. But also you don't have to look that far back in the past to see the number three quarterbacks developed back in the day. They just don't do that anymore because there's no reason to have them if they can't even be an emergency quarterback.

And some teams do have someone on the practice squad, but those guys tend to sort of come and go as opposed to staying year after year and having a real chance. But you look at Brad Johnson, for example, he was a backup quarterback that was a whatever, ninth round pick and developed. Green Bay had several of these guys, including Mark Burnell and Kurt Warner, who were backup quarterbacks. I think that that's what you want is to see players get an opportunity to have that roster spot and develop and eventually get a chance to be a starting quarterback somewhere. It's not going to happen all the time, but the stories where it does happen, it'll be pretty cool. But also just even, even if that has nothing to do with it on game day, nobody wants to

see. It's like with a backup catcher pitching when it's 15 to nothing. No one wants to see that maybe a little bit with the backup catcher, but no one, no one wants to see a fullback playing quarterback other than just for like it being weird, but not like for the fairness of the game. So certainly the NHL has had this right for years where some guy comes out of the stands or the press box, who's the emergency goalie, because like goalie regular players just can't play quarterback. And it would be a joke if you had to throw somebody in as a goalie, the same way it would be a joke if Christian McCaffrey had to play quarterback. So let's

hope that they bring that back rules questions. All right, next one comes from at CS Edwards, looking at how San Francisco built their defense. Do you think that Kweisi Adafomensa thinks back to when they drafted Fred Warner as a strategy to improve the defense? Well, if he was looking for his Fred Warner, maybe it was Brian Asamoah from last year that was a third round draft pick, a really explosive player. Warner is kind of next level right away and was a star as soon as he came into the league. I mean, he's an all pro level player, but you know, linebacker is an interesting position because if you have a great one, it is so valuable to your defense. That guy can be a monster. All these offenses are designed

to attack linebackers. The problem is there's just not a lot of Fred Warners. So if you're asking, should they think about building a defense around a freak linebacker who can cover and blitz and it's just a monster? The answer would be yes. If I thought that it was easy to get one of those guys but if you look at some of the draft picks recently in the first round and there's always busts but if you take a linebacker and it doesn't work out i mean usually that guy gets on the field and hurts you for a couple of years and then just goes away uh look at you know pittsburgh taking a linebacker a few years ago as as an example there if you take them in the first round and they don't work out, it really is a tough hit to take because you think about all the other more premium

positions that are out there, the defensive ends, the wide receivers, the quarterback, the corners, all those positions are harder to replace. And there's just a big drop-off. There's Bobby Wagner, there's Fred Warner, and Eric Hendricks was in this discussion a couple of years ago for guys that were worth it. But then after that, there's a lot of linebackers who are probably really close and that can sort of fill the spot, do the job effectively. And that's what you look for. And that's why you don't usually spend a lot of money there because the gap between them

is not big. The gap between Daniil Hunter and an average pass rusher is massive. The gap between a very good linebacker and an average linebacker might not be that much. It's only between a great linebacker and an average linebacker, if that makes sense. So I think that they hope that Brian Asamoah does turn out to be that star and he has some physical capabilities that fit the bill, but I don't think that they'll look at this year in particular and say, got to get another linebacker. That might be a spot where they fill in free agency or just keep Eric Hendricks. Okay. Last question here from at skull doc, a recent bleacher report mock draft had the Vikings taking Florida quarterback, Anthony Richardson in the late first round would

you trade Kirk this offseason in that scenario I would not I would not I would keep Kirk Cousins in place and I know he's not going to be happy and he's just going to have to play it out but I think it would be better for Anthony Richardson to sit and this is always so hard for teams to do and I saw Matt Nagy talked about it at the Super Bowl that they didn't want Justin Fields to play right away. And he ended up having to do it because of an injury to Andy Dalton. And I'm sure there was outside pressure as well. But in this instances where these quarterbacks have been able to sit, there is success there with a Mahomes, with a Rogers. And it doesn't happen that often because usually people want to see that

quarterback if you drafted him. But with Richardson, he has tremendous arm strength. He has incredible running ability. And from what I've seen in Florida, he's a guy who plays hard and is a winner. I think that with the way he plays, I mean, he's, he's like a Jalen Hurtson that he puts his shoulder down and tries to plow through guys and things like that plays through when he's banged up, which you have to do in the NFL and he could throw some rockets, but he's not very refined. I mean, there are simple plays that get missed that you have to make in the NFL. You know, one guy, if you haven't checked it out yet, JTO Sullivan does amazing reviews

of quarterbacks, former Viking, actually on the QB school on YouTube. So go check that out because it's very, very good. And he's done some Anthony Richardson tape analysis and you see the highs and you see the lows from him. I think you want to refine that for a year and wait for him to stay behind Kirk Cousins. And I also think you don't want to throw away a year with some of the players that you have, including Justin Jefferson and Christian Derrissaw, that you still should be trying to win next year

with the roster that you have. I don't think you have to completely tear everything apart, throw this quarterback into like a mediocre situation when he's not ready to do so. I think you want it to have the defense get improved. Maybe some of the offensive line developer get improved at another receiver at some point, build everything up for this guy. So when it's time for him to take over, he's got a great situation if that is going to happen. But I think that Anthony Richardson is going to go to

the combine in a week and he's going to blow people away with some of his physical capabilities and he's going to end up being a higher draft pick, but we will see if that opportunity arises, that would be very exciting for Vikings fans to have what their future is going to be, as opposed to it always kind of floating in the air with Kirk cousins, each off season.

That's all the questions that I have. Thanks so much to everybody who sent them again, purpleinsider.com or at Matthew Collar on Twitter. You send me a DM. My DMs are open and ask your question, get it on the show. Really appreciate everybody who has sent their questions. Great stuff. Another fun episode, and we will catch you again soon.