Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Vikings are 'in love' with multiple QBs... are you?

Episode Date: April 15, 2024

Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah said that the Vikings are in love with multiple quarterbacks in this draft class. Do we believe him? How many QBs do you love from this class? Former Purple Insider intern Paul Hodowanic, currently with PGATour.com joins to talk draft (and a little Masters too) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collard here, and look who is here. He is returning to the show, Paul Hodowanek, presently of PGATour.com, and formerly intern and employee of Purple Insider. You were only an intern to some point, then you were making too much money to be an intern, and then you landed a dream job with PGA tour.com. So you're spending some of your time covering the masters. You're not high enough on the ladder yet to be there in Augusta with PGA tour.com. So you're working on that, working your way up. But of course we got some great masters action today.

It's great to see you, Paul. You got a lot of football takes. I know you wanted to give them. I needed to have you on this show post Kirk and pre draft, because I know that golf may have your heart, but the NFL draft has your soul, Paul. So how are you, how are you enjoying PGA tour.com and the greatest show in golf, the masters. Well, I'm loving the Masters. Just addicted to the coverage.

Every screen. I don't know if you're big into it, but they have like six different streams online. So they're all up on my computer, on a different computer, on my TV, on my phone. Just feed me everything. So I don't really think I've even left this apartment in the last three days, just consuming all the content, which is kind of like NFL draft for me. When I worked for you, just sitting in a lab, writing up the NFL draft guide,

just not even allowed to take breaks to go outside. Like that's where I was there. That's where I am now. So a little less NFL draft coverage, though I am on high alert following it. Just not as, I couldn't give you my cornerback five this year so I'm not I'm not quite there yet um but we're gonna try to figure it out over the next couple weeks I have been watching the quarterbacks though uh in between all all my rounds of golf you know

the many many that I'm sure you know I'm sure you had you know you would love you would love to be there for some of it but you know get down here when the Vikings play as long as they're not in London this year hopefully the Jags Vikings game is not in London this year so you Dane the rest of the contingent can come down and we can play some golf you do have an unfair advantage now living in Florida and covering golf and being able to play whenever you want whereas I don't think that I have hit a golf ball since maybe November and probably October. And I noticed that when you came back last summer, just how much your golf game had gained and mine had not changed at all for

probably about 25 years. It hasn't gotten better since then, but are you enjoying the job? Are you loving covering golf? Because it was great for me to see your growth from college kid at the U to developing through the internship and then having a chance to get this job. Yeah, loving it. I'm on traveling like 15, 20 weeks a year. So getting, seeing some cool places, nothing beats it. So I'm loving it, writing about golf every day. I can't really complain when my job literally is to watch the masters. I know that's similarly how you feel

when, you know, your job is sitting in a press box on Sunday and, uh, at us bank stadium, it's hard to, hard to beat. So, or sitting in this here studio talking about the NFL draft, which a beautiful basement that you have down there with just since I've been on, I will say just quite the background shift that has happened for you. I'm in too small of an apartment to like fully dedicate wall space to all this. Plus, like the desk is kind of in an awkward area. So if I just put up stuff that would fit along the camera screen, like it would just look psychotic to someone who walked in the apartment. It's like why I'm like slightly above your deck door. Do you have like random flags and things?

So we're just sticking with the over here, I guess, Lutzen ski background for now, but don't quite have your setup yet. I tried to make this look a little like local news where they have the big windows and then there are pictures or digital pictures of the city behind them. So I bought something off of Etsy, which is downtown Minneapolis. And then a listener sent all of these flags, which I thought these are awesome. And I put them up and

now we've got a studio. And it was that easy as everyone has seen it develop over the last couple of months knows that it's been a work in progress and it's been kind of fun to put together but let's dive into some draft talk here with you paul uh the other day quesia da fomensa in his pre-draft press conference was very open about the fact that the minnesota vikings are drafting a quarterback. Thank you, Mr. Adolfo Mensah for not condescending to everyone as the football people so often do. What do you guys mean? You don't know what we're doing in the draft.

So he didn't try to pull any of that. And I thought he was very candid laying it all out there, how they view this entire thing and talking about the need for someone else to trade up with them. If it's going to happen, it's not like they have full control over whether they can trade up or not. Someone else has to play ball. And if not, they have multiple options. And the poll quote from as a former newspaper intern, as well as you were,

you know, the poll quote was about him talking about the Vikings being in love with multiple quarterbacks in this draft. So the first question I have for you, then I want to talk about the quarterbacks we're in love with, and then the ones we're not as in love with as we go forward. But as far as the Vikings being in love with multiple quarterbacks, do you believe that? Do you buy that? Or is that something that you think Kweisi Adafo-Mensa has to say because you can't really show your cards to the other teams in the league? Do you think they get to count Caleb Williams in the quarterbacks that they love? Because then it might be multiple. Okay. Then it might be multiple because I'm sure they love

Caleb Williams. You know, I love, everyone loves Caleb Williams. Uh, you know, I, I love, everyone loves Caleb Williams. He's on my list. Sure. But we're not really talking about that. I would guess I'm sure they've got like a, you know, a one a and as they've maybe found out since they traded that for that first round pit, that extra first round pick, and surely been making calls, maybe they're realizing they don't, they may not get up to the exact spot that they want. So I don't know. Like human intuition tells me they have one guy that they love and that's usually how these things work. And they probably have a second guy that they, second or maybe a third guy that they're happy to settle on. The one thing I don't buy is that like they're going to stick at 11 and take a value or they're just going to kind of see where this

thing goes. I think by getting ownership to buy in on moving on from Kirk and by getting ownership to buy in from trading for a second first round pick, I'm pretty sure all those were contingent on getting not the fifth quarterback on the board or whatever, but going up and actually getting one of the top guys. And so I feel like I'm, you know, I'm still on Viking's Twitter and I feel like there's been this rising sentiment in recent weeks of, well, maybe if they stay, this is what they could possibly do. Like, I'm not buying any of that. Like take all that away from me.

Like they're trading up and they're not in a position of leverage. So if that means they're going to have to trade more than they want, they're going to trade more than they want they're gonna trade more than they want like i just for them to stick at 11 and take michael pennix or bow nicks or whatever the options are like that just is not feasible to me based on the moves they've already made and like the chips they've already pushed in because i think we know this ownership group enough to know that they like Kirk a decent amount. And I don't think, hey, well, we might get Bo Nix or Michael Penix was enough for them to move on from Kirk. So I think there had to be some assurances that it's going to be better than that.

So I expect that to happen. In the comment section, if you guys watching live want to include the quarterbacks that you love, only the ones that you love, feel free to put those in the comments. I'd be curious to see how long that list is for the vikings fans watching the show versus the minnesota vikings i agree with you paul that this draft class probably has if we include caleb williams multiple guys that the minnesota vikings love because they didn't have to say, oh yeah, there's multiple guys that we could possibly actually acquire. They did not add that addendum to it. But I also think that there are levels to this for them where it becomes,

because of who your general manager is, an economics question. Everything with Kweisi Adafo-Mensa is an economics question. I believe that Kweisi Adafo-Mensah is an economics question. I believe that Kweisi Adafo-Mensah would have agreed to bring back Kirk Cousins had he come back at $35 million a year. But once it was $45 million a year, there was no chance that they were going to put up that much money. And everything is on a sliding scale of what is this asset worth? What is this asset cost to acquire it? And there is a line, I'm sure, where you can't go that far to get the quarterback that you love. I think that that quarterback is Drake May. I think that that's the quarterback that they love. It seems to be

maybe a bit of an open secret that Washington wants to draft Jaden Daniels. Adam Schefter was talking about this the other day on a podcast. He was on a Washington fan podcast or something, and he was talking about it. Yeah, cool. Can you book Adam Schefter? I don't know. I thought he would be busy this time of year, so I haven't tried. He was on my radio show once promoting chicken wings, and I asked him what chicken wing flavor he liked.

And I'm not sure that he ate chicken wings very often. He just said something like mild. The rest of the interview was fine, but I have interviewed him before. The whole point is that he said, everyone he's talked to thinks that Jaden Daniels is going number two overall. That doesn't guarantee it,

but certainly makes you think that probably is the case which would make the vikings think that they could potentially get their guy may seems just like a perfect fit for kevin o'connell and for what he wants to do how this man throws the football the middle of the field stuff is important to be able to throw over the middle of the field. Drake may does it extremely well. Size is important. Historically, his athleticism, his playmaking is there. And I also believe that Kevin O'Connell would really enjoy working with someone who is a project and taking the ball of clay and molding it into his Matthew Stafford Superbowl type of quarterback. And you can squint and see that in Drake May, someone who's a little wild, but super talented and put him into this offense, build it around him, put him with Justin Jefferson and off you go.

That's a quarterback that makes so much sense for love. I don't know if anyone else makes sense for truly love, but JJ McCarthy seems to be the guy that everyone else thinks the Vikings will truly love, which to me, we're going to find out truly love. If you trade up from number 11 to number four to take JJ McCarthy, then yeah, you truly love that guy. Do you buy that? Do you buy that there is true love between Kevin O'Connell, Kweisi Dalfomensa, and J.J. McCarthy? I feel like there's forced love, like arranged marriage type love, possibly. I think J.J.

McCarthy, again, I'm sure people have talked about on your show i'm sure you've talked about it like prototypical shanahan guy quick release wants to play over the middle of the field like super young raw someone you can kind of mold like all that very much feels like that fits exactly what kevin o'connell and chloe siedafo-menza would like and i think in a world where quarterback value wasn't so inflated i think they would have loved to do that at 11. I think they probably love it at 11. I don't think they probably love it at four, but just the tax that you pay when you're drafting a quarterback is if you like the guy enough at 11, you have to like the guy at four basically is how it goes, just because of how these guys get just shot up draft boards. So I, yeah, I think Drake May is kind of, for me, that's the guy that

I, a realistic option for the Vikings that I love. And I'm kind of talked myself into JJ McCarthy. The thing is like, I just want, if you're going to go up and draft a guy in the top five, like I want him to be a guy that can win on his own. That is that franchise changer. And I think JJ McCarthy's only, or not only appeal, but JJ McCarthy's appeal is that he can slide right in and fits into the system well, and that he can kind of be molded into a Kirk Cousins-like type figure with

maybe more athleticism and a very, very cheap contract who can maybe have a higher ceiling. And that's an appealing thing, but it's not game-breaking potential guy that you just feel like, oh, we have playoffs as the floor, and every year we expect to make the conference championship game and do more. That feels like the potential and the ceiling that Drake May has. But I also know that O'Connell has seemed to love Kirk. I feel like that's coming from a genuine place that

didn't feel fully just trying to play it up. And so I think McCarthy has a lot of the similar characteristics, obviously much more raw. So to answer your your question it doesn't feel like that that true true love it feels like that's one where you're kind of forcing it but you can kind of make it happen and you can feel good about it and maybe it works down the road but it's just not your ideal ideal target that's the one that's really hard to figure out for me is would they actually be in love with mccarthy or would it be well the Patriots decided that they were going to just draft Drake May. There's also another universe where the Patriots look at JJ McCarthy and go winner square jaw, Michigan, let's go. And we all know this, that the Patriots have still some of

the bones of their organization under Belichick, but everybody's got an owner and every owner's a little crazy. And you could definitely see where the Patriots scouts might be, hey, you know, we kind of have Drake May graded a little higher. And Bob Kraft says, I want the next Brady. Let's go get the next Brady, J.J. McCarthy. And then the Vikings are sitting there only having to trade up to number four to get Drake may. But if McCarthy is the guy there at number four,

that's where the economics might play into it. Whether it's true love, arranged marriage, or we only like you, but don't truly love you. Because if you could get Michael Penix at number 11, rather than trading assets up to number four, you have to have this conversation. Even if Kevin O'Connell is leaning toward JJ McCarthy, but likes Penix enough. And this is where I think when he says we're in love with multiple quarterbacks, there's gotta be different levels and different buckets that they're putting these guys into of, we love this guy at, we love, I don't know, I've been saying Pennix. It could also be Bo Nix. We love Bo Nix at 11. We don't love Bo Nix at four. We love him at 23. We don't love him at 11, just to throw out, you know, potential places that those guys could go so do they love jj

mccarthy at number four and trying to figure out would kevin o'connell like these quarterbacks is also interesting and difficult because with mccarthy you could see the hey this is a guy that is obsessed with football and he was a Harbaugh guy. So it's going to be this close relationship with the coach and the quarterback, and they're going to build on all those things that he has. There might be another part of Kevin O'Connell that says there are too many things that remind me of Kirk that I didn't love.

Maybe some of the, and the personality, I don't want to say this as personality criticizing McCarthy but he seems Kirkian in the way that he tries to solve every problem with the the coaching and trying to be a little too rigid about every detail and maybe Kevin O'Connell could say I kind of want to baller a little bit more in the personality, because I think McCarthy is a sort of coach's kid type that wants to please. Whereas someone like Michael Penix is a little more, let's just let, let's just ball out. Let's just let it rip. Drake may seems a little bit

more like that too. That's where it's difficult to figure it out. Now, how about you? You just, you personally, you looking at these quarterbacks, cause I know that you're doing this, even though you're covering golf now, uh, how would you bucket them as far as you got six, let's just say, put two in the category of in love with two in the category of, I guess I could go with and two in the category of, I don't know, man. And this is, this is Caleb Williams. Like you can include Caleb. I think the only two guys that I love are Caleb and Drake.

So we can just talk about Drake. I just, when I go back to, I want a guy that feels like can has that Superbowl ceiling and can have that potential to be one of the top guys. Like I see that in Drake, man. I don't see that in Drake May I don't see that in Jaden Daniels or or J.J. McCarthy like I just I think for J for Jaden Daniels I think I I put him and J.J. McCarthy in the I would be fine with it camp I mean I'm tantalized as much

as anyone with Jaden Daniels's ability to scramble and run and move the pocket like love all those aspects you know we've talked about it for so long the value of having a quarterback who can run like sign me up for all of that i just like i'm definitely afraid that he's gonna get hurt like just just his frame is tiny uh compared to what i would like him to be for how aggressive he plays Like he acts like he has the body of Drake May or Josh Allen, but he doesn't like he's, he's, he's very, very slender. So I worry about him getting hurt and I can just like Minnesota brand, Minnesota sports fandom brain trained here to just like, I can just see something bad happening to Jane Daniels before he's even in a Vikings uniform. So that's where I mostly go

and kind of get worried about him and some of the throws that he likes to make uh but again going back to drake may that's the guy that i would love for them um doesn't come about his concerns but i think a lot of the concerns with a lot of these guys you can smooth out just by the supporting cast that the vikings are going to have i'm sure you guys have talked about this as well but just feels clearly like the best landing spot of quarterbacks had in years, like years. Like, that's why I think regardless of who goes there, like they're going to be successful. How successful, I guess we'll find out. Drake May just feels like he has the biggest ceiling.

And if we're going to talk about trading two first round picks, three first round picks, four first round picks, like I just want a guy that at the end of the day is going to make me not care that we traded the 2025 pick or the 2025 first-round pick, the 2026 first-round pick. And Drake May is really the only one that I'm not going to feel regrets about, regardless of how it goes, because everything I'm seeing from a pre-draft process tells me that's the guy that you go out and you shell all that out for.

And if it doesn't work, you tried as best you could and it looked really good and you set him up with everything possible to succeed and it just didn't work out JJ McCarthy Jayden Daniels that's when I start to like balk it I would love to just have to trade 11 and 23 and get them where you get them but I think if we're talking about trading up to three, trading up to four, trading up to five, that's when, okay, do I want to throw an extra first round pick? And I think I definitely net out that, yes, like just go for it. If he's great, you're not going to care about those picks. If he's bad, like, you know, again, you tried and that's kind of where we're at. This is a risky game that they're playing. And I'm just excited that there is some risk involved and that we are like talking about these big value propositions that could go in either direction.

Like that's what's interesting. And that's what gets me excited and also fearful and you're uncomfortable. But that's when, you know, real growth happens is when you're uncomfortable, Matt. So I'm uncomfortable with Jaden Daniels and JJ McCarthy a bit. I'm like on the no flyer list with anyone else i don't want michael penix i don't want bo nicks at value at 11 at value even at 23 michael penix the injuries scare me bo nicks has just been in college forever i don't feel like i've seen enough for him playmaking wise again i think if they draft any of these guys

you can they could be successful on the field but I think the way that the Vikings have gone about this pre-draft process coming out of the draft if they don't end up with one of Drake May, J.J. McCarthy or Jaden Daniels I think it's going to be a failure in terms of how they navigated this process because they've told the whole NFL that they want to do this one thing and it's pretty dang clear no matter NFL that they want to do this one thing. And it's pretty dang clear, no matter how much they want to talk about, well, we could stay at 11 or 23.

Like it's pretty clear what you do when you make that move, like the history of teams trading for an extra first round pick. Like they don't just sit there and wait and take picks. They don't just wait for Byron Murphy and pair them with Bo Nix or whatever. That's just like not how these things go. So they can talk you in circles about how that's what they wanted to do, but that's just not what they intended to do when they traded for that pick.

So long way of answering love, may, like, kind of convincing myself of both Jane Daniels and JJ McCarthy and don't want Bo Nix, don't want Michael Penix. Folks, we all have smartphones and we know that they are pretty amazing, but they can also be amazingly distracting, especially when we're around other people. So U.S. Cellular wants us to reset our relationship with our phones by putting down our phones for five. That's right. A company that sells phones wants us to put down our phones and see what we can find. Learn more at uscellular.com slash built for us. That's uscellular.com slash built for us.

So the last two, Pennix and Nix, they are the most difficult ones for me to figure out how much a team would like them because when you look at pennix and nicks's numbers they are really excellent and i know there's a million comebacks that everybody is gonna have which is like you said the knees the scrambling the how old they are how long they were in college a lot of talent with him the funny part about Bo Nix to me and both of those guys have a pretty good chance to go in the second round that's very true based on the consensus draft boards people think they're going in the second round and it isn't that often that consensus boards think a quarterback is second round and then they end up being taken in the top 10 or 15 that doesn't happen that often there are a few notable examples Daniel Jones I think was

somewhere around 30th and then was taken sixth overall and actually Patrick Mahomes was considered a back end of the first round raw prospect who went much higher and the Chiefs traded up for him and you know one of those guys is terrible and the others traded up for him. And you know, one of those guys is terrible and the other guy is the greatest and that's the draft for us as always. But with both Knicks and Pennix, I can't unsee how amazing their performances were last year. And I also look at the way that quarterbacks look at NFL quarterback play, former NFL quarterbacks, coaches, and both of those guys have things about them that I could see quarterbacks like Kevin O'Connell and Josh McCown and coaches really liking.

Number one with Bo Nix, he gets rid of the ball incredibly fast, absurdly fast. And you can say, well, yeah, that's because he threw a lot of screens. But even when he was throwing the ball 10 to 20 yards by the PFF stats, he was getting it out in two and a half seconds, which is what you do in the NFL, which is why these former quarterbacks watch his tape and go, wait, you guys don't love this guy. He, when he was at Auburn, these draft analysts were saying he'll someday be a first round pick. And I was baffled. What are we talking about here? And then he throws 45 touchdowns, three picks, gets sacked six times the whole year, leads

his team to a bunch of wins, plays great. And now all the draft analysts say the guy stinks. What? Like what happened? And when I watch myself, I don't see high end stuff where you'd go, whoa, okay. I see why he's a first rounder. That's much more panics where his wow throws are super wow anticipation off, off platform sometimes where he's facing one way and just lets it rip and gets enough on the football.

So there's a lot of stuff, not, I don't mean on the run or scrambling. I just mean that sometimes he has to throw where he can't perfectly step into it. And he gets so much power because he just has a super strong arm and he led college football in passing and took a bad program to the national championship. And then it's, well, this guy's not, he's not any good. And that's where I just, wait a minute, they're not? Like, this is where I struggle to understand how we do this exactly. Part of me, I think, you obviously have to separate the college game and the pro game, because they're different. They're different styles of how they play. Bodix comes from a major West Coast offense. Like you said, I think it's like two-thirds of his passes came within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage.

There's different styles of play, but there's also – one thing that just scares me with both of them is they're both – what, they're going to be 24 when the season would start? And when you talk about comparing that to a Drake May, to a J.J. McCarthy who – what, Drake May, both of them are around 20, 21. There's just development that those guys, that Pennix and Knicks have done in college. I think we talked about this. I was here when we were talking about Kenny Pickett and would you want to do that for the Vikings?

And we went in circles about that. And part of it was, well, yeah, he was great this last year because he's like a grown man playing against these kids straight out of high school. And so I think there's part of that for me, I'm a bit worried about, okay, yes, late bloomers, but like how much more development do they have in their game? They've gone like Penix is clearly improved. He's a really good pocket passer. Like there's a lot of,

there's good things to be said for both those guys. Like that's why they're going to get drafted in the second or first round. But when I stack up the age, when I stack up wondering whether they've fully progressed through who they're going to be as quarterbacks, I just see much, much higher upside with the other guys. And again, when I'm in this position, when I'm possibly trading up to a top five pick or even staying at 11, I just don't really want to settle for like those types of guys that's just not the profile that i would be looking for um and i guess it's just maybe it's

the expectations of them trading for the first round pick that's just got me out of a mindset of those guys like thinking that they could possibly take those guys like maybe that's just gotten my hopes up about where they might go um but that's kind of the bad that uh quasey and kevin o'connell and the ownership have made like i think the fan base is going to look around and be like wait really we like all this for just one of those guys if something like that happens which obviously isn't how you should be making decisions but it's going to be part of it and so i just look at those guys and like I'm just wondering what else they have like progression wise and then I look at J.J. McCarthy and you can look at his experience inexperience as a negative which I think in some ways it is but you can also spin it to a positive

especially when you expect a lot of his growth to come around Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, Christian Derrissaw, Brian O'Neill go go down the list of guys. That's exactly where you want to foster a young quarterback to really build out his potential. And I'm just not sure Knicks and Pennix have much more to scratch their ceilings. It's always, to me, one of those things with the quarterbacks where when I haven't seen it, then I have a tougher time believing in it. And I know that that's the job of draft analysts is we haven't seen any of these guys play in the NFL, but when you have one quarterback that is being raised up way above everybody else, when the other two have put on tape in college football, really excellent quarterback play where they are the centerpiece of the entire

offense. There was a thing that was kind of debunked eventually, but used to be an old scouting thing that I could see why they believed it, which was the more starts that a quarterback had in college, the better their chances were to be a successful NFL quarterback. Again, that's not a lock-in. There is no stat. There is no little factoid about a player or anything else

that's ever going to be one-to-one. And I can understand why, though, because if you were trying to make your argument for Michael Penix, you could say, look how many throws this guy has had in the last two years, and he led college football in big time throws. He didn't turn the ball over that often. He didn't get sacked that often. And he has a monster arm.

Or with Bo Nix, look how well he reads the field. Look how quick he gets that ball out. Even if every pass is not perfect, even if he's not Patrick Mahomes, we've just saw Brock Purdy with limited physical skills, mentally execute an offense brilliantly, make a handful of plays, get a 20 yard run in the NFC championship and take a team to the Superbowl.

And Jalen Hurts is not the most physically gifted quarterback. He is a good runner, but his arm is okay. What do you think he's got? The 17th best arm in the league. His accuracy is okay, but he's got a lot of guts and he throws to the right people and he's got a supporting cast around him. And you can kind of guarantee on the box a little bit with some of these guys who have played a lot more football. It's easier to say, I think I know what those guys are going to look like. I think I know what Michael

Penix is going to look like. Some throws are going to drive you insane where it's an easy check down and he can't hit it, but he's also going to hit down the field where with McCarthy, I don't know in the next three years, if he ever even gets to that point and you just assume he does because he's talented and because he cares a lot. But when I tried to find similar low usage quarterbacks who everyone argued, oh no, they'll be better in the NFL than they were in college. That was hard to do. There's a sample of maybe five over the last 15 drafts who didn't have either

big numbers or absolutely preposterous physical skills like Josh Allen. That's where it makes it more. I am apt to kind of lean toward, I could find myself loving Pennix and being more apprehensive. And this is actually where I stand. I think apprehensive about McCarthy, even if nobody agrees with that, including the draft Illuminati. The other thing is too, just real quick, I'm always amazed at the confidence from people about what mock drafters say. That's what, that always blows me away. Last year, one of the top mock drafters right before the draft projected Hendon Hooker to the Minnesota Vikings. He was a third round pick. So I'm just throwing that out there that that's

something we really truly believe in is what they say. And I don't know if that's actually always going to be the case. Yeah, I think I and I hear you on wanting to see it. I guess I guess I'm more willing to take the risk knowing the situation that they're going to step into and knowing that regardless of who comes in like you should get the best out of whatever that player's got based on the fact that he can whenever he wants and whenever he's worried just like throw it up to Justin Jefferson and it's probably going to get caught or he doesn't constantly have to be worrying about his blind side getting attacked because you know it's either Brian O'Neill or Trish and Darisaw on one side or

that he has Aaron Jones or that he has TJ Hawkinson as a safety blanket or that he has Kevin O'Connell and Josh McCown as guys that are teaching him like so I think when I think about risk I hear you on that there's like that JJ McCarthy if he succeeds is an anomaly but I feel like the Viking situation is a bit of an anomaly for top quarterbacks. Like when you look at the quarterbacks who have succeeded, it's a Patrick Mahomes who came in with Andy Reid. It's Josh Allen who came in and soon after got Stephon Diggs. And they built up that team and gave him all the support that he needed.

It's a Jordan Love now entering with the help that he had with Matt LaFleur. And just like when you go through the list of quarterbacks who have succeeded, like there was something about their situation that massively aided them in where they got to, like, they couldn't just do that based on their talent. And when I look at the Vikings, like their situation stacks up to any of the best that I've seen. So that's why I feel a little bit more comfortable with saying, well, if I haven't seen McCarthy do it yet,

I feel comfortable that he can get there because he's going to have all the things at his disposal to be able to get there. So that's, I think that's where my thinking comes in of, yeah, let's just, you know, you've got the ideal situation. Let's push it in, try to, try to max out what you could be and worry a little bit less about maybe the floor of the player that you're getting. So when we talk about the quarterbacks that have succeeded recently,

do any of them match up with J.J. McCarthy? And this is not all humans are different. It's just a mental exercise. This isn't me saying that since no one looks like him, he can't succeed. But the guys that you just mentioned are all physical freaks. That was the scouting report on all of them, that there was some messy parts to their game, but if it comes together, they're going to be superstars. That's how I view Drake May. And that's why Drake May, you and I both would look at this the same way and have him be at the

top of the list. So when you go through, all right, well, Joe Burrow might be your argument of he wasn't a physical freak, but Joe Burrow is the most accurate quarterback, maybe in the entire league. And what he did at LSU as by the way, this is always a JJ McCarthy excuse. And I'm not trying to be down on him. We're talking about love versus like but joe burrow played with about the best freaking team you'll ever see in your life and he threw the ball all over the place all the time his running back was drafted in the first round but they threw the ball like crazy to his wide receivers and he put up huge stats and then there was some concern well did that come from having great wide receivers not exactly because he was that good.

You can't even say really Tua because Tua put up huge stats at Alabama, but was more physically limited as in not a freak. The one thing that holds me back is what is JJ McCarthy's answer when things go wrong in the NFL, not running away from the Minnesota Gophers. I mean, does he have a cheat code? And maybe his cheat code is that he executes the offense super well. Maybe he's Jimmy Garoppolo who led a team to a Superbowl and he just understands everything that he's supposed to do. And even if it's not perfectly accurate, that's his cheat code. That's a hard cheat code to guess on from college to the NFL. Whereas Josh Allen's arm is an easier code one to

cheat code to guess on because it's enormous and you can watch him throw the ball 80 yards. That is my holdup. And what we're talking about here is would you trade everything that it took to get McCarthy? It's kind of the let's actually put the love test on the table. Would you trade what Mel Kuyper suggested, which is number 11, number 23, and then the additional first-round pick from 2025 if it means McCarthy, or would you prefer them to just stick at 11 and leave it to Roger Goodell I would make the trade um I'd bite my tongue while doing it and I'd hold my breath um but I

would make the trade I think I think I think some of the things that you see with McCarthy like he doesn't you're talking about Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen, and you're right that he doesn't have the physical skill set to be able to just make something out of nothing at this point. I do like the way in the small bits that I've watched and the small bits

that he's actually thrown, like his ability to navigate a pocket is like kind of willingness to stay in there and throw it, but also being able to navigate around. He's not a statue. Like maybe you're worried about Michael Penix or some of these other guys being like,

I do think he has some running ability that we haven't seen that he can maybe this, maybe I would compare to my homes and that like just can timely scramble and get those yards when you'd like to. I think I see that in McCarthy's game. And then I see just like from a standpoint of a quick processor and throwing quickly over the middle of the field. Like I think those are all things that like we talked about with like Kirk

cousins in the fact of like, I see a lot of that over time that JJ can get to that. Maybe that's his answer. And then you're hoping because of how young he is because of how raw he is and because of his lack of experience that he can develop one of those superpowers I don't think he has it right now so that's again where you're projecting I think I'm just I just can't get behind sitting at 11 and taking one of those other guys based on where they're at based on their like situation other guys based on where they're at,

based on their situation as a roster of where they're at with Justin Jefferson, and the fact that they're not going to have this good of an opportunity to move up or draft a guy again for a while, presumably. Next year's class doesn't look good. I don't think they want to defer to that for another year and play badly. This is their opportunity to go up and take a shot. So McCarthy is above that threshold for me where I'm willing to go do it but again that's why he doesn't fall in like the love category because I'm not like like Drake May like no questions asked let's just go do it McCarthy I have to balk but based on how much risk I want to take like I'm willing to do that I'm just not I don't feel as good about it so even though I have been the person who has picked apart McCarthy

more than everybody else it would be impossible for me to tell Kevin O'Connell no don't go get your guy because Kwesi Dafflomentz has said this, everybody who's in charge of a team would say this. If you get the right guy and he works out, no one will go back and look what you traded for him. They'll only do that if it doesn't work out. And even though you're giving up that additional first, which seems terrible,

and we all have learned over the years through Moneyball, through watching basketball develop the way that it has the three pointers and shots underneath the basket like we've all become efficiency minded and in this case we have to throw out some of our efficiency mind to just say look if this is the guy that Kevin O'Connell wants more than anyone, then it's okay to give up more than you wanted to. And you're going to have to figure out the rest. The only concern I have about JJ McCarthy is the rest matters more with McCarthy or could, at least the way I look at these guys, more with McCarthy than it might with May.

And we're talking supporting cast here. If the upside of Drake May is that he's playing with the big boys. And by the way, for a while, most of the year, he was considered locked dead. Number two, don't even talk about it. Williams, May great draft class. It was only at the end of of the year only in the pre-draft process that we've started making other people top quarterbacks and jayden daniels clearly played his way into it and may have played his way into number two it's just that with drake may another guy that as the draft season has gone along has been picked apart by a lot of people but but it is a, in my mind, a next level type of quarterback prospect. So the idea is if you have to give up a lot for him, he's going to make up some of the difference

because his upside is a superstar. Whereas McCarthy, if he has to be a Kirk cousins, who's faster or a Jimmy Garoppolo, who's faster, then you better have San Francisco's roster. And while they do have a good roster right now, it is not a great roster yet. Can you fill in all the pieces without additional first round draft picks? That's the question you have to ask. Now, here's what I want to ask you to divert just a little bit away from the love conversation. Do you, after seeing the way that this has played out and Kweisi Adafo-Mensah, I think spilled the beans a little bit on this, that they always plan to move on from Kirk at this moment

when he was talking the other day, when he said, oh, well, from the time we got here, we were targeting this moment. And I'm like, oh yeah, like this draft class and so forth. But I believe them because everything matches up with that how much do you trust them kevin o'connell quesadilla fomenta i'll throw josh mccown in there because they have josh mccown on the coaching staff so why not but he's part of this decision how much do you trust them give me a give me a percentage out of 100 your trust

for this group to pick the right quarterback yeah it's hard because for how as long as they've been here now like they've made consequential decisions but like none that are this none that are of this magnitude so i can't go back and be like well well, I really liked the way they handled that. So I kind of have to go back to my priors of, did I like the hire of Kweisi, which I did. I feel like he's a smart, thoughtful guy that looks at the game the right way for the modern NFL. And then if I look at Kevin O'Connell and I say, do I feel like he's done a good job? And did I like him coming in? Yes. Like, do I worry slightly about how like complicated his offense could be for a rookie? Sure. Like some of that, I know how much Kirk Cousins was handling and kind of figuring out.

And so could that be hard to digest his system for a rookie? Possibly. But when I, the draft is a crapshoot and drafting quarterbacks in particular is a crapshoot. And so when I look at that and I feel positively about those two as a whole, I'm going to say I have like 80% confidence in them, at least again, to do the right thing. And I think part of that is knowing it's more process over results. And so do I trust them to feel like they went through the correct process and made the decision for the guy that feels like fits this roster and feels like it fits everything? Yes. Now all that could get thrown out the window if they pick Jane Daniels and he

gets clobbered and he tears his ACL or something and everything changes. But I am, especially as I compare it to how I'd feel about Washington or how I'd feel about one of these other front office coach combos making this decision, I feel better about the Vikings situation than I feel about a lot of those. I have my small quibbles on the side, but by and large, I think their plan to move on from Kirk is smart. I think bring like, I think a lot of the things that they've done are smart. So you can never be a hundred percent confident, but I'm like 80% confident. Yeah. The process and results thing is interesting to pick apart with this decision in particular, because the only thing that matters is the result. They could have the stupidest process of all time. This is always, I always, I'm going to bring up that guy. We try

not to bring up on the show, Christian Ponder, because I'm always amazed at how every Vikings fan claims that they knew Christian Ponder was going to be a bust because all I want is for them to tell me all the other quarterbacks they also thought were going to be busts and how that ended up working out because I thought I thought Blaine Gabbert was going to be really good hand up you know as but I you know I was what year was Christian Ponder drafted uh 2011 the yeah so I was 12 so I don't you know I don't know if I can be held to my takes as a 12 year old, but I was a point Gabbert guy as a 12 year old. No, you can't. My whole point about the, to bring up the ponder and how every Vikings fan claims that they knew that he was going to be a bust is that we never really know.

And it was the reason why Vikings fans say that is because they knew it wasn't good process. They knew that it was by what the whole draft analysis world thought it was a reach. So even though the chances were still decent that Christian Ponder could have become a good quarterback, the reason everyone was so confident that he wasn't was because all the draft analysts and the outside world and the consensus believed that it was a reach. So then when it went wrong, it was, Hey, nobody thought this guy was a first round pick. And I think that that's actually fair. Uh, I'm not making fun of them. I mean, I am a little bit because we all get quarterbacks right and wrong, but there is, when we try to evaluate what decisions being made, we are looking at, all right, what's the whole landscape of this whole thing and how the decision got made. What we're going to know about the Vikings is that it wasn't haphazard. It wasn't reaching because you felt like it. It was planned from a long time out to aim for this quarterback draft

class of which I do believe that they have multiple guys that they would be very happy with and they can believe they can win with. And even if they end up at 11 with Michael Penix, I'm not going to say, oh, that was bad process. I'm going to say, well, that must've been the guy that they loved and decided because they gave themselves the option to trade everything for one of these guys. So we will find out if they love him and we won't look at it this is why i'm using ponder we won't look at it as oh well they reached because they gave themselves by trading for 23 the option to not reach uh if they had to or whatever you know what i mean to trade up and not just have to take whoever so it will very likely be the person that they want outside of obviously caleb williams or if the patriots decide to stay at three and take drake may if that makes So it will very likely be the person that they want outside of obviously Caleb Williams,

or if the Patriots decide to stay at three and take Drake May, if that makes sense. And I'm seeing some people in the comments just worried about like, so-and-so isn't worth that, or I would just want to trade, you know, 11 and 23. And I get the apprehension about being worried about what these guys are worth, but I can like, I can call it now. If they make a trade up to four or five, all the people are going to have their – everyone's going to tweet out the trade value charts and everything. The Vikings are going to lose that.

They're going to be on the side that says they gave up too much. They're going to be on the side. They've already paid for one first-round pick, so they've already kind of paid a slight tax on that. they're going to pay an even bigger tax to go up and get a quarterback so like we have to be we have to remove ourselves a little bit from is that the exact value in a vacuum that i would want to pay for that guy because just in the modern nfl if you're going to draft a quarterback like it's going to be viewed as an overpay when it happens. Like it's just no, you're at with all the money and resources that are spent on the

draft. Like you're not going to sneak up on anyone at this point with the package that's going to go on. So you just have to be okay living a little bit uncomfortably with how this is going to go for them. If they sit at 11 and they take Knicks or Pennix, that's going to feel uncomfortable because those guys are second round talents that you're taking at 11. And if they go up to five and they pick JJ McCarthy and they gave up an extra first round pick next year to do it, that's going to feel uncomfortable because he doesn't feel like the type of guy that you want to do that, do that for.

But that's the game that the Vikings are playing now to hopefully unlock a bigger potential than they had with the Kirk Cousins. So they've clearly planned for this over time as Koisi's let out. Like I'm willing at this point to just see what they do with it. Now I have, as we've talked about for the last 40 minutes, I have my preferences on the way that they go about it. And there will be ways in which I view this as a success or failure. But it's just going to be hard. It's going to be hard to get the exact quarterback you want and feel like you fleeced the team to get there.

It's just probably going to be, it's probably going to be one of those things where it's, the Vikings come out with their quarterback and oh boy, they got to hope this quarterback works because they either sat at 11 and took a guy that we're not sure is worth it at 11, or they went up and got a guy that we're not sure is worth the price that they paid. That's just the game that the Vikings are playing. And now that's the bet that they've made themselves. So that's just kind of where they're at. I like that you're pounding the table at this point. You've reached absolute full. Paul is back with football. Here's my take. is this goes back to when i was on the radio and i invented draft nihilism the draft nihilism is i don't believe anybody ever knows anything

for sure or with even 50 accuracy if we gave every person in the comments me you all of us ballots over the last 10 years and wrote down our quarterback orders, we'd all be pretty close to each other at some point because we're not good at it. The NFL is not good at it. The only way we can judge is did they do something in a way that made sense? But the thing that made sense is everything that came before this. This was under their control. It was under their control to move on from Adam Thielen. It was under their control to move on from Eric Hendricks. It's not really under their control of whether a quarterback can make a jump from college to the NFL successfully because all of history proves

this. I think that their odds are better because of their supporting cast significantly than say Sam Darnold, New York Jets. But even then we've seen quarterbacks come in to teams that were good and not work out like Trey Lance, for example, who they traded three picks for, and a seventh rounder ends up being a lot better. So no one's good at it. No one has control over it. The only thing you can do is just pick one you like. And as long as they do that, I'll give it an A and I'll be comfortable with it for them to go forward. And then we'll all find out together whether it was the right move or not in the long run. But I think in judging Kweisi Adafomensa,

confidence, Kevin O'Connell, what we're really using is everything we know from before. We know how O'Connell worked with an actual starting quarterback let's just throw out the Dobbs stuff I don't but I don't even want to go into that like can he adjust his offense for a guy who was two and nine as his career when he showed up here and it played for seven different teams let's not worry about that so uh when it comes to though how he worked with Kirk Cousins I think that you can use that evidence and say this was a really good relationship with those guys uh and you can look at Kweisi Adafl-Mensa and say did he absolutely botch the 2022 draft he sure did but you know they're not drafting a safety

and they're probably not trading down uh as they did in 2022 and also he's probably not making this decision. It's much more on the coach, but it was his job to set them up with the 23rd pick, which he did. And that gives them flexibility. It was his job to set them up with the team around him, which includes trading for TJ Hawkinson to set up with the cap space, to be able to build in the future. Those are things you can trust and believe in and say they look competent.

Everything else with this quarterback is just kind of left to the randomness gods of maybe there's a 60 or 70% chance it succeeds here, but we're not really going to know until the person arrives. I did want to ask you one other thing though. Yep. And I know you got a long day tomorrow with uh masters coverage and if you're just joining it's paul hodowanek former purple insider both intern and columnist post-game podcaster we had some times post-game podcasting together but

now working for pgatour.com so you've got a lot of golf to cover tomorrow and you're in eastern time so i won't keep you forever but i want to know who else intrigues you what other teams are fascinating you in the nfl draft this year are you are you intrigued by caleb williams to the bears are are you i want to know what goes like division wise i want to know what the bears do like if they add caleb williams and then is it what do they have nine is that the pick they have nine right yep um they pick like roma dunzey too interesting. And I like, this is just a bit like, since we've done this, this is a bit of new territory where I think the Vikings you can correct me if

I'm wrong. I think they're over under with all the rest of the division. Do they have the lowest over under in the division right now? I believe so. Yep. Six and a half. Like this is kind of uncharted. And I think there's so much projection and how they think the bears are going to fare with Caleb Williams. Like I'm just fascinated to see how they build that, build it out with that second first round pick and everything else the bears have after it.

Like they have so many assets to play with this year and how that, how they go about filling that, how they go about viewing their offense. I'm long running on this podcast. I'm very much for just go take another receiver. So if they pair another pass catching weapon, it's Brock Bowers. If it's Roma do and say, if it's whoever it is at nine like that, they become very, very, very intriguing to me. And part of that is because the Vikings are going to play them twice a year,

but you can make an argument, with those three wide receivers, like, they would have a better receiving cast, possibly, than the Vikings do for Caleb Williams. Their offensive line, not as, you know, not obviously where the Vikings are, even though they have some issues in the interior. But I'm really interested and intrigued what the Bears do and also what the Lions do because it feels like the Lions kind of need a splash like they need a cornerback I feel like they just need a little bit more juice and so how they go about doing that I've heard some draft analysts talk about

could they be a trade-up team so I'm I'm intrigued to see what all all the division teams do I mean the top three alone we don't know whathington's new ownership new leadership is going to do seems like they're locked in to a quarterback but the patriots would be my if i and i'll probably do this at some point for an article is the most interesting teams that aren't the vikings the patriots are probably number one because they are no doubt getting this offer from the vikings to move up to number three what's chad saying i know you talked to chad what's uh chad graft telling us he wants them to just draft quarterback and i'm like no no i think you should just move back i think yeah so uh but they could

also move back and then move back up they could try to trade back to 11 and then back up with the cardinal special zone right and you know maybe there's something there for trades that are going to make this crazy i've also tried to like be the only person saying that they stick at 11 and get jj mccarthy anyway because i'm not fully sold on the giants but the giants are interesting here too because their management is now in a position to be terrified to be fired so that always adds yeah i'm intrigued by how maniacal sean payton's gonna be uh to just trade like eight you know what i mean not eight but whatever he has to do to go up and get he likes one of those quarterbacks and say the vikings are maybe trying

to bluff the giants and say no you don't really want him. We can wait. At what point do the Broncos just say, no, no, no, no, we're just going to trade whatever we can because Sean Payton seems like he is not intent on playing out another year where he doesn't have his future quarterback option. So they could come in and just nuke all the plans. I know they don't maybe have the immediate firepower that the Vikings have

to give up in a trade, but Sean Payton feels much more, uh, ready to just throw everything where probably smartly still has some like, Hey, we're not going to go there. Uh, I don't know if Sean Payton has a, we're not going to go there price. I think he may just go for it if he gets the opportunity. Um, I have a milkshake bet with our friend chris thomason who covers the denver broncos miss ct so much yeah he is um one of my favorite people he believes that jared stidham is going to start week one for the denver broncos so i said milkshake bet i'll take the field and he's taken stinting that yeah yeah i know he took stidham i'm gonna take the field and he's taken instead of taking that. Yeah, I know he took instead of, I'm going to take the field for Denver. So anybody else that could possibly start,

I think Denver sits and picks Bo Nix. That just makes a lot of sense to me that even if there's not high end skill, who did Sean Payton work with a quarterback who got the ball out quick and got it where it was supposed to go. And I always think that these coaches lean on what they've seen before. For example, the Vikings trying to draft the next Daniel Hunter about 18 times in a row in the third and fourth round, it never worked, but they went, well, you know, that one time we got Daniel Hunter. So we need to keep going back to that. I could see him saying, Russell Wilson drove me crazy because he tried to run around and make plays. I need someone who I can just plug and they'll throw it, plug in the offense. They'll throw to the right places and they'll just stick and pick. But you could also see them because they don't seem to care about draft capital at all. Just gathering everything they have and going full Ditka. That team being owned by Walmart and run by a sociopath really makes them hard to predict. And I like them as one of the most interesting teams.

I'm also really intrigued by the Tennessee Titans, who no one cares about at all, but they're sitting in this interesting spot where if McCarthy gets past six, then that becomes a spot. Atlanta becomes a spot where they could be trying to trade out so much shuffling could end up happening. Just, I mean, it could, it could be absolutely wild on draft night or everyone could just sit, take their own picks. We've seen both versions. We've seen trades like crazy and we've seen almost nothing. So before you go ahead. Yeah. What's going on? Are the Vikings going to do anything else?

You feel like in the cornerback room? Cause I'm just a bit like, they made some moves on the defensive side that I like. I'm still very worried about like the guys that they may have trotting out on the outside for them. Like it doesn't feel like now that they've traded a bunch of these picks, they're not going to pick again until the fourth round possibly like just a bit worried about their plan in the secondary currently uh yeah i think by them getting shaq griffin at a decent price a guy who was cut by his own team in the middle of the year last year it told you that they really need more corners

and that there was not a lot of great options there weren't a lot of great guys in free agency where you could say oh this is going to be a difference maker very possible brian florist believes in his own draft and develop also if they do pick it 11 and 23 i've got 23 is a great spot for a corner because you have Terry and Arnold Kool-Aid McKinstry. I don't know how much certain people are going to like Nate Wiggins, who is on the lighter side. I don't know if he's really a Brian Flores guy, but there are corners who, uh, Quinn Young Mitchell, there are so many corners here and not enough spots for them all to be taken by 23. And we even saw that with Joey Porter in previous years,

there have been times where if you're not the top sauce Gardner corner, that they aren't taken at the top half that sometimes they get pushed into the second half of the first. If they do end up sticking and picking at 11 and 23, that's the most likely position. If they were to pick at 11 and take defense, it's probably defensive line. Then it gets really dicey for getting a quarterback at some point after that. But I think it's still a problem for them as a position. And that's where they're

going to have to develop or hit on somebody. But one thing that I heard from Kevin O'Connell at the owners meetings was they wanted Byron Murphy inside. They don't want him playing outside corner all the time, which I think is right. When they signed him, all the numbers pointed to, he's actually a nickel. And then he just was forced to play outside because of how things ended up playing out. I liked what I saw from Makai Blackman. It's still a scary position for them. Uh, what, what are the, you got any more questions for me, Paul? That was the big one. I, like I saw a lot of the moves they made

on the defensive line and even letting Daniil go and seeing the guys that they got back and some of the linebacker, like everything made sense. And it seems like whatever they're trotting out on defense, they're going to have more talent than they had last year. And given what Brian Flores was able to do last year, like i'm confident that he can make something up with this group it just felt like they had one glaring hole at corner and it didn't really seem like they had done really much at all to address it and so i just didn't know if you'd gotten a sense if if they really felt good about the guys they had in house or if you still feel like there was a plan to to add but i guess it really is all contingent

on what they decide to do a quarterback and what assets that that leaves them um because yeah it'd be it'd be sounds great to draft them in the first round but just not sure they're gonna have a pick to do that because they may have traded that up so they also don't have a kicker or punter competition at this moment you know i love those so we haven't gotten them the last couple years under matt daniels just kind of pick we have a long snapper long snapper signed and good for the future we we settled there oh yeah andrew depaulo he's uh appropriate so yeah i just want to make sure we're resigned you know this is the most, yeah, prominent long snapper podcast. I think you can own that title.

So that was, I think, your first feature story for purpleinsider.com back in the day. You actually, you interviewed a Chicago Bears long snapper about the position and Austin Cutting, who was not very good at it. So you have come a long way to pgGA tour.com where you are working now and you have golf to cover tomorrow should be an incredibly exciting day for you. So I appreciate you taking the time to stop by,

could not go into the draft without at least one podcast with you. So I'm going to need one after the, I'm going to need you to clear some space for me after the draft as well. I can get all these takes in. It's always wide open to you. And you know that I appreciate everything you did to help build Purple Insider over the first few years. We have a lot of new people coming into the show now, which is awesome. But if you're an OG, then you understand how important you were to helping me build Purple

Insider. So anyway, thanks for your time thanks for everybody for watching slash listening monday kevin o'connell's gonna have a midday press conference that i'm gonna do a podcast after that so i don't know if i'll have another one between now and then so listen to this one twice uh thanks so much paul and we'll talk to you all later football say it paul go ahead football football come on double double triple football come on there you go all later. Football. Say it, Paul. Go ahead. Football. Football. Come on. Double. Double. Triple. Football. Come on. There you go. Love it.