Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Vikings' five options regarding Kirk Cousins's future

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

Matthew Coller creates a pie chart with five different routes the Vikings could go with Kirk Cousins's contract and analyzes the odds of each things happening. Will they sign him long term? Trade him? Sign him short term and draft a QB? YouTube watchers react to each possible outcome... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here with you tonight and it's another Monday night countdown list. So I have made a list of five things tonight. Last time I tried 10, but the first one, I think we ended up talking for about a half an hour about the first thing on the list. So I decided to cut it down to five and look for a lot of audience participation. So the comment section is open and I would love to feature a lot of your comments on the YouTube. And of course, if you're listening on the podcast version, I'll be reading the comments. And before we've even gotten started, just based on the headline, which is the Vikings five options for Kirk Cousins and his future. Already Dustin jumping in to talk about that. And I think this is the main issue of the

Vikings off season. It is where the Vikings will reach a crossroads of what their future is going to look like is with the coming weeks and Kirk Cousins' contract situation. And already Dustin coming in with the Vikings should follow the Kansas City lead, let Kirk play out his contract, trade a pick and maybe a play or two to move up and draft a quarterback high. Never will it happen. Well, you know, crazier things have happened in Minnesota Vikings land, and we will get to that as a potential option. But I think where I want to kick it off is not necessarily that, but maybe with the least popular one. And I hope

that everybody doesn't stop watching and listening when I bring this up, but it is a realistic possibility as we count down the five possibilities or options for the Vikings for Kirk Cousins' future. And the first one is to extend Kirk Cousins for a long period of time. And I think by long-term extension, what I mean is at least the next three years. Now, there are some benefits to this. And I know that a lot of you are cringing right now to even hear that there are benefits. But there are. The first one is simply that when it comes to lowering his cap hit

for next year, and I'm making the argument for this only for argument's sake, because it is an option, not because I think it's the best option. So already Hunter with I'm disgusted and I'm out. All right. Just making the, just making suppose that this happens. Then I'm trying to explain what the Vikings would be thinking should they do this. Again, not an endorsement. So if they were to consider extending Kirk Cousins long-term, the reasoning would be that his relationship with Kevin O'Connell is very good. I think we saw that last year. And that they would have stability at the quarterback position, and they could lower his cap hit more with a longer-term contract

than they've ever been able to before. So when he does these short-term extensions, they can't really bring down the cap hit by a whole heck of a lot. You can only cut it down by so much when you're making it a short-term extension. So if they were to make it three or four years, at least you could have one or two of those years with reasonable cap hits, push a lot of the money until later, and then address it down the road and maybe even set it up so it would be essentially a two-year deal, but there's actually four years

on the books. Now, the hard part about this is a lot of things. I mean, number one, getting Kirk Cousins to agree to that. If his disposition is to create as much cash flow as he possibly can during his career, then signing a long-term extension may not be within his realm of things that he would consider. And the other part of it is when you're signing Cousins, you're signing up for a lot of the same. We've already seen a pretty big sample size of him playing. And when you look at even this year, as good as they were leaning into Kirk Cousins and putting in all the chips on the table for the passing game, that they became a true passing offense this year. They still finished with a

pretty okay offense, which is what they've had pretty much every year. And even if you look up the expected points added per play, it was about the same as it has been in years past, if not a little worse in terms of the efficiency that Kirk Cousins had. So you probably won't get another season of him playing as well as he possibly could play down the road. We probably won't see him have another season like this where he has eight fourth quarter comebacks, 13 wins. So if they're banking on improving on this version of Kirk Cousins based on his age and the things that went right for them last year, that one is pretty hard. But I just wanted to start here just to see how loyal you guys were at listening to stick through the actual discussion. But would anybody be surprised, considering how much this team has locked itself

into Kirk Cousins year after year, if they did make that offer and then say, look, we can build more on the offensive side around him. We can build the defense back up. I guess I would be very surprised if they went any more than a short-term extension, which we'll get to as far as the options. But I just wanted to throw it out as something that is in existence for consideration.

And maybe they could set up a deal that appears longer, but isn't actually longer. So that might be on the table. That's the best I could do as far as that goes, because if they were trying to lower the cap hit to stack up as much talent for next year to kind of go all in and sacrifice future based on his contract and maybe spread out some of that void money, which is still in existence, that to me would be a big mistake because last year was really their chance and they missed that window. And so now they need to look forward, not back and say, well, if we just run back a lot of the same team, I think we've been through that many times. So this one should be off the table. And if we want to do it pie chart style, I've got five options. I would say there's only about a 10% chance that the Vikings extend Cousins for three years or longer. I guess from his

perspective though, one of the things that he did mention last year is wanting to be a Viking for the rest of his career. And he mentioned winning as a big part of that. And they did win 13 games. So is he going to come to the negotiating table hoping for a long-term extension. I think that's an interesting question. From Eve Felt, Kirk's trade value couldn't be higher after winning 13 games. Just find a desperate enough team to trade for the guy. I'll take a third. We can't be afraid of life without Kirk Cousins. I mean, I agree with all of that. The only thing is when it comes to whether they're willing to do it. Like, I think that your argument right there of his trade value being high after winning a lot of games this year is correct. And there are a lot of desperate teams for quarterbacks. If you remember last year,

I mean, how much did Washington give up for Carson Wentz? Who's a much worse quarterback than Kirk cousins and had just missed the playoffs with a very good Indianapolis team the year before and yet still got a third and maybe more. Maybe it was multiple thirds. I don't remember right offhand, but a decent return and Matt Ryan, who had been kind of washed for a couple of seasons. Indianapolis also traded a third for him. That was what was supposedly on the table for Derek Carr. So that's probably all you're getting back for Kirk Cousins is a third or possibly a second round draft pick unless someone got super desperate. And if the Vikings were

willing, maybe even to take that draft pick next year, as opposed to this year's draft, that seems to be another thing NFL teams like to do is make that trade down the road for the draft pick as opposed to right away. But I can't disagree with you when you talk about where they are as far as his trade value, as far as like where they are in their timeline, that they've run this Kirk Cousins thing to the end and they can't be afraid to move on without

Kirk Cousins. Because what's the worst case scenario? You win one playoff game in five years? I mean, right? It just hasn't been a success. And I think that what Kirk Cousins always ends up doing is sort of talking you into it that there's only this that you need or that that you need. If I were trying to make a counterpoint about reasons not to sign up to any sort of

extension at all and try to trade them away, I guess the only example that I would use would be somebody like, and I don't mean this for the talent at all, but Drew Brees or even Jared Goff would be a more reasonable one, that there is a way to have some success. I don't even mean the Super Bowl. I just mean some success when you have an expensive middling quarterback, and that's if you draft extremely well. So we've seen the impact of Penny Sewell,

Amon Ross St. Brown, and if you can put a lot of things around this quarterback, that's always one of the routes to get to being a competitive team it hasn't worked they have not had a complete roster since Kirk Cousins has been here or since he arrived in 2018 and it's really not something they should consider that at any point they would draft so well for several years to be able to figure out how they could put together all of those draft picks at once around him. It just seems very unlikely, especially without a lot of draft capital and without hitting on recent picks aside from Justin Jefferson and Christian

Deresau. This one comes from Asa Arnold. favorite and least favorite and most favorite part of draft season Is getting attached to the guy who you would love your team to draft And then your team ends up drafting someone else Well, I can tell you who that's happening with right now already With Vikings fans, and that's Anthony Richardson I can see it already on Twitter That people are getting excited about the possibility of Anthony Richardson. And I think that that one's really hard to peg because last year we thought we understood where

everyone was getting drafted. And even the year before, as far as quarterbacks go, we thought Mac Jones was going to go as one of the top three quarterbacks. And then he didn't. We thought Lamar Jackson a few years back was going much higher. And then he didn't. We thought Lamar Jackson a few years back was going much higher and then he didn't. I don't know if anybody had Mitch Trubisky as the top quarterback. So we think we know, but we tend to not. And it's always possible that we can be looking at Anthony Richardson and saying, well, maybe he'll drop, maybe he'll drop. And then he goes in the top five or that it's possible that he does. I mean, the year that Teddy Bridgewater dropped,

a lot of people had him as a potential top five pick. So that's the guy that everybody is getting attached to, and I can totally see why. From Swerve and Mervin, a friend of the show, seems like quarterbacks are getting paid by the job title more so than the quality of their work. If you're a QB1, even though you're the 20th best, you have to be paid at the top echelon.

Are teams wising up? And Asa Arnold brings up another point that is worth pulling up on the screen, which is what would you expect the average annual value for a Kirk extension to be if Daniel Jones is asking for $45 million? So these two comments are very much connected in the fact that there is no middle class. I don't know that there will ever be a middle class. And the people that I follow who understand how the salary caps and things work better than me do not seem to think that this is ever going to be a thing. That it's going to be, if you are a

starting quarterback, you're going to get paid at the top of the market when the time comes or your team's going to let you go. And this is why it's so difficult for the New York giants right now, because the way Daniel Jones finished his season against the Vikings, there's a really good case there. If that's going to be the way your quarterback will play the way he did against the Vikings, then that's a guy who deserves to be paid pretty highly and you can build around, but that's not really who Daniel Jones has been. And it wasn't against the Philadelphia Eagles. But when we, if you're Daniel Jones and you're looking at other quarterbacks like Kirk Cousins and like Jared Goff, and you're saying, well, these guys are sort of in my area of just, you know, like you said, 20th best. Kirk is obviously better than that, but

somewhere between 10 and 20, you're going to ask for that top dollar, I think. And the other thing that happened too is because Deshaun Watson went so insanely high with his contract, everybody else can now say, well, yeah, I'm not paid as much as the top guy. That's Deshaun Watson. But Deshaun Watson's getting paid way more than everybody else. So, you know, I think that if we're talking about a long-term extension for Cousins, what would the average annual value be? I think he would have to shoot in the $40 million range if he was doing

that right now. Now, I don't think that Daniel Jones is actually getting 45. That's another consideration that Jones would more likely get 35 or something like that. But it's either a ton or it's you're not the quarterback anymore is the way that it goes. So it would be a lot for Kirk Cousins. But my point is that if they're going to make this argument, it would be if Kevin O'Connell was all in on Kirk Cousins, which I don't know that to be the case, but he did win a lot of games this year. If Kevin O'Connell was all in on Kirk Cousins,

they could sign a deal that would make the first two years a little more advantageous with the cap to be able to sign some other people to bring in. That's the only argument for it. And it's again, not one that I'm trying to make. From Ken, it's like you're trying to soften the blow if this happens, because otherwise you're killing me. Okay, for 20 million, but not 40 million. That's the thing is that, you know, for 20 million, I still have trouble thinking the way that Kirk Cousins plays in comparison to the other quarterbacks that are out there now. I mean, you just don't have to look very far to the Super Bowl to see the types of quarterbacks that are going to win and continue to win in the future. And

again, when we're talking about, you know, where they are as an offense, I think that it's like been decided that they had a good enough offense. And that's just not true. Like not in comparison. And I did the numbers on this, not in comparison to the other teams that have made the Superbowl and really not anywhere close with what their offenses have been. Their passing games have been okay or good. They've ranked somewhere between seventh and 10th in every year recently and expected points added through the pass. But a lot of times, almost every time, the team that makes the Super Bowl is one of the best offenses, number one, number two, number three, somewhere in there. And Kirk Cousins has

never taken an offense to that echelon as a member of the Vikings. And he's had some of the best wide receivers, not just in the NFL, but I mean, Justin Jefferson's start to his career is one of the best ever great tackles. I mean, if, if you can't overcome, you know, poor guard play to be a top five offense at any point, and you're about to turn 35 years old, even at $20 million, I don't know that you can just put stuff around Kirk Cousins here. So again, from Asa, praying for Richardson to drop the timeline just works out so well and his upside is immense yeah i agree which i should pull up my second on the list here uh for my countdown the fifth being the long-term extension but fourth as far as options go for the vikings and kurt cousins is to extend him short term and

draft a quarterback this offseason which even though I can only see your guys writing on the screen here, I can hear you cheering for this. It does make a lot of sense. You're right that when we talk about like Kansas City and Patrick Mahomes, I don't think anyone ever thinks that you're going to draft Patrick Mahomes like the next greatest quarterback ever in his first five years of his career. Like no one thinks that, that they just mean that the way that Kansas City handled that situation of letting Alex Smith play it out, letting the backup quarterback as a rookie, as a first round pick develop and stay on the bench for the year, play in the preseason, play in week 17, and then take over the job the following season. So much of that makes sense when it comes to the Minnesota Vikings situation, because not

only just the price of Kirk Cousins and what he would want for the future, but also his age. And when we're talking about trying to project players, because every contract is about the future, it's not about like what you've done in the recent past. So the 13 wins kind of don't matter. It's really about projecting what's he going to do in the future. And if you, you know, when you're talking about quarterbacks in their mid thirties, I think we look at the Brady and Rogers and go like, oh yeah, well, it's not that old, but even Russell Wilson looked pretty old last year. And a lot of historical quarterbacks have looked old in their

mid thirties or even been retired by their mid thirties. So, you know, I think that everybody understands at this point, including the Minnesota Vikings, if I had to guess that this can't go on a whole lot longer and that they're going to have to set themselves up for the future. And if they're signing Justin Jefferson to a long-term contract extension, you simply cannot have a huge Kirk contract and a huge Justin Jefferson contract. You can't be having 40% of the salary cap tied up in two people. So a short-term extension would allow them to play out this year, try to compete again with Kirk Cousins,

and then move on next year, maybe in the form of a trade, or maybe draft someone and play it out for one more season. I don't think anybody really wants to wait that long in Viking land after seeing the same results over and over. I think that mostings fans have kind of run their course with this and even even the biggest kirk defenders like stewart here says i really like kirk but i would try to get uh the qb in this qb of the future in this draft and let

kirk play out his contract so the only reason to not let the contract just expire, which we should talk about is that he's very expensive this year and they have a lot of players hitting free agency. Dalvin Tomlinson is one of them, Garrett Bradbury, and these guys played a lot of snaps. So they either have to sign them or sign people to take their spots. So they really do need to create some cap space for, you know, just to fill out a roster to be able to sign people. And yes, you can cut this guy and you can, you know, move on from this guy or restructure, but there's still going to be spots on this roster that need to be filled. And if you want something back for him right away, as opposed to waiting for a compensatory pick like a third rounder, then you sign him to an extension that allows you to trade him next year. But of course,

if he's going to fight for that no trade clause, maybe they do have to do that. Let's see from Mike. Do you think that Kirk has a hunger and fire in his belly to win a Super Bowl? If that passion is to win is lacking, which I think it is, they need to let him ride it out in a lame duck year. Yeah, it's hard to put myself as long as I've covered him. And as many times as I've talked with Kirk Cousins, it's really hard for me to say, I'm going to put myself in his shoes and tell you what he wants or what he thinks. Because I've seen Kirk Cousins compete really hard. Last year, you can't tell me that Cousins wasn't taking every hit and hanging on to that football as long as it took to get passes off.

I mean, he took a lot of pounding last year from the really good defensive lines that they faced and with the offensive line issues that they had, he was holding onto that football to get rid of it. I mean, this has been a Derek Carr criticism for his whole career is that when pressure comes, he's not hanging onto that ball. He's getting rid of it. Well, I can't say the same for Kirk. I mean, Kirk was, I think the MVP of last year was his rib protector because he got hit hard so many times. So is that a guy who doesn't have fire in his belly? Like, I don't know. He has a personality that's not really as outward as some other guys like Tom Brady. Like he's not a throw the helmet type of guy,

but I think that last year he really wanted it. I think he wanted it for O'Connell. He wanted it for the locker room. And you could see that passion that maybe we didn't feel was there before because of his relationship with Mike Zimmer. But I think that this year we really saw it from Kirk Cousins. So I don't want to say he doesn't have fire in his belly. I think that the problem is much simpler than that. I think it's not his character. Really, what comes down to is you're talking about a guy who is probably the least athletic starting quarterback in the NFL in a league that is going toward more great athletes at the position, more playmakers. The pass rushers are only getting better. The need for escapability, creativity is higher. And that's something he

can't control. It's something you can't improve. And that's something he can't control. It's something you can't improve on. It's something you can't hire a new coach for. And that's just a reality, right? When Dexter Lawrence breaks through the inside of the offensive line, you can't really run away if you're Kirk Cousins and make a play off platform or run for a first down like you would see Patrick Mahomes or Jalen Hurts

or a lot of the great athletes. So I think that that's part of the explanation for why there's always been a ceiling. And the other part is just that when your contract is as restrictive as it is, then those weaknesses are just going to be there, right? Like you're going to have to play a right guard who's a rookie even when he's not all that good. So I don't want to say that he wants this or wants that. But I mean, I guess the one thing that you could toss back in his face is that he's never taken that contract that has lowered his cap hit. It's always been, I mean, okay, so he did a little bit last year, a little bit the year

before, but always with concessions from the team and always hurting them down the road to do it. So with the void years, for example, or the no trade clause, for example, and this is a matter of his agent's really good at his job. And I can't really begrudge someone for maximizing their value. I mean, I would want for all of you who are watching or listening right now, I would want all of you to maximize your value as well. Wherever you work, I want you to get the most money that you can possibly get. Right. And so, I mean, that's the agent's job. If the team agrees to it, it's kind of on them. I've always felt that way because there is the Brady situation and Mahomes is now underpaid, even though he was one of the highest, if not the highest paid quarterback in the league this year, but still vastly underpaid for what

he's worth. But that's unusual. It's just unusual. Most quarterbacks are doing the same thing as Kirk Cousins. So I've always felt a little bit uncomfortable, really criticizing him for that. And Mike brings up this point. If Kirk would do a team-friendly deal allowing us to add more talent, I'd listen, but it's not Kirk's MO. My point is that it's almost nobody's MO. Brady is really the exception to that rule. Everybody else seems to fight as hard as they possibly can to get every single dollar. I mean, Deshaun Watson's a good example, Russell Wilson, Matt Ryan's last contract. All these guys are getting about as much money as they could possibly get.

And you could bet Derek Carr is going to aim for 50 million, right? That's where he's going to start. So I can't really criticize Cousins for the way that he's gone about it. I think it's really the team and continuing to go back to that well over and over. And at some point you have to stop and try something else, which is I think naturally the rookie quarterback route. From Jason here, Kirk Cousins will not let his contract play out. Tell him that's the plan and he will ask for a trade. Yeah, I think that that's possible. And I think I would too, wouldn't you? If you won 13 games with the Vikings and you got along great with your coach and your wide receiver was setting records left and right, and you had a top 10 offense, you'd probably say, okay, I guess if

you guys aren't going to sign me after that, then you're never going to sign me and trade me to somebody else, which is an option that we will, you know, we'll get there eventually. This comes from Jeff. Every quarterback takes a pounding. Vikings fans have to be happy with that. He can throw the ball away when pressured. Yeah, no, I don't think that every quarterback takes the pounding that he took last year. There's actually numbers for that, that he took more quarterback hits than anybody else. But part of that is the fact that he's not very mobile and doesn't have that escapability. And I think that he's gotten better at throwing the ball away, as you mentioned, but also the Vikings were in the top 10 for total interceptions as well.

So there's always the give and take. The more you lean into Kirk, the more times he gets sacked and hit, and the more interceptions he throws. The more you try to restrict him like Mike Zimmer did, then you're relying on a running game all the time. And so that's always been the thing that nobody can really solve the equation to get it exactly right, where there's the intersection of everything that Kirk needs and being a pass first offense without some of the negatives that go along with that. The next option on our list is to extend Kirk Cousins short-term and draft a quarterback next offseason. So I didn't talk too much about drafting one this offseason, so I should kind of circle back on that, which was our last option. Yeah, let me just put a bow on that for the last option of short-term extension and drafting a quarterback this offseason. I think it would have to be the

exact right situation where it's Anthony Richardson. I don't know about Tanner McKee from Stanford if he is actually a first round prospect or not, if that's somebody that they would like. I think they're going to look for somebody with better physical tools than that McKee my understanding is he's accurate and smart but I don't know that you're looking for somebody with limited ceiling but if they feel that he has first round potential then okay then I would buy into that because we've seen quarterbacks that aren't necessarily a running quarterback. If they have some creativity to them, be able to survive. And of course you can stack the roster around that player. Like

Joe Burrow is not a runner, but he's dynamic. And also their roster is really good. So if there is a quarterback that's there at 24, even though there's a lot of other needs, drafting one makes a lot of sense. I don't know that they'll actually do it there is a report from elbert breer that they would consider it so i'm going to put this one i gave 10 to a long-term extension just so i don't mess up the numbers i'm going to give this one a 20 chance of happening in our pie chart because i just would be very surprised if they're drafting one this year. I shouldn't say very surprised if it's 20%. That's one in five because someone has to be there. So I wouldn't be

surprised if they took the quarterback who was there, but someone has to be there for them to do it. I think that the Vikings would want this situation if it's Anthony Richardson, but what are the odds that Richardson gets to 24 or that somebody else doesn't trade up ahead of you because other teams have more to work with? So I'm going to go 20% for that one. As far as our next option goes for the different things the Vikings could do with Kirk Cousins, extend him short term and draft a quarterback next off season. Now this one, this one I think is very, very plausible. This one's probably going to get my highest percentage chance because when you think about just the most likely scenario, right, for this next coming

season, and we are all far away from this, like the next couple of weeks And we are far away from this. Like the next couple of weeks, we're gonna really understand much better where they're at. Like if they trade cousins, obviously then they're drafting a quarterback this year and they could do that within the next three weeks. So if that happens, then obviously I'll change my mind.

But I think that a short-term extension for one, maybe two years to try to help spread out some of the void money or whatever, just setting it up so they could maybe cut him after that first year. I think that the reason you like that, if you're the Vikings, is you can go into next year not trying to lose, but understanding that everything is going to be harder and there's not a whole lot better you can really get than you were last year. So you're drafting 24th this year, but if you go seven and 10, and this is not to suggest that they want to go seven and 10, but they could go seven and 10, then you're drafting much higher. Then you're talking about drafting, maybe cracking even into the top 10, which puts you in position to try to get that quarterback, if not to have an opportunity right there to draft the quarterback. And Caleb Williams' name is going to come up for sure. Asa, you bring up Drake May,

that's another guy that I'm kind of intrigued by. I saw him play, I think, once this year. But as we know, right now, we don't really have a great idea of who the quarterbacks in 2024 are going to be. Caleb Williams would require them being horrendous. Very unlikely that they're going to be horrendous unless Kirk Cousins got injured. More likely would be that they're average. And the floor for Kirk Cousins is, and probably always will be seven wins. So let's just say, because they have such a hard schedule that they end up with only seven wins and then they're drafting fairly high. And at that point, they have a much better justification specifically to the ownership to say, all right, it's time to move on from Kirk Cousins. Because I could see from the owner's perspectives, this is not to defend it. It's only to say,

I understand it. Just looking at last season and saying, wait, aren't we pretty close? Like we got to the first round of the playoffs. We scored whatever number of points was a 24.27 whatever it was against the Giants so you know our offense is good like don't we just need Brian Flores don't we just need a defense which is always it's the story of Kirk Cousins like on the gravestone of the Kirk Cousins era it says don't we just need a dot dot dot, dot? And the answer is yes. And much more usually, but you could see though, the owners saying, don't we just need this? Why are we talking about trading Kirk? Why aren't we just making sure that he stays and we're, we're good on offense. Jefferson was great. So run it back, try to win, try to be better than you were last year with this

new defensive coordinator. And the same thing goes for Kevin O'Connell, where I think O'Connell understands that at some point he's going to want to pick his quarterback of the future, that he wants to be the head coach of the Vikings for 10 years. Kevin O'Connell doesn't want to just coach Kirk Cousins, right? He's going to want to draft his quarterback, develop them, and try to win a Super Bowl with that player. But for next year, if you go from 13 wins to seven or six and it goes badly, you're going to get a lot of criticism probably if you're Kevin O'Connell. So I could see where he would want to, or if it's even worse than that,

then you're talking about one of the biggest fall loss ever. And I don't think Kevin O'Connell wants that. That's if you were trying to tank and get Caleb Williams and that's complicated by Justin Jefferson situation. There's a lot going on there. Right. And I think that that's why it kind of has to happen by itself. And I've always felt this way that with teams from the outside perspective, where we don't have any skin in the game, it's very easy for us to say, don't you guys know what's going to happen next year? Like, isn't this obvious to you where this is all going? And we might be right. Although we were wrong last year, to some extent, like, I don't think anybody saw 13 wins coming maybe a first round out but not 13 wins but a lot of times even if the analysts and the fans kind of have a sense of where it's going they need to see it happen first before they can really pull that trigger that's how this situation feels that if this year they had gone 7 and 10

then i think that we'd be talking about which quarterback they're drafting and who they're trading Kirk cousins too. But I think they needed to fail first with Kevin O'Connell for O'Connell to say, all right, it's time to move on and for ownership to say that. And that's why it makes sense in my mind, as far as short-term and drafting a quarterback for next offseason rather than this offseason. And again, it sort of goes back to all hanging on which guys are going to be drafted where. And we've really made Richardson the guy who's going to fall, but it doesn't have to be him. I'd be shocked if it was CJ Stroud or even Bryce Young is undersized, but he has such a great history

at Alabama and is such a unique player that I think he's going high. Will Levis, I don't know, kind of has some accuracy issues, but a freak athletically, he should go pretty high. But that would be the situation that I would love to know or love to be in the room for is, let's say one of those four guys is there for you. Would you take them this year? And I think the answer might be yes, but if they're not there, then there's no option to do it. And realistically, that's probably what happened last year is that I think they wanted to draft a quarterback last year, just looking at the landscape, but there wasn't anybody to draft

outside of Kenny Pickett as far as first rounders go. And, um, you know, Kenny Pickett, I think we're still juries very much out on him. I'm kind of intrigued, but is the upside that high, uh, from Michael, let's see, I can't wait till we get our quarterback. The chiefs did it when they had Alex Smith and drafted the great Mahomes. You have to take chances to be great. Now I totally agree with that, that it's not just them. That's the example. Really it's, it's Philadelphia as well. I mean, there's, there's lots of teams that are like this. It's not just them, but Vegas is really the Vikings in a lot of ways. Like last year, the Vegas Raiders made the playoffs with a negative point differential.

And in the first round, they played a close game with a real contender and lost. A real contender with a great quarterback on a rookie contract. Does that sound familiar? And then this year, they had to see it happen to move on from Derek Carr. And now they're going to take a shot

at their next quarterback, which maybe it's Rodgers or maybe it's a draft pick. I don't know. Mack Jones is reportedly possible for a trade. I'm not sure about why they would do that. But the point just being that the Raiders are a good example of, yeah, they're taking a chance here by moving on from Derek Carr, just the way that Kansas City did, but also just the way that Philadelphia did. Look at, if you have time in your life, go back to pro football reference, take a look at Carson Wentz's season before they drafted Jalen Hurts. This is like an important exercise because right now we know Carson Wentz is not good, but it was a nine and seven season, got a little banged up and overall Carson Wentz that year good, but it was a nine and seven season got a little banged up. And overall Carson

Wentz that year played pretty well. And they said, it's just not going to be good enough though with Carson Wentz. There was also some personality things there with Wentz that sort of cropped up later, but that's a good example too, of both Alex Smith and Carson Wentz being expensive, average quarterbacks and their team saying, you know, it's just not going to work. So as far as the chances go of Kirk Cousins signing a short-term extension this year and drafting a quarterback next offseason, I've already used up 30%, 10% on a long-term extension, 20% on drafting a quarterback this year.

I am going to say 40% to this. So that gets us up to 70% total of my pie chart used. But this scenario I think is the most likely out of any of the situations that we're going to go through, of which I have two more. And the next one is to trade Kirk Cousins and add a veteran. Now this could be including a draft pick this year or not, but making sure that they were playing this year, not with a rookie. So they're not just in development mode for this year, but they're trading away Kirk Cousins in this scenario, which is one of their five options and looking for someone else, bringing in Jimmy Garoppolo, bringing in Jacoby Bursette, somebody that you know is going to be a decent competitive quarterback week in and week out, but is not a long-term option. So kind of like, if you remember when Ryan Fitzpatrick played for

the Houston Texans and they actually won 10 games with Ryan Fitzpatrick played for the Houston Texans and they actually won 10 games with Ryan Fitzpatrick, you know, I think that that it would be the type of situation here where you'd still have a good enough quarterback that you'd be looking for on the outside to be a short-term filler and succeed, but you're getting the draft capital and the cap space from a cousin's trade and the open future to either draft a quarterback this year, next year, essentially whenever you want. But you are remaining competitive and starting to fill up that roster with some free agents that are going to be maybe a part of multiple seasons for you

to actually be able to bring in someone who's expensive would be a change for the Vikings. If you think about it, I mean, Zedarius Smith got a central one-year contract, but overall it was a little bit more. And I think that was the most that they had spent on any free agent, or maybe it was Michael Pierce. They have not been able to compete for any of the outside free agents as long as

Kirk Cousins has been here. This is from Caleb. Why don't we ever get ahead of things and trade him now? The roster is clearly taking steps back. I completely agree with you, Caleb, that if you're forward thinking, and this is what I come back to when you hire Kweisi Adafo-Mensah, you want him to think in the future, right? Like you don't hire him to be an old football guy who says, we just won 13. Oh, we needs a new nose tackle. Like that's not what you hire Kweisi Adafo-Mensah to do. You hire him to look at the numbers and do the math on this and say, our projection for next year isn't very good. So why don't we do this now? As opposed to waiting around to see it happen. Like I mentioned that a lot of times in football, you just have to prove

it to the owner. I guarantee you that there are all sorts of situations in the league where the general manager knew, but just couldn't make the sales pitch to the owner to make a move like this. And I agree that the roster is essentially, I mean, in shambles might be a little tough, but kind of. Like if we consider that certain players, and I want to give Harrison Smith still his credit for being a really good player and getting five interceptions last year

and not being used correctly. But if we consider the ages, how much longer these guys are going to be here, or even in any relative prime of theirs, there's a lot of key players who just either aren't in their prime anymore or are in the waning years of that with this roster. And the rest of it's just wide open because so many draft picks have failed in recent years. It is not anywhere close to being a great roster. Now, I think last year was a good roster and they were able to get the best possible performance out of a Zedarius Smith, a Patrick Peterson. When they drafted those guys, that was

the 98th percentile of what you could have expected and they got it. But if they try to do that again, oh, let's sign an older corner. Let's sign a pass rusher that people don't want because he's got injury issues or let's just run back Zedaria Smith. What are the odds that that actually works out the same way? And those guys played that well and still their defense was no good. And even with Adam Thielen, if they're bringing Adam Thielen back, there is always the risk that last year was the last year where he's going to perform even as a wide receiver too. He still ended up with 70 catches,

but if there is a fall off and there's always that risk, then you're talking about a much worse season. So, and I think that even if half of those guys don't work out as well as they did last year, I mean, you could be talking about a really poor season. Maybe they just want that to happen. Like maybe they want to run it all back just so it is like, you know, I've called it the natural tank, but have that be how it goes. But that's a lot of suffering for all of you who have to watch it. So to your point, Caleb, I agree with you. I am a hundred percent in favor of what you're saying. It's like, why not get started right now?

If you know what's going to happen, you can say, well, you know, maybe this, this, this, this, this, but we've played that game now for quite a long time. From Josh, please trade. I love Kirk, but it's time unless he'll settle for less money so the team can build around him. And I think Josh, you know what the answer to that is that settling for less money and Kirk cousins just don't really go together. Um, you know, last year he worked it out to lower his cap hit a little bit, um, but still ended up coming with concessions for them, uh, with the no trade clause and this year's cap hit being much higher. So this from Michael, why should we wait until next year to draft our franchise

quarterback? We're going to have to sacrifice a couple of first round picks regardless to move up unless we're terrible. Yeah. And my point isn't that they should wait because if that opportunity arises, they should not wait. So if we're talking about the scenario we're discussing now, it would be you just don't have anybody else. If Kirk Cousins said to draft, I mean, you don't have anybody else to draft because they've been all taken. And then you're not drafting a third round prospect in the first just to say that you did. That's how you get Christian Ponder, I think.

But, you know I I this scenario that I'm talking about of trading him and bringing in a veteran to fill that spot would just be like sort of hell or high water we're moving on from cousins he doesn't want to be here if we're not going to extend him so then let's bring in Jimmy G let's bring in Jacoby Brissett that's the scenario that was is on the table if they couldn't get a draft pick, it's kind of what Chicago did with Andy Dalton. They signed Andy Dalton, unsure of whether they could draft a quarterback, uh, after moving on from Mitch Trubisky. And then they did draft a quarterback because Justin Fields was available, but had Fields

not been there, had the Vikings traded up for him, then maybe Chicago would have just had to stick it out with Andy Dalton for a year. So that's why I'm saying that's on the table. But I'm not arguing against drafting a quarterback. I'm only saying that it can be, with this draft, unpredictable. So you think maybe somebody will drop. But if they don't, then you're just kind of like a little bit up a creek but you shouldn't be afraid of that would be this scenario would say you shouldn't

be afraid of that because if you have to go through next year with a another decent quarterback you're giving them Justin Jefferson you can compete as an offense with that and if you improve on defense you don't have to feel like Kirk Cousins is the only one who can play quarterback for this team, I guess is part of the scenario in that discussion from Jason, depending on what happens with Derek Carr and Aaron Rodgers, a desperate team might make a very good offer. Yeah. I'm trying to figure out who that might be. That's a good point. And the team that comes to mind for me is the Carolina Panthers. So they're talking with Derek Carr. Obviously someone like Baker Mayfield shouldn't be for them. They must want to win, right? They're drafting high enough where they're right on the edge of

hoping for a franchise quarterback for the future as well. But they could even trade for Cousins and play it out with him in his last year if they wanted to do something like that. Or maybe he won't waive his no trade unless he gets an extension. But Frank Reich and Kirk Cousins kind of make sense to me with a team that is in pretty good shape. I mean, they were winning games last year, not a ton, but playing competitively with what? I at quarterback PJ Walker all of his credit due great XFL legend but a pure backup for sure and Sam Darnold came back they had Baker Mayfield not really trying before I mean you know that was a bad situation I think that with a

better situation with Kirk Cousins, they could win that division now that Tom Brady is out of it. Let's see for Caleb. So his no trade clause can be removed if we make him mad enough. Maybe, right? I mean, it's a no trade clause, meaning that he gets to decide. So it's not that you can never, ever trade the player player it's that the ball is more in his court and we don't know the exact details of this sometimes a no trade clause just means there's five or ten franchises that he can decide he won't get traded to they come to him they say look we're working on a couple of deals here we've got some offers and we want to trade you which teams do you not want to go to? So there are levels to

no trade clauses, but yeah, I mean, that's the one situation where I would really like to know what Kirk Cousins is thinking. If they just say, we're not offering you a deal at all and either play it out or not. Let's see here. So from Jeff, believe this or don't believe this since they lost Super Bowl. What is that for? They have not kept up with the changing times. The NFL has evolved, but the Vikings just remain good and don't go the extra mile. Well, I would say that the one time they did it since Super Bowl four would be with Dante Culpepper.

And this is a good example, right? When they didn't draft Dante Culpepper, there was a heated debate about whether they should have taken Javon Curse. And Javon Curse sure turned out to be a good player with the Tennessee Titans. But a lot of people thought, well, you've got Randall Cunningham.

Why are you bothering to take a quarterback? And yet, we bring up the Mahomes thing, the Culpepper things right there for everybody to talk about or to use. They drafted him while they had Jeff George and Randall Cunningham on the roster. Cunningham fell off in 1999. George played it out, won a playoff game against Dallas, but then they turned it over to Dante Culpepper. And for four years, uh, was it four or five years, five years, maybe with Culpepper, or they had some of the best quarterback play in the NFL and go back and look, the numbers are kind of crazy that Culpepper was, I think the second highest rated quarterback during that time. And the only guy that was higher

was Peyton Manning. Now there were, uh, you know, rest in peace to Red McCombs who passed away today. But the ownership situation, the NFL was not the same as it is now. If that Culpepper situation had happened now, the Vikings would have been in much better shape to put a lot around Culpepper as opposed to not having a defense, not being able to spend the way that the Wilfs can spend now and also just the money that the NFL makes so if if there was a and look you've got a Randy Moss in Justin Jefferson find your Dante Culpepper maybe that is Anthony Richardson I don't know but I don't know if it's been since Super Bowl four I think it's more of just been in the last really under the Wil. They have not been willing very often to take that big swing or to go all the way to

the bottom, which doesn't really guarantee you anything, but it gives you a shot. And when you look at like where the quarterbacks were drafted, who are great right now, I mean, Mahomes wasn't the first one picked, but he was a high draft pick. And so was Josh Allen. And so was Joe Burrow. And so was Justin Herbert. Like, you know, Hurts is kind of an outlier even to be a second round draft pick. Normally you got to draft that guy pretty high and take that big swing. And I don't know if it's not being with the times as much as it is that they made this big move for Kirk Cousins and it didn't really work out, but they kept talking themselves into the possibility that it could. And now I think we've reached a big enough sample to say that between the way that he plays and his contract,

it really isn't possible to go any farther than you went this year. So I'm going to say back to our pie chart or our countdown here, as far as the option of trading Kirk Cousins now and adding a veteran, I think I've already used up 70% of my pie chart. Just to recap, I gave a 10% chance to them extending Cousins long--term 20% to them short-term and then drafting a quarterback this year and 40% to them extending him short-term and drafting one next year. And mostly that's just because of opportunity. Uh, and so with this one, I've got 30% left to use. I would say that I'll only go go 10 with this one that he actually gets traded and they replace him with somebody else i think that it if they're going to have um if they're

going to trade him they're going to know that they've got someone they're going to draft or that they're going to trade future draft picks to move up and take somebody and that's going to be their plan i don't know if they would necessarily bring in another veteran so i'll only give it a 10 chance that he gets traded and that happens. I think if they're doing it, they're just playing the rookie and they would have a veteran backup. But I mean like a veteran starter for next year. If it is Richardson, they could do it though.

But I'll still only say that's about, that's kind of a pipe dream. I'll only go 10%, which means 20% goes to this one, which would be trading C trading cousins and playing a rookie for this year. And if I've added up this wrong, then I wouldn't be surprised. I'm doing the math on the fly, but I think I got it right to a hundred percent. The last option would be trading cousins and playing a quarter, a rookie quarterback this year. And I think what that would be is the situation where that would come about is if there was the confluence of events of their lead up to the draft. There's a lot of intel that gets done.

So teams know how things are going to play out better than the outside world does. They get a lot of intel. They also know kind of other people in the league and what people are thinking. And usually their mock drafts are more accurate than the ones that you're doing on the PFF mock draft simulator. Usually that's my understanding is that they have a pretty good knowledge of what's going on and how people around the league feel about certain prospects. So if they knew that, say, Anthony Richardson, I just keep saying him because he seems like the most likely to drop, but it could be anyone,

Will Levis, Tanner McKee. If they have someone that they like in their sights and they go to Kirk Cousins and say, just so you know, we're going to draft the quarterback this year and we're not going to sign you to a long-term extension and he says all right well then my work here is done and I would rather go play for that desperate Panthers or Jets or Vegas like somebody's being left out of the party or or even San Francisco I guess is still on the table that gets brought up all the time I think they'll probably stick with Trey Lance but yeah you never. There will be teams that still need a quarterback at the end of the draft that I think there's a 20% chance that all of that comes to fruition. It seems like a lot of boxes that need to be checked, but still like with where they

stand as a franchise right now, I'll say possible. I wouldn't say likely. I will say possible. I wouldn't say likely. I will say possible. So I think that the most likely scenario remains that he signs an extension and that they draft someone after next year. And this year they try to cobble together the best roster they possibly can. And they try to fight for a playoff spot or the NFC North, which I mean, that might be a hold up too for them. And that's why I think it is the most likely situation is that when you look at the NFC North, if Rogers goes, it's Jordan Love,

we don't know what you're going to get there. Detroit should be a pretty good team, but I don't know that just the end of the season means they're going to compete for a Superbowl. They should be a good team. Detroit should. Are they way, way better than you? They're better, but way, way better? I'm not sure yet, right now, before all this stuff happens and the stuff hits the fan. And even with Chicago, I think Chicago can be better. They're aiming to kind of be like Jacksonville, but Trevor Lawrence is a better prospect than Field, so I don't know how that's going to play out either the point just being that I think they understand that there's an opportunity even with the challenges they're facing to still win the north and get a playoff

game and have a chance and I don't see them with the way that they think just foregoing that possibility to move on from cousins, draft somebody, play them next year and win five or six games as most rookies do, even when they're good. Even Joe Burrow, even Trevor Lawrence, these guys don't win a lot right away. So I'm still going to go with that situation as being the most likely that they play it out for another year on a short-term extension and then draft a quarterback. But one thing that we always know and that always needs to be said, no matter how many podcasts and videos that I do in my life, the Minnesota Vikings never cease to amaze.

They never cease to surprise us. And this year was certainly evidence of that with 13 wins and most of them coming at the very last moment. But they make moves that we never expect. Brett Favre showed up here one time, a roof collapsed. I mean, anything can happen with this franchise. So I don't want to count out any of these, which is why I gave percentages to all of them in this sort of fun pie chart. I like to do this every Monday night, but I also know that next week I'm traveling to the NFL Combine on Monday.

So I'm not really sure about my travel. I think I arrived there the middle of the day, but I'm not sure on the timing. But throughout the offseason, if you've enjoyed what you've watched here tonight on YouTube, or you're a podcast listener and you want to check it out, see the show done in this live way of me sitting in my office here in front of Ellen Page behind me, then, you know, feel free to join in. So I'll see what I can do from Indy. We'll definitely be doing a lot of content on the YouTube page from Indianapolis when I'm there.

Chris Trapasso from CBS Sports is going to be there with me. Kwezi Adafomenta, Kevin O'Connell will be talking to the local media on the side and also at the podiums. So there's going to be a lot going on, lots of changes potentially. So make sure you're keeping an eye on this channel because there's going to be a lot to come. And then I like these lists. I like these countdowns.

They seem to create a lot of good conversation. So I can't thank all of you guys enough for joining in. It's you guys who really make this fun. And the reason that I wanted to do it and continue to do these live things because you guys make them a lot of fun. So thanks to everybody who contributed. I appreciate it. And we will talk again very soon. And hey, also another thing to look out for is in the next couple of weeks, emergency pods, whenever anything big happens right here, this is the place. So Rogers gets traded. Kirk gets traded. Somebody gets cut. That's a really big name, whatever right here. All right. Thanks

everybody. Talk to you again soon.