Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings get nothing from Falcons in tampering case and another QB gets paid

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

Matthew Coller reacts to the news of the Falcons' punishment in the Kirk Cousins tampering case. Plus, answers your Vikings questions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, back in the studio finally from a little bit of travel and then some podcasting out at TCO Performance Center. So great to be back with you all and happy to answer some questions tonight and talk about a couple of big things going on in the NFL. But minicamp and OTAs are over. So now we can spend the next few weeks having fun, answering your random questions, looking back at the roster,

taking a look at the entire league, taking stock of where things are and historical questions and scenarios and all those things that we do during this time of the year. So we'll have a look at all of that later next week. And I have kind of a bit where I talk with some beat reporters from some teams that the Vikings are going to be playing. We'll jump back on that and have a little discussion there, a way too early preview and so forth.

So lots still coming your way here on the purple insider podcast, maybe a little bit less frequent than 10 times a week is what it felt like when it came to NFL draft season. But always fun to get together and talk with everybody. But the best story of the day in the NFL, the biggest and most exciting story, was this built-up penalty that was coming for the Atlanta Falcons. Everybody couldn't wait. Schefter was putting it out there. It's going to be this week. This time the NFL is going to come down hard on the Atlanta Falcons when they announced that big penalty and bam, Roger Goodell dropped the hammer to the tune of a fifth round pick and a couple of hundred thousand bucks

for guys who make millions of dollars. And there you have it. After a lot of questions on the live stream, a lot of articles written, a lot of posts on social media and speculation, which made me hurt myself laughing that the Vikings would even get a first round pick because they had been so wronged by the Atlanta Falcons and Kirk Cousins and his tampering. And that was never, ever going to happen. And I feel good because I got a lot of questions about it. And every time my take was, eh, I don't know what to say. It doesn't seem like it's really that bad. And I'd be shocked if anything came of it.

And here we are. Nothing came of it. So once again, I'm playing the role of traffic cop to, is this a thing? In fact, I even made a scroll for the bottom of the screen. Is this a thing? So I'm going to use this in the future when there's internet rumors and stuff going on that people are asking about because it has become my occupation recently, whether it's Justin Jefferson rumors or whatever other things that went on through the draft season and so forth. Is this a thing? And it wasn't, it wasn't a thing with the tampering and i i guess there's uh two

ways to look at this uh one of them would be that you could feel the vikings were wronged i suppose but i would ask that you put yourself in the other shoes so just for example say that at the nfl combine this wasn't exactly what they were accused of, but let's just say at the NFL combine next year, the Vikings just so happened to bump into the representation of a very important defensive tackle. And they slide a note over to that defensive tackle that says, come join us PLS. And that defensive tackle gives a little nod and a wink or the agent for the defensive tackle says, oh yeah, sure. I'll think about it. I'll definitely think about it. And then, so they send another note over that says 24 million per year. And then there's a nod and a wink look every team in the NFL has conversations

with agents players have conversations with each other coaches know each other and know players and they text them and there's not a whole lot you can do about it Kirk Cousins probably should not have mentioned in his press conference that Kyle Pitts had been recruiting him and the Atlanta Falcons, I guess were, I think that the penalty actually came from them creating travel arrangements before they were supposed to with three different free agents. It wasn't just Kirk Cousins, but if the NFL started to try to police all the tampering that goes on, they would have to just cancel the NFL combine. They could not have it in Indianapolis anymore. And they would have to ask for all of the phone records from all the players and all the coaches. They would have to hire investigators to go out and dive deep into whether teams reached out to players and asked them to come

join their football teams. And I just don't think that's something they're ever going to do. And I also feel like when the league is kind of policing itself, the owners are represented by Roger Goodell. So Roger Goodell is policing the people that he works for. That's awkward. If he comes out and just crushes the Atlanta Falcons for this, I think all the other teams are going to go, Raj, what are we doing here? You know, we've all done similar stuff to that. So if we can't do that kind of thing, or we're going to get hit with losing first round draft picks or something. The reason that it happened with the Miami Dolphins, the example that was brought up a bunch of times during this whole conversation about Kirk Cousins and tampering was because the

owner of the Dolphins took Tom Brady out on his yacht and sold him on the idea of joining the Dolphins as an owner, then coming out of retirement. They had this whole thing worked out. It went so far beyond whispers at the combine or players trying to recruit each other. This is something that happens all the time. And I don't see any real downside to caring about or, or to allowing it to mostly happen? I mean, what is the upside rather in chasing around everybody? We have DMs, we have text messages, all these things. And if you were in the shoes of the Atlanta Falcons, if it was the Vikings doing this, you would be saying, ah, you know, no big deal. Doesn't matter that it happened. It's only

because it happened to the Vikings. And it's only because some people out there for only God knows why tried to convince fans that this was going to result in the Vikings getting a first round draft pick or any type of draft compensation. It did happen with the coaching situation with Jonathan Gannon. There was a pick swap, I believe, when Jonathan Gannon was illegally recruited by the Arizona Cardinals, but there's never been a situation that I could find where there was tampering. And then the NFL said, here, have their draft capital. So i could never figure out why that was being brought up as a potential option and here we are it was not a potential option and the atlanta falcons lose their fifth round draft pick and there you have it uh the crime that was committed was probably worth

losing a fifth round draft pick it wasn't that big of of a deal. And as far as the Vikings go, this is what I think they wanted to happen anyway, wasn't it? I mean, didn't they want to draft a quarterback in this draft? Haven't they been a little bit loose with that in their commentary with, yeah, this was actually the plan all along. And you're like, oh yeah, this was the plan all along. So that means that the plan was not to bring back Kirk Cousins on a huge deal and rather let him go to the Atlanta Falcons. So you can't even really be upset considering the Vikings drafted their quarterback of the future, did not end up paying an insane amount of money for Kirk Cousins and all's well that ends well.

He's in Atlanta. Yeah, they drafted a quarterback that didn't seem to make him very happy, but he's with a team that has a chance to win their division. The Vikings are here with a quarterback of the future. And I just sort of shrug. If we expected the NFL to demolish the Atlanta Falcons future for Kirk Cousins talking via text to Kyle Pitts and maybe a couple other coaches and making plane flights or something before he had officially signed. I don't know. Then we're going to have to really come down hard on almost every team in the NFL. And I don't think that that's necessary. And really the whole tampering thing in general is just antiquated. Is it there to pretend that teams aren't recruiting people or that you can't speak to someone?

It never really made a whole heck of a lot of sense to me. If a free agent wants to stay with his team, he'll stay with his team. Why does recruiting them for other players make any sort of difference but this i mean if they use the nfl films audio pre-game the guys out there dapping each other up hey man you know you should come uh join us with uh you know the patriots or something oh man first round draft pick give it to the other team it's just not something I can work myself up about to care even 1%. And I'm glad that I didn't spend any time on it because it wasn't ever worth spending any time on throughout this entire thing. I only am, I think a little annoyed that fans were worked up by the

idea that people were selling, that they could possibly get some sort of big benefit out of what happened here. And then when it doesn't happen, it seems like such a disappointment. Like what, what is going on? What is the NFL doing? We were supposed to get a draft pick, not going to be the case, but maybe teams will tell their players when they sign as free agents. Hey, don't mention who recruited you. Okay. Don't mention that in the press conference, say you just met everybody and that no one talked to your agent at the combine. If I had to guess, by the way, I would guess that Kirk Cousins agent went to the combine with x-rays and medical reports and anything he could slide under doors of teams that were

going to be interested in Kirk Cousins and for potentially signing him. I mean, just to let them know the, Hey, the Achilles is coming along pretty good. That's just a guess. I'm not accusing him of tampering. I don't need an investigation. I've got no problem with the way any of this went down and total shrugs at this nothing burger of a thing. So there we go. The answer to hold on. Is it a thing is no, it really isn't. It's just not a thing. So there you have it. Now, something that is a thing is Trevor Lawrence signing for $55 million per year. Now I don't know where Kweisi Adafo MensMensah is right now. He's probably

on vacation. That's what the front office does during this time. Go to Cabo or whatever other location you want to go to if you're the general manager of the Vikings. But wherever he was, when it popped up on his phone that Trevor Lawrence signed a $55 million contract. I suspect that Kweisi Adafo-Menta crossed his face, looked like the Grinch when he does that big smile, because the gap between J.J. McCarthy's contract, and even Sam Darnold, for that matter, for this year, but the gap between J.J. McCarthy's contract

and that of a pretty good starter, which is Trevor Lawrence, not an elite starter so far in his career. He has something like a 56 to 39 interception to touchdown ratio. He's been pretty good. I think that his team has let him down in two out of the three seasons that he's played. but by no means has he been competing for MVPs, taking his team to the Superbowl.

He has not accomplished what someone like Joe Burrow has, and yet their contracts are fairly comparable in terms of the money. Meanwhile, JJ McCarthy is going to have like a $5 million cap hit. And this is the whole point that we have gone through so many times about that advantage. But we were talking about the advantage when Kirk Cousins made $30 million and how restrictive the $30 million deal could be. Although the salary cap has gone way up. So it makes this a little more manageable for some of these teams, but the edge that the Minnesota Vikings have now for at least the next several years with JJ McCarthy makes it possible for a Justin Jefferson to be signed, to fit under the salary cap, to really not cause a whole heck of a lot of problems on the cap because you have such a massive

advantage. I mean, if we do it in terms of surplus value, the surplus value, look at some of the Vikings positions. Okay. So Jefferson's expensive, but rookie contract for JJ McCarthy, that's $45 million difference. Maybe the salary cap hits for Trevor Lawrence. Don't get there for a couple of years, it's still going to be a big gap. Then you have Jordan Addison. What is a good wide receiver, a wide receiver to who is very solid worth on the free agent market, $18 million, $15 million. Well, he's making a heck of a lot less than that as the 23rd overall pick. And even with Dallas Turner, this is one of the reasons why it makes sense to trade up for Dallas Turner, even if it costs a lot is because the amount of surplus value between what it costs to sign an edge rusher $25 million a year versus what he costs, which is about

$5 million a year is so significant that the Vikings will be able to spend and spend even around Justin Jefferson's deal when they eventually next year get to Christian Derrissaw's deal. And they can take this roster, which I feel right now has the bones of something that is good to the next level by spending in free agency next year. Now, hopefully they don't whisper to anybody at the combine because they don't actually have any draft picks to give up if they were penalized. They've traded all of those away. But as far as the free agency money they can spend,

you really see it. When you look at Trevor Lawrence and go, okay, we would all take Trevor Lawrence as the starting quarterback. If he was the starting quarterback of the Vikings, his stats would probably look a lot different than they look for the Jacksonville Jaguars. At the same time, can J.J. McCarthy play better than that statistically

with these receivers and then be worth $45 million less on the cap? I think that he can. The other thing is, too, this isn't changing anytime soon. It's not going away. The salary cap is going to keep going up. Dak Prescott's going to get a big deal. Tua's going to get a big deal going forward. And the edge just grows. Of course, your rookie quarterback has to be good. He can't be Zach Wilson. If he's Zach Wilson, then you are up a Creek and you'll never win. And it doesn't matter how cheap he is, but we all know that if he's even good, you can raise

the level of that guy's play with what's around him. And that's what last year, San Francisco did. They're able to add Javon Hargrave. They're able to add Christian McCaffrey the year before that, because they're not spending almost anything at the quarterback position. I think it was 880,000 or something last year for Brock Purdy's cap hit. That's the way that they were able to acquire talent. And the same goes for the Minnesota Vikings. You can pay all these other players, but if you're paying the quarterback, then things get a lot tighter and the standard goes up. And

as far as the Jaguars go, if Trevor Lawrence plays the same way he's played over the last three years, there'll be a team that is in the hunt for the playoffs, but should we be calling him Kirk Lawrence? I mean, I think there's more there. There's more talent there, more raw talent, and he could continue to take steps forward. Still, that's how high the bar is that Cousins played very well for the Minnesota Vikings, but it wasn't enough. And are they going to be able to build around Trevor Lawrence? It's going to be harder for them, whereas the Vikings get $28 million in dead cap off the books next year that still belongs to Kirk Cousins.

And more likely than not, they will get 10 more off the books next year that still belongs to Kirk Cousins. And more likely than not, they will get 10 more off the cap with Sam Darnold going elsewhere after this season. And then it's McCarthy show. They could sign a backup for cheap and then go forward with that and go crazy more or less in free agency next year because they'll have so much salary cap space. So Trevor Lawrence signing is another reminder of this is why you do that. That is why you move on from Kirk Cousins. And this, this is why you draft JJ McCarthy. And it's part of the entire logic of the Vikings plan is a, maybe if JJ McCarthy is only the 14th best quarterback in the league, he can be the eighth best quarterback in the league with what they can put around him.

They can have the top defense in the league if they continue to add talent to where they're at, because I think we agree that this defense right now is not complete. But if Dallas Turner clicks and the cornerback group gets some players to emerge or play well, and then they can go spend however many millions of dollars they want next year, then you're talking about going from a good defense to potentially a great defense. And once again, if you have the great defense, then maybe your quarterback doesn't need to be the best in the league. He just needs to be good and you're going to give yourself a chance. So that's kind of how it all ties together. And we see it again. And I do wonder, is this ever, it's never going back. Right. And it's also relevant for Jordan love and the green Bay Packers.

They have a young roster around Jordan love, which means that it might not hurt them as much. And the way that they structure it will matter. But a lot of guys on rookie contracts in Green Bay, but eventually they are going to run into that as well as the Detroit Lions as well. And that could be even within the timeframe where McCarthy is still cheap. So this all plays now in the Vikings favor that these quarterbacks are signing such huge deals. So there you go. There's your two big news items of the day.

Anything else you guys want to ask about? Minicamp, OTAs, on the internet, a clip of Dane Mizzutani and I talking about the kicker, made the rounds the other days. We got questions about Will Reichard and how he's looking. We were impressed by how he looked in practice. So anything that's on your mind, feel free to throw it my way. Hey, US cellular customers, I've got some good news. So do not hit that skip forward button

just yet. I'm talking about their special customer event, Us Days. What's Us Days? It means exclusive offers just for their customers just to say thanks. Like $1,200 off any phone plus $300 off any tablet. No, I did not misread that. They must really like you all. Us Days at U.S. Cellular. Exclusive offers just for you just to say thanks right now us cellular customers get 1200 off any phone plus 300 off any tablet terms apply

uh alexander says the nfl set a bad precedent with this punishment they do not take tampering seriously it sounds like you might take tampering a little too seriously because what are we talking about here? If Arthur blank flew Kirk cousins to Atlanta on his private jet and paid for it and flew with him and had caviar and, you know, just whatever Kirk cousins wanted on the private flight while he still was a member of the Minnesota Vikings, then all right. okay, that's a little much right there. But if you're talking about some text messages with Kyle Pitts and maybe a couple of the coaches and they set up him flying to Atlanta before he was technically an Atlanta Falcon and that's it,

I can't take that seriously. And I don't think that they should really either. The punishment has to fit the crime and the crime just wasn't that bad. If you're going out of your way to stuff money in players' pockets to sign with you or try to woo players with giving them something on the side or whatever, like the yacht trip or offering a percentage of ownership to the player like Steven Ross was doing. That's a totally different thing than having a tight end say, Kirk, you got to come be our quarterback. It's just not enough for me to say it's worth anything more than a fifth round pick. I mean, that's a draft pick. I'm sure they're not happy. I'm sure their GM isn't happy to have given up hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Kyle says the inconsistencies of tampering should be reviewed. Pick swaps occurred for the same reasons. Wasn't asking for a lot, but a late round pick would have been helpful to our current depleted capital. It all maybe depends on what exactly happened as far as the pick swap. The only pick swap that I could find was that Arizona one, and it was in the same round. It wasn't even giving up. I believe it was the same round or maybe one round difference. This was not changing the Vikings franchise, even if they had decided that the Vikings deserved some type of compensation for this. But when we actually look into what they did, it wasn't enough to say the Vikings deserved some type of compensation for this. But when we actually look into what they did, it wasn't enough to say the Vikings were really wronged or that it played a

significant role in Kirk Cousins signing with Atlanta. And I'm sure the Falcons made that case. Like, look, we offered him five more million dollars per year and X number of millions on top of that that were guaranteed a hundred million guaranteed over two years. This wasn't the reason that he signed with the Atlanta Falcons. It wasn't some sort of pay deal where we'll give you this much under the table, or we'll do this for you or your family. And then you got to come over to the Falcons. It was more of just talking to some people, or at least as far as we know. The other thing is too, and when you talk about the inconsistencies of tampering, if you can tell

me you've ever in your life thought about the inconsistencies of the NFL's tampering policy before it impacted the Vikings, let me know, because I had never thought about it before and i still am not thinking about it really at all uh so i'm not i'm not concerned with with this penalty or lack of penalty for the vikings and uh scott you're right nothing that was done will deter the tampering that's for sure uh what what is it that they could have done that would have deterred the tampering, but also been fair. I mean, give it, giving the Vikings a first round pick swap or something this year, giving them pick eight and moving the Falcons down. Would that have been fair for what type of thing went on something that's so common? It's, you know, the equivalent of rolling through a stop sign when you looked first and they give you a ticket for 50 bucks. I mean, that's what

was really happening here. So, I mean, Jason says, you know, well, this light of a punishment cause more teams to do it in the future. They've been doing it. That's the thing that they've never stopped doing it and they still won't, but it's impossible for anybody to police this. And it doesn't really matter even if they could. So when you go to the egregious level, which is like I described with Stephen Ross, bringing Tom Brady out on a yacht and telling him that he's going to give him a portion of the ownership stake if he signs with the Dolphins or forces a trade or whatever it was supposed to be that that is egregious like that is worth the first round pick that's worth suspending the owner that is clearing the bar for going outside the lines and and going you know to a point where you are undermining other teams players talking to players or assistant coaches talking to a player,

Hey, you should come join us, or we'd be a good situation for you. That is, I mean, these guys run into each other. They vacation in the same places. They talk to each other. The agents bump into people. It's really just, they had to do something because cousins admitted it and they got caught doing it. But even with the Philadelphia, they didn't do something because cousins admitted it and they got caught doing it. But even with the Philadelphia, they didn't do anything to Philadelphia for going after Saquon Barkley. It just would be a bleep show to be trying to chase down everybody who's doing something like this.

And Stuart says, just legalize tampering already. If this is the way it's going to be handled, who cares? That's essentially what they've done. It's kind of like how certain leagues quietly stopped suspending players for pot years ago. I think they really changed it recently, but they kind of just said, we're not going to do this anymore. We're just not going to suspend guys and we're just going to move on. There's a policy. We're not going to, I mean, this happens all the time with lots of stuff. Like there are policies, but are you really going to enforce it? And that's the way that they've approached this because you just can't, you just can't track down every single person

who has had a conversation with somebody else on the other team that they're going to sign with. Otherwise, they would be spending all of their time trying to chase down everybody who's done this. And as I said, if, say, you know, J.J. McCarthy texted somebody who used to be a Michigan player that the Vikings want, said, come join the Vikings, he's tampering. But I think we would all be fine with that and say that the Vikings didn't deserve punishment. But I think it's really just a matter of being annoyed that something happened involving the Vikings and it didn't benefit the Vikings.

I think that's really what it's come down to. Bench 295 says off topic. I watch Aaron Jones, a football life. what a great young man love to see him on the podcast sometime regarding the vikings run game if aaron jones doesn't light your uh doesn't light your fire your wood is wet that's good yeah i don't know if i've ever heard that saying that's a good one uh aaron jones a very impressive person i have not seen that a football life uh I'm interested to watch it. I'll call that up. I didn't realize that they made one on him. I've watched a lot of the older ones, but that must be a recent one with Aaron Jones. He is an extremely impressive human being. And also

as far as a player goes as well, you look at the last five games before he hits free agency and he's got over 100 yards and over five yards to carry in every game. I don't really understand why Green Bay moved on to sign someone who's been significantly worse than him recently in Josh Jacobs. The only thing I can think of is that they're afraid of the age curve. And I did run the numbers on this the other day. There aren't many successful seasons recently of running backs at age curve. And I did run the numbers on this the other day. There aren't many successful seasons recently of running backs at age 29. So I do think it's going to be important that

Ty Chandler has a role along with Aaron Jones. And he talked about this the other day. He said, you know, like Ty Chandler looks good. He's a guy that can do a lot of things in the backfield, but he's going to have to learn to pass protect. He's going to have to learn to run the right way when he gets the handoff. There can't be miscommunications with the quarterback like there were on a number of occasions with Ty Chandler last year. But Aaron Jones brings a different vibe to the entire room. It's hard to describe, but it reminds me of Patrick Peterson, where someone is so accomplished,

but a great communicator. They've been through a lot. They've totally proven themselves in the past and they bring an energy that because sometimes veterans older in their careers, don't bring a great energy the same way that they did earlier in their careers. I've seen that from time to time with the Vikings where you go, Oh, I thought this guy was kind of going to be a leader, but I'm not sure that's what he really has been for this team. But in the case of Peterson, he really took on that role and he helped everybody that he could in that room. And he was in front of the media every single week and all that stuff speaking for the team. So he was that guy on the defense. It's just that ed donatel had a very bad defensive system

with aaron jones he brings that same sort of vibe i think and the vikings have been so poor running the football that even if aaron jones is just okay and even if he plays 12 games 13 games then you're still getting a big benefit what i I did think about the other day though, with Aaron Jones, Ty Chandler is if they will look at anybody else in the backfield, I get asked about wide receiver three a lot. I'm very captivated by that. I'm really watching closely what happens at the back end of the receiver group because somebody gets hurt. That's your next man up. Brandon Powell, Jalen Naylor, who by the way, the flu the other day and that's why he missed minicamp, but they need Jalen Naylor out there. And then you have UDFAs, guys who have

signed recently, like Thayer Thomas was here last year, but no one has really popped off the screen. So we've talked a lot about that, but we haven't talked much about the running back depth behind Ty Chandler. You have Aaron Jones, you have Chandler, but if Aaron Jones were to be banged up, you don't really want Ty Chandler playing 65 snaps. You would prefer to have him mix and match. Who's that going to be with? I don't think it's Kenny Wong Wu. There's been several years for that to happen.

Dwayne McBride, maybe. We'll see in training camp what that looks like. And Miles Gaskin is a veteran who's bounced around, but hasn't really stuck anywhere since Miami. So would they look to the free agent market to give them even another guy? But Aaron Jones's health is really at the center of this. If he's healthy, he can be a special player for this team. And I was looking up his recent performances against the Vikings, and it was something like six out of his last eight games against the Vikings. He averaged five yards per carry or more.

The only time he didn't do it was that 17 season with the number one defense, but outside of that, he just dominated the Vikings, so having him on their side will be an advantage there. But as far as impressive people that you're around, he's one of the most hands down. Scott says, Jordan love will get 55 million. That's the new,

that's the new 30 million. And I think you're right. I mean, now the bar is set for someone like Jordan love. And the crazy thing is that we don't even really know if Jordan Love is the same guy that he was in the second half of last season over a bigger sample. I mean, I do think that, that he will be good and that he's got enough wide receivers around him. He's got a very good coach and that he's going to be a good quarterback in part based on his physical skill. his physical talent is very impressive. But what

if he's not? I mean, this is the thing about when we talk about the division all the time. And so there's this one scenario where the division is an absolute nightmare. Jordan Love is competing for MVP. The Lions are 14 and three, and here come the bears winning 10 games with a rookie. And then there's another world where I think the lions are pretty locked into being good, but another world where Jordan love doesn't do it the same way that he did it last year. And then they will have paid him $55 million. And they're looking around going, is this going to be good enough? Or are we going to get stuck in the middle? Like the Vikings did. I, again, I think that Jordan love is going to be good next year

and into the future, but they will have that same restriction. So now in order for green Bay to win, they either have to have all these young players hit like Detroit did the last couple of years with their draft picks. And that's how they built around Jared golf's contract, or he's got to be great and can't just be good. Or that team isn't going to be able to get over the top. That won't impact them right away, I don't think, if he signs a $55 million contract, but in years to come. And if they do it and he's not that great this year, then all of a sudden the pressure gets ramped up.

So things can change a lot in a short period of time. Joel asks, does Cam Bynum get signed? Is he worth signing? I think that he's worth signing. And when you look at the safety group, who the defensive coordinator is, he was really good last year, especially coming up to the line of scrimmage, making plays in the run game as an aggressive tackler. That was something that Ed Donatel basically never asked him to do. And then he did at an extremely high level last year. I think he can make enough plays on the ball, highly intelligent guy, good fit in the locker room. I mean, everything to me says that they should sign

him and safety prices are not that high, but you can let it play out for another year with someone like Cam Bynum. There's players that like Justin Jefferson, you don't want to go into the year with that player as a free agent and then risk losing them. And then there's a guy like Bynum Harrison Phillips, where you go, well, let's see how it plays out. And if we're really happy with his performance, then we'll sign him to another contract next year.

But they have Josh Metellus sign a very smart move by the Vikings last year, signing Josh Metellus before the season. And they might need to rework that contract. If he plays another thousand snaps, give him an extension, more money. They signed him before he even got out there and started playing every snap of every game and being a playmaker for them. But the future of that position, if Bynum stays, is pretty good with Bynum and Metellus. And then we'll see about how much longer Harrison Smith's going to play. But I think we're going to see a little more rotation there this year with Metellus going back to the usual safety spot more often, Byron Murphy playing in the slot more often,

so they don't have to ask Harrison Smith to play a thousand snaps again. But as far as buying him, he's been a great fit. He's been a hit of a draft pick, which they didn't have many of under Spielman for the defensive side. So, you know, I think that he's been one of those guys that's developed very nicely and you have to have on a team if you're going to win like those guys that you draft and develop, though they don't have any more draft picks. So they kept their first, but they don't have many more than that. But Bynum, I think might end up being a key piece to the future and likely not

crazy expensive either, which makes him a viable candidate, but they don't have to do that now. If they did that now, it might end up looking very good. Maybe they do try to save some money and stuff a big chunk of cash in his pocket now, but I can't see that. I think they're going to let it play out for another year. Evan says, do any of these quarterbacks signing massive contracts even think about their teams not having money to fill needs to contend for Super Bowls or is the goal just money these days yeah it's an interesting question because I saw some of the clips of Tom Brady talking at his ceremonies for retiring his number the other night and he made a crack about I apologize to my agent for taking those team-friendly deals he didn't get

as much as he was supposed to get. Now, there is something to be noted there that if you Google the story about Robert Kraft funneling money through his TB12 thing into Tom Brady's pockets, maybe you'll feel slightly differently about that. Hey, there was no penalty for that, by the way. That's worse than tampering, but there was no penalty for that by the way that's worse than tampering uh but there was no penalty for that brady still remains the only guy other than well you could say it for my homes there was a story about my homes wanting to structure his contract so they could keep chris jones they couldn't keep tyree kill and you know they were able to overcome that with super bowls because because Mahomes. But the way that he structured it, that what was it? Was it 10 years, 500 million? It was something crazy. It was like really long and it was 500 million on paper, but he gave them lots of opportunities to restructure. So that does happen. And he was

following along in a way with the same thing that Tom Brady did, making a flexible contract to be able to work around it. But I also think that when it comes to these quarterbacks, I mean, you make a fair point that like, hey, if you're making $55 million, where are the other parts supposed to fit here? You can't hide that. We talked about Justin Jefferson's structure or TJ Hawkinson's structure and how, yeah, you know, a couple of years in you can restructure and you can bring that cap hit down and so forth. You really, as we saw with Kirk Cousins, have a tough time hiding $55 million per year. So there is an argument to be made that maybe some of these quarterbacks should take more team-friendly deals. But at the same time, if you have a skill that is as rare as being a good quarterback, you want to get paid what your peers are getting paid, right? You want to look at other quarterbacks

who are valuable to their franchises and their franchise quarterbacks. And it all comes down to what Kirk Cousins said. It's not about the dollars. It's what the dollars represent. The dollars represent to Trevor Lawrence. You are our guy for the future. You are our franchise quarterback. There's nobody else. We're not drafting anybody. We're not trying to replace you. You're the man. And we'll deal with the fact that your contract is a little higher than it needs to be based on your performance. Just so you know that you're our guy. Is that the right way to do it?

Is it the most efficient way to do it? I don't know, but it seems to work that way with this position specifically where almost every other position is. And I guess it goes to the rarity of it, but every other position is and i i guess it goes to the rarity of it but every other position is like nick bose is at the top tj watts right below him and miles garrett guys that are almost as good as him but not quite and then down from there is the good players rashaun gary denille hunter they're a little bit below those guys, so they get a little less. And it works that way for every position. But there's also, I don't know, a dozen really great edge rushers or more elite edge rushers. Maybe there's 18 of them in the league that could get you 12 sacks every year.

And with quarterbacks, how many are there in the world? And how good are you without them? Because we saw that last year with the Vikings and that was Kirk Cousins argument. The world's going to need quarterbacks. How good are you without them? And that's for Trevor Lawrence. How good are you without me? If I'm Trevor. And I really do believe that Trevor Lawrence is a good quarterback. I do. I think that Trevor Lawrence needs some help. Last year, they dropped a good amount of passes. I probably could have had five, six, seven more touchdowns. He got banged up. If you remember, he was playing well, got injured. Things kind of came apart after that. I think it

was a national TV game where CJ Beathard had to come in. It was last year, right? So he's playing well. And I think that fully healthy with a good team with Doug Peterson, the Jaguars can be in the mix, but are they not kind of Vikings like from the last few years where is anybody putting them at the top of the heap? But what are they supposed to do? I mean, if they drafted Trevor Lawrence, number one, he's the chosen one. He's played well enough

to get them to the playoffs and win games over the last two seasons. You are rocking a hard place there. You move on from him and you draft a bad quarterback or can't replace him. Then you look like the biggest joke, especially if he goes somewhere else. Although we have seen teams like the Vikings with cousins and even Matthew Stafford deal in their timelines and move on from quarterbacks who are proven because they are expensive. And maybe that's Trevor Lawrence at some point. What about Bob says, ask JJ McCarthy, what AI speech writing app he's using to answer press questions. Do his, uh, too smooth at the podium. Yeah. I was thinking about this the other day with, uh, JJ McCarthy, that he has really thought about all of this for a very long time that there

isn't really a lot of hesitation or too much thinking when you ask him a question about his progress his development footwork pretty much anything football related that he has been at center stage for his really entire I can't even say grown-up life because he's not grown up yet but his life as someone who could legally drive a car. I mean, from that time, he was winning in Illinois, then went to IMG and won there. A big school, humongous school that plays on the road and flies to their games, IMG and plays the best of the best schools, and then goes to Michigan, where he's answering the questions after every game from

reporters and so forth. It's something that he's very comfortable in doing. But my, uh, I think observation about him from the other day, when we spoke with him is how he's honest with himself about where he is and what he needs to do. And delusion is not a good thing when you're trying to develop. They don't go well together. If a player comes in, it's always a red flag for me if a player comes in and says,

that's fine, I did this in college. No, you didn't. No, you didn't. That there's been, on the women's basketball side, maybe some people shocked by a certain player who's very popular struggling at the WNBA level because all college to pro, no matter what sport it is, it's way more

complicated. It's way more challenging. And JJ McCarthy understands that and has not been saying, oh, I got this guys. I'm good. He acknowledged some of my days have been better than others. And you can't correct things unless you admit them. Like you can't lower your pulse. If you don't do the blood pressure thing and see what your heart rate is and realize that you need to jog more or something, you just acknowledging the problem is the first way to fix it. So if he says, I've got to get way better with my footwork. So I'm going to come to the facility every day while nobody is here. And I'm going to throw it an empty net because I'm going to be ready when we get to training camp. And that is

a very, very mature approach for somebody that is not legally very old. And I saw somebody talking about today about how Trey Lance is younger than Bo Nix or something and nothing against Trey Lance. But once you're in the league, it doesn't really matter as much the whole age thing. Like everybody is an NFL player now. So he's an NFL player and his age doesn't matter. He is required to act with the amount of maturity that's required to be in the NFL as a quarterback. And you see that from him. So if he doesn't work out and he never maximizes his talent, it's not going to be because he didn't work hard enough. It's not going to be because he was immature or because he didn't

take the coaching seriously or whatever. He has been, everything is advertised, I think for them from the personality perspective. And it really showed in that press conference and, you know, it's five, seven minutes with him, but you just get a real mature vibe of this is a guy who saw himself being here and understood from day one that he was going to have to make a lot of progress to catch up with the other quarterbacks. And no complaints, no excuses. So I think he's got the right attitude and approach to going for this first training camp of his.

It seems like his main focus is entirely on just learning the offense, and that's what you can ask for right now. We'll see how it goes in training camp. But he's as impressive of a 21-year-old you're ever going to run into in your life. Jacob says, if Kevin O'Connell wins a Super Bowl in 2025, would you consider him? Oh, wins. I'm sorry. If Kevin O'Connell wins a Superbowl in 2025, would you consider him the greatest coach in Vikings history? Even if he's only been here for four years? No, I would not. Uh, I would think that he was probably immediately number two, uh, but you're going to have to do it for a longer period of time to match bud grant and of course i am very aware that bud grant

never got them over the hump but this franchise was nothing when bud grant arrived and he built it out of the dirt to be one of the would have been if they had won a super bowl or two one of the the best dynasties in nfl. If they had gotten over the hump twice, we would have talked about the dynasty of the purple people eaters and so forth. Or maybe if they hadn't traded Frank Darkington and just kept him and you know, instead of trading him and then bringing him back. But what Bud Grant did for the franchise,

just creating a wildly competitive team, a team capable of going to Super Bowls, building the foundation of the thing and doing it for so long over multiple decades, that requires a very high bar. Even winning a Super Bowl one time is not going to be enough. If you won the Super Bowl and then got fired two years later and on your resume is a Super Bowl and a couple okay seasons, you know, I mean, yeah, you're certainly at the top. I mean, you're over Mike Zimmer, who got only to an NFC championship. You're probably flirting with being over Denny Green at that point. But again, Denny coached for a long time and was very, very good

and had a lot of success and maybe just needed a field goal to go straight and so forth. It's a fun question, Jacob. It really is because this franchise is so much defined by they haven't won the Super Bowl. The person who gets them over the top, I'm trying to think of maybe an example of something like this, where a coach it's like if the Tampa Bay Bucks had a better history, would John Gruden be their best coach ever? If they had another coach who had built the entire foundation, but didn't win a Superbowl, Gruden comes in, wins a Superbowl, doesn't do anything else. I don't know that you can put him at the top,

but unfortunately that really doesn't hold up since, you know, Tampa Bay is bad and then win Superbowl. I mean, Bruce Arians, maybe another example in Tampa Bay gets, you know, wins the Superbowl, but if they had a robust coaching history, would you put them at number one? Because he popped in for a few years and won a Super Bowl? Probably not. With O'Connell, though, I believe with the way that he handles his players and his locker room and the culture of the organization in general, he's going to have a chance to coach for a long time, I think, with the Vikings. You never really know in this league, but the Wilfs want that.

And they want competitiveness, of course, but they also want their organization to be seen by the players and by the outside world as being sort of the class of the league. And O'Connell, I was thinking about this the other day as O'Connell was giving his press conference on how sometimes Mike Zimmer would make it seem like it was 1991 at the podium, as opposed to we're kind of representing ourselves a certain way. So yeah, I mean, I think he would be making a case for sure, along with the 13 win season,

but you got to win more, I think, over a long period of time than just having one pop-up season. Enigma1 says McCarthy will be a future senator in minnesota after bringing the franchise multiple super bowl championships uh well that's uh it's a high bar that you got there i mean uh alan page though what uh justice alan page so you know things like that do happen i suppose multiple super bowls maybe we could just start with him winning the job in training camp and then go from there uh drew says do you think jj mccarthy will become qb2 by the start of the season so this is a milkshake bet that i'm probably going to lose but i just end up taking them every time i'm presented with one so i have a milkshake bet on nick m Mullins to be QB two at the start of the season,

but I don't think I'm going to win that one. I think that JJ McCarthy will be QB two by the start of the season. You could potentially, if they don't feel completely comfortable with where he's at with the offense, see Nick Mullins get cut, signed to the practice squad. This is the Sean Mannion. It happened once he could be signed to the practice squad, then elevated for the first couple of games of the season until they felt confident in JJ McCarthy. But I feel like he will get there to the point where he's going to be the guy that they would want coming in if Sam Darnold got hurt, but he's got to earn the trust though. That's what, you know, when I asked Kevin O'Connell the other day about what he's seen the growth and what he needs

to see from JJ McCarthy, his answer was really, it's all about command of the offense. He just has to trust that he can control every part of it in and out of the huddle, understanding the footwork. And he talked a lot about trying to get that footwork down, working on it in his apartment and so forth. If he can't do that, then they have to play Nick Mullins because we know that Nick Mullins can. And does he give him a great chance to win with all the interceptions he throws? Maybe not, but he had them in two games versus

a team that went to the NFC championship. So they know that Mullins can come in and throw the ball in Justin Jefferson's direction and not get crushed out there. And gosh, I mean, he almost won the game against Cincinnati too. If not for maybe a miscue on a tush push or a poor decision on a tush push, but otherwise he would have won that game. They would far prefer JJ McCarthy as QB too, but he's got to earn that. Enigma one says, is Tyler Boyd still out there? I don't know. Did he sign somewhere? Did Tyler Boyd sign somewhere? I haven't looked. If he has not signed, then we do have to ask why he hasn't signed. Same thing with Hunter Renfro. Uh, and honestly, you look at the wide receivers that are out there.

I mean, I, you know, I don't know. I there's just not much that I see where I would be saying, Oh, go get written Byron Pringle or Richie James or whatever other free ages were out there. Sterling Shepard might've been a guy that I would have been interested in because when he's healthy, he's pretty good. Not healthy that often. Aside from that, I'm okay with them just letting it roll. Just Hey, Jalen Naylor, undrafted free agents, roll the ball out, fight for it. So far in minicamp, no one has popped. They usually do at this time of year, if there's going to be something there, but I'm okay with letting him find out rather than signing a 30

year old Byron Pringle or Tyler Boyd, who was just miserable last year, had a really tough time, but you guys have to let me know if he signed somewhere. I didn't really consider him too much for the Vikings. I think he did. Did he sign with the Titans? Maybe somebody tell me that he signed with the Titans. Yeah. The tie. Okay. Evan says he signed with the tights. Yeah. Um, so he's, so he's not still out there, but even if he was, I would be very meh, very meh on that. Uh, what about Bob says, uh, talking about kickers, do you remember barefooted kickers? Of course I do. Yeah. Vikings had one, I think.

What the heck was that? That's a great question. What was his name? Somebody got the barefooted kicker for the Vikings name. I do remember barefoot kickers, and I don't remember why they did that. Was it a better feel for the football or something? It must hurt like crazy. I know that the ball was not as hard as it is now that you can pump it up more. It's kind of like kicking a beach ball. Uh, every once in a while, the ball will bounce over toward us or something. And you see the kicking balls, you know, them right away

because they're a little more bulbous than the footballs that the quarterbacks are using and deflating in the case of tom brady but i don't know what the explanation was for barefoot kickers i wish it would come back for somebody to do that but the vikings had one back in the day weird stuff how could you ever get enough power on it to kick 50, 55? I guess back in the day, they didn't do that very often. So it was a lot of chip shots. And maybe you just like the sting of the ball on your foot. I have no idea.

I'm going to hit a golf ball with my face. Like, it doesn't even make any sense. Anyway, Juan says, anything on Louis seen or is he likely going to be cut this is another one that when I fill out the 53 man roster I have a tough time finding a spot for him there will be injuries of course that put people on injured reserve and maybe that opens up something but they like the heck out of Theo Jackson so then you look at that room and you go, all right, Harrison Smith, Josh Metellus, Kim Bynum, Theo Jackson. There's a lot of bodies there in that room.

Are they really going to need Louis scene? They could give him one more year. It's not very advantageous to the salary cap. It's a salary cap hit for them. And the size of the practice squad has changed the game a little bit for teams where you can stuff guys on the practice squad, lots of them. And so you don't worry as much about them being poached. I think as maybe you did before, you don't see that very often anyway, that undrafted free agent or something gets cut

and someone else picks them up. But there are a couple of positions where if somebody like Levi Drake Rodriguez, for example, has a good training camp and you want to keep him on the 53-man roster because maybe you are afraid that someone would pick up a late round draft pick, Louis Seaton could be the guy on the chopping block. He has not been playing with the starters. There is no sign of anything being different at all when it comes to that. So I just, you know, I,

I think that Louis scene is very much needing a big training camp to prove to Brian Flores that he could trust him on the field, or there is a decent chance that he ends up getting cut. Bench 295 says, I enjoyed your comparison of the reaction to Will Reichard and Delvin Cook's arrival. Yeah, I mean, Will Reichard had a heck of a practice the other day, and I think he's got a ton of talent. Maybe it'll turn out that it was the right decision. Kickers are very hard to predict, though, even when they've been in the league for five years, I remember looking at this when the Vikings cut Daniel Carlson, I went back and looked for similar poor performances,

like the one that Carlson had. And I found a bunch of great veteran kickers who we knew as the guys who were the best in the league that one weekend had a really tough time. And what they did with Daniel Carlson though, in my opinion, was about the pressure to win in 2018 more than it was about Daniel Carlson. And he has since proven to be one of the best kickers in the league, but Reichardt is drafted for a reason. He scored all those points at Alabama for a reason, and he's got a chance to be an improvement at the kicking position from Greg Joseph. He'd still probably not draft a kicker

to be the most efficient ever, but we are talking about a sixth round draft pick here. So you're looking at what, like development offensive linemen or something. Instead, maybe he turns out to be the guy. Uh, and with Delvin Cook's arrival, I related that to Dallas Turner being someone who you knew kind of right away that, uh, Dallas Turner or that I'm sorry, Delvin Cook was going to be something because of just the way that he moved out there. He looked very different and the other

players went, Whoa, okay. This guy looks like he's got some jolt that's just on a different level than the other running backs. That's how it's felt with Dallas Turner. And the fact that he's been playing with the ones says a lot from what Brian Flores thinks of where he should be. I shot you 99 says there was another outrageous report on Twitter that JJ McCarthy was going to hold out of his contract. And this is what qualifies as a report. An anonymous account that has had a couple of contracts correct, including Trevor Lawrence, is the one that is reporting this. That's a hard one to deal with because this account on Twitter and like, well, what are we talking about here? Whatever person this is seems to have some knowledge of what's going on contract wise

around the NFL and has beaten some of the insiders to that. They've also had information that was not correct a handful of times, but the way that I see that issue with JJ McCarthy and the signing bonus is that it will get worked out. There have been other quarterbacks that have gotten their full signing bonus up front rather than having it spread out. Caleb Williams did. Trevor Lawrence did.

A few others have had that. And the Vikings, if they really want to press on that point, if McCarthy's representation really wants to push on that point, the McCarthy's representation really wants to push on that point, the Vikings will probably just give him the signing bonus up front and make it go away. So he's there on a training camp when there's things coming out about people holding out and it's June 10th or whatever the day was that that was tweeted. You kind of go, all right, well, we've got a lot of time to sort this out. Okay.

We've got plenty of time to work it out. There's no reason to freak out or worry that JJ McCarthy's not going to practice. There's been two instances of rookies who did miss some time, Joey Bosa in 2016. So that's eight years ago. He wanted the signing bonus up front, I believe, and he ended up holding out until late August. And the other one was Roquan Smith. I don't believe that that lasted very long.

My expectation is that they get it dealt with and he's ready to go day one of training camp. I'd be surprised if we're talking about anything contract-wise, not to disparage the random Twitter account that said that. But it would make my life easier if we knew who these people were sometimes that were tweeting some of these things out or taking snippets or portions of stories and framing them a certain way when there's no context. That does make life more difficult for fans to figure out what's real and what's not. But that's why you're here.

So I can sort out, hold on, wait for it. Is this a thing? Oh, that's very appropriate for this. Is this a thing? I'll go with not yet with JJ McCarthy. Is it a thing? Not yet. Could it be a thing?

I suppose. It's not that it's never happened before. It could be, but it's not as of right now. That's what I'll go with for is it a thing? What about Bob says, is Jaron Hall even a practice squad guy or just a camp arm at this point? Probably practice squad. You'd rather have four quarterbacks. I mean, they played four quarterbacks last year. I don't see them wanting to go out into the trade market again if they end up with multiple quarterback injuries and bringing in someone like Josh Dobbs like they had to last year. Jaron Hall knows the system. He's been here. He's somebody that they like from a character

perspective and they really wanted to develop and they didn't want to play him last year. But yeah, I mean, camp arm slash practice squad. If Jaron Hall's playing something went extremely wrong, welcome to the life of drafting quarterbacks in the fifth round when it's not Brady or Brock Purdy or something like that. So, you know, that's, that's, that's a situation where he was likely never based on his talent, going to have a chance to be much more than a backup. But the idea is if he ends up being McCarthy's backup for next year, if they're happy with how he develops throughout this year and what they see in camp, then you can have a very cheap backup and then your quarterback room is making five mil while other quarterback rooms are making 50 mil and that would be pretty good that would be pretty

good so uh matt says do you think mullins could be traded for a late round pick or just roll with jj as the backup might need space for all the tight ends. I'd prefer Nick Mullins be here. I know that nobody is buying his Jersey, but with someone with that much experience and the other quarterbacks do not have the experience in the system. He is someone who you can play and who can give you a chance at least to win a game. He's done that before, but it's more about having him there as a resource for the other guys, and as someone that you can practice against and can learn the other team's offense

and run things throughout the week for this team. Is that worth a seventh-round pick swap? After he played last year, what could you possibly get for Nick Mullins in the trade market? I just don't really care about swapping seventh round picks or something. I would prefer them just to have the veteran quarterback. And if he needs to play, then he needs to play. Anthony says, if the top 21 quarterbacks contracts extensions were all actually in effect this year, the annual value would be $830 million.

That sounds like some math you did, but the Vikings are not part of that now these days. Just Kirk Cousins is in Atlanta and now Trevor Lawrence as well. But that's a lot. That's a lot, man. That's a lot man that's a lot these quarterbacks are getting paid a ton but they deserve it in the fact that they're very very hard to replace it's just that it restricts what you can do uh what about bob says uh matthew justin jefferson is on receiver on netflix this year what do you really uh or what do you think of a Netflix show next year called right

card where it's just Vikings players and it's a it's four dudes. Yeah. Right. That would be the real drama, right? The four, four right guards. Now I have, I created another ticker that says guard guy. So I'm surprised we took this long to get to the guards, but now what about Bob? You are guard guy for asking that question. Uh, so that needs to scroll across the guards. But now what about Bob? You are guard guy for asking that question. So that needs to scroll across the bottom for a second. I'm interested in seeing what they do with this one. But what often happens with these specials and look, it's Justin Jefferson.

He went through a lot. It's behind the scenes. It's going to be cool. But oftentimes the first version comes out and it has a lot of stuff that takes you aback or surprises you or gives you an inside look. And I mean, Marcus Mariota wasn't good and Kirk was so injured, but they had the crazy year, uh, you know, last year or 2022, they had the crazy year. And so you got to see Kirk going through all that and a new coach and it's all fresh. Is it going to be as fresh with Justin Jefferson?

I'm sure that we're going to learn some things that we didn't know about his 2023 season where he was banged up and so forth. And you'll probably see how much effort he was going to, to come back and all that sort of stuff. It just won't have the same pop. And they also picked all great players. I wish they had picked some not great players. I wish they had picked a wide receiver three, like George Kittle. That's not a wide receiver.

That is a tight end. So you're calling it receiver, but including a tight end, I'm a little baffled by that. And I'm interested in all of it. I'll watch all of it. Just Jefferson and Devontae Adams, kind of the same-ish type of guy. I would have liked to have seen someone battling to get on the field or playing a small role that they had to fight their way to get there. Someone with an interesting backstory or interesting life. I would have done it maybe a little bit different in that way. So I don't know. We'll see how it turns out and maybe it'll be the same compelling show that it was with quarterback.

NFL films always does a great job with that stuff. Joshua asks, give us example of how we'll recognize Jordan Addison's improvement once the games begin might be a little bit hard on television you know when we talk about how he's going to be better off the line of scrimmage might be a difficult thing to see i mean just he's at the even at the stadium myself looking down from the press box can i truly tell you if jordan addison's release off the line of scrimmage is better than last year that's pretty hard to do on film i might be able to pick up on some new stuff that he's doing but even then i don't know if i have a sharp enough eye to really tell you but he could uh and i believe him when

he talks about focusing on that part of his game and trying to get better. And once again, goes back to recognizing that he wasn't perfect last season, even though he had a good year and finding one part of his game that he really wanted to develop. And that was those releases where you might be able to see it is improving a little bit on the strength and fighting through contact. There were a few times that last year that the cornerback was just stronger than him. And that was obvious. And that goes to the development of a player from year one to year two. He's never going to be a monster, but you come off of the combine and all that stuff. And he had some injuries in the off season. He was pretty slight when he got

here and he's got a better chance to fight through that contact. Contested catches could improve this year. It might just be from a perspective of watching. He's open slightly more often, makes slightly more plays and improves just their passing game overall but it's going to be subtle i don't think it's going to be where you go whoa jordan addison is a totally different guy because he played well last year and if there's even a little bit better version of that then he could be a good player uh rich carlos yes good call was the barefoot kicker would love to have him on the show if anyone knows him better version of that, then he could be a good player. Rich Carlos. Yes. Good call. Was the barefoot kicker. Would love to have him on the show. If anyone knows him, is he still around?

If anyone knows Rich Carlos, let me know. Cause I want to ask why the heck he kicked barefooted. It doesn't make any sense. Kyle says hot take on either a trade free agent or a guy to step up to be wide receiver three for the 2024 season has no links to us, but wouldn't mind taking a flyer on Michael Thomas, despite the injury and drama. Well, you did name the two reasons why I would not be that interested is the injury and the drama. It seemed like it was a constant issue, especially with him occasionally seeming like he was calling out Derek Carr. You really don't want that with Sam Darnold or JJ McCarthy. And not only that, when is the last time Michael Thomas played an entire season too broken

for me? I'm not even sure if he wants to play anymore. Very good wide receiver when he was at his best, but not a guy that I need coming in because, so we talked about Aaron Jones and how he's got this celebrity star element to him. And he's not personality wise like Michael Thomas, but if you come into a locker room with that, with like, I'm a superstar, I belong up at the top of the heap, but you don't perform like that. It's very uncomfortable in a locker room. And sometimes there are former star players that are willing under the right circumstances

to take more of a backseat. Is Michael Thomas that type of guy? Is he going to say, Hey, I'm totally cool with taking a backseat to Jefferson Addison and so forth I mean I don't know about that I don't know if he's that type of guy Matt says do you think the Vikings would be a prime candidate to be on hard knocks next offseason seems like it could have some really interesting storylines with JJ taking over and the team on the rise possibly they seem to have been able to dodge that. Here's why I think that they will not get pegged for that is that they've done the quarterback thing and they've done the receiver thing. They've done those NFL films stuff. And I just think that them asking the Vikings to go on hard knocks after also having them on quarterback and wide receiver, the shows on Netflix, that

that's going to be too much. And the Vikings would have a good argument to say, Hey, what are we on this? These shows every single year, like those, those strain an organization a bit at times. I mean, because there's a lot that they need to get the information and film and all this stuff that takes a lot of manpower to set all that up do they really want to go through it again i mean i know they don't have a choice but they might have a good case to not have to do that uh what about bob says uh what number of sacks do you think dallas turner has this year I'm saying over under seven and a half. It's a good over under. I think that's a very good under. I would just from a gambling perspective, I would go with under because it's hard to get a lot of sacks in the NFL. Rookies don't always jump into the league and just sack the heck out of everybody. But he's going to get a lot of

playing time. I think how much is it going to be? It's going to be 500 snaps. There weren't too many rookies last year who even went over 600 snaps. Is it going to be in a rotational role? Is it going to be a lot of third down type of stuff, which may help him have a chance to get that many sacks? I think that you're over under is right about where I would pick it. I would say seven sacks is where I would put it right away. And if it's more than that, then you might have a superstar on your hands. So, all right. Uh, good stuff tonight, guys. And, uh, so keep your eyes out for internet controversies and, uh, keep your eyes peeled for that stuff. And we'll carry on doing shows throughout probably maybe Sunday night will

be the next one. I think I'm going to play some golf tomorrow and go to the Lynx game and do that. So I'll have myself a little bit of a day there now that school is out for the summer. But that doesn't mean that the content ends. I'll continue to do lots of shows, lots of live chats, lots of guests on the podcast as well. So keep your eyes out. Also going to be writing still throughout the off season, some fun stuff planned over there at purpleinsider.com. Go sign up for the newsletter there.

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