Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings reportedly down to 5 finalists for GM job (Part 1)

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

Matthew Coller talks about reports of the five finalists for the Minnesota Vikings general manager job, including interim GM Rob Brzezinski. Who else on the list stands out? Plus Matthew ranks the best coaches that Kevin O'Connell will have to face on this year's schedule. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider presented by Fandul. Matthew Collar here. And tonight, we are going to take a look at the five finalists for the Minnesota Vikings general manager position. We made it to the finalist level or whatever when they will name a GM. Not quite sure because we've got Memorial Day coming up and I don't know exactly the timing. but the Wilfs will be flying folks in and in some cases not having them travel very far to do the in-person interviews before they decide to make a decision on who will be the next GM of the Minnesota Vikings. So we're going to run down the list, talk about where is the edge?

That's been the thing I've kept going back to for the candidates, for the ideas. Where is the advantage to hiring each one of these final fives? go through them and then questions, comments, thoughts, feelings on anything. If you have one of these candidates that you like as your best idea, but really there's one question to be asked. So let's get into it. And that question is, after seeing the way that Rob Brzezinski managed the offseason, would you like him to be the general manager of the Minnesota Vikings?

Because in this list reported by Jonathan Jones of CBS includes the Vikings interim general manager Rob Brzezinski and the other four are Broncos assistant general manager Reed Burkhart, Bill's assistant general manager Terrence Gray, Rams AGM, John McKay, and Seahawks AGM Nolan Teasley. So let's go one on one, but that's where I'd love you guys to start in the comments section is, do you have a different favorite? I know it's really hard to look at general manager candidates and be like, I like that guy. It's not like you can really watch the film.

it's not really like you can break down the data and I don't pretend to know a lot about what these people would do if they became the GM. But we can pick apart certain elements of their backgrounds and of what their franchises have done and what they might be bringing over to Minnesota. So let's begin with the key here. Now that it is out there from Jonathan Jones that Rob Brzezinski is a finalist for the general manager position. From my seat, I would say that the answer is yes.

For would you support Rob Brzezinski carrying over as the general manager? And the main reason for me is that he was able to do something I think is very, very difficult in an interim general manager position, which is to put on the restrictor plates, put on the guardrails and not let things get out of control. and maintain a vision for both the now and the later for the Minnesota Vikings franchise because they went into this offseason with a ton of uncertainty. It wasn't just, oh, okay, well, you've got a, you know, dust over here and you've got to tidy over there.

It was like, no, there could be a lot to happen here. You have to make a decision at the quarterback position, which kind of fell into their lap a little bit with Kyler Murray. I don't know if you give the interim GM the credit for that. that as much as maybe the head coach getting Kyler Murray here, but they sign them to the $1.3 million deal. That's a great start overall for the franchise, but you win in with uncertainty there. And then with the free agency, the Vikings have been really, really leaning heavily on free agency for quite some time now. You go back to 2023 when they cleared out a lot of the roster and the last

two off seasons have been spend, spend, spend. And a lot of those moves have worked out. I mean, Van Ginkle, Grenard, Cashman, Isaiah Rogers, I would say overall, Aaron Jones worked out pretty well, even making the trade for Jordan Mason. Like, they did a good job at building through free agency. But then in 2025, we really saw the limitations of leaning on free agency and making that almost exclusively where you were getting a lot of your talent. So, Brzynski did not do that. Instead, he left a lot of free agency.

agency just roll on by, which was a pretty big surprise to me and probably you. And, you know, we did like a three-hour live stream on James Pierre. So, I mean, I certainly thought that the Vikings were going to be much bigger players in free agency. And it was a little hard to see the vision. I, you know, I remember seeing people on Twitter and so forth saying, well, you know, I mean, is Rob asleep at the wheel? Somebody lock them in a closet, you know, stuff like that.

during the first couple days of free agency. But then you ultimately saw it come together, which was keeping the players that they had by redoing some contracts, letting go a couple of guys that were vastly overpaid and did not perform at the level that they expected. And then waiting it out. And when Rob said at the owner's meetings that they were keeping their powder dry and they were, hey, we're not going to play until September.

So we've got plenty of time to improve the roster, not jumping at this free agent, jumping at that free agent, getting into bidding wars and instead waiting to see who falls through the cracks. And now we look around, there's still free agents that after June 1st, the Vikings could sign and make their roster better. But they end up with Joanne Jennings, which if they had done that on the first day of free agency, we would have said, wow, that's a really impressive job by Rob Brzezinski. And then I think people will feel very differently about the draft.

for me, I think that when you're in an interim type of situation and your background is much more on the salary cap side of things that leaning heavily on the coaching staff to go through your draft and finding best fits for those guys and getting immediate buy-in from the scouting staff and the college side and then the coaches and bringing it together and making it work for the draft, all of that, I think. think checks a lot of boxes and is a way you can do it. I wouldn't always advise just doing exactly what the coaches say, but when you combine those things and you get buy-in from the coaches on those players, I think there's a much better chance that they'll stick with them, which has been a bit of an issue for the draft picks in the recent past, which is that it felt like with a lot of the young players that they brought in, if they weren't great right away, it was like, you're out the door. And in this case, case where the coaches are very invested, they're going to put in the effort.

And also, we can see clear paths for pretty much each player in the draft. You can look at any players, pick one out of a hat and say, well, this is where he's going to go if it works out, if they feel like he can get on the field, whether that's the first round pick or even the sixth round pick, DeMond Claiborne, we can all see where that might go. So overall, I think that that strategy was effective for this draft, even if, hey, I might might have picked that guy or you might have picked that guy. But that's not really the way to evaluate how a general manager did in the wake of a draft because we don't know who's going to be right and wrong.

But doing it in a way that the coaches bought into, I think was important for Rob Brasinski. So when we talk about where is the edge, where is the advantage, I would say it's in two places. You have a head coach and a defensive coordinator who are good at their jobs. and a defensive coordinator who is downright amazing when it comes to player evaluation, right? And development maybe we're still asking that question in some spots, but in terms of identifying talent, identifying fit, when you could go through the roster since 2023, Brian Flores has done a fantastic job there. And with Kevin O'Connell, I think that he knows what he wants for his offense as well.

So the edge would be that you are going out and finding the best possible fits and bringing everyone together to do that in the draft. And the other part is that when you have someone who has managed the salary cap for this long and who understands assets and the spreadsheet element that is the NFL, I mean, that's the reality, right? The NFL is a spreadsheet in a lot of ways. It's how much cap space do you have? How much draft capital do you have?

And that is your money. That's the economics of the NFL. And I think that Rob is at the top of the game when it comes to understanding that and managed it very well throughout this year, including the trade for Jonathan Grenard. I was talking to somebody the other day about that and just they felt like the Vikings got good return when you consider that Philadelphia immediately gave him $50 million, you know, guaranteed that would probably not have been a good investment for the Vikings. But in years past, under late stage Rick and Kwasia dao Mensa, they are absolutely no chance. that they are trading him away for the future and for flexibility right now in free agency once they get past June 1st and the Jonathan Allen money hits and so forth. So I think Rob overall did a great job of proving himself in part by not trying too hard to prove

himself. And that shows his experience, his respect around the league. There's a lot of things that I think you can say in favor of Rob Brzezinski to be at the top of the Minnesota Vikings organization. And he certainly knows the Wilf's. And he certainly knows inside and out how every single element of the Vikings building operates. So all those things, the experience, the performance that we saw, the relationship with the coaching staff that he's built over the years and the connection with the Wilf's that you know,

even if there is and, well, we're going to have equal power and so forth, I think you know the Wilf's buy into him is all in. So I like that idea of having someone who has final say that the ownership backs and believes in and trusts at the very top. So that's the case for Rob Brzezinski. But if you disagree, you know, let me know in the comments. If you like that idea, I still will continue to bang the drum for Rob is president and the next guy underneath him.

But, you know, I don't know if there's any indication that that's going to happen from any of the reporting that is out there. So let's go through the other candidates. Reid Burkhart, the assistant general manager from the Denver Broncos, a former Minnesota Viking scout who has worked his way up and been somebody, like it's funny because you hear about like, well, you know, he's a scouting genius or he's a wonderkind or something. And I wouldn't put it that way. And those always send up red flags, right, if that's the case.

But Reed was a former football player. He is one of us from Minnesota. and he did it, I would say, the right way, which is you come into the league at the bottom and you learn and you work your way up and you impress people. And it was Spielman era where he was there working through building a contender year after year in Minnesota with Spielman. But then goes to the Denver Broncos. And I know it's a group effort.

You can't blame one person or praise one person for what happened here or there. But when you look at the Vikings defenses, well, he was here. And then he goes to Denver. They, you know, rebuild their defense to be absolutely nasty by the time they get Bo Nix. He has been with competent franchises. George Payton is highly respected in the NFL. He's done a phenomenal job working with a very strong coach in Sean Payton.

And there was a strong coach here. And Mike Zimmer when Reid Burkhart was a Minnesota Viking. The downside to that is that there's not a lot of experience there as an AGM. He was just named an assistant G. last year. So he has not had the same amount of experience as someone like Rob Brzynski or some of the other candidates. That would be on the downside.

Familiarity with the Wilf's familiarity with how the Vikings organization operates. And having been up close for a team that built themselves to be a serious behemoth in Denver through a lot of really good player evaluation, player decisions, that great defense that they have. They've really good offensive line that they've built. They did hit on their quarterback. How good he's going to be long term. I don't know, but Bo Nix is pretty darn good right now in order to get the Broncos to

where they were. So Reed Burkart is somebody who has taken the next step, the next step, the next step. And when he was here, I remember his name coming up a lot as somebody that people had a sense for some day could get to this point. And in the final five, pretty good. but, you know, there is a bit of a trend here with our next candidate, which is Terrence Gray, who is the Buffalo Bills assistant general manager. And that trend is that he also worked for the Vikings.

And this has become clear now that all of these guys, except for one, have connections to either Kevin O'Connell or the Minnesota Vikings organization. And I think that that tells you, and this is not something I've been told, but you could sort of common sense it, that they want someone who understands how the wheels turn inside of TCO Performance Center, how the communication works with the Wilfs, what the demands are from the ownership level to the general manager level, and how that is supposed to work. And sort of what it means to be, I know this might sound a little corny,

but like what it means to be a Viking, right? Like they want someone who gets it. And these guys, these last two candidates, read Burkhart and T. Terrence Gray would fully understand that. Terrence Gray left the Vikings for Buffalo in 2017. So he was a big part of the 2012, you know, and you have Harrison Smith, and then 13, and you get Xavier Rhodes and then for like seeing that kind of build. And going to Buffalo, you could easily say, and you'd be well within your rights to say,

well, don't they just have Josh Allen, but I think that that would be a little unfair to Brandon Bean. And I've kind of made fun of Brandon Bean a couple of times. about the whole wide receiver thing because it was friends of mine that he, you know, went after on their radio show about, you know, not drafting this guy or drafting that guy and he had this big crazy rant stuff. But when you look at the defensive side of the Buffalo Bills, what they've done through even Josh Allen's contract, it's been impressive. They have overall drafted pretty well.

And they've filled a lot of spots on that side of the ball when things got tight. and things got more challenging, despite, you know, the price tag for Josh Allen. So that might be something that he has to do here with Kyler Murray, depending on the price tag, depending on the performance. It's a little bit down the road. But you have to consider that this is a someone who has come from a world where they were dealing with constraints and had to build a lot through the NFL draft.

And so Terrence Gray, that's his universe. and if you're looking for, hey, we want someone who really is going to put all their focus into the draft, both Reed and Terrence would be two guys in that category. Now, the next one is another inexperienced in comparison guy. So Terrence Gray is someone who's more experienced. I mean, he's been around for quite a long time. He cut his teeth in the early 2000s with the Kansas City Chiefs. So you're talking about more of someone who has seen multiple different organizations,

worked his way through multiple different organizations, had a lot of success along the way when he was in NFL front offices, and that's a little bit different from some of the other candidates, including our next one, which is John McKay. Folks, if you find yourself hunting search engines for different hairstyles that might cover up your receding hairline, or if you're studying every actor and athlete you see of a certain age to see how they're handling their hair loss,

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I think he's in his second year as the AGM, which again is not all that much, working under less need. But this would be a familiarity with Kevin O'Connell because McKay was there with the Rams and they both get it. And another, I can't avoid some of the cliche stuff here, but like the Rams way, the Patriots ruin that for everyone. and they, uh, with how corny that was. But the, the Rams have a way of doing things that has been very successful.

And it starts with their head coach, but their general manager has managed really brilliantly, uh, both a build and then an all in type of scenario. But then I think a lot of us, including myself, thought, well, that team is in big trouble after they win the Super Bowl. It's just all going to collapse. And for a year it did. But then after that, right back up. because they were able to be very good in the player evaluation and very good in the free agent

decisions. And of course, the coaching and schematics has been excellent with the Rams. But when I think of the Rams, I think of sort of the modern type of franchise, like that they are at the front of the line with just about anything, whether it's, hey, they're going to ying when somebody else yangs or whatever type of phrase you want to use there. they're going to have the most tech, they're going to have, you know, whatever they can do in their front office to have the most possible information to work with. And even though John McKay is not as experienced, it feels like an attitude that needs to come to the Vikings because there may need to be a little bit of refreshing. Even if you don't come in and just start firing people like crazy and get rid of everybody and bring in the whole new front office, even if you don't do that, there's a lot of folks that have been.

been in their positions for quite some time. And Quasi Adafelmento was supposed to be the person who kind of did this, brought a fresh face to it, but it didn't seem to fully have the backing of the coaches, which if there's a connection there with McKay and O'Connell, I think that would help a lot. And it didn't seem like it was really executed what they had tried to do in terms of trying to modernize the franchise. It felt like Rick Spielman was running it the whole time. And our last candidate, so they were.

would be going the edge there is that you bring all the stuff from the ramps. And the downside is that there's not a lot of experience there. And our last guy, a little bit in the middle in terms of experience, began in 2013 as a scouting intern and has worked his way up and up and up the ladder in Seattle and has worked under one of the premier GMs in the NFL and somebody who accomplished something that just doesn't happen much in the National Football League, which is winning a Super Bowl with two very different teams. In fact, completely different teams.

That was John Schneider of the Seahawks, built the Legion of Boom, built the team that just won with Sam Darnold. You do not see that. And in both instances, built over a number of years through the draft, through smart free agent decisions, through a big trade or two, Leonard Williams is the big one, and through a bold move to move on. from Gino Smith and to bring in Sam Darnold to work with

his coaching staff, which is probably a better fit. So training under John Schneider for this time, I think Nolan Tisley probably really, really well understands the art of building a complete team. And this is something that I thought about quite a bit. And I wrote about yesterday at purple insider dot football,

which is that the NFC is an arms race. And I get to your comments and questions in just a minute. But, you know, the NFC has really, really become an arms race. I went through this last night. And I believe out of the 16 quarterbacks in the NFC last year, 11 of them at some point had been a top 10 quarterback by PFF in the last three years. So what is that? 80% or 75% of almost 75% math people would be better. 75 would be 12. So almost 7%. So almost 7%. 75% of the NFC has had a quarterback that ranked in the top 10 by PFF in the last three years. So what you're going up against is a lot of competent quarterback play.

And it's up to you as a franchise to build everything else. And I know that requires Kyler Murray to be good. It would require or JJ McCarthy to click or you to hit on a draft pick or whatever. But when most of the NFC has imperfect but. also very good quarterbacks, it's going to come down to who builds the best roster and then who hits at the right time. Like Seattle had everybody stay healthy. The matchups they had in the playoffs were ideal.

They got home field advantage in part because of a ridiculous two point conversion that no one continued to play and one guy walks over and picks up the football and then all the sudden you end up in the Super Bowl because of it. So things have to go right. but the teams that have thrived have not had Tom Brady or Peyton Manning or Joe Montana. It's been Jalen Hertz. It's been Jimmy Garoppolo. It's been Brock Purdy.

It's been Sam Darnold. Now, all of those quarterbacks are very good. But none of them are all-time greats. Like, I don't know that Jalen Hertz is going to go into the Hall of Fame. Like, it seems like kind of a stretch to suggest that at this point. Or Brock Purdy or Sam Darnold. None of those guys are, wow, that's Mahomes. That's Josh Allen.

That's Lamar Jackson. But what did they do when they won or reached the Super Bowl was you could go through the entire roster and say, this is where their superstars drive their success. This is where their depth has been really good. And you can point to good evaluation, quality decision making. And of course, fit with their coaches along the way. So Nolan Teasley, I think, stands out. because of that on this list of potential general managers.

So there is the rundown of the Vikings finalists. I don't know when they will be naming a general manager, but you've got a Memorial Day weekend, maybe a couple of days to fly them in, couple of days to deliberate in the front office, and then make a decision, who do you want as the Minnesota Vikings GM? So that is my question for you folks today,

which is, do you have a person? preference here. And I know you're working with not a lot of information, just backgrounds, but which one of those teams and their approaches, right? The Broncos, Bills, Rams, Seahawks, would you prefer to bring to Minnesota? So let's get into your thoughts here on who will be the next general manager of the Minnesota Vikings. So let's start with Ryan says Rob has to be the favorite if he's in the final five candidates.

Well, I tend to agree that what it tells us is the Wulfs were absolutely impressed with Rob Brzynski and the way that he managed his way through a situation that was not necessarily easy. I mean, I don't think he was prepared for it. Now, not with his background. I just mean for it to happen because it seemed like it took a lot of people in the Vikings front office by surprise, the timing. And there were people around the league that were totally sure.

shocked by the timing. So Rob Brzynsinski's going along his business and Kwayce Adolph-Fel-Mentza is down at the Senior Bowl and then all of a sudden, Rob, you're the general manager. Now you have to work out an entire plan, entire off-season, figure it out on the fly with your coaching staff, get buy-in from the front office on the way that you're managing your way through the NFL draft and free agency and was able to say, and I don't know what those conversations went like, but no. Like we're not going to spend on this.

We're not going to restructure that type of contract. And I have to imagine that the Jonathan Grenard decision was very, very difficult. And there was probably a lot of tough conversations there because if you're a coaching staff, if you're a Brian Flores, I mean, that's been one of your main guys. But it's not a good economics decision to keep him so they decide to move on. So, I mean, I think it was an impressive job overall. see that Rache disagrees strongly, continue to steadfastly oppose Rob getting the job, not just regular opposed, but the steadfast kind, which is why I feel confident he'll get it.

Yeah, I'm not sure that I can understand your perspective fully on that, because if Rob Brasinski was with another team and had the background that he has working for a top-notch franchise and a franchise that had won a lot, maybe not a Super Bowl, but won a lot and was really good at managing its cap and was really good at asset management, which he was over this summer. I think you'd be saying, yeah,

I mean, that's the type of general manager that we're looking for. So I'm a little surprised that you're saying that you're completely and steadfastly against somebody who, I think it's very hard to argue. And you can continue to jump in the comments and tell me exactly what. why, but I think it's hard to argue that they had a bad off season.

I mean, I guess for my purposes, it would have been really fun if they signed like eight free agents and restructured every contract. But did that work the last time? See, what I thought was he might just end up doing all the stuff that we would have expected Rick to do because he worked with Rick forever. But I don't think he handled it like that. I think he handled it like a guy who knows that he can keep working here if he wants to. not like a guy who was trying to panic, win the most for 2026, show the wills that he could make all the right moves and make crazy trades and crazy moves in the draft.

Instead, it was handled like pulling out your hybrid and staying on the fairway, which is, I think, the right way to manage this offseason, even if it wasn't as exciting. And then to wait until the end of free agency, till you don't have to give up those comp picks and then sign a good wide receiver. and they could still get a Kyle Van Noy, a Leonard Floyd. I saw Van Noy talking about how he's got teams that have contacted him and so forth, that there's still good players out there to fill out the depth of your team.

And so he left the door open for doing that by creating a lot of cap space. So I could see where you would say, now, I think that if the best argument against Rob Brasinski would be a Nolan Teasley or a John McKay or even Reed Burkart who was here but has been in Denver, they are bringing the philosophies of teams that have built really, really good rosters elsewhere. And you could make the case that what the Vikings franchise need is a refresh and new ideas. It doesn't need sort of the same old way of going about it.

I do think that Rob's way was different because it wasn't panicky and it was kind of more methodical and it was leaned and tilted toward cap space in the future, draft capital in the future, which I think is good. I think is good and I think it's different. I actually thought Quasi was going to do that and he never did. But you could be saying, look, Seattle not only just won the Super Bowl, we're not just plucking from the Super Bowl team because that's what you do. They built a franchise that could sustain its success like it's been good year after year.

They never have to tank. They did get a top draft pick who was pretty darn good from the, I think that came from the Russell Wilson trade and they did have a, you know, a reset year where they got another top 10 draft pick, but they're not a team that tanks or goes to the bottom, but they've been very good at drafting, very good at evaluation, very good at making the right free agent moves or trades at the right time, and how have they done it? Like, bringing in the ideas from another team. I think that's your best argument for not going with Rob is that this franchise doesn't

feel like it's ever at the front of the race. It always feels like they're at the eighth or ninth spot in the race. Like, yeah, you're a really good franchise. You have been for a long time. You've always won. You've always competed. But have you ever been the horse that's running up at the front where everyone is saying, man, the Vikings are just two steps ahead of everybody?

I mean, that's been Philly. I saw my friend Ben Sandig, who covers Washington. He does a poll every year where he asks a bunch of agents. a bunch of questions, and one of the questions was, who's the best GM in the NFL? And one of the answers from the anonymous agents was any other answer than Howie Roseman is unsurious. Okay, that I totally agree with that or, you know,

less need belongs up there. But when are you up there? Like, when are you at the very front of the race? So I think that that would be maybe the question I would ask if I was going in a different direction. Chris says Nolan Teasley would be my choice and really the evaluation skill of that front office. And if you listen to John Schneider talk, what he has been saying since they won the Super Bowl is that it's a complete effort for an entire front office staff. And it's not just him calling the shots.

And I think that being under that kind of leader is a really, really positive thing for Nolan Teasley because I don't think you can do this much better than Schneider. Now, he had some years where they did not draft well. He had some years where they gave away draft capital and where they did try to squeeze out everything from Russell Wilson, but made very shrewd moves and moving on from Wilson at the right time and moving on from Gino Smith at the right time. It's been willing to do that when even legendary players want to hang on for a little bit longer, but the main thing is the draft.

They have not had a ton of super high picks. The two guys that they got were really good, Devin Witherspoon and Charles Cross. So those guys have worked out and those were top 10 draft picks. But they've had a lot of success with a lot of other picks. Nicky Minwere, what a home run pick. Gray Zabel, what a home run pick. Their evaluation skills have been really great. And I think that's where the Vikings need to win the.

race for NFL roster building, a NFC roster building, is in the draft because when you look at free agency, here's the reality of free agency these days. The salary cap has gone up so much that if you want to keep a player, you can. You can just do it. You can just figure it out. There are so many tools. It is very, very rare that we hear a team say, we're sorry fans. We just couldn't afford them. Like, there's so much money. And, the wills have never been short on that. There's so much money out there. There's so much money that the owners have. They're making it hand over fist. They have cash over cap all the time because they are willing to spend if they want to. And what does that mean? That 90% of the time, the free agents that are

hitting the market are doing it for a reason because their previous team decided they weren't worth what they were asking for, which means you're immediately jumping into a pool where you have to be very careful because there's landmines everywhere in free agency. There's way too expensive players. And I'm not saying that the cap doesn't impact any decisions. Of course it does. But if you really want to keep someone, that's my point. And if they're in free agency, there is a decent chance that their team just said, eh, I don't know. Just not there's injuries sometimes maybe that you don't even know about or there's ineffectiveness or there's fit in the locker room or whatever. it might be.

So sometimes, yeah, I mean, price does end up playing a role and salary cap does. But most of the time, that's why going and trying to build a team through free agency is very, very hard to do. Same with through trades. If you make a trade for a player that you absolutely need to be incredible, this would be like Dexter Lawrence. So the Bengals make the trade for Dexter Lawrence. It's the 10th overall pick, but it's a ton of money as well. and if he gets hurt or he doesn't get back to his old shape, where you left, you gave up a great asset, a top 10 draft pick for him. I still like that trade for Cincinnati overall, but the point is it's very risky to play in the trade market.

So Nolan Teasley, I think would understand as well as anyone that you build through the draft and then you add on. I think there's a lot of reasons why that didn't happen under Quasi Adafel Mensa. they sort of got ahead of themselves a little bit in terms of their success. They didn't fully expect to be as good as they were in 2024. And then felt like they needed to solve every problem from the NFC wild card round beatdown from the Rams all in free agency. And they needed to keep every player who was involved in their success. But also, you know, they gave away so much draft capital to move up to get Dallas Turner to trade for this player, that player in the middle of the season. and at the end of the day, you're looking around and going,

well, there's not a lot of young players here, and they need to get to that point. And they've gotten younger already. I mean, you look at the roster, I know Harrison Smith not being here is a big part of that, but already you look at the roster and go, okay, there's more youth here than there was, just even going into last year.

Hunter says personally good with Rob. I think he has the ability to take a long-term approach. My biggest concerns would be, player evaluation and ability to recognize short-term window. Yeah, that's a really interesting point because if you're Rob and you're the general manager, we do need to remember that general manager is manager, right? You manage all these types of people. So if you are working at, I used to work at a grocery store. I mean, if you manage the whole store, you have individual managers for different areas. You have your bakery manager. You have your dairy manager. Things

like that, right? And so you may not know everything there is to know about baking a cream puff, but you're going to make decisions based on your communication with those managers. So that's where if you're Rob Brzezinski, you're going to make decisions based on your communication with the director of college scouting, with the head coach, with the defensive coordinator, and then at the end of the day, come to a conclusion. But you're not going to be like Rick Spielman. You're not going to go on the road or you're not going to, sit in your office for, you know, 10 hours straight, staring at your tape or whatever, like you're going to be communicating with people and making decisions based on the information

that they are sharing with you. So it's a little bit different from, and all GMs should really be doing this. But I think there are some GMs who are like, I'm the best scout in the building because I'm the GM. So there's pluses and minuses to that type of approach. But just because he doesn't have a background in player evaluation doesn't mean they won't be good. at it, it depends on how much he's willing to lean on the other voices. And I think we do know that having Brian Flores is an advantage there for the Vikings. Tasselios, if Rob isn't getting a president title, he's going to be the GM. I could see that. I could definitely see that. I could also see, you know, them talking to Rob and landing on a president title and saying, all right, well,

if you're going to be president, who would you like underneath you? And, you know, some like Terrence Gray or Reed Burckhart two guys that are really well thought of would probably have the advantage there where it's hey we're keeping it in in the house and that's where I could see if you're someone like you know, Rach who was against this saying like do we want him to keep it in the house? Like the house hasn't succeeded that much. But I also think that the house hasn't succeeded because of some erroneous ways of thinking. Number one, mismanagement with the draft capital and salary cap space at times. And also a lot of this comes down to. And I had a really good conversation with Andrew Kramer a couple of weeks ago. And I asked Kramer, do you like

the idea of Rob Brzezinski as your GM? And he said that he does. And I said, well, yeah, but what about like, you know, three playoff wins since this and that and the other thing? And, you know, do you need someone to come in and sort of guns ablaze in, shake it up, new sheriff in town? We're doing things different. And, you know, what Kramer said was, I think, sometimes we miss forest through the trees. Well, if they find a quarterback, then whoever the GM is going to look really good. But you have to build around that quarterback. And I think that Rob can, that would be, I think, your argument of, well, the Vikings

haven't got there. But on the other side of it, the way that Rob managed this offseason set them up to be able to deal with the quarterback situation a lot better. And Rach says, what is their vision? it isn't particularly, particularly clear to me. Well, you know, I think that the vision is not clear to anyone right now, since they don't have a GM, but you can see where there has to be a refresh. There has to be a shift to getting younger.

Well, of course, you are not talking about a team that is going to go all the way to the bottom or has, I mean, could even do it with the talent that they have. they couldn't just say, even if they went into this offseason and said, every person we can, we're going to release. They'd still probably be like a seven win type of football team. And you really wouldn't want to do that with the quality of coaches that you have and just say, sorry, guys, we're going all the way to the bottom. But, you know, Brian Flores is going to make it work.

That 2023 defense wasn't very good talent-wise. And they still found a way, you know, to win seven games. And they, you know, had Josh Dobbs and Nick Mullins and so forth playing half the season. you're probably not able to go all the way to the bottom. But I think what you can see is that there is a quarterback situation that is going to resolve itself. Either Kyler Murray is good enough or he isn't to be the quarterback of the future. And either his price tag is manageable or it isn't, right?

So you could look at it that way that Kyler is either going to work out or not. And then you have decision trees off of that. So if Kyler works out, then you probably are trying to show. short-term it a little bit more because he is going to be 28, 29, 30. So maybe patch it together through free agency a little bit more while still trying to build through the draft on a two or three-year window with Kyler. Right. If you are forced to draft a quarterback, then you're probably trying to reset a lot of your

roster at that point. You're probably not keeping around certain players and moving on from certain players. So I would guess that you can't really formulate a true vision unless you know what's to happen a quarterback, but you need to have different, uh, plans for each one. So if you're Reed Burkart or if you're Rob Berzinski or whoever and you're walking into your meeting with your binder with the Wilfs to present your plan, it has to be if this then. It can't just be, well, this is my plan for building a roster. It's got to be well. If Kyler Murray is our quarterback going forward, then here's how we manage it. If we're drafting a quarterback, here's what I see in

the next draft class. If it's J. J. McCarthy. Here's what I see from our salary cap situation. So it's a little more complicated than if you were walking into Baltimore or something and saying, well, everything's about Lamar. Cooper, what would you say favorite thing is about the written and audio video content is? I don't know if I have a favorite thing, Cooper. I appreciate you watching. It's probably this, what we're doing right now. I think it's, I think it's all of it. Having the conversations, always changing, every single day trying to figure out what the right answers are probably every every bit of that. So it's like my daily kind of strategy, if you will, is to get up and start writing and then do the show,

research for the show, get ready, and then finish the article and send it out. So, you know, I think interacting with you guys, though, is probably the best part. My favorite thing every week, Friday mailbag, my favorite thing here is the fan chat. So yeah, I'd say that's the best part. part. Elite acid says, uh, I say get gray for the GM and make Rob over him. Right. So that would be one approach where you would have, um, Terrence Gray as the general manager and his main thing. Because, you know, as one of you brought up, um, Hunter brought up about the player evaluation, that if you had someone whose main focus as the general manager was the draft, working with the

director of college scouting, work with the, and also evaluating the best free agent fits, evaluating every other team. This is something that somebody else is responsible for in a front office. The general manager knows every team and every player and so forth, but he's also has someone working on that, like studying every other team's salary cap situation, strengths and weaknesses, potential for their draft, potential for their free agency. those are jobs in a front office. So if Terrence Gray is running that side of it, evaluating all the free agents who are coming out,

evaluating all the draft options, the needs of all the 32 teams to try to project what's going to happen and so forth and what trades might be able to be out there. And then Rob is over the top managing the assets and making sure that they sustain for a longer term vision, making sure that they have enough draft capital, enough caps. space that they're spending it wisely and not just trying to be too short term or whatever. And then also being that connection to the Wilf's, which is the Wilf's call in from New Jersey on a Zoom and Rob Brzezinski can give them a full and honest picture of what's happening inside the franchise because he's got their trust and he can do that, right?

That communication is very clear between him and the Wills for the fact that not only did they trust him with this. They trusted him with final say, which I thought that said a lot about how they feel about Rob Brzezinski is that they gave him final say on roster stuff as the interim GM over the coach, over the defensive coordinator who has a lot of power. So I thought that that said a lot. And that's why I like the idea. I like your idea.

Someone who's focused on the minutia of it, the, hey, this guy. has the right, I don't know, arm length and quick twitch and oily hips and whatever else to fit Brian Flores system. And then Rob Bersinski saying, this is the right amount of money to spend. This is the right amount of draft capital to spend on X, Y, and Z. That would be a good, I think, situation. And then when the Wilf's want to know, well, how is Kevin O'Connell interacting with Terrence gray? They have someone who can give them a true picture of what's really good. going on. So I like that on a lot of levels.

Ron says John McKay for GM, Rob Brzezinski for president. Answers only to Ziggy and Mark. Yeah, I like that part of it. We've talked about that a lot. But, you know, McKay is an interesting one because McKay is on the, now, when we say young, we're not talking about like 22 years old or something. Like, every one of these guys has been in a front office for a decade or more. And they've been really good teams.

That's why they're up for general manager positions. McKay is probably the most green of the group when it comes to, he hasn't been an AGM for very long. He did work his way up through the Rams front office, which I'm sure is a very competitive environment. And what you'd like to see is that they bring in if they're going outside from a team that has a lot of ideas that you can steal. Just to be honest, right? Like, if there's a team that you look at and you say, we'd like to steal most of the way that you do things, Philly would be one, but Philly is such a Howie Roseman. It's like that's him.

So if you can't steal him, I don't know if you get the same exact thing. But with someone like the Rams, they're a, if you will, again, I'm trying to avoid cliches here. But they are like a process oriented type team. They are a more technologically forward team. They have a certain way that they coach and they scheme that's always one step ahead. like you can think of a bunch of things where Sean McVeigh and Les Need were kind of the first doing this. They nailed their window to get their Super Bowl.

And I'm not saying teams didn't work in winning windows before, but it really feels like when the Rams won in 2021, that's when there was this ultra focus on winning windows are everything in the NFC where Tom Brady won a Super Bowl and then, you know, got out of town. But where it's not Rothsburger Manning. and Brady. It's not Mahomes, Alan Jackson. It's who's going to build the best roster and then identify the right time to strike. The Rams were ahead of the game there, not playing starters in preseason for health purposes, something KOC is brought over. I think it was very smart for them.

And even playing 11 personnel all the time, and I know this is a McVay thing, but it's a, it's like a way of thinking. How can we be a little bit different? So McVeigh gets the job. They run 11 personnel almost exclusively. And then they just switch when it worked for them differently, when they had tight end depth. And then they do something different. It's like we see this from Brian Flores, where some of the best coaches know how to be different. And I think O'Connell could push that needle a little bit more.

I was looking at pre-snap motion before runs. Yes, this is what I was doing today. I was looking at pre-snap motion before runs. And the Miami Dolphins ran away when the league for the most. priest that motion on running plays. And I just thought, when are the Vikings ever on the outside of a, one of these charts, unless it's Brian Flores and his blitzing and his zone coverage and is too deep? Like, it's always kind of with a lot of things, with salary cap space.

It's been in, you know, toward the bottom and the drafting stuff. But like, when are they ever running away from the league in some sort of element of uniqueness? And I think that anyone who comes from the Rams and John McKay would be that guy, that's part of the ethos. is to just be quite a bit different. The Joker says the one off-season, it was most appropriate to go all-in. Circumstances dictated a lukewarm approach.

Hilarious and groundbreaking work by the Vikings, as always. Man, a Joker not kidding around, I guess, would that take? Was it right to go all in this year and in what way? Like, when you look at the, when you look at free agency, just for example, and you look at the actual prices people paid for free agency, Because I think it's easy to say this or say, well, why didn't they trade for Dexter Lawrence?

Like, trade what? He went for the 10th overall draft pick. Were you giving up your number 18 and then more than that to reach number 10? Because I think you would have had to give it up, I don't know, like a second or a third and next year's second. I mean, it would have been a lot to get Dexter Lawrence. You would have been selling a lot of your future down the river for one player who did not produce last year. very much for the New York Giants. I don't know if that, I think he was an awesome player, and I'm not, you know,

downgrading how good he is, but is that like the really the right way to go? I'm not sure. And then in free agency, I mean, they just did this last year, dude. They just went and they said, well, no, this guy who's kind of broken and hasn't produced in a while, no, he'll be better for us. Yes, his team did let him go. And, yes, he did demand more money than we should have ever paid for him. but sure, it's fine.

It'll work. It's, we're us. It'll work. They didn't do that this year. The prices were extremely high, and they did get several free agents that will help them. We can't forget Ryan Vandemark, by the way. I know it's not huge right now, but it could be for them. And in the draft, well, you know, there wasn't some crazy big-time move.

I, of course, would have maybe preferred the wide receiver, but then they addressed that right after. So they did go big on the first-round draft. pick. I just, which free agents do you think that were coming in at the prices and the sacrifice that you have to make long term? I'm not sure because when I was looking at free agency and doing that whole thing on stick to the model.com, I was signing mostly guys that were just okay players that I thought could kind of fill out the roster a little. I wasn't able to come up with how you're going to make some huge signing. Like you weren't getting Tyler Linderbaum. You didn't have the money. So you were getting, I don't know, Cade Mays, who went to Detroit and will probably

be okay and not that much better than Blake Brandel. So I'm not sure. You'll have to let me know. Scamping around, like the offseason, I've come around in the draft. Rob has been with the wills for 20 plus years, so I would bet it's him. Steve says, just want one guy making final decisions. Honestly, don't want any part of another triangle of authority. When you look at the successful front offices. They don't use that model. There are front offices that do have the president is the final decision maker. But yeah, I mean, that's, but most people know that, right? Like, that that is the person who is at the top. They're making the final call or they're giving the thumbs up or thumbs down to what their front office has come up with. And, you know, it was that way with Rick. And there was a lot of

successes because of that when Rick was the general manager. So, you know, I don't think that there's any one perfect way to do this one like lock dead lock solid a this is the one and only way to do this uh i don't think that that's the case in the nfl but i do agree with you that the someone has to be the one with you know how they say the coaches will say that has the pencil lasts right when they're talking about checks and changes at the line of scrimmage you want someone that is holding the pencil when decisions are made and that's very clear to everyone that if you're going to do something it's this guy who's going to give you the plus or the minus this guy who's going to say yes or no and that's where it stops and there's no debate and there's no well we wanted it this way we wanted it

that way and that person's responsible for this move and this person didn't do enough for that it's like no it doesn't work that way so in general uh i tend to strongly agree with you steve um i have not yet given a fan dual question of the day. So yesterday, we were talking about the quarterback battles, right, starting quarterbacks and whether it's a, you know, true competition or not, which is going to go back and forth, I think, and we'll see what happens in OTAs and minicamp. I saw Cleveland, they were doing all sorts of stats for OTAs and minicamp. And I'm like, okay, I guess I don't expect us to be clear by the end of OTAs. who QB1 really is.

I think that they'll mix and match and that kind of thing. But around the league, let me give you a Fandul's other starting quarterback battles. And this is the fan duel question of the day. The Arizona Cardinals, Jacoby Brissette, is the favorite in Arizona at minus 340. The Atlanta Falcons, where Tua is the favorite at minus 120. Cleveland, Deshawn Watson, the favorite at minus 196. Kansas City is really more of a health situation than a quarterback. battle. So let's move on from that one. And Los Angeles, Kirk is the favorite at minus

310 to be the starting quarterback there. And I mentioned the other day, Kyler Murray minus 1,000 to be the favorite. So out of all those quarterback battles, the one that the markets are not buying is really in Minnesota. But what's your other favorite quarterback battle around the NFL is your Fandul question of the day? Okay, back to your questions and comments. Derek says, I think Reed Burkhart would be a solid general manager, his experience with growing a solid team around a decent quarterback may elevate us. Well, yeah, I mean, look, I know Reed a little bit, not a ton. I mean, you sort of bump into people along the way in the organization and get to know them

a little bit. But I do know what's been said about Reed when he was here, which I think they all had the sense that he was on his way and would eventually be in a position to be an AGM. or to be a general manager. And it says a lot that, you know, George Payton decided to take read with him when he went to the Denver Broncos and then elevated him as well after a couple years. And they've just done an amazing job of building that roster.

They drafted the quarterback. They put together the offensive line. And they have built a stout defense. And a lot of that is through the draft. But then other smart decisions along the way and identifying players. along the way and they're a legitimate Super Bowl contender. And really the first build when Reed was just coming into the Vikings organization and it was 2012 you get this key guy and 13 you get that key guy and then 14 a couple of key guys

and 15 a bunch of key guys. It is a year after year thing. And that's when, you know, Rach was talking about what's the vision. Well, the vision needs to be more than one year. And it was when Quasi got here. But I also think that it, the, the exesion, you know, the exesion. execution at times was not the way to sustain longer term, right? So it was the execution of, hey, you're going for it in 2022 because you should.

And it's the last year of all those old players. You might as well see if it was Zim's fault. And then 23, you took a lot of it down. Like, that's smart. Then in 24, you draft your quarterback and you sign some players that really work for you. That's great. So that like type of vision, it got to a point where it is.

it worked, but along the way, there were these cracks in the foundation that it turned out were kind of ready to fall through. And one of it was when you fail on so many draft picks and when you give away so many draft picks, then you don't have anything underneath. It's like 17 undrafted free agents or whatever underneath this group of highly paid star players or guys that, you know, like Jefferson and Derisaw that Rick drafted or Brian O'Neill and then a bunch of free agents and then you're just praying that it all works out around your young quarterback.

So you don't want to be in a situation next time where just praying is the thing that you're doing. You want to have this three or four year type of build. And I don't mean that you're not trying to win along the way or maybe making adjustments. I just mean that every one of these teams that we look at on the NFC side that goes to a Super Bowl, you can usually trace it back. two or three years to, well, they started building this team when they drafted this guy. And then they, the next year, they got these two or three. And then the next year they signed this

free agent. It wasn't just, oh my gosh, it's time. We win. Like, that's not usually how it works. And for the Vikings to get 14 in 2024, that I think was a result in them having a multi-year plan to take it down and build it back up. But then after that, it was, Well, hey, who needs that? Like, who needs cap space in the future? Let's just sign everybody we can. Keep everybody we can because now it's go time under J.J. McCarthy, which I understand. But they didn't have that other part of it that was any sort of backup plan.

It was pretty much this has to work. And it did not. So, um, appreciate you, uh, Beaver's best friend on the, on the like and subscribe. Hey, we're, um, working tour. 16,000 subscribers. And it has been great to see that number continuing to grow through this offseason.

It's been so interesting. So if you do have a chance to like and subscribe, then please do that and check out the newsletter at Purpleinsider. Football. We'll have all of the OTA coverage, which will start next week. So we got, I mean, you could Google the dates, but we're starting to get when media is going to be out there.

So next week for sure, we'll be doing a recap podcast of everything that I saw and learned at OTAs, so I'm excited about that. Joker, how do you structure bringing in a GM and keeping Rob as president if the new GM has more roster decision-making power, but Rob is higher on the total poll as an asset manager and proxy owner? How is that supposed to work in practice? Yeah, that's a great question.

That's something that if they decide to do, we're going to have to get a very clear answer about the way it usually works around the NFL would be. that your general manager is operating most of the day-to-day stuff roster-wise, right? So you are the one that's beating the bushes for which draft picture you're looking at for the next year. You're the one that's evaluating the rest of the NFL for potential free agents and even small moves within a season. Like who might come available?

Who did another team cut? Like there's, you forget how many guys you have to kind of bring in. Who's on your practice squad? Who's on every other team's practice squad? What do you think of all of them? And is there anybody that you can, like, they once upon a time found Rashad Hill, who I know didn't turn out to be a star, but he played in the Minneapolis Miracle game. Like, that was just a guy that they found.

So that's, you know, your general manager and what you're doing, along with working together with the coaching staff and Rob and the ownership to come up with big picture plans. So that's what you're doing as the general manager. And then Rob is overseeing that entire process. And I think continuing to be guardrails. it doesn't mean that Rob sitting in his office being like, no, to like every move that they're trying to do. I don't mean that.

I mean that Rob would be the one that is extremely detailed about that side of the cap and draft capital management. So, and at the end of the day, being a proxy to ownership, he would have the veto power to say, I know you want to make this. Let's just, let's just say they want to do something crazy. Let's say they wanted to sign Tyreek Hill after he heals up, okay? I think that's where you would have Rob being the advisor to the Wilfs and on the same page with them and say, you know what?

I get where you guys are coming from from a coaching and a player evaluation standpoint, but we don't want Tyreek Hill in the building. So just as an example. Or, hey, the general manager has the Texans on the phone. They've worked out a trade for, I don't know who. and you're going to give up this much and you're going to get back this much. And that's where Rob can say, I understand what you're getting at, but that's giving up too much and we're just not going to do it.

Or yes, absolutely, this is the right price. This is the right management. And we're going to do it. So having some having kind of like checks and balances along the way, like a general manager assisting and checking the coaching staff who's always going to want more veteran talent right away. and then Rob checking the general manager of, all right, well, are you pushing too many chips into the middle of the table?

Or are you not being aggressive enough to maybe come to that person and say, we need to make the big move now because it's our moment or whatever it might be. So I think that that's how you would want it to work out. But it's a great question. I mean, that's how I'm envisioning it. But I don't know for sure until we actually get there. Derek says, too much Kevin may not be. a good thing.

So you mean like if they hire John McKay and then you're giving presumably a lot of influence to the coaching staff, I can see where you're coming from there. And, you know, I'm not saying you would want O'Connell and the general manager to be on completely different wavelengths because we kind of saw that over the last few years. But do you want somebody who can, as I was just saying, so we could sort of check that person or somebody in the GM spot, and this is what happened in Buffalo, Sean McDermott was hired by the previous general manager. He was hired by Doug Whaley.

And so part of clearly Brandon Bean's job was to evaluate the coach and report to ownership. And when he decided it was time to move on from the coach, then they did. Do you want that person? Do you want a GM, if it's Nolan Teasley or, you know, whoever it might be from the outside, Reid Burkhart, do you want them or, Robbins? do you want them or Rob would be in this position too to be in a spot where they're evaluating the coach as much as they're working with it? Or do you want someone if it's John McKay who would be very familiar? And I'd say he wouldn't do this just because he's from the Rams, but he'd be more familiar with Kevin O'Connell.

Do you want O'Connell to have a lot of influence there and be working closely? I could see it either way. Because I don't think O'Connell's a coach that you want to get rid of. So, yes, I understand what you're saying because you don't want a coach going, hey dude, come on, just like, get me one more of this or make that one more trade. Like, just, you know, do this for it. I need this, whatever, if it's not the right decision to make. But I don't, I feel like that's making kind of assumptions.

But that connection is notable for sure. Joker, we basically need to get much better drafting. That's what's been missing the last decade. We get free agent deals. Throwing away picks is a factor in our draft failure. 100%. Throwing away picks is a huge factor. Because when I looked at it right after Quasi was fired, I wanted to really understand it.

I wanted to fully get it. Like, what happened here with the draft? And the conclusion that I came to was based on historical hit rates for each section of the draft. So, you know, every, if it's later in the draft, it'd be like in this section of 20 or 30 picks. If it's early in the draft, it's like this section of 5 or 10. like what are the hit rates and PFF had done that maybe two, three years ago. So I took their chart and their percentage chance of a hit for each draft pick that the Vikings took, like their selection. So they had number 32 and what were the odds of number 32 turning out to be a good starter.

And what I ended up landing on was that the Vikings were about average for what was expected for those draft picks. But since they had so few of them, average is bad. Like average, they needed to be much better than average. They, if you were going to have that few draft picks, you needed to hit on way more than your percentage was, which sort of shows you the process, not being great. Like to give away all those draft picks and constantly be hoping that you hit. But when we talk about some of these guys, I mean, it's like what happened with Mackay Blackman.

Like, Mackay Blackman was like the 105th pick in the draft. I mean, I don't know. He was the 105th pick of the draft as well. what happened. Your odds aren't good at that point. That's why kind of going to battle over Jacoby Thomas with draft analysts is not worth it because like that draft pick has like a 20% chance or less, it's probably less of becoming a starter even when you get to the that it's probably like 20%. And then you go beyond that. It's under 10. Like you can't really haggle too much with, you know, those types of things. But if you have three thirds and each one of them has 20% chance to

hit. Well, you know, there's a better odds that one of them becomes a good player for you. But if that's your only pick for day two, good luck. Or you have no picks for day two. Good luck. Well, Kobe King better hit. Huh? Kobe King's a fifth round or sixth round draft pick. Like, what are the chances that the guy even becomes anything? So, you know, that you're right. Like, it is stockpiling, but it also is, it needs to have a higher hit rate because you're not going to win in the NFL if you hit the. That. average markers every time. And you might view it if you're if you're a pro rob person, you might view it as, well, this draft, the Vikings leaned into fit.

They leaned into let's get the coaches completely on board with each one of these guys. And their chances of those coaches pouring into them and developing them and finding fits for them is maybe higher if they believe in it than it is. And we saw this from Mike and Rick. did Mike pour into Kell and Mond? No, in fact, he dunked on him harder than I've ever seen in my entire life. What about, you know, I don't know, Wyatt Davis or Chaz Surrott, who's still kicking around somewhere? I mean, these aren't great players, but did Mike Zimmer seem in that draft to be all in on those guys?

Like, I'm going to do anything it takes to get this guy to succeed. You want that from your coaching staff. Not why the heck did you pick that guy, right? you need to have that. And I think Rob was able to create that. Maybe there is a, you know, maybe there is something to that, a hack to having your coaching staff all in. Steven Brzezinski's interview could be done before Memorial Day weekend. So the next four or the, so four next week we should get a decision by June 1st.

That's kind of what I've been thinking is somewhere in that range. I'm hoping so. It's can't really plan the travel schedule when they're looking. for a GM. But, yeah, I think that's probably right. And it's a good time to get your GM because you get more cap space after June 1st. And there are still a number of free agents out there that I know a general manager is, are you going to walk in the building and start signing people?

Maybe not. But I think part of your plan as you're presenting to the Wilfs and Kevin O'Connell and so forth would be to talk about current improvements. It's not just 2027 and beyond. It's, hey, can you get Leonard Floyd? Do you want Donovan Wilson? I don't know. Like, those are guys that stand out to me.

But if you add two, three more pieces to this roster, like, how strong is it? And you've got a little cap space to use. So who do you want? Like, who do you think would be a good fit as part of the conversation? I'm a twerk. One A is Tisley. One B is Brzezinski. Joker says Tisley if I had to pick.

Yeah, I mean, that's right. It's hard to say, like, hey, I love this. guy, I love Lamp. I mean, because you're just picking from names and resumes, we haven't seen them GM. We can only know where they came from, but we don't know how they talk to people, how they communicate. With Quasi, he had sort of a ready-made label on him when he got here. A, this is the analytics GM.

And never really played out to be that way. And first press conference, he was really great in front of the media and his ideas sounded good and everything else. overall, a lot of that stuff did get executed and they won 14 games and so forth. So, you know, any talk of that being a total disaster when he was here is not really fair. Plus, they kept most of the roster together that he built. So if they really hated it, they would have gotten rid of a lot of the guys that were there. It was about a lot of other stuff.

But that's my point is that you don't really know sitting here. It's not like if your team hires Mike McCarthy. If your team hires Mike McCarthy as a head coach, you know exactly where. you're getting into. And the same if your team signs a free agent. You sign Joanne Jennings. We can all just go watch Joanne Jennings. Can't do that with a general manager.

I don't know. I don't know how he's going to be in pressure situations where you got to make a really tough decision or whatever. And they're taking just a guess. But what is nice about Tisley and I've also, Stephen watched some of the stuff that, you know, Teasley has done some interviews and things like that.

in terms of explaining himself and also, but he doesn't come across like a used car salesman, you know, like football guy. But I think where the Seahawks really shine is that they understood how to put together a roster over several seasons in a non-panicky type of way. And their player evaluation in terms of their fit for their coach. And they just couldn't have done any better than a Nickymanwere. Like, they couldn't have done better than building kind of an edge group that could rotate to Marcus Lawrence knowing something was left there, knowing what Leonard Floyd, not Leonard

Florida, but Leonard Williams was going to bring to the table, Byron Murphy, the fat Byron Murphy as a defensive tackle. And that kind of fit, Boy, A Mafei and his fit. I mean, a lot of those guys, they went and got Ernest Jones. And this is a small thing, right? But Ernest Jones is a linebacker. In Tennessee, maybe wasn't doing that whole heck of a lot. But in Seattle was a perfect fit for a guy playing with a defensive line like that in front of him.

Those are the small things that I think, you know, Flores really gets and O'Connell really gets and it has to be executed. But the part about, you know, over multiple years of hitting on draft picks or even just finding guys, you don't need, you don't need to hit on every draft pick for a home run. But even just role players, seeing the vision for that and how they could develop. Like, that's something Seattle's just done. extremely, extremely well. And this is with the recognition that the draft is largely random. But one thing I was thinking about over the last couple years is the draft has always been

random, right? But I remember a conversation I had with Mike Renner, who works for CBS. You know, I have a ton of respect for Renner. And he said, you know, our percentages aren't getting higher overall, but they should be. We have more information than ever. We have more data than ever. We have more tools at our disposal. and we have more people that work in front offices than ever looking at these groups.

So even though the hit rates, weirdly, historically, have not shown themselves to change. They might be. Like, in real time, they might be changing. Teams might be getting small edges when it comes to the draft by making certain decisions. I mean, even the consensus board thing, if you're using that to double check yourself, your percentages are going to be higher than they are if you're not. So things like that, we don't really. fully understand yet.

And we may be seeing teams get an edge there. It's also an edge to have more draft picks. That we absolutely know. Hunter's a Rob supporter. Joker. It's a very complicated dynamic. You want Rob involved in some way. And you want the coaches, specifically B-Flow, heavily involved in the scouting and you

can't tank. So how much am I doing if I'm hired? Oh, I mean, there's a lot. Yeah, no, there's a lot. There's a lot. I see what you're saying in terms of making final decisions where you have Rob at the top with the gavel and you have a big push from the coaches to want X, Y, and Z. But I think what maybe people don't always understand is just how much on a daily basis

goes into tracking all of the moving parts, whether it's the, you know, college season where you have dozens of scouts who are on the road or however many it is, a dozen scouts that are on the road in different areas that are bringing back evaluations and you're tracking those and you're tracking all the player movement. You're preparing yourself for free agency. You're leading a building on a day-to-day basis, which means connecting with your coaches, solving their problems, dealing with other stuff. I remember hearing a story about Rick and a, I think it was like a sponsorship sign or

something. Like people don't realize how much the general manager has to do. There was a old, I used to listen to a hockey show with the old Columbus Blue Jackets GM, who was their GM when they first started as a franchise. And they were asking him about whether they could bring in this giant cannon and shoot it off every time they scored a goal. And like, he was the one that had to make the final call on that stupid cannon. So like, there's a lot.

There's a lot of interpersonal stuff going on. You're managing a lot of different areas of the building. You have the health area, you know, the strength and conditioning and all that stuff. You have agents where you have to. have all sorts of relationships there. You have the analytics side of things, which if you're not managing the analytic side, you're not getting ahead.

You're falling behind. So you need to understand what you're doing with that data and how to communicate with the data people because they are guiding you as much as anybody else and marrying that with your scouting stuff. So like there's a lot. There's a lot. But yeah, I mean, at the end of the day,

you have a powerful defensive coordinator, no question, who's really good at his job, and you would have somebody over the top of you, which may be something that some GM candidates didn't love, if that's the way that they're going to go with it. I don't know. They might just make Rob the GM and go forward from there.