Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - VIKINGS RUMORS ARE EVERYWHERE AHHHHHH

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

Matthew Coller talks about how Vikings rumors have taken over the world and gives final thoughts 24 hours before the NFL Draft. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here years that he's been watching and covering the Minnesota Vikings, he cannot remember a draft that had the magnitude of this on the Vikings organization and this much anticipation, this much hype. And I certainly, since I've been covering the team in 2016 to present, cannot remember another Minnesota Vikings draft that they were the center of the entire draft universe leading into this, where every mock draft, every single insider is trying to figure out what are the Minnesota Vikings going to do. And if you go through the previous years years when was the closest that we got to having this much discussion about the Vikings going into a draft I think probably

2020 would have been that because I think a it was kind of realistic that they could look at a quarterback I remember having a lot of discussions about the Jalen Hurts, the Jordan loves of the world, but we also knew that the Vikings were going to replace Stefan Diggs in that draft. Going back, I just can't think of too many other times where there was this much hype around the Vikings draft. And also we were talking about, let's see, 2017, we would have been discussing a second round running back going into it. And they did take Delvin Cook.

Trying to think through the different drafts, there were quarterback rumors when Kevin O'Connell and Kweisi Adafomenta took over, but we never totally took seriously the idea that they would take Malik Willis or Kenny Pickett. And here we are knowing that the Vikings are going to take a quarterback and just not being sure exactly how it's going to happen and who it's going to be. So I spent my day today working hard for you guys. You have to understand this job can be very taxing sometimes. And what I was doing was I was using this right thumb and I was scrolling through Twitter. And every time I saw a rumor, I made a note of it and I'm going to put it on the screen and go through it.

I know I'm exhausted. I've given everything I got today to this effort. No, seriously, though, it's been really entertaining trying to go through all the rumors and put together what the NFL insiders think is going to happen. And plenty of you have asked, have I decided on whether I'm going golfing tomorrow? Because it has been a tradition every year that when we get to draft night, I go golfing with Sam Ekstrom, a good friend of mine, used to work here, now works for the Lockdown Podcast Network. And so we've always gone golfing on draft day. And the main reason is because the hay is in the barn, like all the work is done. And then we find out that evening.

And I was considering not doing it because I thought, well, what if there's a trade? Then I got to be ready to go live, be ready to give a reaction. But you know what I decided today? I should keep the tradition. I should go golfing because once I do that, I will a hundred percent jinx that trade into actually happening when I'm on the golf course. So I got nine holes scheduled for tomorrow. I am trying to jinx Drake May into being a Minnesota Viking for all of you. And I will do my best. The golf will not be good, but maybe it will help push things forward a little bit for the Vikings, because I do have a tendency over all these years, and I can even go through all the stories that dropped while I was out on a golf course in the summertime or spring or fall. And so maybe there'll be a big one for tomorrow, but I thought why part with tradition

when I should stick with it and do exactly what I've always done. It's kind of like, if you wear your lucky socks or something and everything's gone fine since then, wear the lucky socks. So that's what I'm doing as far as going golfing tomorrow. And if the story breaks that the Vikings are moving up to draft Drake May while I'm out there on the seventh tee or something, you're all welcome. And I did my part to try to get you Drake May. But so anyway, I did gather all these rumors and I'm going to go through them and then we'll get all of your reactions to the rumors and what you guys think is going to happen. Your final hot takes, your final questions, and we'll react and have a good time here. But I decided to go live a little bit earlier,

so we would have almost exactly 24 hours before tomorrow's show, which will start at this time, a half an hour before the draft. So if you've been popping in and out of Purple Insider, or you're listening on the audio side youtube 24 hour i'm sorry 30 minutes before the draft we're 24 hours now 30 minutes before the draft i will start the show we'll go all the way through obviously the vikings pick whether that's 3 or 23 we'll do a ton of reaction we'll find out uh what the other beat reporters think from tco performance center they'll be out there popping in uh as well so i've already got andrew kramer will raggets are going to jump in for sure tomorrow in the lead up so we'll hear from them and what they think

and then get your reaction as soon as the vikings pick so if you didn't have any plans uh then make sure you're here or what i'm going to do is I will line it up with the TV. So I've got a TV right over here. So I won't spoil the pics. You can watch TV, listen to the Viking-centric analysis. It's a good plan for everybody for tomorrow. So that's the deal. Welcome, everybody.

We'll have some fun tonight, starting with the rumors, which we will all probably end up laughing at by the end of tomorrow. So we'll start with The the athletic and Diana Rossini. She wrote a big piece of everything that she is hearing going into the NFL draft. And what she wrote is that the Vikings have quote their sights set on Drake May. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody. And that they could get in a bidding war with the Broncos over McCarthy if the Patriots take Drake May.

This is a little bit concerning because we've discussed this possibility that at number four or number five, the Vikings might have to give up an additional first round pick. And well, I would still give them a good grade for coming away with the quarterback of the future. And look, I'll always believe that if you get the right guy, then no one will ever even Google what the price was when you did it. But giving up that extra first round pick does seem a little scary when it comes to JJ McCarthy.

If it's Drake May, because the ceiling seems so high for Drake May to go up to number three, that's much more comfortable than giving up the two first round picks and swapping for all of you that love to talk about that detail or three first round picks otherly phrased to be out the Broncos. I don't know that you really want to do that if it is an economics question, but if Kevin O'Connell was totally sold on JJ McCarthy, then all right, give up the picks and go for it. I think it's the number one story of the draft outside of what are the Patriots going to do? Still, nobody knows exactly what Washington's going to do, but where does JJ McCarthy actually land? Is he going

to truly go in the top five and someone buy into him fully as their franchise quarterback? Or could we see JJ McCarthy drop farther than expected? Like a handful of quarterbacks, Justin Fields, Mac Jones, you know, all the names. I don't know if it would be a Malik Willis type of drop, but not necessarily at the very top of the first or our teams all in on McCarthy in the same way they are with these other prospects. You know, we're going to find out. I think it's the biggest number one total overall story of the entire draft, especially because the draft is in Detroit, JJ McCarthy for Michigan. So there's rumor number one, rumor number two. You guys don't want to hear this one. I know Albert Breer said, quote, I feel pretty good that Drake may will be a new England Patriot. And this is the thing, right? Is Drake may going to be the number three overall pick to the Patriots? Are they going to reject all offers? Or is his information just one last attempt, which it felt like today a little bit,

one last attempt from the Patriots to nudge and urge everyone, come in with those offers. You might want to bump them up just a little bit with those offers. I could see that from the new England Patriots on the final hour, just telling everybody your offers aren't quite good enough yet. Let's move those up one more third round pick one more fourth round pick. And then maybe we got a deal. And I even saw, I didn't get it on my rumors list, but Cameron Wolf of NFL network talks with Gerard Mayo. And of course he talked out of both sides

of his mouth with, well, I really liked Drake May and we really liked JJ McCarthy, but also, you know, we're still open for business. So the Patriots have played coy this entire time, which might just be because football and why are you going to tell anybody what you're doing? It could also be because they're trying to get, you know, that one last offer in to see if it's enough for them to decide to move back. One thing Cameron Wolfe did mention was he said that they might be willing to move back and still take J.J. McCarthy. So that would require maybe moving back up to five.

Like lots of things could go on here but Albert Breer saying he feels good about the idea that Drake May is a patriot and it's our job to figure out whether that is a smokescreen or nah is that you know him him being told that hey we'll do it we'll we'll draft Drake May you better add extra draft capital. We'll do it. Hard to say. Albert Breer also said that nobody really knows what Washington is going to do with the second overall draft pick, but believes that Jaden Daniels will be a commander and that the team has, quote, cleared the air with Daniels over the weird Topgolf visit thing, which everybody has had a lot of fun with. And also, Jade and Daniels confirmed today what we already knew

and should never come up again, which is that he is going to go to Washington if that's the pick. Every year we do this, will Joe Burrow actually go to the Bengals? Yes, he will. Will Trevor Lawrence go to the Jaguars? Uh-huh. And will Caleb Williams go to the Bears without asking for a third of the team from the McCaskies? Yes, he will. And the same goes for Jaden Daniels. Wherever these guys get drafted,

they're going to go. It happened once many, many years ago, twice really, but one was ancient and then one was many years ago. Since then, nobody has told their team to screw off because it's just not really possible these days. So there you go. If it's Jaden Daniels, he'll go there. But the key point is they don't really know. Everybody thinks they know, but it still could be Drake May. Now, Jeremy Fowler of ESPN, he gets in the mix here and he says that the Giants and Vikings have been the quote, most active in trying to move up. So it seems that the Giants, a bit of a thorn in the Viking side recently, have also thrown their hat in the mix to try to get possibly most likely Drake May with the number three

overall pick, or at least that's what we think it is. And I've always felt that the New York giants were the only team out of anybody who wants to move up that would have a reasonable chance at matching the Vikings offer because they're moving up so few spots, because if they're moving up to six, then if you're the new England Patriots, let's say you love McCarthy just as much as Drake may. They're even on your board. Maybe Robert Kraft loves the fact that he's from Michigan and won a bunch of games and sort of looks Brady ish in his bone structure of his face. Then you could move back to six. If you're the Patriots and try to take McCarthy there,

although you'd have to be worried about the Vikings jumping you. I mean, what a game this is going to be of subterfuge and who's moving where and this strategic, you don't know what anybody else is really planning. You're just trying to guess those war rooms are going to be really fascinating. And for film buffs, no fighting in the war room. So Jeremy Fowler says the Giants are involved here. I have never fully bought that the Giants would pick a quarterback at six, but if they have fallen in love with Drake May, because Brian Dable thinks that Drake May could be the next Josh Allen, who we worked with in Buffalo. Then you could see them trying to make a push. Could they give up number six,

a second round pick this year, another first from the future to move up just a couple spots. They do have a shot at outbidding the Vikings. That's one to be nervous about if that pick is legitimately for sale. And I mean, everybody and their brother and sister and cousins have all heard that the Vikings want to move up and Kevin O'Connell's joking about it in public. It's not really a secret at this point. Matt Miller of ESPN said that the Cardinals have told Marvin Harrison Jr. that they will pick him at number four. That's one to watch. And by the way, I've gathered all these through different tweets throughout Twitter throughout

the day. I apologize if I'm not properly citing if he went on a radio station and said this, or it's really hard to keep track of where everybody's speaking because they're doing radio hits and TV appearances. So I apologize for that. But this was something that I saw tweeted that he said the Cardinals have already told Harrison they're going to stick and pick. It has felt recently like they have taken themselves out of the trade down discussion. There has been much less buzz that the Cardinals could trade out. And it's never made sense to me

that they would want to move out of potentially elite wide receiver prospects it's not just Harrison it's also Malik neighbors and Roma Dunzey there's three guys that are top 10 talents at the wide receiver position if you're the Cardinals and the Vikings offer you two picks but you can't get your guys at the top all right maybe it's better to just stay there. And that would make the Chargers somebody that it could be more of a target for the Vikings, especially since the Chargers will not be trading

with Denver or with the Raiders. That just fits for Denver and the Vikings to do business. I'm sorry, for the Chargers and the Vikings to do business at number five if the quarterbacks go one two three or they could potentially see how it goes maybe let denver trade up and get their guy and stay at 11 which leads me to the next rumor which again is from diana racini that michael pennix jr's stock is on the rise. Now this is always suspicious because stocks don't rise and fall the way that we think they do in the NFL throughout the college football season. Believe it or not,

they played one many, many months ago. The teams have all their scouts doing all their research, watching all their players, filing all their reports. And usually what happens, and there are exceptions to this, is they go to pro days, they have meetings, they do the whole song and dance of the off season to confirm what they think or to get in this case, like with the Vikings, to get the final opinion from Kevin O'Connell. But they have their scouting reports all well done by the time that they get there. And then they add on here's the combine. Here's the pro day. And for someone to have their stock go way up through the roof against Texas, way down into the basement against Michigan and stay down in the basement until the senior bowl,

where he outperformed everybody else in the practices. And then the combine where he threw the ball well. And then when he ran that for whatever, then it shot back up. I mean, I just, I think that they teams probably went to the combine really wanting to look at the medicals for Michael Penix, but he put out on the Players Tribune the other day, an article of sorts or a statement, I guess, if you're on that website, talking about his medical situation, comparing it to other players who were longtime NFLers and saying this guy tore his ACL in college, this guy and so forth. And he used the line like, you're going to need an EKG to measure my heart kind of thing. Okay. Okay. Been a lot of selling of Michael Penix Jr. A lot of

salesmanship throughout this entire thing. And that makes you wonder, is his stock really as high as it's being made out to be, or did it never really move? and he was always a good middle of the first round to back of the first round prospect which is probably what people thought he was all along i guess we're going to find out that's what i tend to think my friend ben gesling of the star tribune uh who of course will appear on this podcast shortly after the draft, hopefully next week, said on the Vikings affiliate radio station, K-Fan, that he thinks Bo Nix will be the guy if the Vikings don't trade up. That was what I went with yesterday in our final draft simulation, that I thought the same kind of thing, that Nix makes a lot of sense for Kevin O'Connell. But if you're asking me, if they were down to the final

two Knicks and Pennix, which one would they take? I don't know. I truly don't know because you could make a really good argument for both. Every time I watch Bo Knicks, I see a lot of things I like. And I also watched a ton of Michael Pennix all year long and thought this looks like a Kevin O'Connell quarterback to me. Couldn't tell you at this point how they would make that decision. The only thing that I keep coming back to is the words rhythm and timing and Bo Nix is a rhythm and timing type of quarterback. And I was just watching a game, his game against USC today. And just, just looking for that, like, does it really look like I thought it did sort of reviewing some of his tape? And it really does. I mean, there's so many times where he just gets to the back of his drop, sets his foot fires away, gets the ball out.

And we're not talking just screens or slant routes talking 15, 20 yards down the field pretty regularly and having success doing it so maybe ben is right that if they had the choice or are forced into the choice of those two that that's who they would go with two more rumors to get to you uh another friend who will again appear on this show very soon after the draft to give his reaction kevin seifert of ESPN did the NFL Nation beat reporter mock, and he traded up with the Chargers to number five to get JJ McCarthy. However, the interesting note was he, in his scenario for this mock, did not give up next year's first round draft pick to the Los Angeles Chargers. Now, this is something I could see, though. You know, if the Chargers want a wide receiver,

they could stick and pick as well. But if they're looking at an offensive tackle, well, there's a bunch of them that are expected to be available as we get past the top 10. And maybe the Chargers would say, we've already got Joe Alt or whoever in our view, and we would be very happy with a tackle here so why don't we just move back to number 11 take the guy we were going to take anyway and I mean that's kind of what the

Vikings did when they got Christian Derrissaw remember they traded back with the Jets and still got the guy that they wanted at that position so maybe the Chargers want to do that and then get an additional 23 if the Vikings move up to get McCarthy without giving up next year's first, you can't walk away feeling bad about that because they get a quality prospect who's being taken in the top 10 and somebody that you could absolutely see Kevin O'Connell molding over the years and not give up the farm. What you're really giving up is this year's first and then a second from next year

and change that were used to get that 23rd overall pick. That is not a super high price to get J.J. McCarthy. Once you add that additional first, that's where I get a little more nervous about that deal for them building a complete team because now you're talking about going into next year and I don't know what our draft show is supposed to look like next year because they wouldn't have any picks and and that's not just because you wouldn't be just selling next year's first they've already used next year's second to move up as well

so you'd be just without uh day one or day two do they they have a 20, 25 third? Maybe they have one of those, but you're talking about at that point, not getting very much out of next year's draft to use to build around McCarthy. That would make things a lot more difficult. So in Seifert's scenario, I mean, you have to be pleased with the potential for that.

Last one comes from Jay Glazer. He thinks that the Patriots like Drake May whatever that means it seems like you know naturally they like Drake May do they like him enough to not make a trade back and forego Drake May that is the real question but he does not see four quarterbacks in the top four picks. Does that mean Arizona? Everyone now thinks that Arizona is staying. What about the top five J that's what I would want to know. And he thinks that the Michael Pennix hype is a little too much and thinks that the Raiders picking him at 13 is a little too high. So there is your rumor roundup on the night before the draft. And I

think that the best way we can look at all of that would be to just say, we don't really know yet, which is the case every single year going into the draft. But if we try to put it all together, if we do our best to gather all of that information, what we can come away with is this. It does not seem that the New England Patriots have told all these insiders, stop talking about us trading, zip your lips. We're taking Drake May, be quiet. There's not, you know, there's not going to do that. So they're at least in consideration for something that can happen tomorrow trade-wise.

That doesn't mean they will do it. It only means that at least based on the way the rumors have played out, that it appears there could be consideration from the Patriots because they haven't told everybody to shut their yaps about potentially trading. However, do not be shocked if the New England Patriots take Drake May and quarterbacks go one, two, three, and the dream dies about, I don't know, 30 minutes into draft night. I would not be terribly shocked at that. If the Patriots just decide, you know what? Our coaching staff loves him.

We see our franchise quarterback here. We'll build around this guy. We'll start Jacoby Brissett next year. Because even though the Patriots need a lot, and even though they have a good chance of killing Drake May because they have no roster whatsoever, it's hard to pass up somebody with potential of being able to go up against the Josh Allens,

the offense in Miami that, you know, whether you love Tua or you don't love Tua, it was one of the best offenses in the league last year. The New York Jets have a good team. Whoever their next quarterback is, is going to be pretty good in the future, probably because they've put together a good team. So, you know, I think if you're the Patriots, you do look at it like, Hey, by 2025, we need to be competing with these other teams. And, you know, Robert Kraft not getting much younger. I'm imagining wants his next shot at Drew Bledsoe, who they took once upon a time at the top of the draft and really turned around a franchise that was in deep trouble.

So don't be shocked and horrified if the Vikings are not able to trade up just because the Patriots wanted to stay there. And I mean, I guess the only shock and horror could be, Hey, there was a tank available to you that you did not decide to do. And you end up winning seven games, which puts you in the middle of the first round. So sorry, the tanking team ends up getting the top draft pick quarterback. That may happen. That's my one read on that. I think the trade-up possibility is still 50% to 60%. I think I went all the way to 72% the other night.

Now I'm dialing it back just a bit. But the way that the Vikings have talked about this thing has given some confidence to the idea that they'll do it so I'm not going to go below 50 percent I will stay above 50 percent that they trade up who they trade up for is much more difficult to figure out here because it does seem like that and we've brought up many times you know Malik Willis, Will Levis, all that, that could happen for sure. It could happen that one of these quarterbacks is just not as hyped as we have thought throughout this draft process. But if they are, and they do

rank in the same way that the mock draft universe is ranking them, then it is a good chance that the Vikings would trade up to number five and take McCarthy to try to get ahead of the New York Giants. The Giants could also themselves try to move up to number five to take McCarthy, in which case we could see the Vikings sticking at 11 and taking one of these other quarterbacks. But I think that when the Vikings were talking about and Kweisi Daffel-Mensah loving quarterbacks at certain prices, what came into my mind was a kind of a clear, here's what he means. And whether I'm right or wrong, again, we'll find out tomorrow. But what I think that he means by saying that we love quarterbacks at different prices,

loving Drake May at any price, loving JJ McCarthy at a certain price that probably involves both first round picks, loving either Michael Penix or Bo Nix with the 11th pick, knowing that with 23, they could potentially get a star defensive player. That's going to be one of the top 10 defensive prospects in this entire draft. So it's love the quarterback that we believe could be a true franchise guy. Could be the Josh Allen could be the CJ Stroud love ish JJ McCarthy at a certain price because we think he's going to be good, but he's definitely going to need help. And then a guy who's going to need more help, Michael Pennix, Bo Nix, we better make sure that we have a top five defense. That's, that's how I'm separating it. And again, tomorrow we could discover that the order has all disappeared. And, uh, you know, we've, we end up with something

like, I don't know, Michael Pennix going second overall to the Washington Commanders. Teams have done crazy stuff. We always count out how crazy teams can be. How about was it Cleland Farrell that went in the top five or something to the Raiders when he wasn't even considered a top 20 prospect in the draft? Things can happen in this draft that we really don't expect. So we have to consider that as well, but that's just the way that I am feeling about it going into it, that they're comfortable with three different tiers in this quarterback class. I don't believe that they can wait until 23. I really don't.

If they try to wait until 23 and one of those quarterbacks goes off the board, it's going to be very nerve wracking unless the only other thing that you could throw out there would be unless they thought they could also move from 23 up. But the two teams drafting behind them need quarterbacks. And so many times we've heard, this is another rumor. So many times we've heard the Broncos, Bo Nix, the Broncos, Bo Nix, almost too many times for there not to be some smoke and fire there. So if you get to 12, are you, are you not getting your guy? That's where it gets risky. So I think that they have to go at 11 with either Pennix or Knicks if they do not want

to trade the farm for JJ McCarthy and if the Patriots draft at number three. So there's kind of everything for you laid out where we stand going into the draft. And in a way, I would say it's been more exciting with the fact that they didn't make the big trade to allow us to talk about all these scenarios. But I really want to find out. And tomorrow is Christmas morning for everybody here in Vikings land to find out what the big plan has been all along for the Minnesota Vikings. And this will be one that changes their franchise and their trajectory for a long time to come. And that's what makes it so fascinating. I also am really interested to see the reaction. I think that a lot of you are preparing already

your it's Bo Nix reaction, uh, or, you know, some of you think that may is a little bit too risky. So is that, is that going to be too much for you to trade everything and so forth? That's where guard guy shows up and says, who's going to block for him? And I'm still that guy a little bit myself considering where they're at. All right. So there's where we stand. And give me your thoughts. Give me your reactions about all the rumors that I laid out. If you're just joining and want to go back, you can scroll back on YouTube and listen to the rumors that I laid out. If you're just joining and want to go back, you can scroll back on YouTube and listen to the rumors that I ran through and so forth. But I want to know where everybody stands going into this thing, how you're feeling, because we are just one day away

from this draft that we have all waited so, so long for. We'll start with Craig here says, I think May is going number two to Washington. Here's a shocker prediction. The Giants trade up to number three and take Harrison Jr. to get the weapon for Jones. Plus the Patriots don't want to move down to 11, but six is okay. This is realistic for sure. The Drake may at number two thing is very realistic. And that's one that I've had trouble figuring out through this entire draft season is all right. So the mock universe decided that Jaden Daniels was number two. And then we have all just written that into every single mock draft. Jane Daniels, number two,

he's number two, Drake may be number three. Vikings could be able to get him. That's what's going on. And I still think still based on all the evidence that the Vikings have their offer, that they're ready to give the Patriots if Daniels is number two, but they can't do it today because they don't know for sure,

but it's stuck out to me how many reporters, even in the DC area have said, there's no leaks here. This front office does not leak stuff. The guy who's their GM, I believe he came from San Francisco, which is a anti-leak organization. Maybe part of the reason with Kweisi Adafo-Mensah's roots in San Francisco, why the Vikings don't leak stuff like maybe they used to a little bit in the past. But recently, insiders have had a struggle trying to figure out everything going on regarding the Minnesota Vikings. And that may be the same case with Washington. I still think it's possible they do something totally hilarious, like taking Bo Nix or Michael Penix at two and just blowing up this entire thing.

But is it realistic that they take May and end everybody's dream scenario for the Vikings right there? Oh yeah. Oh, it most certainly is because he was long considered the best prospect until really the end of last college season where jayden daniels got more attention but there are parts of jayden daniels game that you could see making teams a little bit nervous his stats are amazing his team was incredible and he played great and he's got wheels like very few guys ever at the quarterback position. Still, Drake May is a better thrower of the football, attacks the middle of the field, and is a good athlete as well. Yeah, I wouldn't be shocked at that at all. The Giants could try to stay, but if Arizona is making it clear

that they're going to pick Harrison, I don't think your scenario is nuts. I really don't. Clifford says, we've been down the road of a top five defense and subpar offense. It didn't work in the modern NFL. KOC was brought in to flip that scenario. Yeah, I mean, I don't think that drafting Bo Nix means you have a subpar offense. They didn't have a subpar offense with Kirk Cousins and he had limitations, but they did have a bad defense every year with Kirk Cousins and he had limitations, but they did have a bad defense

every year with Kirk Cousins, except for last year. And at the start of the season, the defense was pretty terrible. Once it came around, they started playing much better. We can't forget in those San Francisco and Green Bay games where Kirk was very good. The defense came together. If Kirk is in there, they're probably making the playoffs last year. And Kirk is not, as we know, one of the truly elite quarterbacks in the league. If he was, he'd still be here. I mean, when you look at the San Francisco 49ers and Philadelphia Eagles from the last two years and even stretch that to 2021 Rams, because I would have put Matthew Stafford in the same area as Kirk Cousins three years ago going into when he went to the Rams. I was skeptical about that. Of course, I was wrong. They won the Super Bowl with their big bet, but I wondered, all right,

I mean, Matthew Stafford, I've seen this guy a hundred times. Is he really going to be able to take a team all the way through the playoffs with the sacks he takes the crazy interceptions he throws and he got on a heater there was a dropped interception or two mixed in and he ends up winning but why did he win the team was really great the defense was at the top of the game they had elite defensive players my point is just with building the whole team around a quarterback that isn't freakishly gifted we have seen a ton of teams succeed with this and compete with this especially i mean jalen hurts is not a special freak athlete and he's a good athlete he's certainly good at running those qb sneaks and he could throw the ball pretty well but i mean jalen hurts was in the super bowl as a

guy who was drafted in the second round everybody kind of passed up on him and thought he's not really a franchise quarterback. Philly takes a shot at him. They like what they see. They move on from Carson Wentz. But even Carson Wentz, 2017, not a perfect quarterback. The supporting cast, your situation, your coach, all these things. You don't, you really don't need a quarterback to be the best quarterback in the league all the time if he can be the best quarterback or a top five in the league for a

couple years at a cheap price i mean even go back to that era where it was weird in the nfl that there was a lot of the old guys who were retiring and sort of the new wave was coming in. This is early two thousands where the Elways, Jim Kelly, you know, the guys like that, Dan Marino were working their way out of the league and it opened the door for football to be a little bit different then, but you had teams like the Seattle Seahawks with Matt Hasselbeck, the giants win two super bowls with really good overall teams, great defenses. Now the game is much different now ish, but it's not crazy, crazy different where it's still, if you build the best team, then you have a really good chance to compete. So Brock Purdy and what he did last year for San Francisco, could you see that type of play from someone like Bo Nix or Michael Penix. Could you see Jared Goff type play like he

did for the Detroit lions last year? He's had multiple top five offenses. I don't think that you always have to have a perfect quarterback. Now you'd prefer it. We would all prefer Drake May. I would have preferred if they tanked last year and drafted number one or well, they wouldn't have gotten, well, yeah. I mean, if they had been worse than the Panthers, that would have preferred if they tanked last year and drafted number one or well, they wouldn't have gotten, well, yeah. I mean, if they had been worse than the Panthers, that would have been preferable. Caleb Williams, top of the draft that didn't happen. So now you have to figure out, is it number 11 and you build the roster around that player or can you go get Drake May?

If Drake May is impossible, then I don't see that as the end of all chances for the Vikings to be good. And let's also take a look at what people thought about quarterbacks coming out. There have been quarterbacks previously that, Oh, he doesn't have the biggest ceiling. He has injury issues. He's not enough of a playmaker. That was a CJ Stroud thing. And what it often comes down to is can the guy run the offense and then do a couple of special things. And I think that Bo Nix and Michael Penix are both potentially capable of that. Scott says there have been so many different and conflicting takes out there that my head spins daily. Oh yeah. I feel ya. That is me, man. Grab the popcorn and your favorite adult beverage and enjoy the show tomorrow night.

Yeah, I mean, that's really where we're at. It's just like previewing a game where you don't know what's gonna happen in the game. And there's all sorts of different scenarios that could happen. And if you think about it, well, they're gonna try to do this and the other team's gonna try to do that.

And here's all the factors. And it was supposed to be 23 degrees with the wind coming out of the Southwest tomorrow. So their kicker won't be able to, we do this with games. So we're just doing the same thing with the draft and it has made my head spin, but I've enjoyed it. I've had a really fun time and I was going to save the speech for the end of the show, but I'll just give it now. I mean, you guys have made this great. Everybody, the people who email me on Twitter, in the chat, you guys have made it really, really fun. And this is something that I wanted everybody, because every day I'd get this, can the draft just hurry up and get here? I want everybody to soak this in, these moments where we're leading up to it. In the same way that you see people during the national anthem

before the Super Bowl crying because they're overcome with emotion, we won't be probably doing that as they start the NFL draft to that level. But what I mean is that anticipation right before the Super Bowl starts. You all know what it feels like, where they're playing the anthem and you're just like, let's see what happens in this game. A champion's going to be crowned. Well, it's sort of that way with the draft. There's so many stories.

There's so much intrigue, so much fascination with the Minnesota Vikings this year. You won't have it for the next few years because even if they draft in the first round next year, even if it's fairly high, it's not going to be a quarterback. It's not feeling like a fork in the road that you've reached. And the franchise can either go in a way that, hey, they take off with the franchise quarterback or that it's a battle where they have to build the perfect roster and we're fighting over which guard should be starting, or it's a bust and we're all debating what went wrong.

And you can go any one of those ways over the next few years. That makes it so interesting. And once we get the name and once we know what happened, then it's a whole new bunch of discussions. OTAs become great mini camps become great and then training camp will be by far the most interesting that I have covered since arriving to cover this team in 2016 so there's a lot there's a lot ahead of us that's very interesting that's what I'm saying just soak it in soak it in, soak it in. You guys have made it great. You've made it fun. It's been really entertaining to go through all these scenarios. And now we get

to discover what it's going to be like kind of a movie premiere type of thing. You've seen the trailer. That's how we could look at this. You've seen the trailer. All the actors have done their interviews and they're all kind of going like, you gonna find out you're gonna see what happens once the movie premieres and now we will uh and you can have it streaming as well right here which is where we'll be breaking down every pick and everything that happens with the vikings uh not a twerk says jj mccarthy at 11 quote me that has been my hot take and it doesn't seem that plausible and yet it feels like it in a way because if nobody is willing to give up a lot to move up to four or three and the giants don't want him then you get tennessee atlanta the jets he could slide right by them if teams are not willing to trade up to get jj mccarthy or if the broncos do like Bo Nix and they're perfectly

fine sitting there, then yeah, you could potentially get JJ McCarthy at 11. That's the one I've put down in writing and said, I'm going to come back to this and see if it works out. It likely won't, but that's been, uh, that's been my hot take. Chris says Vegas is saying it's much more plausible. Herbert is traded. I just can't see it, man. I just can't see it. I don't know where the information comes from. The insiders come from Jim Harbaugh took the job for Justin Herbert. Didn't he? Maybe it was, he took the job that it was the only team that would take him. But if I'm him, the reason I'm taking that job is because I get a franchise quarterback to start with. I have a really tough time thinking that Jim Harbaugh is

going to toss away this strong armed franchise quarterback and go, ah, let's see, let's just draft my guy from college and we'll be good. It doesn't, it just doesn't really mix. JP says the more I see of Knicks, the more comfortable I am with him. I got a good message from a listener. Cause I suggested the other day, I said, just pick a, pick a Knicks game on YouTube, go back and watch it. And then come back and tell me because every time we'd bring up Knicks, all the comments just go, no, no, no don't talk about nicks and like wait wait wait wait let's go back and take a look this year is just different before if you were getting qb5 you might be getting somebody that everybody else has passed over and is in the second or third round and you're not happy with it all but when you him play, I was just watching him play today. And

one thing that stood out to me is there was a touchdown pass that he threw against USC, probably traveled 25 yards through the air. It was timed extremely well. It was a deep dig route, which I've talked about. The Vikings really love, they really love concepts that bring their receivers across the middle of the field deep. And he it on time on the money accurate I know that their offense was a cheat code for him and his statistics but when you watch you see so few bad plays so few times with Bo Nix where you go oh what the heck was he thinking or where was that football supposed to be going there are some dying quails from time to time there are some footballs where you go is that supposed to be going? There are some dying quails from time to time. There are some footballs where you go,

is that going to be enough juice outside to the numbers? But if you're talking about an offense that wants rhythm and timing, I think he can do it. And he's also a playmaker as well. Doesn't mean I like that as much as some other options, but if it happens on draft night, I don't think that we should all go they blew it they settled they drafted a bust it's the next you know who like

i don't think that should be the reaction i think it should be all right this is who kevin o'connell picked this is his guy and my understanding of nicks is that he really understands football extremely well. He's a timing rhythm passer with some playmaking. Like, all right, here we go. Let's go find out whether this is going to work or not. Craig says, I don't care, but draft day style pennix no matter what. Yeah.

I mean, one of the more entertaining things about draft season is falling in love with prospects and also coming to really hope your team doesn't draft them. Now I have not been in a place where I have watched any of these quarterbacks and thought, Oh man, I hope it's not him that I have levels of concern. I have meters of concern. We use meters for everything on the show. If you were talking about the Vikings getting Drake May, my meter for concern is quite low because I watched a lot of them and I'm very comfortable with his skills and the fact that you can work out some of the kinks with what he's doing. Are there inaccurate throws here or there? Yes, but there are for Matthew Stafford too. And you're just going to have to work on those,

but you can't recreate all the other stuff. Very comfortable with that. Little less so with Jaden Daniels. That's where the concern meter starts to flicker and starts to go instead of into the blue where I'm not concerned at all. It goes a little bit into the yellow because you could see him becoming a franchise quarterback. You could also see him being Justin Fields. If he can't read the middle of the field, if he can't get the ball out on time,

if he's hanging on to the football, if he's dropping his eyes with the rush, then you're going to take a lot of sacks and he took a lot of sacks in college. Some of them are trying to make plays, but if you're not seeing it, and that was my whole thing with Justin Fields, just never believed he was a good quarterback because you can tell when a quarterback can see down the field, that's where the rhythm and timing comes into it. I don't believe in that quite as much with Jaden Daniels. So that would be in the yellow for

me. The concern level for JJ McCarthy is more in the orange because I don't have the numbers to back it up. And I don't really have the tape unless you get into the, all right, we're going to cut it down to only his best throws and his best throws look great, but let's not look at some of this other stuff like the Maryland game. Don't worry about that. And he really loves football. So don't worry about the fact that his team only passed eight times in a game

and don't worry about like that. That worries me because I can't think of too many examples of guys like him that have succeeded or just period that were drafted in the first round. That's a little scary. And with Pennix, the injury history, he can say all day long, hey, it doesn't matter. Matters.

Matters when you're going in the NFL. There's more concern there. And there is some concern that Bo Nix doesn't have like a high-end skill that makes him look like a freak. None of these guys are in the red, though, where I'm sitting there thinking, oh my gosh, if they take this guy, I will quit purple insider. I will never talk to you people again. There is nobody in this first round projected class that I feel that way about going into the draft tomorrow night. Uh, Emilio says good with mayor mccarthy that could be how they feel it might it might be the

case that they never even consider nicks or pennix and there's always going to be a trade up no matter what it just depends on which trade up it is sean says his fans we don't have much choice but hope that koc and km make good decisions yeah that's all you can do but you also should form hot takes because if you don't form your opinions going in then what did we spend all this time for i i would just say that about those opinions you're you might have to just toss them aside like you might spend this whole time going dra, may Drake, may. And then it's with the fifth overall pick. They've traded up for JJ McCarthy. All right, moving on because any one of these guys, you can see the potential for them to succeed with the Vikings in this offense.

And I'm just going to be fascinated to watch and cover how this next quarterback and Kevin O'Connell grow together because we saw it with Kirk Cousins and we saw it really come to fruition, but we didn't really get to see the end of it. We saw the start of it, 2022 and all those moments that they went through in the Netflix series and everything else. And I was there in Buffalo and all that. And then last year, it looks like tanking at the beginning of the year.

And they're one in four. And we're going, well, OK, same old Kirk can't really do anything exceptional. And then we get this flicker of, whoa, he looks completely comfortable in this offense. Finally, that's when he gets hurt. So we're going to see a new process with whichever quarterback. That process is going to take place over a couple of years. Think about quarterbacks. And we've talked about the age difference between may and McCarthy and, and Nick's and think about where McCarthy might be in three years of working with Kevin O'Connell, the developing the, I mean, we might end up

watching Sam Darnold for a while and then getting eventually the more finished product of someone like McCarthy. So it's really hard to think forward several years in the future of these guys working together before they can get it. And I imagine there will be rocky times along the way. That's why we can't decide on draft night. That's why I have stayed with this, this thing. I'm not moving off, which is as long as they get a quarterback, it's good. They have, they have won the draft as long as they come away with a quarterback. If they don't, then I will be wholly perplexed. That's why they did this whole thing. And I don't really have much belief in Sam Darnold, but as long as they come away with a

quarterback, I just am preparing myself to talk with you guys about this quarterback and his development and his relationship with KOC for several years. So your takes today, like stand on that ground, get in that comment section and give your strongest take. And then tomorrow go, all right, it's going to be a couple of years before we find out. Let's watch this journey and see how it plays out. Chris says, I'm projecting, predicting that they stick at 11 and get Pennix and get chop Robinson or Newton at 23. Some people have said that they don't feel like that's a good outcome. I feel like that's a really good outcome to get the additional value quarterback position. We don't know who's going to be good. Who's not

going to be good, but to get the additional value of a top defensive player, I've always liked that outcome. Jay says, how far does Daniels fall? Then if he doesn't go number two, that's what you're asking. It would be, that is a great question jay because if drake may goes number two then where does daniels end up does he end up with the new york giants who have running quarterbacks and like running quarterbacks do the vikings like him enough to trade up is he in their list of guys that they are quote in love with enough to still try to trade up to three are the Patriots in love with them. Bill Belichick said he thought he was the best quarterback in the draft coming out.

Well, I mean, the people that are still working there worked with Bill Belichick. Do they feel the same about Jaden Daniels? Are they comfortable with him? Or could Jaden Daniels actually, if May goes number two and no one decides to trade up maybe mccarthy goes to the patriots or maybe maybe the patriots pick a lineman like we don't know or a receiver maybe they pick harrison jr and then the free fall begins and there's multiple top quarterbacks on the board as we go down then we're saying wait is denver trading up are the vikings trading up do the giants want one of these guys that's not not Drake May. If May goes second, all hell breaks loose because we do

not know what's going to happen at that point. Very interesting stuff. Jason, no matter who we pick a quarterback, Sam Darnall will be the starter through week eight, unless he gets hurt. Well, maybe it's going to come down to how ready that guy is. And it's gone many different ways for all different quarterbacks with CJ Stroud last year, guy was ready to go right away. Bang. He's in, he's playing. It's looking good. There are other quarterbacks, including Sam Darnold, probably Zach Wilson as well. There are a lot of other quarterbacks who really should not have been anywhere near an NFL field to start. This may depend who it is because you're saying no matter who you pick.

Well, if you pick Pennix, he's much closer to a finished product than McCarthy. So I'd rather see McCarthy not get in until half the season. But with Pennix, he might be good to go. You know, I think that him or Nix might be your starter week one, and they'll just be off and running from there, and we'll deal with the ups and downs. But if it's May or it's McCarthy, then Kevin O'Connell might not be comfortable with how far along they are.

But O'Connell did not show terror of starting a young quarterback, even last year when it was Jaron Hall and he clearly wasn't ready, they still put him in against the Packers. David says, go on record now and let us know if you think Casey navigated the draft season well or not this draft season. I mean, as well as he possibly could,

what else could have been done? He couldn't control that they finished with the 11th overall pick as opposed. I mean, look, he went out and got a quarterback. It was two and nine to come in and replace Kirk cousins. The guy won a game when he didn't even practice against the Falcons. They won another game, three, nothing. I promise you, Casey Adolfo Mensah would give those wins back in a second if he could be in a better position with the draft. But getting the 23rd pick, I think that navigating that was really well done. Getting the 23rd pick, it gives them a chance. If they just had 11 and nothing

else and their second round pick, they would have no chance at trading up to get one of these quarterbacks. Now they do. That move alone was very savvy. And I know people have said, oh, well, the Texans approached them. Kweisi, the way that he talked about it was that it was an idea he had shared or they had shared at some point along the line. Then the Texans called back and said they wanted to do it. It doesn't matter whose idea it was. It just mattered that it happened. That is navigating it very well. Because how else were you going to be in that mix? Not by giving up one and two.

That's not enough to move up. That's not enough to entice someone. So I'll say that he's navigated it well. But here's where the biggest navigation with Klesi Adafo-Mento was. It wasn't this year. It was last year. Last year, when they set themselves up, knowing that this year would be a very good quarterback class, when they made the decision to not extend Kirk, not just this time, but the last time after winning 13 games, that's where this draft season began for Kweisi Adafomenta was the minute they said,

Kirk, that's too much money after winning 13 games. We just don't think you'll do it again. We're not going to sign you to that much. So we're going to back off because we are aware that the draft class in 2024 is good enough to take that risk of losing Kirk Cousins. That's where it began. That's where I would say he was extremely smart in handling this draft class. Enigma one. I would believe that too. I'm not sure what we're

talking about here. These franchises are desperate and watching Wilson get rolled out without a sniff of anything is possible. That's why they pay the big bucks to the guy handling the books. Sorry, I'm not sure who you're responding to for that. Sometimes I get lost in the conversation. I think you're talking about one thing and maybe it's something else. Mac Jones, 98% of teams that trade back are really winners. So if we trade up, we need to win. I just fact checked it. Well, yeah, the teams that trade back are you, I mean, do you mean winners of the actual trade or do you mean winners in general? Because if you're the Baltimore Ravens, for example, and you're a winning franchise with a franchise quarterback, you trade back and you try to take more swings at corners. You try to take more swings at defensive ends. If you're a team that is in need of getting the, you know, top draft pick quarterback, well, of course you're going to trade up. And yes,

there have been more losses by teams trading up than, uh, wins because quarterbacks are a little more likely not to work out than they are to work out. I saw Adam Schefter tweeted out something about fifth year options being picked up or second contracts, I think. And it was 46% of quarterbacks draft in the first round, get their second contract. So that's still less than 50% that even gets signed. Daniel Jones got signed. So it's not even ones that are great. So you could say, oh, well, you know, historically, if you trade up, you often don't have it working out, but historically nothing works out all the time. And the Vikings are making a bet on this particular quality of this class and what they can do for the, the other, you know, the quarterback

that they bring in with the other players that they have. Shane says no to Nick's young Kirk cousins. I brother, I do not see that. I do not see that. I don't know what we're talking about. If we're talking about Bo Nix as Kirk cousins, I just don't, I just don't see it. Are we talking about because he doesn't have the strongest arm? Is that why he is a much more natural athlete than Kirk Cousins, a much better scrambler, much better playmaker, much better runner than Kirk Cousins was as a prospect or even as a quarterback. And look, if you took all the parts of Kirk Cousins and you made them very cheap and then you added a scrambling element, you got yourself an amazing quarterback. So if he ends up being that, what you're talking about, which is somebody that can be accurate,

get the ball out. And he doesn't, by the way, take sacks the way that Kirk Cousins always took sacks, which drove me crazy because everybody would look at his quarterback rating and you'd go, Hey, what about all the strip sacks and the sacks? Cause he couldn't escape the pocket. Well, that's not Bo Nix. Does he become a better quarterback in the long run than Kirk? That's a pretty high bar to be a top 10 ish quarterback in the league, but there's these little things that result in your team succeeding that don't always show up statistically in part and i know they keep rushing statistics but if you get a

third fourth and eight somebody breaks through you scramble you get a first down you make plays outside of the pocket make plays on the move you see that all over Bo Nix's tape. And yeah, if he doesn't have the strongest arm, but he's pretty accurate, gets the ball the right places, throws with a little anticipation, then that's a really good quarterback. So that's a weird insult to say, man, if he ends up being somebody who's top 10 ish as a passer and then add scrambling, I'm out. What? I'm not out.

I think that's like a best case scenario. Roberto, if Kweisi Daffo-Menta doesn't trade up, is he on the hot seat? No, no, he's not on the hot seat. He's not on the hot seat until this goes wrong. Overconfidence, draft overconfidence. I love it. I love it. It's something that I've just bathed myself in over the last six weeks, because when it comes to the draft, I'm about the least confident person ever. I don't believe anything. Any insiders say, I don't believe anything mock drafters say. And I sure certainly don't believe

in my own self at predicting who's going to succeed and fail. In no way would I look at the fifth best quarterback being taken at number 11 and go, oh man, fire Kwesi. I know some of you will because I know some of you have not bought into him from the very beginning. It's perfectly fine to be skeptical of a general manager, but if we're looking at this objectively and we're putting what's worked and what hasn't,

the overall direction is right. I mean, heck, Patrick Royce the other day, you all know him, Star Tribune columnist, one of the funniest people on earth and has railed on the Vikings and made fun of them for so long. And he even wrote a column saying, you know what? I got to give it to him. I got to give it to him. This direction was the right way to go. So when I look at that, that the direction that they chose from last year's offseason to this year's offseason,

and then they pick a quarterback without trading up, it still seems right to me. And if we're trying to put odds on each quarterback success, well, let's say, you know, percentage that Drake may is great is probably not even that different than Bo Nix because that's just how the NFL works. We all think we know. And then so many times it turns out that we don't, if other teams knew how good Jordan Love was going to be, would he have gone 20? What did he go? 26 or something? No, absolutely not. If they knew how good Jalen Hurts was going to be, would they have let him drop to the second round? No way. No way. Even heck, even with Justin Herbert, Washington would go back in time and pick

him number two. And Justin Herbert was a guy that had a ton of skepticism coming out. And he immediately shows that he's good enough for the NFL. I, I, with Casey and Alfa Menta, the bar, the bar should be set at what happens in 2025. Do they look like a team on the cusp of building a Superbowl contender by the end of 2025? So you're going to have to wait on, and this is hard in our society today to say, you guys are going to probably going to have to wait on a

Justin Jefferson extension. Although I'm in Ross St. Brown, set the bar, the Vikings can clear it with Jefferson. You get my point. You're probably going to have to wait on that. You're going to have to wait to see if your quarterback's a buster or success. And you're going to have to wait to start putting Kevin O'Connell and Kweisi Daffel-Mentz on hot seats. We can be smarter than that though. We don't have to think like espn talking points right we can look at this in a more nuanced way than just being like what happened what what your hot seat right like no we need to give these things time now if they walk out of the first round without a quarterback then i'll be like whoa whoa whoa i changed my mind on everything

but as long as they get a quarterback, then we're going to just have to give it time. That's the only way to go about it. We can't start throwing around things like hot seat just because they didn't draft the quarterback that we thought they were going to in a trade up. Nighthawk, Matt, you're distorting the past again. Oh no, me? Not me. Distorting the past? Gosh, I didn't know I was doing that. Well, explain to me how.

Let's find out. Nighthawk says, we didn't have a bad defense every year with Kirk. 2018, they ranked ninth scoring defense. That's hard to say it was a bad defense finishing the top 10. Okay. Yeah. I mean, what I was talking about with Kirk Cousins, and that's funny. I mean, yeah, I was here. I remember it. I've covered the whole season. I don't think that it's a distortion of the facts to say over the last three seasons of Kirk Cousins' time, they did not have a good enough team around him to support a quarterback that was just pretty

good. And that was very expensive. And that was true. Now, 2018, they did have a good defense 2019 too. It wasn't good enough though. It wasn't good enough to raise the level to a potential Superbowl champion being ninth is not going to do it with an average or okay quarterback so i said what if they were able to put together a top five defense well they didn't do that in 18 or 19 i was there i watched jared goff have a perfect quarterback rating i was in the coliseum in los angeles sitting in a a trailer because there was construction almost on top of the field. It was wild.

I've never seen an NFL game from that angle. I was like right on top of the field. And I watched Jared Goff have a perfect quarterback rating against the 2018 Vikings. It was not a perfect defense that could have carried average to good quarterback play from Kirk Cousins in 2019. I think we all remember that Xavier Rhodes broke down that year. They did not have the same level of defense that season either. It was good, but they had a very easy schedule that season. It was a flawed version of 2017. So they never had a good enough defense to just carry a Kirk Cousins caliber team.

I don't remember exactly what the point was, but, and then the following seasons, 2020 through 2023, we're all bad four straight seasons of bad defense by the time, where did they rank when he got hurt and they were four and four. And this is not me excusing Kirk Cousins. It's just to say that if you have a Kirk Cousins caliber quarterback, you're going to need a great defense, which it would help to have the 23rd overall pick. I think that's the tie-in of all these things. But distorting the past, not something that I'm generally known for, my friend.

Tonic says, so many are overthinking the pennix evaluation we would be lucky to land him at 11 he is the one who has the great traits and his coachable lower body deficiencies that koc alluded to tonic you and i see football the same way i like michael pennix a lot i do not look at him as settling he to me the coachable part of it is very important that everybody has talked about Penix as a coach's dream. He, if you watched him run that offense, he was in charge of a lot of stuff. He was doing a lot of NFL stuff, but he was in the shotgun the whole time, the whole offense on him.

And he battled all of last season. There were some tough games. It was pouring in Corvallis against Oregon state. And he struggled a little bit during that game and fought through that. I mean, it was not an, it was not an easy season on the, in route to where he got, they had to be Oregon. He had to play extremely well in that game. They had to beat USC. He had to battle Caleb Williams. I mean, I like him a lot. I mean, I don't think of that as settling at all at the 11th pick if they were doing the Pennix thing.

But there is, on the concern meter, there's no doubt that you have to bring up the medical issue, that there is certainly concern of what his future is going to look like. How long is he going to be able to play? Are you going to deal with missing a season because of another ACL? It's just something that you have to ask. And you mentioned the lower body deficiency. Yes, I do think that those things can be cleaned up.

I think it's overrated talking about, well, he's got a low release, so it's going to get knocked down all the time. I mean, Kyler Murray is in this league. He doesn't get his passes knocked down all the time. Come on. That's, that's overstated. I'm sure. But he does have some issues with like getting the ball to the correct spots on slants on over routes on, you know, things that are going across the middle of the field. And it isn't precise all the time. A lot of times it's just getting there faster. So there are reasons to be a little bit more down, but I still like Pennix a ton.

And with Pennix, the big difference, and a lot of you are talking about this, the big difference of Pennix versus Knicks is the arm strength. The arm strength is really terrific with Michael Pennix versus Knicks is the arm strength. The arm strength is really terrific with Michael Pennix. He throws the ball as well as anybody in this draft. And that's where I think, that's where I think that he would be a good option for the Vikings because you ask for a lot of those deep across the middle type of routes. You send Justin Jefferson on slot fades all the time that we saw.

It takes a lot of anticipation and he has that ability. That is wired into his brain to throw anticipation passes and it's not for everybody. It's maybe one of the biggest things that would correlate to success is how well a quarterback can anticipate. And there's just a, is he, is he like a Gino Smith or something like a, he's a pocket quarterback who's fast if he has to run, but doesn't run very much. It's not always flawless, but he fires the

ball kind of all over. Like, could it turn out to be kind of like that? I mean, maybe with a better team. Can you win? Maybe. Mike says we finally have infrastructure to make a move to the top two through five. I'm comfortable to finally say trade the farm for the first time in franchise history. Oh yeah, that's still the top option. I've been spending a lot of time defending the other options because I think the Knicks and Pennix, whichever one Kevin O'Connell likes more is fine with me. And I could see either one of

them succeeding, but option number one remains Drake May to me, because that's the one where you could be talking about franchise level quarterback, 10 year quarterback. All right. Well, they've got Josh Allen, but you've got Drake May. So let's see how these two freak giant athletes go at it. Or even if he becomes, as I mentioned before, as my comparable for a best case scenario, Matthew Stafford. Well, if the lions weren't the lions for as long as they were, which the Vikings don't plan on being the bad version of the Lions. If Matthew Stafford as a young players dropped into this situation and not what Detroit was, how's that career turn out?

That's maybe the best case for Drake May, but that's, I mean, that's a very high ceiling to look at. It might not be as high with some of the other guys. That's why it's the most ideal scenario in my opinion. Scott says pennix is the perfect quarterback for koc 2000 plays on tape is evidence everyone knows what he wants and expects now that is true that as you're trying to figure out what are these quarterbacks going to be pennix and nicks are the easiest ones to figure out because they just have so much tape and Penix has been great for two years. You've got so much to look at to figure out. Is he going to be a fit or not? Nick's had his best year this year, but he wasn't bad at all. Last season, Jaden Daniels has one year.

Drake may has two seasons. So you do have a little bit better of a sample there. It is not quite going all the way back to say auburn or indiana where your pennix was good in indiana by the way he was a good quarterback there but with may you still have two full seasons mccarthy is harder there's just a lot fewer passes to work with and you start chopping it down and go all right well we've only got maybe 150 passes to look at that are in the certain situations that we think will correlate or whatever it might be. That makes him a more difficult evaluation.

I think Joshua says KOC's job on the line, since he's picking the quarterback, if he gets Knicks or Pennix, he's gone. Well, I mean, you certainly don't know that because it depends on how they work out. But the reality everybody knows is if you fail at the quarterback position, you're not going to be around for very long. And I look, I would trust Kevin O'Connell more than I would trust myself or more than I would trust you to make this quarterback pick. But that doesn't make it perfect. How much is he actually weighing the odds? How much is the smartest quarterback guy out there actually weighing the odds? Let's ask Kyle Shanahan, he who drafted Trey Lance.

I mean, right, there's lots of really smart minds at evaluating quarterbacks who have picked the wrong guy, and it hasn't worked, and sometimes they've gotten fired, or sometimes they've gotten lucky when it comes to Brock Purdy showing up. But if Kyle Shanahan knew how good Brock Purdy was going to be, would have drafted him the first round and not the seventh, but instead, you know, he ends up falling backwards into it. I don't think we can say based on what happens here, especially since he doesn't get to pick his favorite of the six. He gets to pick who's available of the six quarterbacks that, oh,

well, if he doesn't pick the right quarterback, he's terrible and deserves to be fired. It's just the reality though, that if you pick the guy who doesn't work out, then your team will lose games and everything gets ugly when you lose games and the Wilfs expect them to be competitive. If you're not starting a good quarterback, then it's harder to be competitive. But one thing that I did think of is if you blow the draft pick at 11 and Sam Darnold plays pretty well, and you know, by the end of the first year, like, oh man, this is not good. It's way less harmful than if you blow it at the top of the draft. If you blow it at the top of the draft, holy cow, like that's

over. It's a disaster. If you mess up, I mean, like Pittsburgh, you mess up the middle of the draft, your franchise doesn't have to fall into the ocean with Kenny Pickett going wrong, or even it didn't have to with Mac Jones. They just let it in New England. There is something to be said for that, that the team is good enough to stay competitive, even if they're behind the scenes knowing, uh, this is not going to work out. We're going to have to look elsewhere. But more likely than not, unless it's Pennix or Knicks, we're going to need quite a while before we really know.

We're going to need, I would say, at least two years to have a good sense. But people were still fighting about Justin Fields three quarters into the way of this year. It takes a long time before you really know. John says, honestly, after looking at all the quarterbacks in the top six of this year's draft, I hope all of them make it. Me too. That's a nice sentiment. They are all good

young men and worthy of that success. Well, that is the kindest thing that's been said on this show, John, and I appreciate that. And you know, with all of these quarterbacks, I just keep kind of rotating through when we discuss them and go, you know, I could really see this guy working out. I could really see that guy working out. And there's nobody in this draft where there's some wild red flag. Hey, this team's going to risk it for Jameis Winston or something, even though the red flags were as big as Tampa Bay stadium and they still picked him number one overall. There's nobody that you would feel like, oh my gosh, there is some insane reach. What are they doing? How could they possibly pick like Daniel Jones being taken as high as he was? That was wild.

The guy had really no success in college and the giants just fell in love with him. He's more of a second round quarterback. I don't really see anything like that because if Nick's gets taken in the first round, we'll just pull up the stat sheet and you could see why the stats don't really see anything like that because if Nix gets taken in the first round, well, just pull up the stat sheet and you could see why the stats don't always correlate to success, but it's not like you couldn't justify it by looking at 45 touchdowns with players like Daniel Jones. It was much harder because you couldn't see a top end skill and you couldn't see the stats. So what were you doing?

This whole class doesn't have a, what the heck were you doing guy? Unless they maybe pick Spencer Rattler at 11, then it will be very confusing. Chris says, Pennix makes his reads fast and makes incredible throws exactly where the ball needs to be. Watch Pete Bursa, uh, Birchich is a breakdown of Pennix or Kurt Warren. Oh, I watched almost every game of Pennix. I was thinking throughout this year about the Vikings drafting a quarterback, especially after Kurt got hurt. And I tried to watch as much during the season as I could of all these guys.

And the way that I came out of the college season, you got to remember when the college season ended, none of us had JJ McCarthy in the top five or in the top five in this draft that started to grow momentum later. But I would have said Caleb Williams. All right. I'll admit, you know, I had, I have questions, but I'll admit he's number one. And then Drake may, I remember watching the game against Duke and just be like, okay, this guy has no help and he's got great skill. The game against Florida totally convinced me that Jaden Daniels was deserving of being a top quarterback. And then Pennix was right there. Pennix would have been neck and neck with Jaden Daniels for me at the end of the season. I would have thought, well, you know, geez, these are two

really good prospects despite the Michigan game. I just thought his team was overwhelmed. They didn't have much of a chance and it changed around as we've gone on, but I've been good with Penix the whole time. And I don't disagree with what you're saying that I think in the right situation, this kind of shotgun offense where you're putting it all on his shoulders, he's built for that. He's built for that in college. And there aren't too many quarterbacks that I could think of that have been relied upon this heavily that went to national championships. I mean, at very least the whole point is at very least, even if you don't like the quarterback that they took, he's got a good resume out of the six. Timothy, I'm all in for finding our franchise quarterback but I don't

want the Vikings to get fleeced in a trade up hopefully Kwesi adheres to the walkaway price stance he did say that he said that you have to have a walkaway price that is where I swing back and forth on this Timothy because if they traded four first round picks, I'd go, I can't believe what they just did. This is insane. This is wild. But when I look around the NFC North and I look at how competitive I expect these teams to be, Super Bowl contenders potentially,

all three of the other teams in their cities, in their podcasts, you go over to Detroit, you go to Green Bay, you go to Chicago and ask them about 2025. They're all expecting to be super bowl contenders by then. None of them are saying, Oh, well, we're going to rebuild. We don't have a quarterback. They all think that. And I am inclined to believe that at least one of them, or maybe two end up being very much legit in 2025. So can you compete with those guys? If you have the lesser talented quarterback, if you have Bo Nix and they have Jordan Love and he's six foot four, and he's got that arm and he can make that throw off his back foot that he made against the Vikings

at US Bank Stadium, that's pretty scary because the Vikings have been playing with that deficit against Green Bay for a very long time and it's worked out better for them than it has for you. So yeah, right. And that's where, all right, if you sell the farm, but you get a quarterback who can go toe to toe and put his name on the marquee where for so long it's been the marquee was Aaron Rodgers versus Mike Zimmer's defense, or even going back, Brett Favre versus Randy Moss. Recently, Justin Jefferson versus whoever, Patrick Mahomes is coming to town. It's Justin Jefferson versus, that was the game he got injured, I think. But you get the point. And it's so often been about somebody else. And if you trade all the draft picks to get Drake may, it's not about someone else. It's about Drake may versus

Caleb Williams. Here we go. Drake may versus Jordan love. Here we go. I don't know that you get that exactly with Bo Nix in the same way. I think you can win, but I don't know if you get that in the same exact way. Joseph says, is there some baseline neglect when teams overreach on quarterbacks, even though there's tons of evidence that they're much more likely to be Zach Wilson than Peyton Manning? I have looked at every single possible way over the last six weeks or so that you can look at quarterbacks. I've interviewed people. For an article I did just today, I interviewed a quarterback trainer. I've interviewed former scouts.

I've talked to Kweisi Adafomense and Kevin O'Connell at the Combine, the owners meetings, the press conferences. And I've asked everybody in some way or another, how do you figure this thing out? And the answer is always, you can only try to weigh it in your odds by doing the best you can. And so like, I'm not sure exactly what you mean when it comes to overreaching on quarterbacks. If you mean the consensus draft board,

I've talked to Arif Hassan, who does the consensus draft board on the show. Great episode. If you want to go back a couple of weeks and find that one. I mean, I've been on a journey here with you guys, trying to, to, to reach some sort of truth about quarterbacks in the national football league. And I got to tell you, I don't have a whole lot of truth. Here's what I have is this quarterback class has resumes that are worth it. And Drake may has a skillset that has been proven to be worth it in the NFL, his size, his speed, his ability to throw the football. It's proven to be worth it. And other guys have traits that have proven to be worth it, but there is no guarantee of any of them that when they actually get there, they'll be able to do it. That's what makes it so fascinating. All you can say is,

did it make sense when they did it? Did it make sense to draft Michael Penix at 11? Yeah, it would. Did it, would it make sense to trade up and get their guy? Yeah, it would. But I mean, I think if you're talking about this the the hardest one to justify is mccarthy with evidence it's just harder to show because he just doesn't have a lot of passes but every single correlation where you go well pressure to sacrate shows this then you go hey what about joe burrow pressure to sacrate what about Sean Watson? Where those guys improved it in the NFL? Or what about, hey, this guy had this trade or that trade. It's just so hard to chase any sort of truth in part because they're all different guys. So we look to history and go, well, history says this.

All right, fair enough. But Zach Wilson is a different person than Bo Nix, right? And they might be just wired differently. I think Zach Wilson was so overwhelmed in the NFL. I don't think he could handle any of it. I don't think he could handle physically. I don't think he could handle it mentally at all. Emotionally, as far as the preparation, how much he was going to give to.

I mean, we know the reasons after. But if you watch Zach Wilson in college, you've been like, hell yeah, let's go. And any of them can be that. That's why I'm okay with whichever way they end up going. And I think it will be really entertaining and interesting to chronicle that journey. I'm excited about chronicling it,

writing about it, talking about it with you guys, getting your reactions to stories that we get, that we get out of TCO Performance Center. I can't wait to go to OTAs and watch the guy throw the football. I'm just very curious about how it's going to play out. But I have been looking. I had an analytics roundtable with Eric Eager and Tej Seth, two of the smartest guys you're ever going to find. And there's only little things. There's only, Hey, sometimes this points to success. There was an old NFL thing that was the more passes the guy threw in college, the more likely was to succeed. But then, you know, we see someone like, I don't know. I mean, Anthony Richardson hasn't succeeded yet, but he goes in

the top five. Like, well, I don't know. They drafted him totally. I mean, how many did Cam Newton even have a lot of passes and then became an MVP? There's nothing that is going to be like locked in or this was too much of a reach. The one thing I'll say about trading up and reaching is if you go back and look at the teams that failed when they traded up, look at their rosters after that. Look at the first year of that quarterback and go, wait, this team was trading all of its draft capital when it had a terrible roster?

What the heck were they thinking? Well, the Vikings don't have a terrible roster. Daniel says, hopeful for May, happy with JJ if they get boxed out and it happened uh after game five last year should have embraced the tank oh i see what you're saying yeah if they if they get boxed out of the one of the top quarterbacks the alleged we should have been calling them the alleged top quarterbacks we don't really know yet the alleged top quarterbacks then it will have been because they weren't able to tank and that's something that I'm going to think about for a long time,

that three nothing win in Las Vegas, where I was sitting there with Dane Mizutani in that stadium, a very strange stadium in the middle of downtown Las Vegas and just going, what did they just do? What did they just do by winning this game three to nothing? They just hurt their draft stock. And you know, that was at that moment, we thought they might have to just bring back Kirk. They might win too many games here and not be able to get a quarterback. That was what

we were thinking at that moment. Enigma says, uh, some of you are just going to have to soak in the possibility may just won't be able to, I assume, be there because those teams are desperate as us. So all scenarios have to be considered. No, you're right. Enigma that Drake may going number two is extremely plausible and we fall in love along the way we fall in love and say, well, you know, Drake may is the guy. He's the only one who could be a superstar. And that could be wrong very quickly. It really could. You know, Drake May might go number two and not work out because he's going to Washington and they still seem like a goofy team. Or he could go to the Patriots and they could sack him every play and you have nobody to throw to. And he looks

terrible. He could come to the Vikings and not know how to play football, or he could come to the vikings and not know how to play football or he could come here and be a superstar like all these things are possibilities um but if they if drake may goes number two clearly then the vikings are not getting him and then i really want to know what the strategy is that's where it gets interesting the one thing we can say with some level of confidence is that they want to move to three and they want to take Drake May. That's the most we can say with confidence. What happens if he's not there at three? No clue. All hack breaks loose. Bron frickin' Solo, no matter who they draft, if they take a quarterback, hope the expectations can be tempered and realistic. Bron, in football, when do we ever run into tempered and realistic expectations in football?

That is a lot to ask, my friend. Kind of like for Teddy, rather than CP. I'll let you get away with calling him CP, even though his name is banned on the show. It's a lot to shoulder for a rookie quarterback. Super Bowl is not this year. Yeah, I mean, I agree with that. And that's going to be that is going to be a constant kind of back and forth type of thing where it's going to be. All right, let's react to what's happening. Let's not go crazy, though. Let's not decide that

everything that's happening means a big thing. This happened last year with Jaron Hall. So I remember a very fun and entertaining training camp. I think, I don't know what I was calling it, training camp tonight or something. We'll call it that this year. If you're enjoying these live shows, trust me, those training camp ones, they're great. They're a lot of fun. I come back with a bunch of notes every day, talk about what I've seen out of training camp. It's great time. And so I I'm, you know, coming back last year, talking about a good practice for Jaron Hall and every single reaction is, well, could he be our franchise quarterback in the future? Should they kick Nick Mullins off the team? It was like, Whoa, it wasn't even a padded practice. So yes, there's going to be probably on this show a lot of times where I say, all right, guys, here's what happened. Now let's not lose our minds, but here's what's happening.

Here's what's going on with a quarterback X and no quarterback. This is something, you know, I mentioned golfing tomorrow with Sam Ekstrom, because that's our tradition on draft day. One of the things he was always big on is, and I'm sure he still is, is that development doesn't happen where you get just better every single day or every single week or every single practice. You have a little bit better, a little bit worse. So if it's Drake May, there might be a practice where we're wowed in a practice where we can't believe how bad he was. And we're going to talk about it, but we're not going to say, all right, well, he's a bust. And unfortunately that's going to go through probably the first year, unless he comes out and plays like CJ Stroud, whoever they get, that's going to go through an entire first year. That's what makes it tricky about evaluating. Well, let me not call it tricky.

Interesting, exciting to break down everything and what it means and all that stuff and react to it. But we also have to make sure, like Bron said, like, oh, sometimes we go a little crazy and I'm sure tomorrow night everybody will go crazy. And we're going to have to probably rein that in at some point as well. Josh, good to see you, Josh. With the no competitive offers rumor coming out of New England, would that indicate the Vikings are waiting until May is available at three

to make their best offer? It could be that, or it could be that the Patriots are saying to the Vikings, come on, or that they're saying to their fans. They could also be talking to their fans. When they talk to reporters, sometimes they get messages out to the fans. Could be saying to the fans, we're not going to take any old offer.

We're only going to take the Godfather offer. That's it, fans. So when you're teed off that we didn't draft Drake May, remember we waited until we got this insane offer and the Vikings lost their mind. And then we finally said, okay, we'll do it. That could be it. That could be why they're doing it. Brandon says the more footage I watch on Knicks, the more I like him and the more I'd be okay with drafting him. Everybody has that happen. Everybody has that happen.

That, you know, there's a lot of talk about him and look, he might go in the second round and maybe the hype is not what we think it is. But every time I say, hey, just go back and watch a couple games. Just go take a look at what that looks like because there's so much talk about, well, here's my film breakdown and your film breakdown is five plays. And like, look, if you had Kurt Warner do a hundred plays, it would take all day. Right. So he can't do that. But if you watch a couple of games and there's videos that are chopped up to just go through the throws, thankfully, that's nice. I always come away going, and that ball does come out like on time every time. And gosh, he did make a few plays there.

And it looks like he's making some plays. So people get people, you know, I think get so influenced by film breakdowns and takes from mock drafters and analysts and stuff that like, if you're going to get your opinion, take a sec, go take a look, uh, at Bo Nix. And I think he actually would, um, you know, make a lot of sense for Kevin O'Connell. Uh, flick says, are you going to have a live show tomorrow? You betcha flick half hour before the draft starts right here live on the youtube page i will be here and we will go as long as it goes and we'll do this same exact thing uh the plan is technology pending of course but the plan is to have a couple of beat reporters out at

tco that's where i would normally be but i gotta go to go live for this one, right? So we'll get, you know, a couple of beat reporters coming on, giving their takes and we'll find out what, you know, the brass has to say after the pick. I'll go through all the picks. I'll have it on TV right here, so I won't spoil. And so if you want to try to match that up with the TV and me breaking it down, do my best for you guys tomorrow night. It should be really fun.

Carl, let's do your meters of concern for each guy yeah i kind of went through that a little bit um i guess i would if we wanted to put it on more of a scale because i was doing colors more of a scale uh obviously caleb williams not happening so drake may my meter of concern is maybe a three. I just don't worry too much about the stuff that people don't like about him, which is the occasional inaccuracy and some of the messiness of his tape last year. It doesn't, doesn't really throw me off because of his skill. And then with, um, who do you want to do next? Uh, Jaden Daniels, it's a little more, might be like a five and, and look in the draft, all quarterbacks are going to get, if you ask me the meter of concern

for Patrick Mahomes, it's zero, right? So it can't be someone that I had, it's got to be higher than someone I have an NFL, you know, evaluation on from years and statistics and playing in this league. So they're all going to be concerning. Jaden Daniels is probably a five or six. Definitely the running ability gives you a floor. What the ceiling is, I'm not entirely sure for him. And I've always been on the side of running quarterbacks, even going back Randall Cunningham when he was in the league with the Eagles and Steve McNair is one of my favorite players growing up. Lamar Jackson's

one of my best draft takes ever. There are bad ones, but that was a really good one because I thought that the running stuff and Jalen hurts too. I liked him coming out. And, but with Daniels, I'm just a little more, a little more worried about that. The impact of the running game is significant, but if you can't see where to throw the football, can't get it out on time, can't master, you know, thrown into the right windows and thrown over the middle of the field and the age, his slenderness, like there's a lot of things that concern me. So I'd go five or six with him. McCarthy is more

like an eight scares me a lot with the small sample. If McCarthy was two years later in his career and we knew what he was going to become into his twenties. It'd be a lot easier to figure this one out. Uh, Pennix might be more of a six or seven, maybe a six. And Bo Nix is probably a four. I think Bo Nix is the easiest one to figure out what he's going to be. And as many of you have pointed out, it's hard to see him being a mega star, but it's also hard for me to see him being a guy who just can't play at all. If, if he's not that great, is he Andy Dalton with Cincinnati and still can win a lot of games. That's how I, that's like the worst case. I think for Bo Nix that he'll be a guy that you can play,

that is a playable, maybe a quarterback you can win with. The question is, is there like much more there? That's what is harder to say with nicks so he's less risky but his best is probably not going to be a megastar matthew says picking at 11 and 23 very plausible depending on how things fall quacey wants to favor the odds with analytics guarantee he has a set pick and player price level for every scenario oh Oh, most definitely. The way I've been thinking of this is that they have different highways.

And imagine, do we have toll roads in Minnesota? I don't even know. They had them in New York and they have them in Illinois. They're actually a nightmare in Illinois. So thank you, state of Illinois, for that. When I was moving here, I drove through all these toll roads. Anyway, think of it as a toll road and everything has a cost. If you want to get off at the Drake May exit, the cost is immense, but he's going to have a number

of how much he would pay to get off at that exit. And he's going to have a number of how much he would pay to get off at the JJ McCarthy exit and the number of, you know, the, the Bo Nix or the Michael Pennix exit. He's going to have a number on every one of those. But sticking at 11 and 23 gives you the opportunity to draft someone at 23 who could potentially be a really good defensive player. That's what brings me back around to having 23 is it's a heck of a time to have 23. It's a heck of a time to have that pick in this draft where all the offensive players are going to go at the top. You talk about falling in love with guys like go watch Leatu Latu,

go watch Quinion Mitchell, who runs a four-3 at 6'1", and bats down every pass that comes his way. You start going, you know, you know, I could see something nice there. Justin says, do you think that Kweisi would rather trade 11-23 and a player rather than next year's first? Derrissaw makes no sense, but Addison, I think he'd rather trade the pick. We can't take our eye off the ball with how good Addison was last year and how much he was asked to do. Addison was never supposed to spend eight or nine weeks as wide receiver one, but he

handled that really well. I cannot see that. When you talk about weapons, it's so important to have the weapons, this entire thing where I've talked about, Hey, I'm going to give them a high grade, no matter what, as long as they get a quarterback, a major part of that for me is Jordan Addison. So if you removed him from that, then just had Jefferson, I would be more skeptical that that would remind me of kind of where the Raiders were with Devontae Adams. It's great to have one great receiver. It's hard to only have one great receiver and then draw all the attention to that guy.

You'd much rather give up the next year's first round draft pick than someone that you drafted in the first and you already know is good. Craig says, I truly think Knicks to Vikes steam is fake news that they put out there to throw off other teams who really want May. I haven't heard any sources with Bo Knicks and the Vikings. It's really just Ben Gessling brought it up. I mentioned it yesterday. It's really just that when you watch Knicks play and you think about how their offense operated, then, um, you know, you could really see it. I think that's what it's really like is you could really see it working out. Uh, DD says,

I'd be happy with Drake May for three first rounders, maybe get a second or third in return Pennix at 11 and keep 23 McCarthy, but don't overpay. You might be thinking the same way the Vikings are very possibly. Uh, Thor asks how many Viking, how many quarterbacks the Vikings draft? I would assume it's one. I suppose they could draft somebody in the seventh that they like, but that guy was Jaron Hall last year, that middle late round quarterback. They've already done that. Um, Alexander, I don't think we have to worry about Knicks at 11. I don't think he's going that high. Very possible. Very possible. I mean, when you look at what people think as far as mock drafters, as far as insiders,

it's all over the map on big boards. And that's, what's so, uh, hard to figure out on big boards. And that's, what's so hard to figure out on big boards. Bo Nix is 38th or something, but then you see mock drafts that have them at 12th to the Broncos or 11 at the Vikings or 23 at the Vikings. I mean, it's just all over the place. I that's what I can't find a way to find out is okay. What do they really think? We've been told out is okay. What do they really think?

We've been told that certain things, what do they really think? KFT says I will barf if they draft Knicks. But barf the guy threw 45 touchdowns. It was sacked six times. What do it like? We're acting like Bo Knicks is just this like pathetic slob I mean I maybe that maybe he'll be in the third round and then I'll come back and say you know what

KFD was right he was a pathetic slob I don't know though man that's that's so aggressive you'd rather have Spencer Rattler I don't think Rattler is getting taken till the fourth round. Oh, you got a rumor. I should have opened it up for other people who have rumors. Uh, KFT says, I heard rumors. The giants prefer Pennix over McCarthy, but the Broncos want him and would trade up for him. It's all over the place. It's all over the place. I think it's, it's potentially realistic that JJ McCarthy doesn't get picked as high as everyone else. If there's one quarterback, if, if we're trying to figure out which quarterback will get picked in a different spot than everyone thinks it has to be McCarthy. It has to be, he's just exactly

fitting the profile of the guy who is overstated by the outside world. Because the other guys, when we're talking about Pennix or Knicks, they are potentially understated because of where their draft draft board status is. But with McCarthy, the big boards, not, I mean, we were really in the woods here. The big boards have McCarthy lower than the mock drafts, which would suggest that there could potentially be a bit of a fall. That's all that in the past, the way that it was phrased to me, the past, uh, sort of indicates that if there's four or five quarterbacks, the fourth or fifth is likely to be way lower than

everyone's mocking. That's all. all. Yeah, you guys are really going back and forth on Bo Nix. Nix is a tough one to figure out. He really is what he's going to look like as an NFL quarterback, because it's not that it's tough to figure out if he could step in there and throw the ball. It's what he could actually be in the best case scenario in the best case scenario. Could he be phenomenal? I don't know. Could he be really good? Could be. Taylor says,

Alec Lewis and Ben guessing both predicting a trade up for may has me intrigued and terrified. It won't happen. Oh, intrigued and terrified is the way we like it. Taylor. That's why we watched the draft. If we didn't want to be intrigued and terrified by the outcome,

you wouldn't watch football. You'd watch house hunters where you're not really intrigued. You're only terrified of ever running into any of the people on house hunters. But since both cross, that's why we watch sports. That's where you constantly are with Minnesota sports. Tell me you're not intrigued and terrified of the Minnesota Timberwolves right now. That's what we do. Otherwise, life would be boring.

We wouldn't be here. But yeah, I mean, if I'm picking, I guess I should because, you know, we've gone on for quite some time now. Huge audience. Love that. Love that. Hope it's bigger even tomorrow night during the draft live here on the youtube page uh but i should do this now and then wrap it up for the night because um i gotta wash my

golf clubs for tomorrow so i can jinx the vikings into number three if you missed that part go back and watch but if i'm picking what i think is the most likely, it's trading up to number three for Drake May. That's where I'm going to go as well. I agree with Alec. I agree with Ben. There are so many signals that they really want to do that. And the Patriots have not told everybody to go screw off. They keep going, it's not enough yet, but we'll see.

So that's my number one outcome of trying to project what's going to happen tomorrow night number two is that they end up getting jj mccarthy at number five number three would be the stick and pick with bo nicks but there's so many ways this could go all of those things could not happen and it could be something we totally don't expect uh let's see what draft outcome uh will turn you off from the vikings um if they don't draft a quarterback i will be astounded i will be astounded i i mean i don't know if that would i'm gonna do this because this is a great job to have.

And it's as the most fun that any person could ever have is talking to everybody about football. So I don't think anything's going to turn me off from my job. I'm going to cover them no matter what, but if they didn't draft quarterback or if they did take Spencer Rattler, 23, I just, what I would be shocked, stunned.

That would be one heck of a postgame reaction, but there's, there's nothing they could do in this draft that would make me quit my job. It's too good. I like it too much. Jim says, Pennix at 11, great arms, super agile in the pocket. A little can be more than, more than we talk about agile in the pocket is something he can do and showed that in Texas game. Um, and then you want offensive lineman a day three, everyone's going to want offensive lineman. I am advocating for a wide receiver in the fourth round because there's lots of good wide receivers and those guys can actually work out. It takes a couple of years for lineman. I think that might be something you have to pay for next year. Um, we got,

we got some more rumor action. KFT have heard the Vikings trade offer to new England. Doesn't include pick 23. I can guarantee you. No one knows the trade offer. I know that unless they're tapping phones, nobody knows the trade offer, uh, which is probably why they haven't gotten a serious offer yet. Yeah. I mean, I think they also just want everyone to think if they accept the offer, that it was by far the absolute best offer that they were ever going to get and that they went, all right, somebody went crazy. So we had to do it.

Like that's, that's what they're waiting for. They know what kind of offers they have and if it's good enough. And I think the Vikings know how high it might take if they're actually going to do it. If it didn't include 23, then yeah, I'm sure on draft night, they have to go. All right, fine. We'll throw it in there, but I don't know why you'd get 23. If it didn't include 20 Joseph, why not not bet darnold recognizing his potential and give uh give him insane talent is nix's ceiling higher than darnold's is nix i mean yes everyone's ceiling is higher than darnold's are we talking about the same guy i mean sam darnold has had a

horrendous career so far i i mean i like him as a pickup for somebody that the Vikings could play and maybe get a little bit more out of than has ever happened before. But he is one of the biggest busts in the draft ever happened. And he throws almost as many picks as he does touchdowns. I went back and watched and did a film piece on his games, even in Carolina, where he went four and two. And there's some stuff that really gets you excited.

And you know why he's a top draft pick. And there's a lot of stuff that you go. And that's why you won't be the starting quarterback for a long term for the Vikings. That's not going to happen. And it's not something I would be remotely okay with. And look, if Sam Darnold comes out and goes crazy with this team and shocks everybody and Bo Nix sits there and watches him play, then okay, that would be really something. But everyone's ceiling is higher than a guy who

throws as many picks as touchdowns. That's just the reality. Sam Darnold is way too wild to be relied upon as a starter in the NFL. Maybe he could become Vinny Testaverde someday. Travis asks, why do you think KOC has been so cocky about the quarterback in that church video? He didn't seem nervous at all. It's a great question. It's a great question to, well, first of all, now I had the same vibe as you. I went, oh, okay. Kevin looks pretty calm, you know, pretty cool about this draft. Like he knows something that we don't know. And it was pointed out by Drew McGarry on the show that when you talk about getting somebody flowers, it's usually as a thank you.

It's not as a bribe. So instead of saying, oh, yeah, I'm going to send Robert craft a Maserati or something like, you know, I mean, no, he's saying I'm going to send him flowers. We send flowers for thank you. So yeah. Okay. You could dig into that 40 second clip as much as you want. One thing you have to remember is Kevin O'Connell is one of the best talkers I've ever been around in all of my time covering football. He is one of the most naturally gifted, comfortable speakers you will ever see in your life. And if you watch that whole video, which is really why I tweeted it out, but I mean, it got a little more attention than I expected. I thought it was just kind of a fun moment,

but the video in general, the whole thing, the whole speech was great. It was a really great insight into Kevin and who he is and all that stuff, which is why I was sharing it. But you'll see how at ease he is talking all the time. So even if he was really nervous that they're not going to get whatever quarterback, he's still going to be him. I mean, after terrible losses, he still goes up to the podium and still explain stuff to happen. We've never seen him kind of be Zimmer. Like he's just, he's a quarterback. He's a lifelong quarterback. I think he's just a really good speaker. I did wonder the same thing you're wondering though. And the same, and at the, at the owner's meetings had the same feeling. Okay. I mean, you guys seem pretty comfortable right now.

You know, you guys, you guys seem pretty confident right now. So maybe, maybe they have a situation where they are looking at this, like they've got the offer to new England and they just need Washington to not pick Drake May. Mr. USC V Bo Nix is mobile now, 235 yards rushing last year. Is that, um, is that actually yards rushing or is that the total bogus BS college way of rushing yards? Uh, I think it might be, I think that might be the total nonsense way where they count sack yards. Although he wasn't sacked that often.

So maybe, maybe that is right. I mean, again, you just got to watch. You just got to go back. He scrambles pretty often. He's not a prolific runner. He's a scrambler at times where he can make plays out of the pocket and he can get first downs if he has to. No one is calling him a running quarterback.

He's clearly not, but you were looking for a playmaking element. So yeah. And can Bo Nix run? He's been a, he's been a, that kind of quarterback for his entire career at Auburn. He ran a ton. They actually got him to stop running so much. He was more of a running quarterback at Auburn. I think at least from the times that I watched him, he was running a lot. So yeah, I mean, you know, look, we're all going to have opinions and we're all going to watch these guys back when they're drafted and try to figure out, and we're going to try to plant our flag and say, you know, Hey, look, I can't stand that quarterback or I, I love this quarterback, but all the guys in this draft class, I'll just tell you one interaction I had with somebody. The best I can tell you is high up. I just said, is it really as good as we think?

Is it really as good as we think? And the answer was it is. It's a, it's a really, really high quality draft class. That doesn't mean more than four quarterbacks even go in the first round. But what it means is whichever quarterback they come away with, if they think someone's worth the 11th overall pick, that that guy's going to have a very good resume and potential to be a really good quarterback. Bo Nix is the one that most people will argue about. And that's why we spent a lot of time talking about him is if that is who they end up with, he will be the one that gets argued about the most. There will be many people who hate the pick who say they know he's going to be bad, but I would just remind you

that, you know, Donovan McNabb was booed at the NFL draft. So there's a lot of... Russell Wilson was given Fs at the NFL draft for the Seattle Seahawks picking him. I mean, Horsefeathers asks, if May is gone at two, do we still trade up? That is the question, my friend. I don't think so. Not to three, but maybe to five probably to

five that's where i could see it so okay anyway well it's look i'll give you the i'll give you my final thoughts here because uh it's been about two hours and i haven't eaten a lot of food today so we'll call it a night and we'll meet up here half an hour before the draft. What is it started seven, six 30 tomorrow. Let's do that. Half an hour before the draft starts tomorrow,

right here on the purple insider YouTube, we're going live. And if you can't watch or listen live, it will be up on the podcast feed on iTunes right after. So you can listen to what I had to say as soon as they get to their pick on there, but I'd love to have all of you drop by and join stick around also. Hey, by the way, uh, we did this cool animation thing and you probably want to watch it today or tomorrow. Did a really cool animation thing on the page where I looked at all the data,

but also I had some professional animators who are Vikings fans, draw it up on the chalkboard. Super cool. Go check that out. Really fun thing. Uh, so tomorrow night we'll see here. And I just, I know I've talked about a lot, but I can't wait to find out where this franchise is going to go because when it came to Kirk Cousins last three to four years as the Vikings quarterback, I always felt like I knew where it was going to go every year. We'd go to training camp and I would feel pretty confident that the team was not going to be able to compete for a championship and that at best, you know, maybe they would end up in the playoffs and we would probably cover one round of playoff football.

And that even happened in their best year with Kirk Cousins. And him moving on does not guarantee that this draft pick is going to be great. Doesn't guarantee that they're going to actually win a Super Bowl. Nothing ever does in the NFL. But tomorrow is the beginning of believing that it could actually work and they could truly have a chance to be in that super bowl conversation by building a team around this next quarterback and find the franchise quarterback that they have lacked for so many years. So, so many years. And that's what's on

the line for tomorrow. So, um, yeah, I, uh, let's see. So let's, let's call it. You're asking about the time before, right. Before the broadcast kicks in. So if it's seven o'clock, which I think it is six 30, just call it six 30. I'm not going to, I don't mean half an hour before the Vikings pick. I mean, six 30 tomorrow. So just to clarify that, but to, to, to put a bow on the speech, I'm very excited about it. And I've loved coming along with this ride for all of you who have watched, interacted,

commented, emailed, had the back and forth. It's just, it's just been great. It's been totally different. Something that I've never had the opportunity to do covering this team. And it's been a lot of fun. So we'll find it all out tomorrow and then we'll break it down from there. And then we will cover it all the way from start to finish with whatever happens with QB one, who we will know tomorrow. So thanks so much to everybody for

watching, listening, participating, subscribing, liking all the other possible things you could do and, uh, have a good sleep everybody, because you're going to need it. Maybe get that midday nap in. You're going to need it. Could be a long night. All right. Thanks everybody. Catch you next time.

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