Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Vikings sign Dean Lowry, what's next? How will they handle the receiver position?

Episode Date: March 18, 2023

Matthew Coller gives an update on the Vikings signed veteran DT Dean Lowry and the lack of movement on Za'Darius Smith and Dalvin Cook. Plus answers questions on the future of the receiver position, where Josh Oliver fits in and much more Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here and this is a fans-only episode where I take questions that have been sent to me on Twitter or through email and answer them. And I would like to start out by saying, I'm sorry it's been a little while. I've been stacking up a lot of questions from you folks, but there has been a lot of breaking news to react to over the last week,

so I've got a lot of questions to get to. Should be a really fun show here. And keep sending them, purpleinsider.com. Go to the Contact Us. That's where you can send your fans-only questions. Or at Matthew Collar on Twitter. Shoot me a DM. Send me an app mention.

Either way you want to do it is good with me. And then I will put them in the file. And every time I get a chance, we'll be doing them a lot more going forward when every day doesn't seem to be filled with Vikings news. However, when we thought when we started the week, there would be a lot more in some ways in pertaining to Zedarius Smith and Delvin Cook. And yet we are still waiting for movement when it comes to either Zedarius Smith or Delvin Cook. The Vikings signed Marcus Davenport officially the other day on Thursday. We went out for the press conference.

It didn't end up happening. Some eyebrows got raised. Is there a holdup with the contract or is there some sort of issue with his physical? He's had some injuries in the past, but then the following day, the Vikings worked it all out. Everything was fine. And now how are they getting under the cap and managing the rest of the players that they have that are unsure? So we will of course do live broadcasts and breaking news and all those sorts of things, emergency podcasts. When there is movement, whether it means those guys staying or those guys being traded away,

the tea leaves still point to Zedarius Smith and Delvin Cook eventually not being Minnesota Vikings. But we have seen before in the past where we thought somebody was going to move or there wasn't going to be enough cap space. And then they have found a way to keep them and maybe it is a swing move of Harrison Smith deciding to stay where they are not as much tearing things down on the defensive side but who can be sure as of right now I guess we'll find out as we go forward but it would seem to me that they are going to take their time to see how some of the major pieces continue to fall in free agency.

If a team gets left out in the cold with a running back and decides to trade for Delvin Cook, if a team had expectations of getting a top-notch pass rusher and couldn't, or they might end up finding a way to just keep Zedarius Smith because part of this might be that they could say to Zedarius Smith, hey, look, go try to find another offer from a different team. If you can get more money than we're giving you, then we'll let you go. But I don't know that that's going to be the case after the first tier of top free agents goes off the list. This happened similarly with Riley Reif. When the Vikings traded for Yannick Ngakwe, they released him initially and we thought it was going to be over. Or there was talk of

releasing him initially to make the cap space. And then he decided to return on a better contract for the Vikings because he wasn't going to get any of that money elsewhere. It's amazing how teams have all these things lined up they want to do. They sign their players, they spend their cap space, and then there's this lull in free agency. And after just a couple of days, we've hit it. And so there might be some elements of that when it comes to the moving parts of a potential Zedarius Smith or Delvin Cook deal.

I think of those two, the Vikings would probably rather or should rather keep Zedarius Smith or Delvin Cook deal. I think of those two, the Vikings would probably rather or should rather keep Zedarius Smith if you're going to try to stack up your defense a bit anyway. And we'll talk about the move that they also made on the defensive line. And if you're Brian Flores, you're probably on the phone with Kweisi Adafo-Mensah saying, you know, I'd really like to have Marcus Davenport and Daniil Hunter and Zedarius Smith for my pass rush to start out to go along with Byron Murphy, who they signed as well. And before we get into your questions, the other signing the Vikings made was Dean Lowry. Now it's only a two-year deal for $8.2 million. So not a huge contract for Dean Lowry. I'm sure that most of you are familiar

with him. Defensive lineman from the Green Bay Packers, a long lineage of Packers becoming Vikings. And Dean Lowry is the most recent. Last year it was Z'Darrius Smith and Chandon Sullivan. So I guess every off season, there has to be a Packer who becomes a Viking or it's just not a Vikings offseason. Dean Lowry, though, I understand maybe less than some of the other signings with Byron Murphy and with Marcus Davenport and even Josh Oliver, all of them fell into a category of if things work out for this player, he could be a part of your team for a long time. And there's probably more meat on the bone with that player that Byron Murphy, whose best year came in the slot, by the way, as a majority of the slot player, maybe he becomes your nickel corner for years to come.

And you sign an extension after next year, and he's a guy for you for five, six years. That's your perfect world scenario, Byron Murphy. And with Marcus Davenport, same deal. He's 27 years old. Maybe you get four or five years out of him if he stays healthy. And if his sack production comes back, that you could feel really good about that. It might not work out, but there's a best case scenario where this guy's a part of your team for quite a while. I don't know that's really the case with Dean Lowry. And in 2021, Lowry was a

really good interior rusher for the Packers. He had five sacks, 42 quarterback pressures, which is a pretty high quality number for a defensive tackle. But last year, that was not the case for him. He ranked similarly in pass rush win rate to Harrison Phillips. So that's not really that effective. Harrison Phillips is more of a run stuffer. He only registered a half a sack. He's never been a huge sack total guy, but he's also not big enough to be a major run stuffer. So as depth, it's an okay signing.

It's another guy that you bring in. But at the same time, there's a part of me that says, but what's his potential? Is this going to keep him off the field? If he plays pretty well in training camp, is it going to be the veteran who signed the contract getting the playing time? Ross Blacklock is still fairly young and they traded for him. Must be for a reason, right? For going after Ross Blacklock, we didn't see a whole heck of a lot of Ross Blacklock

last year, and maybe signing Dean Lowry tells us that we're not going to see much of him last year. Kyrus Tonga played pretty well in that nose tackle position. I imagine that he'll play a lot and it's going to be a rotation. It's just, it's not devastating to the idea that they're competitive rebuilding. It's just, was this the person that you maybe could get the best potential out of where it seems like someone who is in their late twenties, I think he's 29 years old, who is coming off a down year. Is that somebody that is going to potentially hit an upswing after this joining the Vikings?

I don't know that that is something you should really expect from Dean Lowry. He's more of just a guy, more of just a filler rotational type of player that I would rather see someone with potential be there. But again, it's not like lose your mind over signing Dean Lowry to a short-term contract. You need players. They needed more depth after losing Delvin Tomlinson. It's just, is that the right guy to go with coming off of a majorly down year? And if you're arguing for a 25-year-old player, hey, two years ago, he really showed what he can be. That's different than a 29-year-old player because that's just how football works. Not for long is exactly right when it comes to players peaks and so even with Marcus Davenport you could say well two years ago he had nine sacks he was getting pressures last year that sack production will probably come back when Lowry fades the way that he did that is more of a red flag to me than a oh okay well he'll probably bounce back or there's numbers that are under the radar that say he should be better. Well, there aren't, in this case, numbers under the radar from last season.

So they're taking a shot on an experienced player for a short-term contract. Shouldn't hurt them too much if it doesn't work out. Maybe not necessarily the direction that I would have gone. Okay, let's get right into our fans only questions. First one comes from Jonathan. Do you think that the Josh Oliver signing is to get a traditional tight end to move Hawkinson off the line into a role similar to the one vacated by Adam Thielen or to play more 12 personnel? Yeah, I mean, I think the answer is both because TJ Hawkinson has the capability to line up at wide receiver.

In fact, when I looked at his numbers where he lined up over his career, it wasn't quite 50-50 if I recall, but it was close. He lined up in the slot and even outside as a receiver pretty often. So what Josh Oliver does is he forces the defense into a little bit of a tricky spot where when they see a guy of his size, and let me tell you, having seen him up close, he is humongous. He is quite a bit bigger than TJ Hawkinson. This is a mammoth human being.

So this is like having another offensive lineman out there, even though he can catch the ball. He had 14 catches last year and had some decent plays for the Ravens. And he came out as a receiving tight end. So it's not like he just can't catch the ball at all. And maybe that's what they wanted rather than having Johnny Munt, who is much more of a blocker and less of a threat without any major upside, whereas Oliver might have some more upside. But I do think that that 12 personnel,

and this is where, hey, Gary Kubiak knows what he's doing, right? From way back in the day with Byron Chamberlain and Shannon Sharp out on the field for the Denver Broncos, I mean, this has always worked. The Vikings had it worked with Irv Smith early in his career and Kyle Rudolph, especially in 2019, where defenses, do they want to put a third linebacker out on the field? Do they want to stay in the nickel and then have their nickel corner get smashed by this six foot five tight end? And then TJ Hawkinson has really good speed, can go into the intermediate

areas from a wide receiver position. Plus it gives Kirk Cousins or whoever's playing quarterback, it'll be Kirk Cousins this year, but in the future, it gives them a read on how the defense is going to play man versus zone. And teams have gotten better at mixing it up against these types of things, but it's one of those long established, it's always worked and it's a great tool to have in your bag. Now, I do not think that this means that Adam Thielen's position is replaced because Josh Oliver is going to come in and play a little more traditional tight end. I would only expect this to happen 25% of the time.

I think that where Kevin O'Connell really wants to still be based in is 11 personnel and that they do need another wide receiver. So I think that it's kind of a clever move to bring in a receiving tight end in college who's been developing, has turned into this great blocker and might have a little bit more there to free up TJ Hawkinson to move about the cabin as he wants to. At the same time, I still think that another wide receiver is necessary because there's just that element that tight ends can only do so much down

the field. And TJ Hawkinson, while he is tremendous underneath, he's good at getting yards after the catch, he does not scare anyone as a deep threat. I think he has good hands. He can make some contested catches, but we're not talking about someone who runs a 4-3 or 4-4 who is going to draw deep attention away

from Justin Jefferson. So it does work. It is kind of a hack, but it's also not the answer, in my opinion, to losing Adam Thielen. I think you would still want another receiver in the mix. Have KJ Osborne be your number three. If something comes of Jalen Naylor, then that is great. But you can't really bet on that. As a late round draft pick from Naylor, he may have just flashed a little in certain situations. I like this. I like having this here as an extra weapon for them and to improve their running game. Because again, if the opponent says, and this is what happened

actually a few times with Delvin Cook and his huge games against the Packers, where they would keep their nickel and dime packages out there against the Vikings when they had two tight ends and it would just be a massive mismatch. That's what you're looking for. It's kind of old school football a little bit, but in old school football, most teams had three beefy linebackers. Now the linebackers are 30 pounds lighter than Josh Oliver is, which may play into some of his success as a blocking tight end. So I like the move from that perspective. I saw initially some reaction from fans was like,

wait, our first signing is a blocking tight end. But I think that this is necessary for them to add a little bit of extra different looks for opposing defenses, where it's not so easy to just know how the Vikings are going to throw the ball and then helps their play action game as well because last year they weren't that great at it and I think where you can really crush teams with play action is when there are extra linebackers on the field and you're asking those linebackers to drop into zones or to play man to man against faster tight ends like TJ Hawkinson or receivers. It's, it is a football hack.

There's no question about it. And that's why I think Oliver will fit in well, but I don't think that it just means, okay, Hawkinson's a receiver. No, he still has to play a tight end. And I think they still need another receiver, how much money they'll have to do it or draft capital that they can put into it. I did see a report or a breakdown, a study from our friend, Tej Seth, who has been on the show before about how drafting a receiver in the second or even the third round has greatly better odds than in the fourth, fifth and beyond,

which of course, you know, the Vikings have made a habit of betting on the next Stefan Diggs over and over again. And KJ Osborne's a good find, but there have been receivers to stretch into the second and third rounds that have turned out to be very good in recent years. And I think the Vikings need to consider that as they're maybe trading back or even taking someone in the third round that receiver should still be on their radar. Next question comes from Chad. If the Lions trade for Lamar Jackson, how close are they to Super Bowl favorites?

Very, very, very close to Super Bowl favorites. The thing about Lamar Jackson is if he comes to the NFC, who's a better quarterback than Lamar Jackson in the NFC? And I know you can say, well, he's not the best passer, but think about how good Jared Goff looked last year in that offense, how many open receivers they had, how many receiving weapons they have. Amin Ra St. Brown is already better than any receiver that the Baltimore Ravens have had. Ben Johnson is much better at drawing up passing plays than the Ravens, where it seemed Greg

Roman was really good with the running game, but not so much of designing in the past. And then they're getting Jamison Williams. They can add more if they want to. I don't know that this is really possible or a thing that the Detroit Lions are considering at all. I know some people are mocking Anthony Richardson to them. I think they're going to stay with Jared Goff and continue to try to build around him and only draft a quarterback in the future if they have to.

I don't know how they feel about Jared Goff for sure, but when a guy leads an elite offense, you're usually not going to look at him and say, oh, we need to replace that guy right away. The Lions are trying to take the next step here to be a division champion back in the playoffs, restoring the roar and making a quarterback change. It would be very surprising. But to your point, if you could place a massively successful MVP level quarterback into that

offense with that offensive line, yes, I think that they would be a Super Bowl favorite from the NFC, maybe not the AFC because Kansas City, Buffalo, Cincinnati, there's still a lot of great teams with superstar quarterbacks that are in the AFC. So I don't know that they would be ahead of those teams. But yeah, it's very improbable, very improbable. And I know that I've been asked before about Lamar Jackson and his passing and how his numbers are not as good as they were during his MVP season. And it's really remarkable if you go back and look at the receivers that Lamar Jackson has had over his career and his

numbers throwing inside the pocket are generally pretty good. I actually don't think he's a great thrower on the run, but when he can set and throw, I think that Lamar Jackson is decent. And think about it this way, Lamar, and the injury is much more concerning that he's had two straight seasons of injuries to me than his passing because of the weapons, because of the design is often playing into it. If you don't have a Mahomes, but even if you do have a Patrick Mahomes, the offensive design matters. Look at Brian Dable with Daniel Jones, even Brian Dable with Josh Allen, what he was able to do taking him to the next level. Those are a big deal. And I think the Ravens were pretty far behind in that area as well as weapons as well. And then there's a good offensive line there,

but Lamar Jackson had a similar quarterback rating last year to Kirk Cousins. I mean, I don't think that this is a major issue with him as far as how well he could throw the ball. And look, if he's going to win anywhere near the amount that he won with Baltimore, you're going to be in a position, especially in the NFC, to compete for a Super Bowl year in and year out. It's just a little pie in the sky that anybody except for Baltimore is going to end up with Lamar Jackson. If that does happen, wow, a tectonic shift in the NFC to whatever team could potentially land him.

I still think that it's going in that direction where Lamar ends up returning to the Baltimore Ravens. And he tweeted out the guarantees and the years that Baltimore offered him. Or at least we assume that it's Baltimore that offered him three years, 133 guaranteed. I mean, it's pretty hard to turn down. So I think at some point he'll have to say, all right, we're going to go back to Baltimore and carry on there as their franchise quarterback. But if he is in the NFC, then you're talking about, it looks a little bit different than it did last year with the quarterback landscape if there is a dynamic MVP level quarterback there. So yeah, if the Lions got him, it would be a pretty big problem for the rest of the NFC. All right, let's go to

Michael's question here. Do you agree that Joe Berger was one of the best journeyman signings in Vikings history? Who are some others with the Vikings or league wide? Well, yes, I would agree with that, that he had been a backup and bounced around a little bit. Miami, I think was where he came from. And I think when they signed him, they probably expected maybe he can compete for a job. It's a guy who's been around and he ended up being a terrific player for them over several years. And it's just not often that you find out of somebody's bench in a backup lineman, especially when we're talking about so few great offensive linemen in the league. And he played really well. And that was one of the major losses that wasn't talked about a lot from 2017 to 2018. They went from having one of the better

guards in the NFL in Joe Berger to one of the worst guards in the NFL and one of the worst guard situations. Tom Compton, remember, had to come in for Nick Easton. I believe Mike Remmers moved to right guard, and that was a huge drop off because he was a tackle for his entire career so that didn't work out at all and that's going from solid steady excellent play to a guy who had never really played that position before that's that is a big drop off that they suffered from 2017 to 2018 also you were going from a scrambling quarterback in case keenum to a pocket quarterback so it impacted kirk cousins more than maybe than maybe the Vikings expected when they let Joe Berger go. But ultimate respect for that guy.

I mean, he grinded for a long time. Very, very intelligent player. Really well respected in the locker room. So he ended up having a really good career for the Vikings off of somebody who had just kind of been hanging around waiting for his chance. I would also put Anderson Dayhoe in this category just for guys that I've covered. Anderson Dayhoe's career started out with the Sacramento Mountain Lions of the United Football League. And then he bounced from, I think the Cowboys a little time with the Jets and then came on as a special teamer with the Vikings,

ends up being a starter for quite a few years and a starter on a number one defense in 2017. It does help that he played alongside Harrison Smith, and maybe he deserved more credit than he got because he was playing along with Harrison Smith, but he made a lot of plays. And part of how he's remembered in Minnesota is for some of the big hits, the suspension, the Baltimore thing. But if you take the totality of his career in Minnesota, he was a very good player, a lot of interceptions, a lot of big plays. So Anderson Dayho is definitely one that comes to mind for those who want to throw back a little bit. Anthony Carter was drafted in the 12th round by the Miami Dolphins. And I don't know if this makes him a journeyman necessarily, but I think that that qualifies.

He ends up having an amazing career with the Minnesota Vikings after that. And that's after being a 12th round draft pick. Incredible. I mean, what are the odds? We talk about Adam Thielen all the time. What were the odds that Adam Thielen would become who he was? What were the odds that Anthony Carter would even Chris Carter in a way, it was a beef with buddy Ryan. It was Chris Carter, maybe not taking the NFL as seriously as he should have or having some problems off the field before he got to Minnesota. I don't know if one other team where he was a pretty good player and then came here and became a Hall of Fame player counts as a journeyman exactly. But that's another great story where they found somebody and he turned out to be a superstar. And of course, the all time journeyman story.

And there are some like some that come to mind that are random. Cameron Wake, I think, bounced around with the Dolphins a little bit or before landing with the Dolphins, had a great career after that. So there's guys like that. Sam Mills, one of my favorite players of all time, was in the USFL. And then he went to the Saints. After that, went to the Carolina Panthers, is known as a Panthers legend. So there's players with great stories all around the NFL. But the ultimate one, the all-timer, number one on everybody's list should be Kurt Warner. I mean, this guy was a backup in Green Bay, bagging groceries, indoor football league,

and ends up in the Hall of Fame and running some of the best offenses of all time, and then took a separate franchise to a Super Bowl, which really proved his true talent. I mean, that's the all-timer. But yeah, throughout Vikings history, there are some. There aren't as much from the way back because teams used to get players and hang on to them forever if they were any good. So sometimes you would find a player from another team, but a lot of times it was you had to draft them yourself

or find them in free agency yourself and develop them. But now the door is open to much more of these guys getting more opportunities, the XFL, the USFL. There's the spring leagues all over the place. So the opportunities are there. But for sure, Joe Berger deserves his credit for that. All right, next question comes from Antoine. There's reports Arizona is willing to trade back in order to accumulate more draft picks. How about Daniil Hunter, the 23rd overall pick and a third rounder for next year's

second and third? Yeah. I mean, the Daniil Hunter situation is kind of tricky because Daniil Hunter, if he's traded before June 1st, it's a big cap hit against the Vikings. Now, I guess you could agree on a trade and then not do it till after June 1st or make it finalized. But then you're getting the draft picks, but you're not giving the player to them. Like, how do you agree on that officially with the other team? That's what makes it really tricky. And they've really run themselves up against the salary cap.

So there can't be a whole lot of movement on Daniil Hunter's situation, at least as far as I understand it, with his cap hit until later in the summer. And I wonder if Daniil Hunter ends up at OTAs and minicamp. That will really tell us where they stand. If I had to guess right now, I would say that they likely work out an extension with Daniil Hunter to make him one of the most expensive pass rushers in the NFL, maybe a three-year, four-year contract extension worth a lot guaranteed. I think that trying to trade with the Arizona Cardinals is probably a little far-fetched to move up as far as the Vikings would have to go. You would have to give up a player like Daniil Hunter. But if that piece isn't something you can actually use until the end of the summer. Now, if you're talking about

trying to get things from Arizona for next year or another team for next year, and there is a connection, Jonathan Gannon was a coach on the Viking staff at one point, then I don't think that's a bad idea. If the Vikings are kind of solidified with what they're going to do on the defensive line, or if Daniel Hunter says, look, I'm just not signing the contract offer that you guys are handing out. And I, and I want to go somewhere else. Then it becomes kind of like a Khalil Mack situation where they would be trading him right before the season. And I'm sure that would be pretty disappointing to Brian Flores, their new defensive coordinator. But that's the only way they could really do it.

And if they did, it would make a lot of sense. If they looked for trades for next year's draft capital after June 1st, if he's not going to sign a long-term extension, then you're getting back draft capital. You're moving on from someone who would be very, very expensive, as good as he is, very, very expensive, as good as he is, very, very expensive. And I think also, and this is not a disrespect to Daniil Hunter, but there's kind of a first tier, unbelievable freak werewolf guy at defensive end or pass rusher. That's the Nick Bosa, the Miles Garrett.

There might be five, six, seven of these guys in the league. And then there's a next tier down of guys who are really, really, really good, but they probably want around the same money as those top, top tier guys. And I think Hunter is more in the second tier. He's not going to push for 20 sacks, like a Nick Bosa. He's not going to get double teamed as much. He doesn't play off the left tackle. So he's beating right tackles, which still kind of matters. You know, I think that all these things play in a little bit that if you're deciding how much are you going to pay him, you start to nitpick these little things away and decide, you know, maybe that's not worth the most. I still think that they will sign him to an

extension at some point. These players, you see it from Harrison Smith, a lot of times they just don't want to leave. They understand that this is a great situation for them with the coach, with the facility, with where they live, how they're treated, that not all organizations are like this. And now I think we all, after the NFLPA study, understand it better. So I would still lean toward that. But if you're talking about eventually trading him away for next year's draft capital, that will happen later in the summer. And if they do it, I would respect it. I don't think it's a bad idea because you really have to think close about every single dollar going forward, knowing that if they move on from Kirk Cousins, you're getting hit with a huge dead cap hit in 2024. But also, you want to be making your team younger.

You want to be less restricted to the players you're locked into. You want to find your next wave of players who are going to be stars. And maybe Daniil Hunter doesn't quite fit into that with some of his injury history and the asking price. But it's complicated. There's a lot of moving parts, and we'll have to see how it plays out. But if you're saying, Hey, could you trade them for next year's draft capital? Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's very possible. All right. This one comes from TJ. I did the math and it looks like the Vikings have control over Justin Jefferson for the next four years

at about $80 million. Giving that what's the rush to get a contract done? Yeah, yeah. So you do have like the fifth year option and the franchise tag and everything else. You could do that if you want a really, really unhappy football player who is going to be demanding a trade, making a lot of public noise,

being really upset with you. You can, you can. Other teams have done this. This kind of worked out that way with Dak Prescott and the franchise tag. And now he didn't do all those other things. He didn't make a bunch of noise or demand a trade because I think he knew ultimately that it worked out better for him with the franchise tag for wide receivers. But, or I'm sorry for quarterbacks. That's, that's a great number for you as a quarterback. For wide receivers, it's not quite what Justin Jefferson would get. It's also because you don't just want to have Justin Jefferson with your team

for a couple more years. You want to have Justin Jefferson with your team for the rest of his career. So if you play games with him and you try to squeeze every last cent out, then he's not staying when he gets to the end of when he can go. He is going to leave. So if I told you that you only get Justin Jefferson for four more years and that he will leave you at age,

I believe 27, that could mean five more. Players of his caliber can go into their 30s as all-time great receivers and continue to thrive. Do you want to be done with Justin Jefferson at age 27? Or do you want to have him as a Viking for life? I mean, I think you're aiming much more for having him as a Viking for life. So you sign the extension. The other problem with playing those games as well, which again, like you said, you can,

but you get no flexibility with the salary cap. And I mean, none. When you franchise tag a player, let's say it's $21 million. You pay $21 million on the dot on the salary cap. And if you do that again, it becomes even more. The second franchise tag becomes even more. The fifth year option, like it's on the dot. That's what you pay.

There is no, let's move bonus money around to salvage a little bit of cap space. There's, there's no messing with it. There's no designing it to kind of match up with when other things are going to be expensive. So if you sign someone to an extension, even if it's more millions of dollars than the franchise tag, you can work it out to like, Hey, this is the year that we're going to be up against it a little bit with some other players. So let's move money around to make sure his cap hit is lower at this point. So there are, there's some pretty good examples of this. One of them being think about AJ Brown, AJ Brown's cap hit last year was less than $10 million. They signed him to an extension and that year was very low and you

can do this and it's going to go up. Of course it is later, but they knew that this year, last year was a year where they could spend a bunch, they could compete for a Superbowl. So they set it up to be very favorable for themselves in that way. And that's what you can't do when you do those other things. So I think that there are ways you can, you know, force all the way to the end of the road and say, this is by the rule what we're allowed to do. But that means you're definitely losing that player and that means you can't have any flexibility at all.

You're just locked in. Also, you just prefer a happier Justin Jefferson and not have the distraction. Like, would you pay a couple extra million dollars to not have the distraction? And also think about this. Let's think about this as well. Guaranteed dollars are what matter the most in the NFL, right? That's what the team really pays. So whenever you look at these contracts, guaranteed dollars is the thing. Four years, $80 million. Well, think about this. Tyreek Hill's guaranteed money, $76 million on his last contract.

I mean, you can set it up. So yeah, he'll get about $80 million guaranteed. His contract will look way bigger than that, but you can always shuffle things around. And if he plays out the whole end of the contract, yes, you are going to pay the 130 or 120 that he's going to get, but it's more likely that you'll get to another end date for that next contract,

sign another one after that because you negotiated in good faith before, and then you'll be able to do the cap thing all over again. So there are some pretty big benefits of signing a player still to a long-term contract and not just fighting them tooth and nail all the way to the end. Okay. A different TJ, not the same TJ with another question. Do you think there's a real chance of a legit training camp competition for wide receiver three or four between Jalen Naylor and

Tristan Jackson? And Tristan Jackson is in capital letters. Yeah, Tristan Jackson was a guy that emerged last year during training camp, played really well in camp and had a good preseason. I don't think he's someone that you would bet on. He's more of a under the radar. Maybe if he makes the team, that's really good for you. If he becomes depth and shows that there's something more there, that's a home run. It's somebody that I believe was on the Rams. I want to say Rams practice squad that Kevin O'Connell brought over and yeah, maybe there's something there. Is it a likely thing? Not really. Jalen Naylor is another one that I would say, just don't maybe put too much into a handful

of plays that you saw. Everybody did that with Alexander Hollins. If you guys recall that where he had made a couple of catches, he had some catches in a week 18 game. It was like, Oh, is this their deep threat? And the answer was no, no, not really. That's not to say that Jalen Naylor won't emerge. It's just, can you rely on these things?

No, you can't. When it's late round draft picks and when it's undrafted free agents, the Vikings have had an unbelievable record with some of these guys. Diggs, Thielen, even KJ Osborne has way outperformed what you'd expect from a fifth rounder. But there's also the Rodney Adams, there's the Dylan Mitchells, there's the lots of other guys who have come in and not performed at that level. So I don't know what to make of Jalen Naylor next year. If he were to become their number three wide receiver, number two wide receiver, that would be a huge boon for them. But it's hard to see that actually happening. Do I think there's a real chance of it?

It's possible. Yeah, it is possible because the Vikings, for whatever reason in recent years, have not wanted to put a whole lot into any other receivers except for when they're forced by the Stefan Diggs trade or just continue to re-sign Adam Thielen. And they didn't give themselves much of a parachute for this event to come about where Thielen decided he was going to go. And then you're kind of looking around going, now what? Because the rest of the free agent class is very rough at the wide receiver position. Plus, a lot of them have been picked up already. Jacoby Myers, Juju Smith-Schuster.

So a lot of these guys are signing. You have Odell Beckham out there. It does not seem like the Vikings are a favorite or could really afford Odell Beckham. He tweeted out that he wants more than $4 million. So that might be too much for the Vikings. I don't know. I mean, if they want to push a bunch of money down the road, I guess they could still try to take that swing. I do think that they will get another wide receiver. I don't know where it comes from. If it is sort of bottom barrel free agent, as per usual, with Albert Wilson's and Tajay Sharpe's of the world or Kendall Wright's, we might see them go that way or we might see them actually draft one.

I don't know how they're thinking about that. And this draft class, which does have some intriguing wide receivers who could be quality sidecars to Justin Jefferson. Is there a real chance though? Yeah, there is a chance. There is a chance that that ends up happening, that it's Tristan Jackson, Jalen Naylor, some other fifth round rookie

and a veteran free agent that they signed off of the scrap heap. And those guys are all battling. And then we're going to hear that, well, TJ Hawkinson is really the wide receiver too, but we kind of went over that. I don't see it that way. I think you need more receivers to go along with your ACE guy because of how, I mean, just look at last year, look at last year in the way that some teams, if they were able to slow down Jefferson, which they always will be. Sometimes there's no receiver who catches catches 100 yards or 200 yards every single game.

Like it's going to always kind of go up and down where it's 300 yard games in a row. And then one where it's 50 yards. You're always going to need in the playoffs, bigger, bigger, number two, number three, wide receivers and their contributions. I don't think you could just rely on a tight end, but is there a legit chance? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Based on the way history has played out with this team in the wide receiver position. Yep. I think that that is a real chance. Okay. This one comes from Brandon with Eric Hendricks being cut, being in journalism, what cut hit you the hardest to cope with

professionally back when you were a fan, what cut hit you the hardest to cope with professionally back when you were a fan, what cut was the hardest? Well, you know, I, as far as let's, let's answer the second part first, because as has been well noted by me a million times on this show you know, I grew up in Buffalo and on the same day, the very same day, and it's good for fans that the Vikings didn't do this with Kendricks and Thielen, or even if they move on from Delvin Cook, where they've kind of spread it out. The Bills were not as classy back in the day, and they released Thurman Thomas, Andre Reid, and Bruce Smith on the same day. On the same day, all three of them get out of town. And, of course, Thurman played like one more year

and Andre Reid may have as well. I think he might've gone to like Washington or something. And Bruce Smith actually did go to Washington and have a number of good years still left in the tank. He's one of the greatest pass rushers of all time. But the other two were pretty much done at that point when the Bills let them go. And yeah, I mean, if you grew up watching,

those teams go to the Super Bowl. And then even there was a second wave of competitiveness with Doug Flutie and Wade Phillips was the head coach, which shout out to him and the XFL still coaching the Houston Roughnecks. But when he was the coach, they were competing for the playoffs in the playoffs, Music City Miracle, all those things year after year. And so those guys were still a part of teams that were competing for Super Bowls. And to see them all let go at the same time, it did signal the end of one of the greatest runs in NFL history of a team going to four Super Bowl with those players. So yeah, that was pretty devastating for the entire city at the time as far as professionally it is

what it is like that's the biz uh there are players that you really enjoy covering and then when they go you say well you know i'll miss going over to that guy's locker and asking him about football and that goes for like patrick peterson is a good example terence newman is a good example i know i've talked about those guys on the show before who were very open about explaining the game. They were willing to talk for whatever amount of time that you needed, even though these are great players, especially Patrick Peterson, a future Hall of Famer. And it's really helpful because what we're trying to do is tell the story of the team, tell the story of the NFL, how things work, why they work the way that they do, why things are succeeding, why things are failing, a player's background

story, what makes them tick, getting inside their mind to just bring you closer to the game. So you can see the game from an inside view. And that's why you send me. So when players like that leave, you do go, oh man, I'm going to miss that. But as far as coping with it, no, it's never a problem for me. One I would say that I thought was very sad, there's sometimes with injuries where you really do feel very sad for the player, that's Sheree Floyd. I know I brought him up a number of times, but Sheree Floyd and the way his career ended, and he was a good guy to talk to as well, but that wasn't a factor in how I felt about it. Not only did he have this bad luck, but also kind of got dunked on by the head coach on the way out. It was just an ugly

situation altogether. And I thought that was really, really unfortunate for Sharif. And I'm glad to see that he's back coaching in the NFL and has got his life in the right direction because that can send somebody spiraling. But as far as coping with, now this is the nature of the game. It's what we do. I mean, players in the NFL, they come and go. Every year is a different year and you'll kind of wish that you could still have somebody at their locker, but there's always other players coming in. And what you find too, is almost every player, not a hundred percent, but maybe like 90% is good to deal with. Very intelligent, very intelligent locker rooms around the NFL, because you don't just make the NFL being a dummy. We've seen some of those players come in and they go out pretty fast if you're not a high IQ type of

player. So most of the time, you know, when one door closes, a window opens when it comes to players who work really well with the media. But it's not the same feeling as it is for me, as it would be for fans who have Eric Hendricks jerseys and Adam Thielen jerseys. And I feel for those fans because you invest so much into those players over the years that when it's over and it's sort of going out on a low note with both of those guys where we're talking about them not playing as well, that is tough. That is, it's part of, you know, fan bases investing in those players. And that's why I always think it's weird when people are like championship or don't talk

to me about the team. It's like, oh, come on. I mean, these players mean so much to the community and things like that. They've had so many great moments throughout the, throughout their careers that people get really invested in them. I know my mom is a big Adam Thielen fan after she has watched Vikings football very closely since I moved here. And she was very sad to see him go because she always enjoyed watching him play.

So it doesn't move me because this is my job and it's what I do. And I got to do it the same way no matter what happens. But I do feel for people who invest a lot in those players. And then the nature of the game and the business kind of comes for everybody eventually. So great question. Let's move on to Brett. On Quasey's trades with the Lions, do you think that if he had insisted on getting a first round pick when he traded back with the Lions in the draft, that the Lions would

have been willing to trade Hawkinson? I don't know that the two things are connected. It's impossible to say. Probably that they were able to have communication or that they knew each other, him and Brad Holmes, helped out with the TJ Hawkinson deal. But what it really comes down to in any trade is who's willing to give me the most. Who's willing to give me the most is always the thing. So for TJ Hawkinson, I guarantee you, Brad Holmes made a dozen phone calls and said,

will you give me a second? No. Will you give me a second? No. Kwesi, will you give me a second? Yes. Okay. The second is yours. I can't say that the two things are connected. I will say though, that what Kwesi Adafo-Mensah has to build up over the years as he's a general manager is connections around the league, because a lot of GMs who have been in the game for quite some time, and they've been making trades and deals and everything else, you do have to work well with other people. You have to play well with others in the sandbox. And Kwesi even talked about this.

If you call up other teams while maybe they're in a tough situation, and you start offering them junk, it's not going to help. It literally is like your fantasy football team. When somebody calls you up offering them junk, it's not going to help. It's kind of like, it literally is like your fantasy football team. When somebody calls you up with junk offers, you're like, get out of here. What? So you got to make sure that you build those relationships the right way. And clearly they have one with the lions. Although I wouldn't expect many more trades between these two teams as the lions become more and more competitive, but it kind of worked for both teams where the lions didn't think that they were going to have as good of a second half of the season as they did.

And they were thinking, let's get some draft capital for the future as the Vikings were looking at, Hey, this might be our best chance to win a Superbowl. So let's go all in and get TJ Hawkinson. I think that's more of how that worked, but relationships matter a lot. So I'm not dismissing what you're saying because it is really important. I just don't know if those two things were really connected. Next question comes from at the twos on Twitter. Although I'm the founder of the clank for Caleb in 24, I'm on board with trying to find a quarterback to groom in 2023.

What is your gut feeling? I don't know. I mean, the quarterback thing is just so fascinating. And even a longtime listener to the show, Nick, he sent in to Albert Breer, national reporter for, I think it's SI. And he sent him in a, you know, like a Friday mailbag or fans-only question about Kirk's future. And Albert Breer insinuated that it's not off the table for him to sign an extension still despite this restructure.

So I don't know. I really don't. And I wish I had a better feel for this. I know what I think they should do, which is if something is on the table, then they should take it. If there is an opportunity to trade up even 10 spots, whatever they can muster for draft capital to take a Will Levis or whoever might drop, take the guy, trade up, go forward, put him into a great situation and do it this year. And seeing that there could be an end date with C. If he is going to, you know, just

really plant himself in the mud and say, I am not moving off a long-term deal. That's what I want. That's what I'm going to get then. Uh, yeah, I mean, it makes a lot of sense to put someone in behind Kirk cousins for a year, have them sit, turn it over to them, go forward with your franchise. That's a great, it's a great plan. It's a proven plan. It's worked in the past. It's something a lot of teams try to achieve, but usually can't. And then it even opens the door as kind of goofy as this might sound, but somebody brought this up to me the other day.

I think it was Chad Hartman from WCCO. He said, what if, what if they got off to a really bad start next season? And they like 2020 started one in five like would they trade kirk away and now we're getting way down the road into crazy town but i mean if you have your quarterback that you drafted and you want to get him in then he's there otherwise what are you going to play nick mullins the rest of the way i guess so but that seems unlikely that they would

do that but maybe you know you're talking about trading away or maybe there's a Sam Bradford situation where you really go nuts. If you're trying to follow Philadelphia, there are so many paths. In fact, I think I got to invent a game about like you pick one thing. It's like the choose your own adventure. And then the next thing happens with the quarterback because there's so many different ways that this could go. But my gut feeling though, is that Cousins plays it out, that they cut him after the end of next season. And they draft a quarterback in that following draft and sign a veteran. Maybe Jacoby Brissett comes here next year. And that's how they go about it, that they're going to lock themselves into drafting one, trade up, whatever you have to do to get one, but it'll be 2024 where they do it. And

Chris Trapasso was on the show the other day saying he felt like at this moment, there is a number of good prospects at the quarterback position looking down the road. So we know they're doing their research on that as they make this decision that NFL franchises are looking a year down the road for sure when it comes to deciding how they're going to plan out their quarterback situation. I heard Thomas Dimitrov on the Sumer Sports Show say that just the other day, that when they were talking about Matt Ryan's future, they're having their front office. They're saying, all right, what's the next draft class look like? What's the class after that look like for these quarterbacks? Will we be in a position to take

one? So that's probably the discussions they're having right now. Gut feeling is 2024. If they do it this year, then we will give them A pluses and thumbs up across the board. This from Sean. Is it possible that we as Vikings fans don't want Aaron Rodgers to leave Green Bay? Could it give Green Bay enough ammunition to set them up for extended success in the future? I assume you mean a trade with the Jets could give them enough ammunition. Yeah, I think that you want him gone for it to be over. I mean, in the short term, in the short term, I think that if Aaron Rodgers played for the Packers next year, they'd win like eight games. It would be another up and down season. He would be unhappy. You could watch him from afar, be unhappy, and they would be stuck

and not really be able to do a whole lot in the future. So this does accelerate Green Bay in their process. They get to find out if Jordan Love can play. They wouldn't really be able to do that next year because then you have to pick up his fifth year option. And then is it, you know, are you keeping him or what is going on there? So there's a lot of things that become challenging in the future. If they were to hang on to Aaron Rogers, this is the right time for green Bay to move on from Aaron Rogers, which I guess de facto means that you shouldn't be that thrilled about it. But let's be honest here. Who in Viking land doesn't want this done with? Because there's always the possibility that he could come back from the dead. And you've seen that before.

And you've seen it before from legendary quarterbacks where, hey, Peyton Manning, is his neck going to work when he goes to the Broncos? Oop, he's in the Super Bowl. Is Tom Brady going to work out in Tampa Bay? Oop, he's winning the Super Bowl. You don't want that. You don't want some resurgence if you're Vikings fans from Aaron Rodgers, where suddenly he goes back to MVP level or one of these receivers that they drafted becomes his Devontae Adams that it wasn't there last year. You'd much rather they move on and that he becomes a jet and that that whole 30-year run

comes to an end. But I also am not really sure. I keep listening to different opinions on this, what they're going to get back. I have a tough time thinking that they are going to get so much draft capital back for Aaron Rodgers that it's going to set them up to live like kings in the future. I think the Packers are, unless Jordan Love is phenomenal, unless some of these receivers are phenomenal, they are going to probably live in the place that you have lived for a long time, which is the middle. Year by year, whether things go your way is going to maybe determine,

unless again, Jordan Love becomes that next superstar franchise quarterback. So I think most 98% of Vikings fans would probably say, yeah, yeah, we're good with him moving on. It's okay if they get a couple of draft picks. All right. Two more. This one from Seth. We know about cap space to be compliant, but how much under the cap do they need to be to sign free agents and draft picks? I have more free agents than they have so far. Fill out the rest of their roster, the draft. Well, their draft isn't going to cost a lot because they don't have any picks. Yeah, when you pick 23rd and then not until the third round, even if they trade back into the second, you're only going to need a couple of million to sign those draft picks. I don't have the rookie wage scale up in front of me, but it's not that much. You still do need to

have some cap space on hand in case you need to sign other players for injuries that just need to come in off the street. So you get players hurt and then, oh no, we need to sign a player for $600,000. Well, that still counts against the cap. So you better have a handful of those or elevate this player from the practice squad or whatever else you need to do, or you actually have to sign a practice squad. And, you know, there are other things that you need to make sure that you have like $4 million, $3 million, probably a little more than that on hand at the end of the day. And as far, so you're talking about, you need to have maybe three, four, and you also need three, four to sign your draft picks. Any more free agents?

No, I would say that it's probably around 10 to 12 million, which, what does that mean? More work to be done. That's what that means. Because right now, I don't even know exactly how this is working mathematically right now at this moment. Because Zedarius Smith's bonus gets picked up for 5 million bucks. So is he going, is he staying or would they pay him the bonus and then cut him still? That doesn't really compute with

me. So I'm having a lot of trouble. This is the most trouble I think. And, and, you know, Rick Spielman, Rob Brzezinski have done so much with the cap in the past, but figuring out where they actually stand in terms of cap space, we've got lots of resources, but with so much up the cap in the past, but figuring out where they actually stand in terms of cap space, we've got lots of resources, but with so much up in the air still with Z'Darrius Smith, Delvin Cook, yeah, it's not easy to figure out where they stand at the moment. But I would say just my ballpark figure is 12, $14 million, somewhere in that range to be able to add a couple of more players in free agency if they want to, even if they're just two or $3 million signings, those add up a practice squad draft picks, maybe not 14, but I would go with, I'd go with at least 10, 10, you're playing it a little bit

close. So there's more stuff to happen and not a lot of options to do it with, but they can wait into the summer. This is something that they have. So after the June 1st, they haven't moved anybody with the June 1st designation yet. But if they're going to trade Daniil Hunter, for example, they don't have to sign the draft class really until you get to train camp. So you can draft all the players. You can have them participate in the mini camp and everything else with a waiver. And then you get into training camp.

That's when they need to be really signed. It buys you a little extra time to post June 1st and mess with that a little. If you have to, you don't love it, but if you have to, you can create that extra space. But there's a lot still to be settled here, and I'm not entirely sure how it's all getting settled. And that's where we will finish from John. If they keep Sidarius Smith, or even if they don't, could Davenport be a hand in the dirt defensive end in the 3-4,

Sedarius Wanham or Patrick Jones outside linebacker? Well, you know, you're not going to play a lot of traditional 3-4. Now he is, he is like a hand in the dirt, big 265 pound guy. So it's not one of those light speed edge rushers. And in certain situations, you could put all of them on the field at the same time. Third down and 10, Patrick Jones playing the wide and then Davenport inside. Yeah, you can mess with it. You can do things like that. Since they don't play real three, four all that often, you know, he might have to do some of that stuff playing inside, but my guess would be much more that your defensive end is Dean Lowry. He's played in this kind of three, four before. So it's, it'd be, you know, Harrison Phillips on the nose

and then Dean Lowry, and then maybe Zedaria Smith. I'm not, yeah, it's, it's yeah. And then, you know, Daniel Hunter outside, it's hard to figure out because teams move these things around so often, but can they put Davenport and Z'Darrius Smith on the field at the same time? Yeah, they could, only in certain situations, though. I don't see Davenport as a 3-4 defensive end. The 3-4 defensive end designation is ludicrous, by the way. Cameron Hayward from Pittsburgh is called a defensive end that man is a defensive tackle he's lining up essentially at a three technique spot

all the time so it's just a weird thing that's kind of antiquated but they could do that in a lot of situations I think if Z'Darrius Smith stays what you'd be looking at is him lining up at some different spots rotating in and and out, that they would try to mix it up to have, say, Marcus Davenport with 500 snaps, Z'Darrius Smith with 650 to 700, Daniil Hunter maybe getting a little more rotation, mixing in Z'Darrius over guards when we're talking about third downs. So there's a lot of stuff you can do. The more pass rushers you have, the better you can match them up. If someone's having a great day or a bad day stuff you can do. The more pass rushers you have, the better, the better you can match them up. If someone's having a great day or a bad day, you can take them in or out. If someone's feeling better, someone's feeling hurt because both Davenport

and Zedaria Smith have been banged up in the past. So if they do keep him, then Brian Flores will be happy and it will be better for them. But I don't know that you're asking Davenport, who's been a traditional 4-3 edge, to suddenly move inside to that three spot in the 3-4, or the defensive end spot in 3-4, where you're inside the tackle. Probably not. You usually want guys who can stuff the run at those spots outside of third downs.

So another phenomenal fans-only episode. Great questions from everybody. Really appreciate those. Again, shoot me DMs, send me questions on the internet, or if you enjoy our live broadcast that we've been doing, jump into those, ask your questions there. They are a little bit periodic and random at times reacting to news. And once things settle down, I'll do a better job of having it be more consistent. So people aren't asking, Hey, what night is it that you're going live? Because usually it's kind of been, Oh, wow, they just did something. So let's jump in and go live on YouTube. Uh, but keep your eyes on that. Go to our YouTube subscribe. So you can jump in on those

episodes and, uh, or if you listen to them on the podcast feed, always appreciate it. So thanks so much for listening and we will talk to you all again soon.