Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - We can start talking about the Vikings' offseason plan now

Episode Date: January 18, 2023

Former Minnesota Viking Jeremiah Sirles joins Matthew Coller to talk about how the Vikings came apart against the New York Giants and what's next. It's time to talk about the quarterback decision. Will the Vikings extend Kirk Cousins? Or let his contract play out? Would it be crazy if Cousins wanted to be traded? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Liquid Death, delicious water that's bringing death to plastic. Learn more at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Hello, welcome to another Tuesday Morning Left Guard episode. Matthew Collar along with Jeremiah Searles. And see, well, what happened was... I'm going to have to issue an apology to you, Jeremiah Searles, to start the show. It's a written apology. And it's not easy for me to say this. But you were right about the minnesota

vikings you were right to doubt them you were right to doubt their chances and i was wrong to believe that they were better than the new york giants my 50 50 opinion on the game 50 was to losing but you were much more confident that the vikings would go but you were much more confident that the Vikings would go down. You were much more nervous. You felt it in your little football-y heart. And you were right, and I am sorry. You've got to give it to you that you just saw it coming for weeks, and it's exactly what happened.

So there is my issued statement to you, and now we can talk about everything else. But if you'd like to gloat for a minute to everyone i don't want to glow i even said last week i wanted them to prove me wrong right and i even had people that were like oh you posted your instagram of like good luck vikings i was like i wanted them to win like my brain and my heart are two different things i can love the vikings and want them to win and then put my little football hat on and be like they're not good on defense they're just not good on defense and they have issues if they pressure the quarterback like and this is the playoffs like everything matters in the playoffs so much more than the

regular season just the tiniest little deficit in one piece of your game can be the difference between winning and losing and I just didn't see the Vikings having all of the key pieces they needed to beat a Giants team that I know had issues but they had a rest week last week they were fired up Dables had playoff experience before he had his team ready to go and I just felt like more chips were on the Giants side and at the end of the day it came down to one or two plays but that defense man that Vikings defense has problems yeah I thought that they would make a mistake. I mean, the Giants, the Vikings made a ton of mistakes. And I figured that they would on defense. And I figured that they would give up a lot of yards.

And I thought it would be actually, I mean, I was right in the ballpark. I picked 31-28 and it was 31-24. And, you know, maybe a little throw past the sticks and we get a field goal game in overtime or something. But, you know, like I think that what happened all year in all of their wins against teams like the Giants, because I think I would bundle the Giants with Washington, with the Jets, with New England, like all these kind of 500-ish teams.

And they found ways to beat them because they had a little more experience and a little more star talent, and they just made it happen at the end. And I kind of figured that that would happen again, that they would, like, blink first. But the funny thing is that the Vikings' offense never really blinked. I mean, I think maybe the drive where they had two screen passes in a row and they both got snuffed I think maybe the drive where they had two screen passes in a row and they both got snuffed out was maybe the blinking. The interior of the offensive line was some certainly

bad stuff that caused problems and pressure for Kirk Cousins that he was pressured 43% of the time, no surprise by Garrett Bradbury playing hurt and Dexter Lawrence being a Godzilla in there. I mean, it was unbelievable what he was able to do in that game. But, you know, I just thought that like they would, they'd move the ball and they would score. And they did like the offense for the most part, scored enough points to win one of those games. And all you needed was just one stop and they could not get it.

And it was like explosive play after explosive play you had guys i mean this is the worst explosive play team in the league the new york giants this was part of my thinking that they right and they just put up one after the next it's like okay all right this is all done and i think what i maybe underestimated was the accumulation on the defense because my feeling was well they're healthy it's not like they're having to throw out their Troy Dye or something like the game where the Vikings gave up 52 against New Orleans and I didn't recognize half the players they were just like off the practice squad and everybody so I thought they would kind of pull it off or make one or two stops get a couple

of sacks or something Daniel Jones takes a ton but his sacks went for like one yard and it just the big play just never came and so I guess uh you end up being right about it but yes anybody who thinks that you weren't supporting them as a former Minnesota Vikings obviously being foolish but um yeah I just it was the one time where that that one play didn't happen yeah and i mean hats off to the giants you know you have to give credit to the giants in the way that they executed you know we talk about a team that had no money in free agency signed like one free agent who sat the bench the entire year and they were able to put together a season and dables done a great job and you know i don't think anyone here listening,

thinks the Giants are going to go beat the Niners. I mean, I don't know if we were going to go beat the Niners. Eagles, excuse me. I forget they were the lower seat. You know, they're going to go play the Eagles. And I don't think anyone thinks they're going to go win against that team. But, you know, to win a playoff game is a really hard thing to do. I don't care what you do. Ask Tom Brady last night, right? I mean, it doesn't matter how you get into the dance.

It's once you're in, all things are equal, all bets are off, like there is no do-overs. And so hats off to the Giants for that. But the one thing that really bothered me about this game more than just what the defense was, was the lack of playmaking by some of our playmakers on defense. You know, I think I expected if the Vikings were going to win,

it was going to be because guys like Harrison Smith or Eric Kendricks or Daniil Hunter had a star moment type play, right? Like I think to the Cincinnati game, Hubbard running back a 98-yard fumble recovery from the two-yard line or an interception that they'd bring all the way back. You know, there's there just wasn't something like that spark on defense, which is what we've had all year. Right. That's what's made this defense at times able to make plays and win us football games. And as the game went on, I saw those star guys kind of just lackluster at times.

You know, Eric Hendricks gets fooled horribly on the first touchdown run by Saquon Barkley, right? Harrison Smith never really finds himself around the football when it's in the air. And that was kind of just really alarming for me. And I don't know if that's a game plan thing that Dable was like, hey, we're going to try and get away from their best players and we're going to attack Duke Shelley and we're going to attack some of these other guys that are a little less proven. And if it was the game plan, hats off off to them or if it just kind of was luck of the draw but you know you don't win playoff games unless your star power players are making star power plays yeah i mean i think that they did have a good game plan uh running him a lot was pretty smart i mean they just seemed to be aware that the last time they played the vikings he had success running the ball and so it seemed

like if his read wasn't there and there was any space, he was really good at identifying it. I mean, when you're up in the press box, everything looks really easy. Little guys run around and like, oh, he's got room to run. Why didn't he just do it? But in this case, you could see plays develop and you could see the middle of the field just clear out. And Daniel Jones recognized that right away on a lot of plays took advantage ran for first downs kept the chains moving got an 11 minute drive in part because he scrambled I think five times on that same drive which is a really valuable weapon for them but from the Vikings perspective they only blitzed him on 12 dropbacks out of 44. And when they blitzed him, he was okay, but he wasn't unbelievable.

All year, he's been a decent quarterback when blitzed, and maybe they felt like, okay, well, his numbers say that he's better when blitzed. But, I mean, it's the only way to make big plays. If he completes nine out of ten passes when blitzed, but the one is a interception or something then it's worth it to send all those blitzes because you're not stopping anything anyway and you know you see this in college a lot if you don't recognize how bad you are it really hurts you because you'll see a team trying to get an upset and they'll like well how about the bucks

last night they'll like punt from midfield a team trying to get an upset up by six points. You're like, guys, you're not going to stop them. You're not as good. Or the Bucs. If you give up a touchdown here, the game is over, Todd Bowles, and they punt anyway. It was kind of like that, where it's like, well, you know, maybe we shouldn't blitz him

because he's good at identifying the blitz. No, you have to. There's no other choice. You have to roll the dice on that. And they really didn't. They did not play aggressively. And I'm amazed that Daniil Hunter got six pressures and a sack in that game. And all year long, I felt like I've heard like,

oh, Daniil's not having a great year. And when I look on paper, no, he did. It's just the rest of the defense is awful. It's not one person who does everything. He six pressures he had a great game and yet he was only pressured 15 times on 44 dropbacks that was the season you asked one guy to do everything and if or two guys and if one of them didn't you just didn't do anything and they didn't know how to create any pressure whether it be through good coverage or through blitzes. I also think that Donatello panicked a little bit. You know, I think when all of a sudden they went right down the field and scored,

it was kind of like, oh, no, and I don't know if he strayed from the game plan or if maybe he just got a little less like a little less aggressive and more passive and kind of maybe thought along the same lines that you thought of, like, we'll just do our thing. Eventually, he'll throw us one. You know, eventually he'll make the mistake. mistake eventually we just got to keep doing our thing and then by the time it got to fourth quarter it's like oh no I didn't change and it's too late you know I think there was a little bit of that that happened with the defensive game plan as well um but also I mean

it's it's what we talked about all year this was this was a problem from early in the season and they're just we've been trying to put band-aids over open heart surgery all year right like how do we fix it is a player here is a player there is is it adding someone in the back end is it blitzing more is it not blitzing more and when you don't have an identity very similar to the run game of the vikings you can get exposed very quickly which is why when we lost we lost big you know and this was an accumulation of where our defense played like when they lost at d Dallas or when they lost those our schools but our offense played very well you know I'm confident saying our offense played really well you know there's three or four plays that you're just scratching your head like what in the hell are we doing but other than that you know I thought they

were very efficient they converted a lot of third downs you know a lot of third and longs too you know they kept drives alive and they finished in the end zone you know so that's promising I think that's promising when you look at KOC and what he is and how he wants to run his offense and you know I still think the Vikings have a chance to be very very good next year but it's just kind of it's one of those things where you have a fantastic season and a fantastic run at the regular season and then you kind of sit here at the end they're going well what was that all for like was that all worth it was it worth giving up the trade for TJ Hawkinson you know was it worth paying some guys was it worth giving up those picks to go and lose in the first round and that's a question that they're gonna all have to look at themselves in Orchard or not Orchard

Park in uh Egan this week and go man where did we miss the boat or what should we have done different is should we have changed coordinators on defense in the middle of the year? Should we have done something different with the rotation of D linemen? Should we have went back to a four down structure? You know, you're going to live in this what if world until next year because guys are going to ask questions, rightfully so, in the media of what went wrong. How did how do we how are you taking active steps to fix these problems? And they're going to have to have answers because you can't think, well, we'll just stay the course and everything will be better next year because it wasn't it wasn't good enough this year.

So what are you going to add? What are you going to subtract to try and make this team better? Right. I mean, that's the question. Like, how are you going to make a defense better without cap space and with yeah i mean like patrick peterson was statistically i'm not saying that he played the same type of game as sauce gardner statistically he was in the ballpark of sauce gardner and patrick's retain i mean that like that's how good he was in terms of past breakups interceptions the big plays and then not allowing completions into his coverage this year like how are you going to repeat that if he doesn't come back and if you're Patrick Peterson I mean you might look around and go they're gonna have to rebuild a lot of pieces I'm not playing for a bad defense again I'm gonna go join Kansas City and try to latch on for one year one million with

Andy Reid and go to the Super Bowl or something. I mean, he had chances to go to Philadelphia and Buffalo in the offseason. He chose here because he thought that this team was capable of getting here. And ultimately he was right. But the rest of the defense and the holes in the boat ultimately sunk them because it's not like that flex tape or whatever where that guy on the ad, like, yeah, right, he stops the water. Like, that's not Ed Donatel. There might be defensive coordinators in the world who could,

but it's certainly not Ed Donatel. And we haven't gotten news yet of his firing or whatever, but I just don't know how you could possibly go forward with him. I guess we'll see. Kevin O'Connell is going to talk on Wednesday, and, of course, I'll be there and we'll see. Kevin O'Connell is going to talk on Wednesday and of course I'll be there and we'll recap that. But I wanted to know if you wanted to talk about other things from the game that you observed, or if you want to get into some of the questions that we have to start getting

into, because I think that a fan's minds immediately go into, okay, what's next? And there's a part of me that's like, do you want to know? Because this doesn't get easier. And one of the things all season we said was like, you got to be all in because after this, it's going to get pretty hard. And one of my feelings from the locker room yesterday is nobody said, just wait till you see us next year. Nobody. And I think there's a reason for that like when

you talk to eric hendricks uh or justin jefferson or delvin cook i mean two of those three might not even be here but nobody was just like we're close guy and that was one of the questions of you know like do you feel like you were close or you're one piece away and everyone was just like i ain't talking about that you know like nobody wanted to say we were right there and almost had it because you weren't really. You were way far away. Kind of. I mean, through the lens of the whole league, a very forgettable loss. Everybody will move on to the games that really matter in divisional weekend and everything else.

So that was interesting to me. And I think also well reasoned by them to not be like, oh, yeah, we're right around the corner because it doesn't feel that way. Yeah, you know, I think they're one in the same, Matt. You know, I think talking about what we saw in the game on Sunday and what needs to happen over the next four to six months is – it's one of the same. You know, we'll start with something that I know well,

the interior of this offensive line. You know, I don't know if Garrett Bradbury is back next season. You know, he banged himself up. He has a back injury. He came out there, and he gutted it out, and he played hard, and at times he looked good, and at times you could tell he wasn't able to sit down on big Dexter Lawrence, who is an all-pro, so it's not like he's going against some slappy.

You know, but Ezra Cleveland still at times does not look like a three-year starter. You know, Ed Ingram, does he take a big jump at right guard as a rookie to a second year player next year? You know, getting Brian O'Neill back and, you know, all these things up front. You know, I think you really need to rework the entire the inside three of this offensive line, whether that's by addition and free agency in the draft, whatever it is. You know, you have to rework some of this inside like you did with Ed Ingram last year. And he ended up being started every game. So, okay, that's good in the draft column.

Now we have to see if he takes a jump. But I think that's where you on offense, if you had a glaring hole, it's there. You talk about, okay, is the quarterback play? He was good. He was serviceable. But what has Kirk Cousins accomplished when you paid him what you accomplished him? You talk about that feeling in the locker room of wait for us next year. I think everyone after the 2017 season was like, just you wait until we get a quarterback.

Right. Like just you wait until we get someone besides Case Keenum in here to come and lead us to the promised land. Well, I mean, what has he done that's made you believe, like, this is the guy, right? So are we moving on from him? You know, so I just, I look at the game and you look at the pieces that were not well. Defensive, offensive line, and then the quarterback play at times, right? And again, he played well, but he just didn't go out there and put the game away, you know, which is what you want to play for that guy. So I think that the biggest takeaway for me from the game is our glaring weak spots, our glaring weak spots, offensive line, defensive pass rush and coverage on the back end.

And then how we move into the offseason and go from there is going to be very, very telling of what a new GM, a new head coach and how they handle their first true like drafting and scouting and everything has been their clear process now how does that now look in the next step of the evolution of this organization from all above from owner to gm to head coach of what kind of players they're going to bring in with the capital that they have available and you know they're gonna have to make more capital available so who gets extended who gets the boot you know there's so many pieces that go into the nfl offseason and this is my time right i'm an agent this is when i get super excited about what the nfl is going to look like for next year as a player this is when you go kick your feet up you go hit a beach somewhere and start slugging beers but as an agent like this is my favorite time of

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Yeah, I guess, I mean, Kirk is probably a good place to start the discussion. If we're taking that first step into the water. So the last couple of podcasts are reacting to the game, but I think, I think it's time, like just like just a couple days past it and moving on and that's the place to begin and we were discussing this in the media room yesterday like what we think they do with the quarterback situation and it's really hard to know because it's just a new general manager it's a new head coach and one thing that i'm not sure of is how kevin o'connell feels about kirk cousins and i that he, I'm sure, feels like he's a very good quarterback.

Like Kevin O'Connell was not a good NFL quarterback. So when he sees Cousins make the throws that he makes as accurate as he can be and as gutsy as he was this year, which he gets all credit for that. But it's not about what we just saw. It's about what we're going to see in the future. And so when you take the accumulation of five years in one playoff win with good teams that have been put around him, lots of money spent around him all the way to the top of the cap,

offensive line, draft capital put together and so forth, the best receiver in the universe, all those things. And still the result is one playoff win in five years. I couldn't think of too many examples of teams that stuck with the same quarterback past five years when they only got one playoff win. I mean, really, the Lions with Matthew Stafford might be the only one, and that's why they got criticized all the time for it. It was just like, you guys must be the worst organization in the world.

But like, think about the Raiders sticking with Derek Carr year after year and just having this happen. And I think if you're looking at a team that's like your AFC alike, it's less dysfunctional of a franchise. But the Raiders are definitely it. Like a very good quarterback that lots of people defend. Lots of people like his coaches usually like him. His teammates think he's a good quarterback that lots of people defend, lots of people like. His coaches usually like him. His teammates think he's a good quarterback.

Devontae Adams wanted to go play with him, but that guy didn't get eight fourth-quarter comebacks and game-winning drives, and Kirk will never do that again. No quarterback might ever do it again when it comes to that many game-winning drives and things like that. If it's even cut in half next year, we would consider him a clutch quarterback. This year was just insane. Plus you're talking about the age issue, 35 years old for quarterbacks that are not named Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady. I mean, usually

history is not super kind to them. And Oh, by the way, if you're looking at an extension, you know, that his agent is going to go to them and be like, remember what Russell Wilson got last year? Uh-huh. Put it down. 13 wins, baby. I just don't know how you can do that. We've just seen how hard it is to build the roster around a good, not great quarterback. And I just don't know how you can make a perfect roster that, because every year we've had the same discussion on this date where we're saying well you know if they had only had another guard if they had only had another receiver if they had only had a better defense if they only only only only but wait were they cheap was that the problem oh no they spent all the way up to the salary cap and did everything on god's green

earth to move space including hurting themselves in the future to, to put everything they could around Kirk cousins. It's just an economics problem to me that says they'll probably, or they should just play it out over one, like the next year, they should just say like you're under contract for one more year. That's it. Maybe you draft a quarterback.

If one's available to you, maybe you don't and wait till 2024, but I think they should just play out his contract and move on after that you know and I don't even necessarily think it's as much a Kirk Cousins problem as much as of where the league is going you know look at the teams that are left you know look at the teams that are moving into divisional round weekend Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Jalen Hurts, Dak Prescott, Daniel Jones, what do all these quarterbacks have in common? They can move. They can run. They can make things happen with their legs. Even Joe Burrow, who's not the most gifted athlete in the world, can tuck it and get 15. You know the league is changing the league is moving and that's because college

football is moving into this mobile dual threat quarterback that is so highly coveted right so if you're the vikings and you're looking around of how do i not just keep up in the afc in the nfc north but how do i keep up in the nfl how do i stay relevant how do i have this high-powered run-and-gun offenses where we're just slinging it all over the yard and we're doing things that are just kind of different and fun and innovative and all those things? You have to have a quarterback that has the ability to create. And, you know, I don't think Kirk Cousins,

because of all those things you said, because of his age issue, because he's not a great athlete on that respect, he just is limited in some of those things that you can do, so it limits a little bit of what you can do as a play caller you know so I think that Kirk is a very good quarterback and if this was 10 years ago he's probably one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL you know but because the league changes like you kind of just get stuck with father time is your enemy and that's not a detriment to Kirk Cousins he is is who he is. But I think if KOC and Kwesi are really looking into the future, you got to go get someone that can move around and do things and create

because that's where we're going. And that's what's going to win the Super Bowl this year. Whatever quarterback wins the Super Bowl this year, I promise you has some sort of mobile ability and affects the game with his legs. That's how you have to do it. The defensive ends are getting faster. The linebackers are getting more aggressive.

If you're going to blitz and you have the threat of running, it makes defenses not blitz as much. It makes them play more zone coverage than man so that the middle of the field doesn't open up so much. It's just such a factor of what the quarterback can do as a weapon that we haven't had since Kirk Cousins has been here. So I'd love to see what this offense can look like even with a mobile-type quarterback because to win in the the future it's what you're going to have to have

so the salary cap hits of the quarterbacks in the playoffs are you ready for this so Kirk Cousins had a 31 million dollar salary cap hit ouch there is one gentleman in the playoffs who has a higher cap hit but I think we're all okay with that patrick mahomes but it's not even that much higher it's only four million higher after that i have to scroll okay so lamar jackson was in the playoffs with his team but not you know playing for various reasons but that was still eight million dollars less dac prescott 19 million so we're already more than 10 million less scrolling down to josh allen 16 million and i know his is going up in the future but just for this year's playoffs um jimmy garoppolo's team is in

there that's 13 million and all the rest tom brady was at 11 joe burrow is at 9 daniel jones is at 8 trevor lawrence 8 to a 8 i mean tre, seven, because he was a first-round pick. Justin Herbert, seven. Are you sensing a trend here? I mean, this is like we've said it a gazillion times for a reason because it's a fact that when you have the second-highest-paid quarterback in the NFL by cap hit, and he's not Patrick Mahomes. I'm sorry, third, and he's not Patrick Mahomes.

It's hard. Guess what? The Titans, the Titans oh man they really disappointed this year Ryan Tannehill's cap hit went up at the same time and they had to trade A.J. Brown and then they fired the GM because he had to trade A.J. Brown but what was he supposed to do right when your quarterback got signed and Tannehill's the same with Cousins the The 2021 Titans just did the same thing as the Vikings. They were real good, but then Tannehill kind of let them down. It wasn't good enough at the end, and they just didn't have a strong enough team. And they lost to a team with a quarterback on a rookie contract. It's just like a tale as old as time at this point.

The hard thing is, though, that Justin Jefferson has to be a happy man. And I know they got about 150 million bills to try to make him a happy man but i don't know that that's what fuels this guy i think he knows he's going to be a rich man either way what they do in the off season might might impact how he feels about it and not just like regarding kirk but the whole thing, because to us, I think it's very easy to be like, oh, well, you know, fun times last year, but now everybody's got to go. See a Kendrick, see a cook, see a Harrison Smith. But does Justin Jefferson say after that, I'd really like to see what you're going to do first with the quarterback position and then with the rest of this roster roster because I don't want to win six games next year, even though right now if you were going to be very prudent, you would probably take that rebuild approach that they didn't take last year.

Yeah, I mean, do we take the competitive rebuild approach again? Like, is that where we go? Because that's just the no-man's land. I think you either go all in and go, we're making a run big time. And, I mean, in my opinion, that's more along the lines of what they did this year than the rebuild side. Right. Like we kind of talked about it that midpoint of the year. Like, where are we? And the TJ Hawkinson trade, in my opinion, made it the push of like, we're all in. Screw competitive rebuild. We're competitive. Right. Rightfully so. You win this many games. That's the mindset you have to have. But now you get to start fresh and really decide like the sins of our fathers and our fathers being Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer are going to catch

up with us because all we did under those guys was kick the can down the road. The cap can just kept getting kicked down the road, kicked down the road, kicked down the road. And now it's going to be on KOC and these guys to figure out how to manage all that. You know, and that's a big piece of what the NFL is. And I think from the public eye, you know, everyone looks at like, oh, the GMs, what team did they put together? You know, the hidden heroes of the NFL teams are the cap guys. Those dudes are the ones that work the magic and the numbers. And that's why I think losing George Payton was a huge problem now granted he has his own bag of worms that he's dealing with in Denver

right now but he was brilliant behind the scenes of trying to make it and put it all together I don't know who that guy under this staff is going to be and who the guy behind the scenes is going to make it all work but you're right you have to keep your superstars happy or we're going to have another Stefan Diggs situation on our hand where he's sitting there going, I know what I am and I know what I can do. Go put me with Jalen Hurts, right? Go put me with Josh Allen.

Go put me with Patrick Mahomes or someone that I know is going to show out and show for me, right? Tyree Kill even was like, yeah, you know, I know that I can't get paid. I'm going to go play with Tua, right? Who's another great quarterback can throw a long ways and I can run really fast, you know? So all. I'm going to go play with Tua, right? Who's another great quarterback, can throw a long ways, and I can run really fast.

You know, so all these things are going to play a factor. And so now it also goes back into that decision-making of how they run. Is this a type of organization that is going to listen to player input, right? Is Kyler Murray, the Kyler Murray situation where he's like, I will help decide who is the next offensive mind here. It's like, yeah, he's going to be the one that lets you play call of duty forever. But, you know, it's like, who is influential? Who do you go to? Do you go to Kirk Cousins or do you go to your young stud, Justin Jefferson? You know, it's going to be very telling,

but you got to keep your draft capital in house. That's what makes good teams good. They don't let their draft capital walk out after their rookie contract. You find a way to keep those guys that have helped contribute and been around and keep them happy, but you have to have the funds to do so, which like you said, you got to move stuff around. Why do you think DeAndre Hopkins had to get out of Houston? Why do you think like, you know, there's just so many pieces to it and it's going to be interesting how they

navigate this and there's no way to keep everybody happy. You know, that's why Joe Burrell got got asked the question like was this your play is this your super bowl window and he's like oh it's my whole career it's like yeah you don't know that joke because guess what t higgins needs to get paid jamar chase needs to get paid mixa needs to get paid like all these dudes want to get paid it's why we're in this business that's why we're in the nfl we're here to make as much money as possible as quickly as possible because eventually our bodies break and we can't do it anymore so how you do that with this Vikings team you got to let guys walk you got to let them go you got to let them walk and I'm 100% with you you play Kirk Cousins last deal out let him go ball on a contract year get the best out of him

that you can get because he's still going to try and go get paid and then we move on to the future that's quarterback this year or quarterback next year we either have to find a way to buy one in free agency or draft one and develop the other the other part of this too, is I mean, Kirk himself, like Kirk himself has been an unbelievable businessman, hall of fame businessman for sure. And his agent is absolutely phenomenal. And I'm not saying that he would hold out or something necessarily, but like, what does he do if they just say, no, you know,

we're not signing you to a contract extension in theory. That sounds great, but there's a reason why they talk about like lame duck presidents or lame duck coaches or whatever. I mean, with Mike Zimmer, when they didn't extend Mike Zimmer very long, I mean,

it clearly affected him and Rick Spielman that neither guy got like the five-year extension you're our guys it was more like two or something and then okay so we're basically playing for our jobs every moment and with Cousins you know he got the extension and he was a little snarky last offseason about, well, I guess I've got to win to be a Viking for life. And then he's going to argue, I did all the winning. And then in the playoff game, I know I checked down on fourth and three, but I put up all these points and all these yards. And it wasn't my fault. I mean, right.

Like, if you're his agent and you are an agent, you're making that case. Look at my guy. Look at what he did for you. Despite a bad defense, he won 13 games you asked him to be clutch he was clutch but i do wonder about from kevin o'connell's perspective he came from la and one thing really stuck out to me after the game when he was asked about the check down he was trying not to he was trying not to mf he was trying he was trying to be like i guess i gotta get in his ear and say to throw it somewhere else.

And I was like, who's that sound like? Sounds like McVay and Jared Goff about like, oh, I guess there was no no look pass from because that's not him. He's going to throw it to what he thinks is the right read, which, by the way, shout out to Kurt Warner for an incredible breakdown on his Twitter of that play, where he pointed out that TJ Hawkinson shipping was what kept him from creating separation and that it shouldn't have really even been an option to throw to him on that particular play. But anyway, not the point. It's just that in several different occasions, O'Connell has kind of dropped in there to us. Like, yeah,

right before the snap, I told them where to throw it. And I just wonder if there's like a Stafford, you know, type of golf comparison there at some point with them, that's only just like trying to pick up any hint possible. But, you know, I, I mean, I, I really think that what's just been proven over a long period of time is that it's almost impossible to do this with him to get you a strong enough team to go deep in the playoffs. And here's another issue as well. I mean, you have a 2022 draft that just is not promising at this moment. And I don't know how it's going to play out long term.

But I think as we go back and look what happened and what's going to happen, when you have a draft that's great, you could be like, here we come, baby. 2015 Vikings draft. Holy mo moly look at these guys i mean they just have i mean there is no one except for maybe brian asamoah to be like okay all right maybe you have something here they trade down they give up jameson williams and christian watson in the division they get a player who gets hurt right away, but wasn't even third on the depth chart from that point. They get another guy who's big time hurt. It's just not promising for what that draft class is going to be. And also, Ingram graded a 28 out of 100 in that game

against the Giants. He was a liability all year, no guarantees that he's going to get better. So that puts them also in a very difficult spot because in order to rebuild these this thing they're just going to have to cut people and sign new people who are going to be just like the old people you're you're not wrong why do i feel like this is just the same circle conversation that we've had since three years ago you know i think it's it just goes to show you how hard it is to build a winning franchise in the NFL. It's really, really hard.

And it's why there is hall of fame coaches and there's hall of fame guys that can make chicken salad out of chicken. Right? Like it's just the way it goes. And I think KOC showed times of that this year of being able to create and do stuff on offense. And I think if maybe he gets a defensive coordinator in here that he has full trust in that has a proven track record of being able to create things, whether it's blitz pressures or what they do in alignment. You know, Zimmer was a brilliant defensive mind and bringing a guy in here that can just create stuff like I think that will help us.

But you're right. In order to build teams, you build through the draft. It's just it's how you do it. You build through the draft. You build through the players. And I mean, you might have hit the last great draft like all around now granted yeah Jefferson was an absolute steal right he was great but when's the last from top to bottom draft class that the Vikings have had where it's just been like yep that's the class that's the one right like you look at teams that win the Super Bowl, they nail their draft class. Look at when Tampa Bay won their Super Bowl. Rookie right tackle, all pro. Safety, started every game in Winfield, played at an extremely high level.

They have the sixth round, Tyler Johnson out of University of Minnesota catches a touchdown in the Super Bowl. You just have young players stepping up and making huge plays. And so that's what you have to look at, and it's a hard thing to do in the draft, right? Because it's hard to grade. This guy was great in college. Like how quickly is he going to be able to pick up an NFL offense or how quickly is he going to be able to come in there

and play at the same elite speed that he needs to play for the NFL? So all those things to be said, you know, coming back to your question of the Kirk Cousins issue, right? Like what does he do? I think that's why you have to plan a flag very quickly in what you want out of this off season, right? If you come out and you say, listen, we're here to kind of start the rebuild of what the KOC regime is going to be, right? This is, we're all in on KOC, right? Like the full organization, the ownership,

we're backing our head coach we're gonna let him to what he wants to do with this program and if that means you start to see guys moving and going like i think kirk's smart enough to see the writing on the wall of like okay they're going in a different direction now if his ego if any quarterback ego is willing to accept that that's gonna be the question is he willing to accept the fact that like, I've ran my course here. I'm going to ball out my contract year. And then I'm going to go play in Indianapolis for two more years where old quarterbacks go to die. Right. Is that what he wants to do? Or is he still think he is part of that elite echelon quarterbacks that can absolutely go win the Superbowl every year. And I think he's going to think that, but there's gotta be a piece

of him that he might be ready to move on. He might ready to go okay i've been through a regime change i've been through all this like i know what i am i know what we do i just don't know if he can accept that or not i hope he can because i think the organization is ready to move on but there's a piece of me that thinks he's just going to die on the hill of like no no i am the best and i will continue to be the best and if i'm his agent that's the song i'm singing. So let me throw this out there. The Seattle Seahawks had a 12-win season, and then they had their season kind of go down the next year when Russell Wilson got hurt and then made the move.

If you feel like they could have probably done it after the 12-4 season, though, because their roster was crumbling and everyone was unhappy and there was a lot of things in the media about just you know feeling like their run was over after losing to the rams in the playoffs this might is that like is this that accelerated when you look at like all of these situations kind of came after they had a good season like uh stafford remember stafford played well uh for half a season got hurt and then it was like, oh, all he needs is this, this, this, and then they came back and it just wasn't good. Derek Carr, same thing, where you knew what was coming,

but you almost had to have it happen first in order to justify it. But contract-wise, this even goes for Tannehill too. It was almost like they've got to see it in order to say that that's the thing. But if you're Kirk Cousins and they come to you and they say, we're just going to ride it out with your contract, we're just going to play it out. And that's the contract you sign everything else. If he says, I'd prefer you trade me. There's 12 teams that need quarterbacks. I mean, the league is wrought with franchises that are trying to save themselves. The New York Jets, why would they not want Kirk Cousins at this point, right?

And so I guess I could understand where anyone listening to this goes, wait a minute, didn't they just win 13 games? Like, yeah, but that's kind of the problem. It's like you did everything you could. You put every laser at this thing. You couldn't get on the plus side of point differential. You couldn't get out of the first round. He played as good as he's ever gonna play and if you're looking toward the future it's better

to step back it's better to sign a marcus mariotta like like this was the proposed thing last year and and look i'm glad to be wrong as far as what they should have done last year because they won 13 and it was a way more fun ride than they had in Atlanta but at some point you become Atlanta with Matt Ryan and and do you want to be a year ahead of that or a year behind that do you need to see the seven win season first or do can we just know it's going to be there based on all the players you're going to to lose I think that they will have to see it first. But if your cousins though, I'm trying to put myself in his shoes because we always play GM.

We never play on the player side. If I'm his agent, if I'm him, if you're not extending me, then you should trade me to a team that will extend me. And because he's looking for one more mega contract at age 35, he's looking for a four year deal with, you know, 120 million guaranteed or something like totally's looking for a four-year deal with $120 million guaranteed or something, like totally reasonable stuff for a really good quarterback. And if it just doesn't fit your timeline, but then the other part is you have to sell it to ownership.

You have to sell it to the fan base. Why are you trading Kirk Cousins after we just won 13 games is going to be the take of everyone. And I mean, that was with Case, right? Like it was hard to sell to the fan base that you're moving on from case Keenum after 13 wins but the logic of moving on was always right like how they did it and Kirk and everything else didn't work out but it was always right to move on from case Keenum it would probably be right to move on now as harsh and as weird as that sounds coming off a really good season it's not about Kirk

Cousins that's what I think people have to understand it's about the other 52 guys on the team right and we touched on it it's not about the play you can get from your quarterback it's the it's the cost of what are we paying the quarterback at what cost it is detrimenting the rest of the team you know when you can have the greatest quarterback of all time, if he doesn't have time to throw or people to throw it to, or a defense that can stop anyone, it doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. And so I'm not here to say Kirk Cousins is washed. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, is he worth the price of admission for everyone else? And that's what you have to look at from ownership perspective is we're paying him top, top salary dollar, but we can't put pieces around him. So that makes the organization not be good, right? Yeah. We won 13, but how close are we to eight and nine? How close are we to 10

wins? How close are we to like, you have to look at the differences and what made those differences. Was it Kirk cousins or was it other pieces? And pieces and I think this year yeah it was a lot of Kirk Cousins but can we bet on that over and over and over and over again or do we have to really look at it from a thousand feet up in the air and go okay we can't have all this money pushed over here we have to pull some money back if we want to see improvement on the defense you just don't improve you pay to improve in the NFL you pay pay better players. And so that's where, as me, as a Viking fan and as an agent and someone that understands a little more behind the scenes, I'd want Kirk Cousins to play next year on his contract and then move on for the sake of the

organization. Now, that's not fair to Kirk. It's not. He did everything right. It's not fair. The league's not fair. The league doesn't give a crap about you. They never have. You're a pawn in a much larger scheme. The organization will continue far after Kirk Cousins retires from this. KOC may still be coaching, but what you do right now will define the next five to seven years of what the Vikings will be moving forward. And that's how we have to look at it as fans. That's how we have to look at it as it's not a personal attack on the guy it's not a personal attack on his character his play it just is more about the team than it is one individual right now well and really i used atlanta i should have used seattle as the really the blueprint for this um because you know they move on from wilson that had to be crushing for everybody in Seattle after so many years.

And, of course, everyone picked them to win four games because you just thought, well, without Wilson, they're going to fall apart. And they have an elite receiver, too, in DK Metcalf, whose contract was up and signed a contract with them. Now, Justin might be different, but it signed a contract that put a ton of money into his pocket and also basically said, look, if we can't turn it around in a couple of years, then you can go. But what did he do? DK Metcalf made Geno Smith into a really good quarterback. And so it doesn't have to even mean that they would have to tank and everything else.

But you'd probably try to look for a Seattle like outcome where you are competitive and you do have a good team and you can maybe have a better draft or have some of those guys come back and, you know, step up their game. Linemen clearly take several years to develop and we never know whether they're going to get better or not after a rookie season. Ezra Cleveland really hasn't. Garrett Bradbury kind of did, but it took a long time and we don't know on Ed Ingram. But Seattle had a good draft. They had players step up. They made some good under-the-radar acquisitions and things like that and had those receivers and were able to still be a very competitive team.

You're right to say this might be the competitive rebuild year, the real one, and if you want to do that then asking cousins if he wants to move somewhere else is probably the way to do it and i agree wholeheartedly with you on cousins where if you were to map out how he would play individually not the whole team's success from day one that they signed him this is the 95th percentile of that i mean he played really well he played better here than he did in washington over his accumulation he grew as a quarterback he played extremely well over the entire thing and it still wasn't good enough because that's the league and i guess i wonder

how ruthless they're going to be willing to be and then where he fits into that as well because you know they really could take the safe route here they could sign him to a five-year contract extension and they could say we're going to draft and build around him but then you better hope you get one of those 2015 drafts or the Saints draft but even the Saints draft where they got like Kamara and everything else you're talking about an all-time great quarterback and Drew Brees so yeah I mean this is I think from his perspective is really fascinating to talk about like what does he want and how that could impact this whole thing because

i'm sure he's saying put down the cash for those 13 wins baby i don't care if one was against chicago put them down yeah i mean you're only as good as your last at bat this league right and that's being your full season right you point to that no one cares what you did two years ago when you're talking contract extension. That's why everyone always makes the big deal. It's contract year, right? That's what you are judged on. And if you're Kirk Cousins, like, yeah, what more do you want me to do? But you have to be like, I want you to do exactly what you want to do. I just can't pay you as much as you are doing it, right? Like it can't happen. I cannot pay you the amount of money you have because we just don't have it as a vikings organization we don't have the funds because of all the things we've done to kick cash down the road and extend people put cash up front and push it to the end

of their contract it just all is part of the game that makes the nfl so hard right and um the the Right. And the ripple effects of Spielman, you know, in chess, you made a pawn comparison in chess. One move that you make can have implications 10 moves from now. And I think that the drafts that he had, the best player they drafted since 2015 on defense plays for the Cowboys and intercepted Tom Brady last night. That's just a fact. J. Ron Curse is the best player that they've drafted since 2015 on defense plays for the Cowboys and intercepted Tom Brady last night. That's just a fact. J Ron curse is the best player that they've drafted since 2015 on defense. That's freaking wild. Like that's got a major impact on this. It's not just like quasi blew it or whatever else it's,

it's the, the landscape that they were handed from the beginning. This was always going to happen that they would get to the end of this road. Do you want just a real quick love to see it, hate to see it before we wrap up? I was going to say, if you have one, a love to see it, hate to see it from this Viking season, excluding the playoff game. Oh, you know, like, I think that's a fun way to wrap this up. You know, what we love from the season and what we hated seeing from the season.

You want to start? You want me to go? Go ahead. Yeah, you can go. You know, my love to see it was the re-ignition of the fan base. I think there was a lot of divided fans through this last five years, Team Zimmer, Team Kirk, whatever. But the fan base came together in a big way and rallied around this team,

and I hope they enjoyed the ride because it's not easy to do. And we lived it. We lived it we lived it as Vikings fans last of winning eight games or nine games I was there when we won eight and it sucked and I was there we won 13 and it was great you know but the reignition of a fan base can do a lot for an organization right the the ability to rally behind a new head coach and new players and new free agents that come in it becomes enticing to get new free agents. You know, when you have a supportive base that you know is going to show up

every single week and have a packed house no matter what, like it is inviting to bring fresh talent to your team, maybe for even lesser dollars at times. You know, so that was really a big love to see it for me. And then another love to see it was just Daniel Hunter coming back. Him being able to come back after a super injury-riddleddled couple of years to come back and to play at his high level and show that he is still one of the top pass rushers in the NFL for a guy that I played with as a rookie and see him out there still absolutely crushing it that was a big heart I'm excited for the young man in that respect

uh I'll give you a two quick love to see it's Love to see it was a locker room that was not tense all the time. And winning does this, of course, because you guys had a great locker room in 2017, even though it was Zimmer. So it wasn't his fault. It usually isn't. It's usually the winning. Yes. But I do think that the culture change, the way that you talk to people, the environment that you create, the work environment, that you could really feel it. You could really see it. And you won't convince me that it didn't impact how they played, especially in the biggest moments, because I think it did.

And so Kevin O'Connell, I think winning for the future from that element, proving that he can coach NFL players. Can he play call perfectly? Like, I don't think so. And does he need to remove the galaxy brain stuff? Yes, he does. But he can connect with a locker room and boy, that is harder than you think. So, and I think that I would extend that also to how those players bonded with each other during this and just like the general chemistry and how they felt about each other. I mean, like you could really tell there was a lot of care between the groups. And I think that that was great to see because it had not been that way. It was every man for himself the last couple of years. And so this

year was different than that. I would also add, love to see it. It is a very hard thing to become a mega star in this league and then continue to be a mega star and to handle it. And every bad game that you have, which by the way, I didn't think the Giants game was a bad game for Justin Jefferson. I thought it was a great game for somebody else, which is fine. Their passing game was terrific through the game. I mean, they lost because their defense played terribly and they had one or two plays that they needed to make on offense that were blown up. But every time you get 40 yards receiving instead of 150, everyone freaks out on you. Like that's the pressure that comes along with this. Every time ESPN wants to come to Minnesota, who are they going to talk to? It's going to be Justin Jefferson. They're putting up the big lights. I've seen them set it up before. It's a whole thing like that kind of pressure.

And yet he was available for the local media for every interview. And I know that like, like, well, it's me. No, it's not. No, it's like a lot of times you see guys get that like, oh, well, I'm bigger than you guys. I only talk to Jay Glazer or something. And you know, you have this, like, you could see these egos just blow up. That is not how Justin Jefferson handled it this year. I thought he handled it like a true superstar pro. And it was just very impressive. It was kind of Larry Fitzgerald, like where he just was a very like class leader of of this and did not let that go to his head, which is kind of incredible for somebody who's 23 years old. Absolutely. I completely agree with you there. And then my last hate to see it's a bit of a selfish one, but it's seeing my era of Vikings players that I played with and I was with lose a step and also maybe play their last games in purple. You know, I've loved and people always ask me, like, who are you a fan of?

Right. When you leave the NFL, are you a fan of the Vikings? I'm a fan of my buddies. Like, I'm a fan of the players that I played with and I went to war with and went between those white lines and gave everything I had with. And I look at guys like Adam Thielen, Harrison Smith, Eric Kendricks, Dalvin Cook. Right. Like those are the guys that I remember butting heads with in August in Mankato, right? And to see those guys potentially moving on or potentially playing their last games in purple or just retiring, you know,

it seems like everyone I played with is now gone off that team, which is crazy that just in 2017 to 2023 is almost complete roster turnover, you know? But that is the nature of the NFL. And selfishly, it makes me sad. But I just think it's just part of where we're at as an organization. And I love those guys.

But I do think that those guys' times are coming to an end in purple. Yeah, that's true. I mean, there's a lot of these players that my first year covering the NFL, these guys were young players. And it's like, wait, how old am I? Then there's a lot of those moments that you and I are experiencing as mid thirties gentlemen, where we're like, wait a minute. Whose son is that?

That's in the draft. Asante Samuel jr. So that's yeah. I mean, I think that the hate to see it for me is just that I kind of had in my mind that I'd be flying out to San Francisco and that we'd have just this energetic week. I think that I was almost as surprised as they were. Like, there was just a sense of shock that they didn't pull it off,

that they didn't come back with the big win, everything else. When Cousins threw the three-yard pass i was just like wait there's got to be is there a flag like there's just got to be something right that keeps this going and there was for the dexter lawrence play like clearly not but you know they got that break again so you know i think that um the excitement of previewing games hardcore talking about matchups having this thing matter was such a love to see it that when it came to an end, it was like, oh no, I have to look at the draft. Like, I don't want to look at the draft. I wanted to cover a playoff game. So, I mean, the hate to

see it is similar to you. Like a lot of players that I really respect and have learned a ton from over the years might not be here and probably won't be here. And I think the other hate to see it is just that like one dude is just going to be the absolute devil for every Vikings fan. It's Ed Donatel and they might not be wrong, but I hate when that happens. Like it was like Tom Compton in 2018 and it was somebody, it was D Filippo. And it was like when one person just draws, like it was all his fault and whatever else. And again,

like there's a lot of blame there probably. But I hate when that happens. Oh yeah. You know what I mean? Like the fall on the sword guy is never fun, but it has, it happens every organization every year someone is the scapegoat and rightfully so wrongfully so it just sucks because it's weird because i hate when guys

cheer to lose their job no one wouldn't and like right it's like that guy's got a family he's got a profession like he takes pride in what he does and so so the cheering of like, yes, get that guy out of here. He's the worst boo. Like I hate that. And it just sucks for that individual. But again, it goes back to the NFL is a ruthless cutthroat business from the top down. And once you get yourself involved in it, you know, the inherent risks that come with it. Yep. Yep. Right. Like it's not that it's not deserved. It's just sometimes frustrating because it can just be everyone talking about one person all the time. And, like, let's not lose sight of how those guys lost steps and how the players were not what they used to be. So, anyway, an epic episode. Hopefully you didn't have anything to do today because this episode made it up.

But, anyway, no, Jeremiah, all season long. And we're going to continue through the Super Bowl, breaking down these games and everything, but all season long, it has been my favorite time with you that we could talk about these games. They matter. And each week we had a ton to say about the upcoming opponent, what they should do, the schemes, the changes, the insides and outs of the game that I feel like was an opportunity kind of robbed from us right from the beginning in 2020 when they started one in five and it was it was just a super fun year it

was a super fun year and I'm sad to see it end but I greatly greatly appreciate all of your perspectives I think it's an incredible addition to the show to be able to bring your playing experience but other experiences as well and we had a lot of fun. We did. We had a blast. And I will say I made most Tuesdays this year. You really did. Big come up from the year before. We were all over the place. I made most Tuesdays this year.

I did not think of that. You know, well, it's all about subtle improvements in the offseason. It's all about, hey, survive in advance, man. That's where we're at with the rest of these teams. But, yeah, we'll make improvements, and we'll be back better than ever for Tuesday morning Left Guard Viking season 2023.