Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What did Kevin O'Connell mean by 'quarterback killer' ????

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

Matthew Coller talks about a Kevin O'Connell comment about him killing QB ideas in the past and sending Patriots owner Robert Kraft flowers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here with you again as we are just, I don't know how many hours, I can't do the math fast enough to tell you, but we're getting close to the NFL draft on Thursday. And as you guys all know, the closer we get, the crazier stuff gets. Now, nobody has had a gas mask bong just yet, although there are, again, a few days to go for anything to possibly change with the Minnesota Vikings, the NFL draft, the quarterbacks, who knows? At one point, there was, I think, old Josh Allen tweets that emerged because he had tweeted rap lyrics on the day of the draft. And he did an interview with Stephen A. Smith apologizing or something to that effect. So yeah, there's a long held thing in elections called the October surprise. And that is just because right before the election happens,

there's always some sort of crazy story that comes out before the election. Maybe that's changed now that news works the way it does, but that used to be a thing. And I think the same exists for the NFL draft where we think we've got it all figured out. We're all set. We're ready to go. Our mock drafts are in. We think, all right, we're good with this. And then all of a sudden, some news breaks, something changes, and bang, we got an alteration to the draft or something surprises us that we never thought would happen. So, man, make sure you're setting all of those alerts from Tom Bellacero, Adam Schefter, Ian Rappaport, all those guys, because we really

never know what can change. I was thinking about maybe playing some golf this week, but I'm nervous because as it works with podcasts, the same thing happens to me with golf, where every time I go out like, all right, we're good. It's quiet moment. Just go out, play a little nine holes. Then something tends to happen. But I do need to get that first round out of the way before the draft. I think it's been a kind of a tradition over the years to play around a golf right before the draft. So maybe I can get that in, but this year we might have to pass because there might be something crazy, like a huge trade up potentially by the Minnesota Vikings. So the, uh, the little bit of a wrinkle that we have, I would not call it the October surprise or the draft week surprise,

but I'll call it a wrinkle as there seems to be more and more momentum growing toward the Vikings trading with the new England Patriots. There was a report out of New England that the Patriots don't love Drake May as much as the Minnesota Vikings, or maybe they just don't love Drake May dropped into that situation as much as the Vikings like them dropped into their situation with Drake May. And of course we all assume that, you know, Drake May is the guys or is that is the yeah the guys in charge for the vikings crazy daflamensa and kevin o'connell we assume that he's their pick it could also be jayden daniels we assume jayden daniels is going number two it could be jj mccarthy we we won't know until draft night but as we're trying to put these pieces together this is what it seems like we're coming up with, is that Williams

is going to go number one, Jaden Daniels two, and then there is a very real possibility that number three could be the Vikings trading up with the Patriots. So here's how it appears that it has to happen based on some reporting out of New England, is that the Vikings have to offer a historic return to the New England Patriots. But I was doing a little research on this. Now, of course, there's the Herschel Walker trade. Of course, there's the Mike Ditka trading his entire draft. Now, those are historic. That's true.

But if they were going to top the San Francisco 49ers and what they gave to move up to trade up and take Trey Lance, all that would take is one extra third round pick along with the three first round picks. The pick swap for you pick swap nuts who love to talk about that. But swapping the first picks, two more firsts, and then two more thirds would be more than san francisco gave up they just gave up one third which sounds like a lot

but is also not an insane return considering that the vikies would be getting their guy now that's an important place to really start the show which is is getting their guy, because this came up with Kevin O'Connell in a speech that he was giving at a local church in Plymouth. So O'Connell, the other night, he's there at this church. He's doing a speech about his or a Q and a about his faith journey in football. And naturally someone steps to the microphone in the Q and a portion and asks Kevin O'Connell about quarterbacks and asks O'Connell, if you can fix a quarterback footwork and O'Connell, this is the thing about Kevin O'Connell.

Number one, this man would talk to anybody about quarterback play for many, many, many hours. I mean, this is the number one passion of the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings talking quarterback play. Uh, you, I mean, you would have to drag him out of the room to the next thing he's got to go to. If you start talking about quarterbacks with O'Connell. So it was cool though, because with the person asking the question, he could have very easily said, guys, I can't, I can't go there here. Can't give you any information.

But instead he actually gave a very insightful answer about how he felt that footwork was something that could be worked on. And I think that's been proven through the years. Somebody like Josh Allen, somebody like Patrick Mahomes, both guys who were not perfect, but had the raw tools to develop. And we've even seen that with Jordan Love, even though some of you don't want to admit it yet, but he came into the league really raw and then turned into by the middle of last year, having all those tools come together and looking like a complete quarterback.

So I think Kevin O'Connell's drawing on those examples and his past that there are techniques that you can improve. So he makes that point. He gives a really good answer. It was a very, I thought, thoughtful and respectful way to approach it to the person who was asking the question. So that was very cool of him to do that. But also he dropped a little nugget. So I think that, you know, correcting footwork is not something that's shocking to any of us. And he also made a joke about the Patriots and sending Robert Kraft flowers. Also, I'm not sure how much you can look into that, but we all know that the New England Patriots are the target of the Minnesota Vikings in a trade up. This is not some sort of secret that is shocking to all of us, right? We've known that for this entire time that they've talked about all the scenarios of trading up. We're sure that the Patriots are a team that could potentially move back.

So again, like joking around, I'm not making too much of that, but where I thought it was quite interesting is that O'Connell called himself the quarterback killer at TCO Performance Center. And no, he's not referring to putting Jared Hall on the field. Hey-oh, right? Although Jared Hall did get killed every time he went out on the field. What I believe Kevin O'Connell meant by saying that, and he explained it with maybe a sentence or two after, was that in previous years, there were ideas thrown around to draft quarterbacks. And he put his foot down and said, I'm not drafting a quarterback unless it is someone that I am a hundred percent fully all in completely sold. It's my guy. This is the person that I can marry and not just date,

not just take a wild shot at, but actually make that the franchise quarterback and make it. So it's me and him all the way to the end. I think that's what O'Connell meant. And if we go back in history, we really don't have to dig super deep to figure out who we would be talking about because the Vikings didn't draft guys that were on the board when they had an opportunity. So O'Connell starts out his head coaching career with the Vikings in 2022. Go back to that draft. You have draft analysts in their wisdom thinking that Malik Willis could be a top 10 draft pick, but clearly Kevin O'Connell was not sold. And the processing thing that he brings up all the time, I always wonder if he's kind of pointing to Malik Willis because that was Malik

Willis' huge issue in college. It was his huge issue when he got on the field in the NFL a couple of times. He couldn't see anything. It looked like a worse version of Justin Fields, which is just not a starting quarterback in the league. And when you watched him play at Liberty, yeah, you saw the fastball. Yeah. You saw his running ability, which really was special, but what you didn't see was any touch on the football and you really saw him hang onto the ball forever, take sacks, just not, not seeing it and getting it out quick in college, which I think would have been a main reason why O'Connell would not have been interested in Malik Willis. Kenny Pickett was the other guy who was the only first round pick in 2022. But think about Kenny Pickett.

He was a one-year wonder with Jordan Addison who apparently pumps up all his quarterback stats with Caleb Williams as well was not the same after Jordan Addison so not only that but Pickett did not have a very good arm and that was a main criticism of him is that he kind of had this like post knee injury Teddy Bridgewater looking kind of arm where, yeah, he could game manage, but there wasn't really anything special. And he's a very good athlete, but again, nothing really special from Kenny Pickett. The biggest thing though, is he was not that accurate. Normally we think of quarterbacks like that. Okay. He doesn't have a big arm. Okay. He's not the greatest athlete ever. So he must be super accurate.

But I don't think Kenny Pickett was that accurate either because I watched a bunch of Jordan Addison when he got drafted and I went, oh my gosh, they drafted this guy in the first round. I don't understand that at all. And history proven him absolutely right for not going all in on that decision. So then we go to the following season and then nobody else was in the first round again draft analysts loved spencer or uh not spencer rattler uh desmond

ritter draft analysts love devsman ritter i still to this day have no idea why no clue what they saw in desmond ritter for him to be a first round pick. I never even included him in those conversations when we were talking about the potential of drafting a quarterback, but there were some people out there thought he was a first rounder. He ends up going in the third round. So they didn't see anybody else that they wanted to buy into. Then there's last year where it got really interesting uh i also um was a sam howell believer at the time out of all those quarterbacks and i guess is he the best i think he is the best quarterback out of the group except for they're all not good so uh real quick i will stop and

answer this question the plan for thursday night is exactly what we're doing right now. This live stream during the draft starts at 730 Central. I think, right? Is it, wait, is it eight o'clock? Wait, no. Starts at 730 Eastern, 630 Central. Because the draft, okay. Half hour before the draft, you can tell where my head's at right now. Half hour before the draft, we'll start, we'll go live on the channel

all the way through the night with a reaction and so forth. start we'll go live on the channel all the way through uh the night with a reaction and and so forth and we'll go from there so that's the plan for thursday night so make sure all of you uh decide to jump on board um so anyway 2023 comes along and this is where we really think that a quarterback is going to be drafted by the vikings because uh when you look at uh who was you know on board, potentially you're going, all right, well, there's, you know, Richardson is kind of a project. Are they going to let him drop or does somebody not believe in Bryce Young? Cause he's too small or CJ Stroud. And we had often assumed that Will Levis was going to be the guy right at the top of the draft. And

there were reports and I believe Vegas had him as potential number one, number two, overall pick. So there was all this hype for Will Levis. And, you know, again, as we go into it, just always a reminder, we think we know a lot and then draft night usually proves us wrong. Some years it's right. Some years it's not. And in that case, it was not, it was not correct. Will Levis was not as good of a prospect as was touted from the outside world. And the Vikings have a chance to draft him. They're on the board and they go with Jordan Addison instead. And if I had to guess, there were likely what Kevin O'Connell is referring to, is people inside TCO Performance Center

who really liked the idea of taking a shot at a quarterback. Now, I can't say, is that Kweisi Adafo-Mensa, or is that Scouts, or is that whoever? But it sounds like, by what Kevin O'Connell said, that there were people inside the building that may have said for different quarterbacks, hey, we should draft this guy. We should take a shot at that guy. And it might not even be the first round. It might even be, hey, we should take a shot at Desmond Ritter in the second.

And they said, no, let's not do that. I forget if they had a second. Did they trade that second round pick? But you know what I mean? Like we should take we should take this guy. We should take a shot at that guy. No, they had the, they had the second round picks in 2022 and they decided, no, we're not going to do that. We're not going to roll the dice. We are going to wait until this much better draft class in 2024. And we are going to pick someone who is going to be the guy that Kevin O'Connell fully buys into. So it's a very interesting comment, but I don't think that there's any controversy about it other than, yeah, this is exactly what the Vikings should do.

And there was the report, multiple reports, that they tried to trade up into the top three last year. They would have had to go, what, were they 23rd all the way up to number three? So that was not going to happen. They were not going to move up all that way and no one was going to let them considering how much Indianapolis loved Anthony Richardson. But if it was true that they tried super hard to get Richardson, then that means that was somebody Kevin O'Connell identified as a guy that they could make their franchise quarterback, but they just couldn't get enough draft capital to move up and to take him. And I think that that

was a real thing, whether it was Richardson, Stroud or Young, they were all very highly touted prospects. They were all drafted super high. So yeah, I mean, if the Vikings were trying to trade up to the top, which I fully believe that they were last year, that would have meant that they were good with whoever, right. That they were good with one of them. But we can't say for sure. There's one report that says Richardson, I'm not comfortable saying, oh yeah, I know that they wanted this guy over that guy, but they wanted one of those top three quarterbacks. They would have taken them, developed them for a year. And we'd be talking about getting them a guard at this point. But instead, of course, nobody wanted to be, as O'Connell says, complicit in helping the

Vikings move up last year. So now this year, that's why they go out and get the 23rd overall pick is to give them an opportunity to have somebody else be complicit in helping them potentially trade up. So will it happen? I don't know. Now, when it comes to which quarterback Kevin O'Connell wants and which one now, as he was saying in this speech that he's giving to the church, that he's essentially telling everybody, well, this year we've got our guy or guys. Now, Kweisi Adafo-Mensa says we're in love with multiple quarterbacks in this draft, which could just mean, you know, Williams and May, and then you'll have to figure it out later.

Or it could mean that they really do like enough of these quarterbacks to feel comfortable with multiple scenarios and something that cannot be underrated about Kevin O'Connell calling himself the quarterback killer, joking about, you know, sending flowers to Robert Kraft and laughing and joking around at this event is just the confidence he's exuding about this. And it makes you feel like, and I don't have inside information, just like nobody else does when it comes to this, because O'Connell, I guarantee you, has told nobody,

except for Kweisi Adafo-Mensah, probably, what they need to do and who he really, truly wants. But it might not be a secret at this point. It might just be so clearly Drake May, but it might be Jaded Daniels. We don't know. But it seems like it's so clearly Drake May that he really wants. But the way that he has talked about it, the confidence in which he's talked about it, he's either a super optimistic human being who really truly feels like,

wow, I'm just really excited about this draft class, or I'd throw it out there that he knows what their plans are and feels like there's a very good chance that it happens. That's kind of how it's coming across. Again, that's not me saying for sure. It just feels like that.

It just feels like he was coming across very confidently when he was giving his answer and talking about it like, yeah, well, you know, we've already said. Now, it's something if you really want to pick it apart, if you want to go full conspiracy, do you send flowers to someone as a bribe or do you send them as a thank you after something happened? Am I right? You send them as a thank you after something has been agreed upon, not as a bribe, as a bribe, right? So I don't know. If there is really truly the amount of confidence that Kevin O'Connell is exuding is actually an indicator that the Vikings think that they have something on lockdown here to move up to the number three pick. night in the Q and a, but we've reached a point where it just feels like there is a lot of momentum growing toward the Vikings being able to make this trade up to the top of the draft, but things can

change fast. If the Washington commanders decide that they are going to draft Drake may, and that's who they actually wanted all along, but they were running games on everybody, then things become a little bit different. Would the Vikings want to trade up for Jaden Daniels? Is that a fit for them? Or would they prefer in that case to wait until number 11? Because the way that I have always thought of this from the minute that they traded for the 23rd overall pick is that number one, of course, is going to go Williams. We're all in agreement there, but whatever happens at number two has to happen in order for the Vikings to know whether they're sending this mega package to number three or not. That's how it feels.

It feels like they have to wait. And if Washington takes Jaden Daniels, then they push the big button. All right, send all the firsts. We're getting Drake May and we're hooking them up with all this stuff that the Vikings can offer the receivers, the tight end, the tackles, Kevin O'Connell, that if number two is Jaden Daniels, then number three is the Patriots moving back because the Vikings make them the offer that they cannot refuse. That's how it feels. And if suddenly the Patriots decide they don't want to do that, that they want Drake May, then you start to have that JJ McCarthy conversation. I am a little more skeptical that the Vikings want to give up as much because of the way that this has been framed by Kweisi

Daffel-Mensah. And if we look through the history of Kweisi Daffel-Mensah in front of the media, we can pretty easily pick up the things that they were leaving for us, the breadcrumbs, to know the decisions that they were going to make. And this goes back to very early on in Kweisi Adafomens' time as the Vikings general manager, where he told us the competitive rebuild. And they have stuck to the competitive rebuild. He told us that they've had this multi-year plan. And I think we all had a good idea from the beginning when he gave a maybe regrettable interview about Kirk Cousins

and said that usually great quarterbacks win the Superbowl and Kirk Cousins is a good quarterback. I mean, from really the very beginning, Kweisi Adafo-Mensah has laid out what they were going to do, even when it came to Kirk Cousins and his negotiations, where it was, hey, you know, we love Kirk, but it's a negotiation, but there's going to be a price. And they end up not keeping Kirk Cousins, which he pretty much telegraphed that. So I think that he's telegraphed pretty well, the options for the Vikings and the plan for the Vikings, which would be starting with a number one option is to trade up to number three for Drake May because Kevin O'Connell sees the raw talent in Drake May. Also not, not to mention as a Drake May buyer inner inner myself um i mean there's a lot of erratic

quarterback play from college quarterbacks who are 20 or 21 years old that's why you draft them and develop them over a couple of years one thing that you can't just invent out of thin air is six foot four, 230 pounds, mobility, playmaking, anticipation throws, easy throwing motion with his arm that the ball explodes out of his arm, playmaking ability. Like those are things that you can't just invent out of thin air that Kevin O'Connell, I think would see and say, this works for me. This is what I can develop. And I also think that he would really like to develop a quarterback with that kind of talent to take that person to the next level, to make them what, what their potential really is because Drake may at North Carolina did not get the opportunity that he needed with the players around him.

I mean, it was a bad offensive line, bad receivers. I didn't like the scheme. And a lot of times with May, his bad plays are him trying to do too much, which there's always that idea of like reigning someone in. What do they say in hockey? It's easier to tell somebody, whoa, than go. So it's a little easier to get somebody to play more in structure as we've seen from other super talented quarterbacks than it is to try to invent athleticism, invent arm talent. So while we do not know for sure about

anything in the draft until Thursday night, all of these things are all kind of pointing in the same direction. The way that Kweisi Daffel-Mentz has talked about this draft, the way that Kevin O'Connell has talked about his ideal quarterback, it all kind of matches up with Drake May and the possibility that the New England Patriots could move out for draft capital. And the thing with the Patriots is that they also may look at it and say, we could draft another quarterback that we would be less locked into. So you could draft, you could get another pick down the road. You could take a quarterback in the second or in the third round,

or you could take one with the Vikings 23rd overall pick and then take a shot at a guy. But if it doesn't work out, you've got another pick down the road or something like that. New England could look at this as we need players. We can take a project and see if he works out like this sixth rounder that we took once upon a time. Or, hey, look, Jimmy Garoppolo became a good quarterback. They took him in the second. So they might look at that and goolo became a good quarterback. They took him in the second.

So they might look at that and go, we've taken other quarterbacks, not in the first. Why don't we do that? But if New England, there's two scenarios where this doesn't happen. Number one is New England says, look, we just, we want to take Drake May. He's the next Drew Bledsoe. He's this big guy with a big arm. So we're taking him. Robert Kraft.

Now this is a little bit of a history lesson, but when Robert Kraft bought the team, they were a disaster way, way back when. Total mess, total disaster. And when they drafted Drew Bledsoe, it changed the franchise completely. They were not in a good spot. The team wasn't in a good position. They didn't have a good spot. The team wasn't in a good position. They didn't have a good roster. And then they were able to get Parcells and then on and on and on.

And then they get Brady and the rest is history. But Robert Kraft might say, you know what? We did this once upon a time with the top draft pick quarterback. We're doing it again. And then the Vikings are just out of this conversation because as O'Connell said, someone has to be complicit. Someone has to help you out. You can't just do this by yourself. So there's two scenarios where they just don't get May Washington taking him or that, you know, that New England just decides they're going to do it. The other scenario is that somehow the New

York Giants put together a better package than the Vikings. That's where trading for 23 is so big. And when we discuss stuff like collaboration with the Vikings front office coaching staff, and we kind of roll our eyes because we should be skeptical, stuff like that. Collaboration's great until, you know, bleep hits the fan, that kind of thing. But if they're able to trade for 23 and use that to go get the quarterback, Kevin O'Connell wants, that is the perfect culmination of a management working with the

coach to make everybody happy and find a direction that they all agree on, whether it works or whether it completely sinks, that's what you're looking for. So if they're able to do that, but that 23rd pick, that might be the hero of this entire thing, because if the New York Giants want Drake May, they don't have to go very far, but the Vikings being able to offer an additional first right now, those firsts right now are worth more than firsts in the future. And when we look at those charts that, you know, all the draft picks worth this or that, the future draft picks are not worth as much as it says on the chart because you got to wait for it.

And you don't know where it's going to be. As opposed to this year, you've done your scouting, you know what players that you could possibly get. So they have this 23rd pick that could be the hero here. They could push more draft capital in and say, look, we've got a pretty good defense. We've got a great defensive coordinator. We've got stars at key positions. All we have to do now is just fill in a couple of pieces next year when we get how many ever millions we're talking about now 100 million 75 million of cap space whatever it is uh depending on how things shake out at that point but this this is you could see that thought process and how everything could come together all at once with them acquiring that draft pick moving on from players last year to set up the cap space for the future,

getting a defensive coordinator who's at the absolute top of his craft. This is not some random who's just going to be a reflection of whatever your roster is. We saw last year, I mean, you can't emphasize enough how important Brian Flores becomes to this

because he's going to be tasked with getting more out of the defense or developing players than they're going to have assets for, but they can also spend a little money next year and be the team that's competing for top, uh, free agents like they were this year. So what it all comes down to is that they have brought this competitive rebuild thing to a head on Thursday night. Now, is anybody going to help him out? And yes, those are the comments saying, hey, if we had just lost another Josh Dobbs game instead of won it, then we'd be here.

And you're right. And I couldn't agree with you more, but that's life. You are unfortunately not in that position. So you might have to give up more draft capital, but if it all results in getting the quarterback that Kevin O'Connell wants, then all's well that ends well. The real question to me is not, do they want to trade up and get a quarterback? They're not even hiding this. They have never hid this.

This is not anything slightly new that they want to trade up and they want to trade up with the Patriots and they want to get a top quarterback in this draft class. They have not pretended for a single second. I mean, Sam Darnold's got to be watching these press conferences going like, am I on the team or you guys never bring me up. So I guess, I guess I'm competing for a spot. Like they, they talk so confidently about drafting a quarterback and philosophically, and they're breaking it down and they're talking about it, which of course could make some of you say, uh, yeah, that's because the deal is already done. And that very well could be, but if some of those scenarios

do not play out in their favor, then what? How many quarterbacks do you really love is also the question here. Is the answer just JJ McCarthy? Is JJ McCarthy the Desmond Ritter of this draft class? Or is he the Will Levis of this draft class where he's been pumped up and pumped up and there's lots of hype, but he's not actually a top quarterback. Now, years ago, when I was talking about the draft, maybe when I first started talking about it, I would have taken everything the draft analyst said for granted and said, oh yeah, McCarthy's going to be number four and that's what's going to happen. But after these last couple of years with Malik Willis and Will Levis,

we got to ask the question, is that really the case? Or could the Vikings actually get him at number four? Or do they actually like Michael Penix? Do they actually like Bo Nix? Both of those could be a realistic possibility. And do they think they should take them at 11? Or should they take them at 23? There is a chart that they've got to have in some room at TCO performance center that you push. Okay. If this happens, you ever see those charts that are kind of, what do they call them?

Flow chart. There's gotta be a flow chart. If this happens, boop. Okay. We send everything to new England. If this happens. Okay okay now we're sending a little bit to the chargers for mccarthy okay if this happens then we're taking nicks at 11 i mean there become so many options after uh the number two overall pick happens that we are in a fascinating spot. And it's also really something to be in the center of the entire NFL draft conversation. Every single discussion that I see with an NFL insider, I was just watching Tom Pelissero, Minnesota guy, on with Rich Eisen talking about the potential options

and Albert Breer has been out there reporting on it, but every interview is, Hey, so what are the Vikings going to do? What are the Vikings going to do? What are the Vikings going to do? And, um, gotta say that is quite the entertaining change that has happened here, uh, from previous seasons where we were talking about, Oh, well, will they draft the defensive tackle, which I, you know, they could still use, uh, and so forth. So I guess my question is after hearing O'Connell's little quip the other night, along with everything else we've heard over and over and over again throughout the entire draft season from the Vikings brass, are you good with

trading up everything for Drake May? Would you prefer that they not trade everything and get JJ McCarthy? Would you prefer that they stick and pick? I mean, what are you rooting for? Because I think that we can break this down even by the way that Kweisi Adafo Mensah had laid it out to all of us where he said, there's multiple quarterbacks that we like, but then he added, and it's an important part of it there's multiple quarterbacks that we like, but then he added, and it's an important part of it because the multiple quarterbacks we love thing was the main part of it. But there was more to it where he talked about how at different prices, different quarterbacks make sense, which I think is how Kweisi Adafo Mensah's mind works,

which is just, all right, this is a asset and this is what it's worth. This is what I'd get up for it. This is what I'd pay for it. Like this is, this is why he's here because he is the economics guy, right? That's why he's here. And so far, actually he's done, I think a really good job at putting values on Vikings players and even free agents, but players that he would keep at a certain price, including Kirk Cousins and not keep at other prices, including letting Kirk Cousins go. So there may be this evaluation of all of these things that, hey, look, Drake May is worth blowing out our draft capital because by year two, he's going to be so good, or at least the way we think of him, he's going to be so good that we

won't need that extra guard. We won't need that extra defensive tackle, or we can get him elsewhere, or we can develop them or whatever, because you are talking about if they trade everything for Drake May, like don't look at the future draft capital. We're going to have some very boring draft nights in the future. I'm already kind of looking forward to Friday a little bit. Maybe they'll trade back into the third. But I'm just going to chill and watch the draft with the rest of you guys on Friday because the Vikings don't have any picks.

But they're not going to have any picks for quite some time if they do this and they trade everything for Drake May. So what is everything? Is everything the three firsts and that's it? Is everything the three firsts on top of another third, two more thirds, a player's where that's where i want to pump the brakes a little bit is when you bring up the potential of a player because if it were the three first round draft picks and a player that's going to be too much for me that's going to be when we're talking about historic territory unless that player is like cam bynum sorry cam if that if it's a safety all right fine but if we're talking about them wanting christian derisaw that's a little bit hefty for me now would you do derisaw and 11 to move up and nothing else

or like a future third that's pretty pretty scary. That's pretty scary because then you're talking about David Questenberry and Blake Brandel as the left side of your offensive line. I don't know that I'd want to do that. And Derrissaw, along with Addison, the two players that I would ask for if I was the Patriots, both of them, those guys are huge parts of how this quarterback can succeed. So I don't think you want to give up reasons why your quarterback can succeed. But I keep coming back to, let's see, how many quarterbacks, how many quarterbacks does Kevin O'Connell actually love in the same way? Because, so think about this,

this is where we could tie this back into the beginning of the street, where we talked about this phrase that he used quarterback killer. Now, of course, that's not a real great phrase to use because it sounds like something else. So he was not saying, oh yeah, I actually kill quarterbacks careers. No, that's, that would be Chicago. That's not what he was referring to. What he was talking about is killing ideas that everyone else at TCO performance center has. So he's vetoing. He should have said, I'm the quarterback veto or something as opposed to killer. I think he just meant killing those ideas off, but which quarterbacks and ideas this year, would he kill off? Would he say, no, I'm not going

to go with the number 11 pick for Michael Penix because he's too hurt. But then again, you know, Penix is talked about as somebody that coaches love, or would he say Bo Nix just doesn't have enough raw talent. I don't need to draft, you know, a slightly better Jaron Hall. I'm just kidding here, but I mean, maybe that's how he sees it. It's hard to say, right? So who is it beyond Drake may, if we all can figure Drake may is a guy that makes so much sense for Kevin O'Connell, then who is it outside of Drake May that they would be comfortable with? Or are they just talking about loving other quarterbacks for the New England Patriots benefit? That's another thing. Are you just saying, Hey, we love lots of quarterbacks. We'd be fine at 11. We'd be fine with McCarthy when truly they think there's only really one quarterback

that they want, but they know they better draft one if they don't get Drake May because otherwise they're going to look extremely foolish. So, you know, it's a, there are so many different options and ways that this could end up playing out, but did want to dive into that quarterback killer idea because, you know, when it comes to those previous quarterbacks, you could totally understand why Kevin O'Connell was not in on Will Levis. Will Levis has a really funky throwing motion. He's not very accurate, comes across a pretty strange human being. I don't know if that's a factor or not, but his accuracy and he got sacked all the time. That would be processing. O'Connell would understand that much better than us. So you could see why he wouldn't like him. You could see why

he wouldn't like Kenny Pickett. But I think that, or at least the way I feel is all six of these quarterbacks are better prospects and have better resumes than all the guys except for Bryce Young, CJ Stroud, and Anthony Richardson. Those are the only guys for the last couple of years that had better resumes. Kenny Pickett's resume was not as good even as Bo Nix and definitely not as good as Michael Penix when it comes to his talent. So I suppose it is possible that they, you know, don't love anybody except for those guys. But I also feel like when you talk about

what kind of leader, you know, Michael Penix was, or when it comes to, you know, Bo Nix, the statistics he put up, how he played on time, throwing, you know, getting a lot of quick completions, getting rid of the ball. Like it is not super hard to talk yourself into really, I mean, any of the quarterback options. I really don't think that it's very hard to envision the Vikings landing with one of these guys. And that's what, you know, Tom Pellicero on his appearance with Rich Eisen, he was saying, look, when it comes to these quarterbacks, Bo Nix is looked at as a low ceiling guy, but if he plays with the Vikings and he gets the ball out on time to the right people and makes a few plays, is it really going to be a low ceiling? I think that that's a good point that every one of these guys, we just change. You have to change how much you like the quarterback based on what you know,

they're getting. So, uh, how many quarterbacks do they love? How many ideas for this year has he killed off? And do we think that Kevin O'Connell is acting this way because he already knows that something is in place and they're ready to go this week? The one thing that I can say based on the way that they're acting is just, it feels like that comment is probably more true than false that Kweisi Adafomenta made about loving multiple quarterbacks. They seem quite confident that one of these guys is going to be theirs and that they're going to have it work out. So, you know, it's very interesting just in general to try to look at,

you know, these, this quarterback class and figure out how much each guy would potentially be worth. We think we know, but how do they feel about that? How do they feel that each quarterback is valued? Is Drake May or is Jaden Daniels valued so much higher that it's worth giving that up? Or do they think they could get McCarthy at 11? I've kind of had that hot take as, Hey, you know, maybe McCarthy could just be there at 11 because he's a little overhyped by the mock draft community. I don't know, but we are in a very, very, very exciting spot for Vikings fans. Probably the most exciting position that any of you have been in since they were coming off the NFC championship and looking for a quarterback and then signing Kirk Cousins. But since then, it's been a lot of kind of a drag.

And, you know, we go into the draft season, it's kind of like, oh, they traded away digs. So now they got to pick a receiver. We didn't know it was going to be Justin Jefferson, but that was kind of a buzzkill when you're giving away your best receiver and they kind of fell backward into Jefferson. But beyond that, I mean, we had Garrett Bradbury and Irv Smith. There've been a few failed cornerbacks. It just, there hasn't been a real super hype draft. Kweisi Adafomenta's first draft that turned out so badly. That was interesting to

talk about. That one had a lot of buzz, but since they didn't pick a quarterback and they traded all the way back out of the top spot, it really took the air out of the room for them picking, say, you know, a Jamison Williams or a Kyle Hamilton, who all of you knew on draft night was going to be a great player and Jordan Davis and all that. So that kind of took the wind out of the sails there. So this draft is really the first one in a very long time that we're talking about this level of anticipation, excitement, intrigue, and also just confusion. We really don't know if any of this is legit, or is it just that they've got their plan worked out? And so publicly, they're just being like,

hey, yeah, yeah, you know, we could fix some footwork or whatever. And then when it comes to the time, they go with JJ McCarthy instead. I could see any of these scenarios. So I see that all of you are very worked up in the comment section, which is exciting to me. But how about questions, comments? What do we want to know and what's on your mind? I've got a lot of interviews lined up, including one early in the morning tomorrow. So I don't want to stay up forever, but I'd love to answer a few things from you guys. Just to take the pulse.

How are we feeling of a couple of days before this happens? And do you think that is locked in that the Vikings are going to trade up to get Drake May? So I'm, I am, uh, yeah, I, I noticed that the comments and I can only wait for draft night are getting very worked up for sure. Wait, stay at 11. Okay. So just a Superbowl bike wants to stay at 11. Totally understandable. Take totally understandable. Take that. You'd want to stay at 11 because I mean, when we're talking about the difference between giving up everything and giving up nothing and getting another player, your guy at number three has to be way better than your guy at number 11. And so it's justifiable that they stay at 11.

I haven't had a problem with it, but that's the thing about the QB killer. If Kevin O'Connell is killing off these ideas, if Kweisi Adafomenta is saying look the Patriots want three firsts and two seconds and I don't know I used Cam Bynum earlier and Ty Chandler let's just say that's a lot man I don't know maybe Penix is almost as good and O'Connell says nah nah nah I got one guy and you're gonna get him for me then I'd prefer to go with that this whole time all I have thought is whatever Kevin O'Connell's most ideal thing is do everything you can to make that work because what you don't want ever you would rather give up one extra draft pick than have Kevin O'Connell four years later after he's been fired, go on some podcast and be like,

yeah, actually I wanted Drake May, but Kwesi wouldn't give him to me. You don't want that. You want them a hundred percent on the same page of this is who the court, the coach wanted, the former quarterback, the guy who's going to sit down in a room with that quarterback every single day of the week, draw plays, you know, work on techniques together. Josh McCown's going to be out there teaching the guy how to throw a football. Like you want the player that those guys are locked in on. And of course you can't ignore that. Uh, Josh McCown also has a previous history with Drake May. They know each other, uh, not just know each other,

but May was coached by Josh McCown already. And then he shows up here in Minnesota. I mean, I don't know, maybe it's a coincidence, but you want them all to be 100% on the same page. And that's it. Like, even if it requires one person bending a little bit more. Dan, as far as day three goes, I can tell you positions that I've been poking around a little, but I haven't, I don't have like a whole

list of names. Running back is one of them. There's a couple of interesting wide receivers. I think that wide receiver is probably the best position to go with in the, in day three, because it's so deep in this class that there might be 15 guys who turn out to be at least NFL quality players because there's, they're so deep, but I have not made a day three list. You know what I'm going to do? That is day two when I'm doing nothing else, then I will have day three. Trust me. When we do the live stream going into day three, that's when I'll have a list of names for you. But I've just been doing draft sims and drafting guys that look like they might be decent on paper and that's it. This

was not the year for me to be diving into day three. So we'll get there. We will definitely get there at some point. Ted says, trade up is my feeling. Oh, I should give you, give the people what they want. Somebody asked earlier about my percentage that they're trading up. I don't remember and I never do where I was the previous time about trading up. I might move that needle.

I might move that needle wherever I was before, maybe 55%, 60. I might move it up to 73%, somewhere in that range, somewhere slightly over 70% that the Vikings make some kind of trade up, especially with the way that O'Connell was talking recently, but the way that they've always talked throughout this entire thing. I don't think that the league is just going to hand them the quarterback they want. It's going to take a lot, but it sounds like they really know what they want to do here. And that is trade up. So I will go over 70% that they trade up. Miles says, how would you compare these quarterbacks in this class to

Teddy Bridgewater as a prospect coming out of Louisville? Where would Teddy fall in the draft order? See, that's always hard because we already kind of know the answer of what Teddy Bridgewater became. People have asked that about Sam Darnold. I'm like, I don't know. Cause I already know Sam Darnold wasn't good, but he was a really good prospect. So, I mean, if we're going back in time 10 years ago now, folks, by the way, 10 years ago, the last time the Vikings drafted a first round quarterback. But if we go back in time, Teddy Bridgewater was considered through most of the year to be a pretty darn good quarterback, was mocked by most people in the top 15 and then had a bad pro day and people started talking about his skinny legs or something.

And he ended up dropping in the draft because of that back to number 32. Teddy as a prospect was honestly talked about in a lot of the same ways that JJ McCarthy was that he was a winner that he had, you know, maybe, I mean, the arm strength was not the same for Bridgewater, but he had better anticipation and touch. So kind of split the difference there. But it was character that was a main central thing. This guy's a winner. He's a leader.

His win against Miami where he played great, but he was not the toolsy big time prospect. So I guess you would probably say that he'd be somewhere in between, that he's not going to have the same type of hype if Bridgewater was coming out now as those top three that we've talked about so much. But it might be a toss-up between him and McCarthy as prospects if he was coming out right now. And he would likely, because he was younger,

be ahead of Penix and be ahead of Nix, although Nix is clearly very productive. But Teddy came out at a pretty young age. Was he maybe 21 years old? So I would say somewhere between number three or number four, number five in this class, I would guess. Peter says, is it even possible for us to get more picks after moving up for Drake May? The only way that it would be possible is maybe you could get them to toss in a fourth or something, but you'd have to package fourths to move up. So that's not more picks. That's moving up to get a better pick. And moving back is probably the best way is you could come away with, you go away with eight players in the draft and one in the first and everybody else on day three, uh, that would make for a long day of conference calls for me with

those rookies. But moving back is really the only way there's nothing else you could trade at this point. They've traded everything. I mean, they traded, we're still talking about a third round or at some point for Hawkinson, right? Is there, is there something involved in the Hawkinson trade still that is gone? So they've given up everything they could give up. There really isn't anything more if they trade up for Drake may, uh, that they would be able to get. It's just entirely. If you're dry, if I'm understanding the question correctly, you keep dropping back in the fourth and take a bunch of guys in the fourth and fifth and hope that some of them turn out to be development prospects. So that's probably the best they can do. Chris says, go get May. If May's ceiling is Herbert, is anyone going to worry about the draft picks? Herbert is an

interesting name for this because the thing is Justin Herbert hasn't won anything because his team has been terrible. So the bar for trading everything for May is extremely high. If you made, if you made this trade for Drake May and the franchise ended up with the same record as the chargers did. Now I think the Vikings have way better coaching and a better foundation of roster, but just follow me down that path. If he became what Herbert did as far as how their franchise did and you traded that much, it would not be a success. Even if the guy had big stats, we'd be going, you gave up everything and you made the playoffs

once and blew a lead. I mean, Justin Herbert is a good quarterback, but I think that that really is a great mind experiment to talk about how high the bar is when you give up everything. It is very, very high. Again, better franchise, better coaching. There's a lot the Vikings have going for them that's not what the Chargers have had over the last few years. So I guess if you're arguing, hey, if he's Justin Herbert, but he's Justin Herbert here, he would have won a lot more as opposed to there.

Now that's true. That is true. But it's very dicey because when you give up that much, you put so much pressure. If he becomes Carson Wentz and has one good year and takes you into the playoffs, that's usually a successful draft pick because he did something on his rookie contract and had success. But if you give up all those draft picks, then it's not, then it has to be a great quarterback. It can't just be good. So the pressure really does ramp up and the bar goes way up when you make that trade. But, you know, I think that this was their plan all along,

that this was their ideal scenario is that they could try to trade up and get Drake May. And they've again, dropped little nuggets along the way, like Kweisi Adafomensa saying, yeah, you know, we've had our eye on this draft class for a couple of years now. And you're like, oh yeah, who was it two years ago that was really blowing up from this draft class? Was that Drake May? I think it was, you know, some of the other guys we've known about, but especially Drake May two years ago in 2022 really had that breakout. This guy could be a superstar type of year. So I think they probably have had their eye on him. This is just my guess for the last couple of years. And they have a plan. They have an understanding of him,

especially with Josh McCown, what he's going to need to succeed. They got all that. And they're ready to do this and take the big shot and where I would respect it. And those of you who are veterans of the show know this, I will always respect a big swing, even if it goes wrong from pretty much anybody last year, when the Texans traded for Will Anderson, the draft analysis community was not a fan of giving up a future first, which of course they thought the Texans were going to be terrible. So I understood their logic, but to me, it was, they're taking a big swing at the most second, most valuable position in the sport, edge rusher by money and the most valuable at quarterback,

they're taking a big swing at this. So give them credit. And if the Vikings make this trade and it's a lot, and some of you are going to come on and go, Whoa, we gave up that much. Hey, it's the big swing. You, uh, you play to win the game. You play to try to reach the Superbowl. And that is what I am coming to respect. And we'll see how it works out, but have come to respect about their strategy these last couple of years when they moved on from everyone and tried to set themselves up for a quarterback, did not settle for a $45 million Kirk Cousins, because to me, that's not playing to win a Super Bowl. That's playing to get to the first round.

So they're not doing that now. Kevin trading with the Texans and getting 23 is an indication they want to move up on draft night. You're absolutely right. We knew at the moment it happened. And I think the only holdup is just that they need to know what happens at number two. They can't guess. They've got to know. And that's where we can tie this Daniels to Washington,

May with number three, Vikings and Patriots have potentially maybe a deal worked out already and they just need to push the button on that. And that's kind of how O'Connell's acting, but they can't do it until they know for sure that it's not Drake May at number two overall. Freedom Thinker says, assuming that no top five team wants to move, I see one of the top four prospects falls to the Vikings.

They could trade to seven or eight while keeping 23. They could also bundle some day three picks to get back into day two. Yeah, they could do that. The thing about trading up to number seven or eight is we do have to consider if one, as you say, one of the top four quarterback prospects falls. And I have thought this is very possible with McCarthy that the teams at seven and eight also know how desperate you are. And they also know that the Broncos and the Raiders are right behind you. So you might have to still give up 23. It would be preferable not to, but you might. And if you're doing it for the quarterback, that's fine. I just have thought there's really no way to hang on to 23. You'd like to, unless somebody drops, but even then they're

going to get pretty nervous. If you see McCarthy or something, let's say may goes three McCarthy's dropping McCarthy's drop in. Uh, all right, let's just pull the trigger. Make sure we get because you don't want to drop back farther. That could be a scenario. Maybe they could do it. Maybe they could throw in next year's first, keep this one. But if there's competition and this is their card in their back pocket is 23, because Denver could call up and say, yeah, we'll give you next year's first and we'll give you 12. But the Vikings can say, I give it to you now. And then they can get it. It's their advantage. It's their edge. Joe says, Pennix is the dark horse. My sixth sense tells me he's the CJ Stroud of this draft.

You don't have to talk me into Michael Pennix. And I am, I am absolutely prepared for draft night to go by and for half a Friday to go by with Michael Pennix not taking, I'm prepared for that because they know his medicals and more about him than I do. But as far as watching that man play football, I thought this looks like an NFL quarterback. This looks like a guy who could stand in the pocket and just throw and throw and throw. And that's what is going to be required of a Kevin O'Connell quarterback. So I've always put those two together. Really? I mean, the whole season I've kept an eye on him like, Hey, this could be a guy and, and I've been sold, but I, you know, this is where I want to caution people that if it does happen, let's not use the word settle because I know that that's what's going to be thrown out there. Uh, and it's going to be the

battle if they end up with Knicks or Pennix. Oh, they settled. They didn't get their guy. But let's go through history and talk about a lot of other situations where teams, quote, settled. This draft class is just different. And I asked somebody this, by the way, somebody in the know of the NFL, it's the best I could do for you. Like, is it legit that this draft class is really good? Like this quarterback class, or is this something we're kind of being sold by draft analysts? And the answer was yes, that this draft class is legit. So your QB five is not QB five from every year. It, you know, Penix is a good NFL prospect. If they end up with them, you could see it as a fit. You could see it working and I'm ready to give that pick an a on draft night. And I like them. I like them a lot.

So, uh, let's see from, I shot you 99, uh, Vikings are in the best place of any of the quarterbacks or a four, sorry, any of the quarterbacks, it really doesn't matter who they choose. Mahomes wouldn't be Mahomes anywhere else, but Kansas city. So that second part, I don't agree with. I think that the league just known. I shouldn't say that. I mean, some, a few teams at the top of the draft that year, mis-evaluated Patrick Mahomes. I don't know if there was anything holding back this amount of talent. Would he have three Super Bowls? Um, you know, probably not at this like he does. Um, but, or wait, is it three? Is he at three already? Oh my gosh. Uh, would, would he be as prolific?

Probably not as far as his team winning? Because Kansas City was already a great team with a great coach. But we see way more examples like Joe Burrow. I mean, Josh Allen, those franchises were garbage and they turned them around. So Patrick Mahomes would have turned around whatever franchise he was going to. But your first part of your point is maximizing everything that that player could give you from a franchise perspective. So you draft the quarterback. He arrives. You give him everything he can. And the best version of that quarterback is what you get.

And the best version of your win-loss record with that quarterback is what you're trying to get when you give them a great situation. That's what Kansas city did. They got the absolute peak 99th percentile performance of all the Patrick Mahomes could give them. If he got drafted to urban Myers, Jacksonville Jaguars, then maybe you would have been set back a little, uh, or maybe a urban Meyer would have, I don't know, still at his job if he wasn't kicking his kickers in the leg or whatever he was doing. But, uh, the point just being that don't know, still at his job if he wasn't kicking his kickers in the leg or whatever he was doing. But the point just being that, you know, great quarterbacks, they're the reason, not the team being the reason. Like they are the ones that put everyone on their back and elevate everything

around them. That's what Mahomes is. But if your quarterback is short of Mahomes, you can still get great production out of them. Think about, you know, Jalen Hurts and Brock Purdy being in the MVP race. Like that's, like, that's not two quarterbacks that are as talented as Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes, but they're in the MVP race. You don't need your quarterback to be a top three talent. You need them to perform like their top three, which, you know, we see from quarterbacks at times we saw this case Keenum wasn't top three talent. You need them to perform like their top three, which we see from quarterbacks at times. We saw this case Keenum wasn't top three, but we saw this in 2017 where case Keenum was a top 10 quarterback in the league that year while you're competing for a Superbowl.

He's not a top 10 quarterback by raw talent, but he was for that year to get you to that point, which is what you're trying to do is you're trying to at worst, if it doesn't go perfectly at worst, you're elevating that person to their floor. And, you know, oftentimes if you're being picked this high, your floor is like the worst version of you with this team is that you can still win. And that's what you're looking for.

So convoluted answer there. I apologize for that, but I think you get still win. And that's what you're looking for. So convoluted answer there. I apologize for that, but I think you get the point. Uh, big, uh, big grill and daddy, big railing daddy. I'm not sure what, uh, is it, whatever it is. Um, a quarterback, a rookie quarterback will not survive this interior offensive line. Depends on the guy. Depends on the guy. I don't like it either. Uh, I don't like it either, but they have two of the best tackles in the guy. Depends on the guy. I don't like it either. I don't like it either, but they have two of the best tackles in the league. I mean, you've improved your running game. You've improved your, your screen game. You're going to have to pick up some offensive linemen and free agency next year and so forth for the interior to be better. But I actually think

that every one of you hates Garrett Bradbury more than anything in your life, but Garrett Bradbury is a super knowledgeable center in this offense. And I think that he's a good fit for a rookie quarterback because he can adjust protections. He can lead that offensive line. And every once in a while, you're going to have someone break through. But here's the thing about this. They won't survive it. Aren't you getting this guy so he can run away? This is part of it, right? Is that someone breaks through the interior of the offensive line.

Do you know how many interiors of offensive lines are good? Is it maybe five in the league? How many are actually good interior offensive lines? Say three guys who graded higher than 70 by PFF. Is there anybody who had that last year? You're going to give up pressures. There's going to be weaknesses. Teams are going to attack the middle because they know your tackles are great. So this is going to happen. But if you have Drake May, even Sam Darnold can do this. The idea is he can scramble.

He can make plays outside of structure. You've been sitting there for the last six years watching anything goes wrong in the offensive line, play is over or your quarterback is murdered. And those are your two choices. So now you're looking at, even if it, I mean, if it's Pennix, okay. All right. Now you got an argument, but you know, Drake may scrambler playmaker. Bo Nix is a scrambler.

JJ McCarthy is excellent when he's on the move. That's a major part of his game. So that's one of the reasons that you let Kirk go is because he couldn't make anything right when it was wrong on the interior of the offensive line. Overall. I agree with you, though. It really can't just be Blake Brandel and Ed Ingram. Maybe Reisner comes back. You need competition there, but you're concerned about it less if you have a playmaking quarterback.

Son of a Beavers says, What are the odds that the Vikings announce a Jefferson extension the night of the draft so people won't be mad? So they won't be mad at the quarterback pick? Well, I was a little bit with you there until you got to that second part. I don't think that they're negotiating with the thought of keeping people from being mad. And here's what I have learned over my numerous years of doing this. People will be mad about just about anything. So they need to

not worry about that at all. And I'm sure that they're not, but a Justin Jefferson extension before the draft would be really surprising. Maybe it's tomorrow. I don't know. Now that I've said that it would be really surprising. Uh, I, usually the timeline that something like that works on is it either happens sometime in the summer, just, you know, mini camp or whatever, but most of the time it's before training camp or early training camp. And every once in a while, like with Delvin Cook or TJ Hawkinson, it gets into the middle late part of camp cook didn't hold out but he did a hold in ish kind of thing and then signed the saturday before the first game so this thing can run a long time with jefferson but you know look jefferson is

so important to this operation that i would prefer them give up a couple million extra dollars to have Justin Jefferson in training camp this year. I think it's that important to the next quarterback and to their progress and to a quarterback learning early on in his career, how Justin Jefferson operates. If it costs you, how much would you pay for that? Would you pay seven, $8 million for extra? I would be like, yeah, okay. And I, a little throw a little extra on that bonus. If you'll be here during training camp. Um, so I still expect that to happen at some point, maybe early in training camp, because it becomes urgent for them to get him in the building and to get those negotiations

taken care of. And I still have not heard anything that has made me think there was any possibility that he gets traded. Stuff can surprise us because it's the NFL. And if he's traded, then I will say to all of you who have wanted to trade him, I guess, I guess they agreed with you. But as of this moment, the only, I mean would jefferson have to do to want out i mean just be so far away from the team and negotiations and they get how many draft picks would you have to do it for three first round picks yourself for him at least i i don't think

so and with the way that the cba is set up um i'm still sitting here very confident that Jefferson is extended. It's just when and whatever that date that they kind of planned on it should be moved up just because of the fact that they have this quarterback coming in that you want to be with Jefferson for the next five plus years. Not Kevin O'Connell says my list is Pennix, May, Bo Nix, uh, with a big drop off to Daniel's huge drop off McCarthy. Good luck in Chicago, Caleb. Yeah, that's a, I mean, it's a different list than what the draft analysts will have us believe. And I guess we'll see if they're right. The way that it's all lining up kind of seems like this year they will be right. Because historically when I, when I looked into it, there's not too many guys who on

Arif Hasan's consensus board, there's not too many of them. And if you haven't looked at that, go find that on Twitter. It's very interesting stuff, taking a ton of different big boards and putting them all together to get a consensus of where guys should be. So there's not too many examples of consensus top five to seven picks that do not go there, but McCarthy was something like 23. So that leaves a little more ambiguity for his position, but I'm, I mean, I'm not in disagree with anybody disagreement with anybody about Michael Penix. I like him a lot. Um, McCarthy, I don't know if I would have him five at this point. I'm still skeptical on him. Uh, nobody's nobody's perfect. McCarthy, I don't know if I would have him five at this point. I'm still

skeptical on him. Nobody's perfect. Jaden Daniels is so exciting to watch, but is he perfect? I don't know. So a lot of you, just a Super Bowl Vike saying build the roster with picks, get Pennix or Nix at 11 or 23. A lot of you are good with that. And I think that your mind is in the right place. If you're good with that, I am leaning toward, they make a trade up now with all the information we're getting coming into this draft week. But if they end up with 11 and 23 and they take a quarterback that has a resume of going to the national championship by throwing the football a million times and leading college football and passing or another guy who's touchdown to interception ratios, 45 to three and played really well on time and didn't make mistakes. If those are your worst two options,

those are good options. And then you're talking about the, on the defensive side, I was running some draft simulations today and I ended up with a layout to lots for the Vikings. But right in that same area was a couple of cornerbacks who are really good. There's almost no world where great defensive talent is not available at 23 because of all the offensive players that are going at the top. And here the Vikings are, you know, could they use Byron Murphy Johnny Newton any of these corners Mike Renner the other day like Nate Wiggins I don't know he's a little on the light

side for me but Terry and Arnold Kool-Aid McKinstry is still in this conversation I mean there's so much talent that I think you should be okay with that I'm trying to think of what option you shouldn't be okay with is it the three first for mccarthy i can work myself around that i think the only option where i would kind of recoil a bit and would the only option that would test my my uh vow to give them an a for whatever draft pick as a quarterback because i am so certain that we don't know on draft night that just the process of getting a quarterback gets an A for me is if they wait till 23 and they take Pennix or Nix, that will be very shaky. But it's an A or an F in my mind for this Vikings draft. It's an A if you get your quarterback and it's an F if you don't. And

make sure it's an A. Just make sure it's an A. What about Bob? The fly in the ointment is if Washington takes May. Yep. Then all hell breaks loose at TCO. McCarthy would probably be the pick at four or five. That's if they're not sold on Jaden Daniels. We don't know if they would be or not. If he's in the multiple quarterbacks we love or not.

McCarthy does come across as a natural fit for Kevin O'Connell, but we don't know if he loves him as much as everybody on the outside loves fit for Kevin O'Connell, but we don't know if he loves him as much as everybody on the outside loves him for Kevin O'Connell. That's true. The only thing that I know is that we don't know until it happens, but if we go along the lines of the assumed outcome, then yes, that's what would have to happen is their backup option going with either. Well, unless they love Daniels, the backup option is to try to go to four or five and get McCarthy.

And if that's what they come away with and they overpay for it a little, then I'm not going to worry too much about how much they're overpaying for JJ McCarthy. Oh, they gave up that extra pick. What are you going to do? You're going to have this excess cap space that keeps becoming more and more advantageous for years to come. So use it there. Get, get those players there. Jared wants between five and nine guards drafted every year. Maybe, maybe a good idea. I know you're joking i know you're kidding uh dave says uh not the best qb at 11 they missed on the evaluation that he was a first rounder who we talk oh are

we talking about no no no we're not we're not going with that uh i'm not sure who you mean is not the best at 11 but we're not talking about that guy from 2011 not talking about him that's one that is one thing whose name is not coming up this week that guy from 2011 is not talking about him. That's one. That is one thing whose name is not coming up this week. That guy from 2011 is not coming up this week. We're done with that. I've said it out loud a few times. We're not saying it out loud anymore. Um, let's see. I want one of those sneaky late round wide receivers like McCaffrey. There are a lot of them. The guy that I'm really curious about is Ricky Pierce all, but I think he did too much out of Florida. Thrash is a good option from Stardom 0910.

Thrash is the guy that I took in my draft simulation. So by the way, welcome all of you. Huge crowd tonight. Great to see you. I mean, what a week it's going to be. So you're going to want to keep an eye on the channel. I have a super special fun quarterback project that's coming up on the channel tomorrow. So keep your eye out for that. Lots of interviews to come for this week. Got some more analytics talk. We got some, I don't know, I don't know how to describe him. A well-known

Vikings fan in the media who's going to come on and talk with us as well so it's gonna be great week then the live show starts a half hour before the NFL draft and also the Purple Insider draft guide is coming out so if you want to get in on that go to purpleinsider.com sign up for the newsletter there just click on any article that you see and you could sign up there. And it's a 41 page draft guide, breakdowns of all the quarterbacks, opinion pieces in there, breakdowns of the 10 players they could get if they stick and pick all the scenarios. So go to purpleinsider.com, check that out. Yeah. But in my draft sims, I was looking for third and fourth round receivers and I found a lot of them.

I was very pleased by that. Dennis said, as if I actually did it as I'm like fist pumping and like, oh yeah, thrash is available. Like this is a draft Sim. Nothing's actually happening. It's draft season. What else do you got to do? Dennis says trade 11, pick up some more draft capital trade up with 23 to take pennix. So you want to trade

back from 11, I guess, or you trade, you trade, go from 11, move down and then trade back up with 23 to take pennix. I just, if gonna pick a quarterback that's not of the top four consider the top four i kind of want them to just do it at number 11 because even though yes it makes sense what you're saying oh hey drop back a few spots or something there's two teams that are right there that could potentially take your quarterbacks and again a or an f you're either walking out of there where i'm going okay they got their guy now let's see them build around them and here we go or we're going oh my gosh they just went out of this first round without a court that won't happen but if that you know they're moving down through those other teams, you take that risk that it

possibly could. That's where you don't, you don't want to be, you don't want to be in a risky area. And I think that the scenario that was brought up earlier about potentially moving up to seven or eight, now that would be really something, right? Atlanta is the team to trade with, but move up to seven or eight. And then you end up being able to get McCarthy. If the Drake may thing happens early in the draft and he's gone, there's also another world where Washington just totally shocks us and takes JJ McCarthy. Number two, it would be crazy, but that team still seems crazy to me. I don't know how much any of you have been paying attention to what they've been doing, but their off season has been pretty wonky from thinking that they were going to hire

Ben Johnson to being in the air, have to turn the plane around. Cliff Kingsbury is back. That's kind of weird. They have a nice looking backup type quarterback and Sam Howell, who they think is like too competitive or something. And they trade them away. I don't know. Then they bring in all the quarterbacks at the same time to take them to top golf. That team might be whacked. I really don't know. And so they could take McCarthy number two and have us all going. You can't be serious. And then, you know, the, the Vikings are talking about trading to four or five or something like all, like all breaks loose.

A lot of situations, man, they've made for a fun draft season for us to talk about. Scott says, if KOC gets a seven wins out of Dobbs Mullins hall and half, I assume you have season of cousins. Imagine what the quarterback he drafts can do in 2025 after a year of tutelage go get your guy if the guy's good enough if the guy is good enough then the circumstance is very much in his favor now i wouldn't necessarily look at dobbs mullins hall and say yes look at them look at how well they did because what, what did they go three and five, the rest of the way one was kind of a Dobbs miracle Mullins lost his starts Dobbs. Well, one of the games Dobbs one, they won three zero and had to bench him.

Jaron hall was horrendous. So, you know, and they were four and four with cousins. I don't think last year was a year where I would use for evidence. It was more of, here's where I would. I wouldn't with Dobbs, Mullins, just don't even make anything out of that. I think with Mullins, you could say, hey, even a guy that's that lacking in physical talent can get a lot of freaking yards passing in this offense and keep them in some games against a team that went to the NFC championship and was leading. So you could try to say that about Nick Mullins and so forth. I would look more at Kirk Cousins in the couple of games before he got hurt and how confident he looked in the offense. And it took two years. It took a lot of work for Kevin

O'Connell, but throwing to the right places, making the right reads under pressure when there's blitzes, knowing where to go with the football and the confidence in which he led the team. That would be even more so from day one, the confidence that Kevin O'Connell instilled in cousins to lead his team. He made cousins get in front of the team and be the guy. Where Mike Zimmer wanted the defense to be the guy, wanted Delvin Cook to be the guy. He didn't want Kirk Cousins out front leading that team. And Kevin O'Connell said, up front, buddy, you're the guy.

And then also those two having a relationship of building the offense together, a lot of feedback, a lot of conversation. That's the type of stuff that could really help a quarterback. Cause I think that confidence is really important. He did kind of destroy Jaron Hall's confidence. So you're a little concerned that, that he'll push him in, that he'll push the panic button and push him in. If he doesn't like how sam darnold's playing if that's how it plays out but you know that's that's a ways down the road for us to talk about so you know but i but kevin o'connell's relationship with his quarterback

is going to be a very important thing john says my advice for several teams new New England is make sure you have an offensive line to protect that first round quarterback, then make your pick. Well, the Vikings have half of an offensive line now, but the, you know, the thing is John, like that's, that's nice, but how often do you get to really do that? That it's ideal to say, and that's why the Vikings are in a great spot is it's ideal to say, Hey, yeah, build up your team and then draft your quarterback. But sometimes you get gifted. And this is why I think new England still could stick and pick is because sometimes you get gifted a draft class that has a top quarterback here in a top pick. And maybe next year, that's not the

case. Maybe next year it's a one quarterback draft. I mean, that was the, that was how it went with Kyler Murray's year. It was Kyler Murray and there were other first round picks. I think it was Jones and Haskins. Neither one of those guys was good. And you just like, if you're a team that passed and then you're, oh, well, we'll get them later after we got the perfect team. A lot of times it's hard to build up the perfect team. So I know that you're talking about New England and I think that's the best argument for New England. So I'm not totally disagreeing with what you're saying. It's just that Joe Burrow comes to Cincinnati or Josh Allen comes to Buffalo and those guys are in an uphill battle and they just had to build the team around them while they developed and they were really great. So that's, you know, ends up working out for them. It's harder. It is definitely

harder to do it that way than the Vikings for sure. What the Vikings are doing is rare. There are not many situations that I can think of that a guy dropped into that were like this. Stewart says, I still think the commies are taking Drake May. Yeah, it's possible. It is possible. Everybody seems to believe they're taking Daniels and maybe the Vikings think they're taking Daniels, but there are a lot of draft analysts who are looking at all that as noise and as Drake May as a much better prospect. And that would change a lot of stuff for the Vikings potentially.

If they don't like Jaden Daniels, if they love Jaden Daniels, he was the last guy they met with. I think if they love Jaden Daniels, then they're okay with still making that trade up to three. If May is the only guy they really want, then that's why they have to wait and not make the trade up now. And then just hope Washington takes Daniels. That's why, that's why we've been sitting here talking about this for, for quite some time. Miles says, if teams won't trade to get a quarterback, do we call for Herbert? You can't, you can't call for Herbert now because of his salary cap situation just not going to happen also jim harbaugh took that job for justin herbert

i don't see any other reason he took the job they've got a great quarterback i can work with who can make me look great that's that's why i took the job um so i i mean it's yeah is it possible that uh herbert um or that Harbaugh wants JJ McCarthy and wishes that was his guy? Yeah, maybe, but I just, I don't buy that. I mean, when you are looking for an NFL job to take, one of the things that is a golden ticket is that you get to land with a team that already has a really good quarterback in place. So maybe there's some Herbert trade in the future for the chargers. Jim Harbaugh is kind of nuts, but I just,

I just don't buy it. I just don't see it. I think he'll be their quarterback as long as they're there. Uh, TRIZ, T R Z O three. Uh, I want to want to top four quarterback,

but if they fall out, watch the season highlights on Rattler. I realized it was a highlight, but it looked better than Knicks. What's the take on him? I have not been high on this idea at all for the Vikings, for Spencer Rattler. There was in Tom Pelissero's NFL Network piece, there was someone, I forget, a scout, a coach, whatever, who said that Rattler was higher on his board than one of them, either Knicks or Michael Pennix. Spencer Rattler throws a really

nice football, really, really nice. He has worked on that and he had a very bad team, but we're also talking about a guy who was, who is six foot, who is not fleet of foot, and who... So you're talking about somebody who has to live from the pocket at six foot tall. That's going to be pretty hard to do. Kyler Murray, Jalen Hurts, undersized quarterbacks usually have to scramble. And I mean, even Baker Mayfield, who's not that tall, I think he has some trouble sometimes at, what is he, 6'1", maybe? Six feet,

six, one living in the pocket, but just throwing a nice football is not enough. His highlight reel is insane. I I've seen it. It's very good because he's a great thrower and he's more talented than most of college football's quarterbacks. But if we're talking about the quarterback to make your guy for the next five years for Kevin O'Connell. It can't be that guy. It can't be someone who's undersized, has almost no production whatsoever. He's much more of a, hey, would I be shocked if someone took him in the second round and he turned out to be a quarterback someday? But I just don't see it in the same way with the other first round quarterbacks. Just the Super Bowl of Vike, Drake May would be the best fit. If you can't get him, pick a pick at 11. May was putting up numbers with the worst team

out of the top five coming out of the draft. No question. No question. That was a stat that I brought up a few weeks ago that the PFF added up the value of the other players around these guys that are coming out. And it was everyone else was way better than what Drake may had. Drake may had a comparable team to Spencer Rattler and still put up big numbers. Uh, and when you go back to when his team was better, then he put up amazing numbers in 2022. Uh, Rob says the rookie QB contract is a cheat code. It is indeed. And that is one of the reasons that you can trade as much as the Vikings could is because of that cheat code.

And the cheat code keeps getting stronger because the more that the, the quarterbacks get paid more and more, the amount that you're talking about between second and third year of a rookie contract and 50 something million dollars a year for certain quarterbacks at the top. That is so big. You guys love guards. You can get the whole interior offensive line for that type of money. So, um, you know, I, I think it is a cheat code. It's one of the reasons that, uh, that they can, that they can do that, that they can give up as much as they wanted to give up. Uh,

let's see. Chris says, uh, let's see what Herbert looks like with Harbaugh. Also believe that they need to incorporate a better run game. Um, I, I assume you mean the Vikings need to get in a better run game.

Cause that is very true. Um, but also the Chargers do. Their run game is awful. Herbert is going to stay with them. They can't trade them away just with the salary cap. That seems to be bouncing around there, but they just can't do it. And I don't know why you'd want to do it. Dave says, if we can't get May, there's a small army ready to support KOC

if he takes Knicks. Denver might beat us to Knicks and then Pennix is in play. Could be Denver is a wild card like the New York Giants. We know or think we know that they want a quarterback. I don't see how they would stay with Jared Stidham. How much are they willing to move up? Could, could we be talking about all five quarterbacks in the top 10? If Denver is willing to go up it, I don't see it. I don't know that they're going to be, cause well, this is just the draft Intel people, but Pellicero was talking about moving back down and you know, for Denver to get Bo Nix, that that's been something that's out there as a potential option for Denver is they slide back from 12, get a little more draft capital and take Bo Nix. I don't know. I mean, if the thing is, if the four quarterbacks come off the

board and the Vikings don't have one, maybe Denver and the Raiders do get anxious. And one of them wants to go up ahead of the Vikings and take Bo Nix, but it's very hard to see six quarterbacks going in the top 10 because that would just be crazy. There's, I don't know, someone trading all the way up because other teams are going to put values on these quarterbacks as well. Maybe Denver is so desperate to get Nix that they move up. I don't know about that, but yeah, you know, and as far as the small army willing to support O'Connell, if he takes

Knicks, the reason would be I'd be in that camp just because when you watch Knicks play, you could see it working for Kevin O'Connell and his offense. And then you have the rookie contract and you have the development aspect of it. He's a good athlete. He completed a bleep ton of passes. I mean, I don't know. Yeah. Some, a lot of them were short, but not all of them. I mean, if 70% of the passes did go past the line of scrimmage, the numbers are pretty good. So, you know, Pablo says what Kweisi does in this draft is going to establish his cred up or down. Yeah, I mean, sure. If he forgot to draft a quarterback altogether, then it would be down.

Yes. If they trade up and they get Drake May, it will be a very boss move that will be lauded across the board, including here. And that would move his cred, as you say, potentially up. Yeah. I mean, he would look like that, but I think over the last really off season before this 2023 off season, and then this year, that's what has this, this off season. That's what is up to his cred is, and maybe you mean around the league, but I don't know, just as far as reputation goes,

when you are a new GM that had no GM experience before, everyone's going to look at you and go, all right, here, he's the mark for one, which maybe Detroit thought that in the 2022 draft, or just in general, we're going to wonder, do you know what you're doing? We're all going to ask that. Do you know what you're doing? You're a new guy. You don't know. You haven't done this before. You don't have a track record. And then in the first off season, there was no rebuild the element to it. And it looked like stuff that Rick Spielman would have done, including some of the draft picks failing on a cornerback is something that Rick Spielman would have done.

And there was a lot of reason for skepticism. A first year general manager botches his first draft and does a pretty good job of putting a 13 win team on the field. But the defense still struggled a lot. I know it was at Donatello's fault, but it was also personnel and they were a competitive team that wasn't good enough. So what did we accomplish there? Right. And then in 2023, in the off season, when they started lopping off all these older players that were expensive, knowing that with them coming back, they would harm themselves in the future and not be able to win right away. That was such a rare thing. I just know I've mentioned this probably, I don't know, 10 times on the show and no one has ever come back to me with an email or a tweet of an example where this ever happened before where a team won 13 games and then looked

around and said, you know, we're just, we're going to move on from all of our pro bowlers basically who are over the age of 30, except for Delvin cook, which was, he was 38 and running back years. I can't think of any other example of that happening. It was, it was really unique. It was really unique. And then to not extend your quarterback after winning 13 games, again, very unique, very different. And that's where he earned credibility for me as, all right, this guy came in with a plan and he's executing it regardless of what happened last year, because this was the plan. That was impressive because most teams would have changed course. They would have said, extend the quarterback, hack up this salary

cap for the future, bring back Thielen, bring back Delvin, bring back Eric Hendricks, and we're going to run it all back and try it again. And they didn't do that. And this here on Thursday is the cherry on top of competitive rebuild plan is completed. I've joked. If you're a Cody Rhodes fan, complete this, finish the story, Kweisi Adafo Mensah. And at that point, who knows whether it'll work or not? I don't, you don't that's drafting quarterbacks. It's a coin flip. It's 50, 50 shot, but it will have been the right way to approach it. The smartest way to approach it. And he will have done a good job process-wise of putting them in a position to actually try to take a swing at being a real Super Bowl contender.

And that's the best you can do. That's how you build credibility. You take a plan, you execute that plan from start to the end point to start anew. Now the competitive rebuild is over. It's just off, it's just off you go. But that's what established credibility to me, the moves, it's always going to be the moves. All right. Man, intense, intense. Let's see. Jared says you have to base it on process, not results. If you aren't okay with the risk that who you pick could fail and set your team back, then you shouldn't make a trade yet. So, I mean, the results are all that matter, but the only thing you can do is to have a good process and try to put yourself in the best

statistical position to make it work. So a number three overall quarterback who is this talented and this size with this mobility and this arm and those statistics, what's his chances of succeeding with Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison and Derrissaw and O'Neal and O'Connell? It's pretty good. It's better than 50%, I would say. So if you're trying to give yourself a, you know, 60% chance of having this succeed and that's, that's worth rolling the dice, then you got to go for it. If it's, I mean, that's where I would put it. I'd say it's a 60% chance, which means 40% of the time it fails, but I think it's worth it to do it for 60%. I would say, uh, let's see. Dave says, if you trade up to seven or eight and give 23, you need to go back and get a two this year. Nah, I don't. I just, we want them to be

reasonable prices, but they're not going to be. It's kind of like if you, I may have given this example that I went to a restaurant in a tourist trap, a place that gets a lot of tourism and we were just hungry. It's the only restaurant around. We go in and the final bill for what we ate is way more than it's that it would be at your local Taco Bell and whoa. Okay. Wow. That is some kind of bill, but there's nothing else around and we were really hungry. So that's the bill. That's what it's like when you're trying to get a quarterback, you are real hungry to get that quarterback. So the bill is going to be higher than you want it to be. Tennessee is going to say, give us 23. We're not moving back unless

you give us 23. At least if I'm Tennessee, I'd be doing that because heck, I just draft a Joe Alt instead. Not Kevin O'Connell says, what's the percentage chance KOC is in love with all six quarterbacks? Pretty low. I can't see all of them in love with. Now, maybe you have that bleep, marry, kill thing. Maybe there's not a kill maybe there's just a hey i would take this guy on his rookie contract hey i would marry this guy maybe that's the gap i mean all of them have good resumes though the percentage chance that that they would be

comfortable or that they think they have a chance is probably pretty high i don't know that they would have moved on from kirk cousins knowing they had the 11th pick. They knew when that happened that they had the 11th pick, that they didn't match Atlanta. So they knew that if they had to stay at 11 and make that pick, that they could get somebody they wanted. They knew who the draftable quarterbacks were. So yeah, I mean, is there a high percentage chance

that they like at least five out of six or, well, let's not count, um, Caleb Williams. So four out of five or three out of five. Yeah. I'd say it's pretty high percentage chance. Um, let's see. Uh, let's see. let's see uh big uh big rail and dad says uh denver and vegas will panic and uh draft nicks or pennix i don't i don't know if that's panicking will they trade up for it if the top four are gone would they trade up for it? That would be the question. Nobody seems to think that either one of those guys has taken that high. No one thought that of Daniel Jones and he was taken higher than they expected. But normally it's the draft world being too high rather than the NFL way higher than the draft analysts.

There's only a couple examples of that. Stardom 0910 says the Giants should take Joe Alt if he falls there. That dude seems bust proof. Yeah, nobody bust proof, but the Giants need everything. That's why I have not believed that the Giants will draft a quarterback or are totally in this mix because I just think that they need so much and they need Daniel Jones to succeed. Receiver makes a lot of sense, but Joe all does as well. I mean, just an absolute beast. They need linemen. They need receivers. Receivers can help you faster than an offensive lineman. Andrew Thomas, their star at left tackle was not good his first year. Christian Derrissaw didn't play a lot. His first year for the Vikings was kind of banged up.

We've seen other guys, including Bradbury have to develop for a few years. So, you know, maybe if you're looking for an immediate help, if you're the giants to try to justify the Daniel Jones contract, then you draft Malik neighbors at number six, if he doesn't already go, but if the chargers trade out, or if they draft a Joe alt, then right there is neighbors for you or Roma dunes. And you go from there and try to help Daniel Jones. I've just never bought that. And actually, you know, who said this the other day, Rick Spielman said this the other day that he was asked about the Giants drafting a quarterback. And his question was, how do they justify the guaranteed money they gave to Daniel Jones

and then draft another quarterback when it's the same group? If it was a different leadership, then they could get away with it, but it's the same leadership. So you guys were all in on Daniel Jones. Then you want to turn around and draft somebody else. Doesn't really pass the smell test. I think that teams are wanting to use, they are wanting to use the Giants as leverage to say, the Giants will do it. Vikings, you should add another draft pick. If I was them, that's how I'd use the Giants. Yeah, I'm out here hearing the Giants could make a trade up for a quarterback. You should give us another third. Mike says we will have dry mouths and on the edge of our couches, every pick past three, if we don't trade up, just the, Oh man, I'm ready.

I am ready. I'm going to speak softly because I need that voice for that night because there could be, there could be a lot of intense podcasting if, if that happens. So you're right. I mean, if we even simulate that just to ourselves, number three goes Drake May Patriots, then we're going, Oh my, okay. Are they doing this? Is this happening? Are they, is Arizona sticking Arizona takes Marvin Harrison jr. Okay. What's happening now? Are the giants going to try to trade up? Are the Vikings going to get up to five? What what's going on? And those minutes on the clock are going to be intense. So if they were to trade up, uh, and get Drake may, it's going to be really entertaining

us breaking it down after that, how it went down, how much they gave up and all that stuff. But, um, it would be way more tense if they don't, I would, I'd prefer they get their guy, of course, but as far as entertainment, man, watch time, watch time would be much higher if they don't, uh, true. Brian says, so bro, who do you think the vikings select a quarterback uh let's hear it stand for something we need more conviction from you not just posting viral videos whoa true brian's very intense you know that's all i ever do actually is post um viral videos it's gonna slowly bring this whole book I wrote in here. And all the coverage I've been doing of this team since 2016. This is year eight, guys.

Year eight. So just posting viral videos according to True Brian. What are we doing here? But it's great. Sounds like you're new. Sounds like you're new. So great to have you along. Appreciate that. Go check out maybe purpleinsider're new. So great to have you along. Appreciate that.

Go check out maybe purpleinsider.com. Check out some of the work. There's been a lot of it. Check out the owners meetings where I was there sitting down with Kevin O'Connell. Check out the NFL Combine doing sit-downs with Kweisi Daufel-Mensah, Kevin O'Connell. Check out my book, which has Kweisi Adafo-Mensa interviewed in this book. Has a whole chapter about him. There's a resume. There's a resume. Now you want conviction.

What difference does it make with conviction? Does that make it better if I say strongly? See, what you have to learn if you're new to the channel is that I don't have any aspirations of trying to be on TV where I slam a desk and say, this is going to happen. What I'm trying to do is always tell you guys the truth as I know it. The truth as I know it is, I don't know what's going to happen on draft night. Now I can give you percentages. I think that their percentage of moving up and making a trade to get Drake May at number three is the highest percentage. The thing I believe the most that they would do. But if you want me to act like a yelling, screaming fool and pretend to, I've been doing this too long to pretend like

I know I've seen it so many times, things completely shock us on draft night. And that's why I love it. That's why I'm entertained by it. But as far as just posting viral, that's actually my first viral video I've ever posted. And I had no idea that was going to happen. So that's welcome. Welcome to the show. I could give a F about viral videos, man. I'm barely ever even on social media because I spend my time actually working unlike those fricking weirdos that spend their whole day aggregating. So I think you got somebody else anyway. All right, let's move along. Let's move along. Uh, let's see. Scott says, I believe Pennix is going to be Quasi safety's safety net if we can't find a dance

partner in the top five, thus trade for 23. I'm hoping for a trade up. Personally, Pennix will thrive in KOC's offense. Yeah, with Pennix, sometimes I think that we get too caught up on stuff that we either don't know a lot about or doesn't matter as much as we think. So, and this is just, again, you talk about standing on the table, having conviction, whatever. I don't have conviction on this because I don't know how the NFL is going to feel about Michael Penix. I only know how I feel about Michael Penix. The most important thing about

Michael Penix in my mind is the way that he commanded that offense, that they went to the national championship on the back of a quarterback who took them there with his arm. That's how he got them there. And when we look at the NFL and we look at teams that get there, yeah, you know, Brock Purdy, you can use that example. But a lot of times you ride as far as an arm will take you. And Michael Penix has one heck of an arm and he has leadership capabilities, comes across

to me as a guy with a very high football IQ, extremely mature. The way that he handled that whole season was really terrific for Washington and even fought in that Michigan game where they were way overwhelmed. Everyone dinged him on that and they, okay, I get it. He didn't play well, but that dude was battling to the last minute. He was leading his team to the last second when his team was so overmatched. There's a lot I like about how he would fit with Kevin O'Connell, mainly that O'Connell's offense and we bring up Kirk, but more look at Matt Stafford, an erratic quarterback at times with a monster arm who does not scramble much anymore and didn't really even in 2021. But when it came down to trying to win the Super Bowl, this dude whipped

the ball to Cooper Cup. And could you see Kevin O'Connell liking a guy who stands in the pocket, lets it rip. Yep. You certainly could. I don't know if he is the backup option for 23, 23 does give you a safety net, but I also would not want them to wait until then because I'm not very high on that safety net. And now we've reached the portion of you guys can easily talk me into lots of quarterbacks because dave's going to talk me into beau nicks here and it's going to work the only quarterback maybe you guys have not succeeded in was spencer rattler sorry that hasn't happened but dave says uh you know nicks didn't throw for the highest completion percentage 4500 yards score 54 touchdowns to three picks by accident it's just just ridiculous. And that's what I mean by on draft night.

What I could foresee happening is that we could have this draft pick. That's not who everybody wanted. And there is a big portion of the fan base who's saying they settled. They, they didn't get their guy. They had, it's the next, you know, who from 2011. They reached because so-and-so's draft board didn't have that guy wherever.

And my opinion on that, I can already tell you if it happens, my opinion on that is let's take a look at the resume before we start comparing to other quarterbacks. Because how about one of the quarterbacks that I missed the worst on ever was Josh Rosen. And I was looking back at him recently thinking about just quarterbacks in general. And I didn't realize that he just didn't have great numbers. I remember watching him and being like, man, you know, he's so smooth with his release and his team's not very good, but ultimately he didn't put up a lot of big numbers and maybe he was not as good of a prospect as I thought he was. And so there might be some of the case reversed here with someone

like Bo Nix where, all right, we're obsessing over ceiling and everything else, but let's go back and look at what the guy actually did. He did awesome in college last year and led a great team. And I also think this too, that when we're talking about Bo Nix, the narrative may have changed if they had won against Washington and they were very close. If they had won against Washington and they ended up in that national championship conversation and they had a bowl game against a great team and he played well, we might've been talking about something different because he, he played Liberty in his bowl game and smash their faces in. And like, you know, what are we supposed to,

what are we supposed to take away from that? Whereas with Michael Pennix, we got to see that, that Michigan game. And with JJ McCarthy, we got to see the Alabama game where he was very good and led them to a victory in that game and played well. So, you know, we got a lot better of a sample of against high competition than we did against Knicks. Stardom 0910. Fisk is good in your opinion. Yes, he is. If they were in a situation where they could trade back

from 23, get some more draft capital and then, you know, get Fisk and someone else later down the line. Okay. If they picked at 11 and then had a chance to trade back a little bit, Fisk is a guy, he's the defensive tackle from Florida state. great in the senior bowl they made him switch teams in the senior bowl and then he just demolished so yeah i mean that that's that's on the table if they end up with the um number 11 pick uh now we are way deep in the night when we're getting a question about stone temple pilots or Alison chains from angel dust senior, uh, that would be Alison chains for me. I like,

uh, Jerry Cantrell is one of my favorite guitar players. Yep. Um, Carl says, uh, Derek class and made me reconsider if Penix is legit. Couldn't believe how wild in the strike zone he was.

Derek class is one of my favorite people in this industry. Um, and I think what he does with the charting is really instructive at times. I also look at NFL quarterbacks who have had success and think about, are they always pristine? Are they always Drew Brees? And the answer is no. I mean, there's quarterbacks you can pretty easily think of with Pennix that do not have perfect, just pinpoint, throw in the dart accuracy, but they have another tool, arm strength, that makes all the difference. Josh Allen is one of

them. Another one would be Matthew Stafford. Another one would be Jared Goff. And he reminds me of Jared Goff a lot. Stay in the pocket, execute the offense, get the ball to the right spot. Sometimes it's over here, over there. It's not always going to be dead on. And yet it's a rocket and it's thrown to the right place. And those are good leaders. Those are guys who understand their offense. It's just, you know, I, I like he's doing what he's supposed to do to, to get that data. And he's not a fan, but there's also lots of quarterbacks who this guy or that guy have loved.

And I'm not going to go through Derek's past of love or hate, but I've talked to him about it before. We've all had that happen where you're sold or not sold on a guy. It would be more about the head coach of this team being sold, you know? So, uh, and this is, this is another one, you know, Hunter brings up, uh, Thor and, um, you know, that he's, I guess that must be, he's out on Knicks. Um, you know, and everybody through this time is going to watch the same quarterbacks and they're going to come up with their opinions. And we're all going to find out at the end of the night, whether our opinions agreed with the NFL or not. And then we're going to find out in three more years, whether they're actually good or not. And I don't know. And that's why how for just in my opinion, I'm going to let this play out. And then we'll talk about how the guy's

going to fit in the resume rather than planting flags. I can give you skepticism ratings. I can tell you that the most skeptical I am is of JJ McCarthy, because with all the other quarterbacks, I've seen it. I've seen why the guy's a first round draft pick. They have the stats. They have the numbers. I wrote this book called football as a numbers game. I tend to lean on the numbers and he doesn't have those. He had more turnover worthy plays than a lot of the other quarterbacks, a higher rate. There was some criticism in Tom Pellicero's piece that was quoting executives about, you know, kind of getting stuck on reads sometimes only throwing fastballs, like all that stuff makes me a little anxious about him, but if they pick him, all right,

he's got just as good of a chance to succeed as anybody else because all of our opinions are not super predictive. One person's isn't over the next. The reason I like some draft analysts like Chris Trapasso or like, um, you know, Derek Klassen is they give us a lot of information of why something would work or not work. And they paint a picture for you about that quarterback really well with their observational abilities, rather than just saying, hate this guy, love this guy. That's my take. Like, well, okay. Give me some, give me some observation. And those guys are really good at it. Uh, Jason, uh, am I going live on Thursday? You betcha, sir. 30 minutes before the draft, we will be live until we stop.

It really depends on what they do for when we stop. So, uh, let's see. Uh, can't wait for the Monday purple insider draft dump. Yep. There's going to be a lot, a lot of stuff, uh, coming your way for the go sign up for the newsletter, you know, all that. Um, freedom thinkers says, uh, draft can't come soon enough. My biggest take is I don't care who we take as long as KOC and McCown think they can develop

them. You and I are on the same page there. I don't really want to plant a flag because you know, the, the, the difference is, so when Kirk cousins happen, when he first signed with the Vikings, I didn't think that it was a, um, a, a good idea to spend that much money on that quarterback. But I was strong on that opinion because I had seen him play and I, and you could go back and watch NFL games of him playing with an NFL team against NFL competition. So, and you know what? Everybody was kind of right and kind of wrong

about Kirk. If you really loved him, he had some great seasons and put up some great numbers. If you really didn't like the decision, he didn't win anything in the playoffs and the franchise didn't do that great. Everybody got to be right and wrong. But the point is from the start that my skepticism on the Cousins decision, the reason I planted the flag of not liking the idea was that I could go back and watch a play in the NFL. The reason I will not plan a flag with the college quarterbacks is because I can't do that. I don't have anything to work with other than what they've done in college, which has proven to be very noisy, very like, oh, sometimes this thing works. Sometimes that thing works.

Sometimes it's pressure to sack ratio. Sometimes it's whatever quarterback rating. We don't really know until they actually get there so with all these quarterbacks you can make a pretty good argument i just want to know which ideas kevin o'connell has killed and which he is not uh aya says uh matt you mentioned that your wife does games does she report as well my wife is a play-by-play broadcaster for Big Ten Network. So what she does is volleyball, a lot of basketball, tons of Caitlin Clark games on Big Ten Network, and also softball. So she's doing play-by-play all year round, much better at it than I ever was,

obviously, since she's on TV doing it. But I did play by play early on and found it was not for me. Very difficult. She's really good at it. Let's see. Steve Vikings just need to sit and be patient and see who falls to each team before making any other moves. How patient should they be? Should they be patient as in see if Jaden Daniels goes number two or patient as in

wait until the 11th overall pick? That is the question. Yeah, we've got the interior offensive line thing going pretty hard here tonight. And look, I mean, when it comes to the interior offensive line, I agree with every single person that wants it to be better. And this left guard situation, pretty spooky, not a fan of what they've done, which is nothing and left guard. I don't think that just rolling with Blake Brando is a good idea. If Dalton Reisner would maybe wake up and realize he's not worth $15 million a year, then he could come back and you'd be okay with the pass protection. That's important. However, you need a quarterback who can deal with that and no one's going to be good at it. That's the league now. That's why you're looking for playmakers.

And they are going to have to address that later. And that's part of the cap space as well, because maybe next year you're spending $20 million on the best guard, maybe, and you'll have it because you have a rookie quarterback contract. Janet, how about this for out of the box scenario? The Vikings trade for the third pick in the draft and Washington picks may and the Vikings pick Harrison jr. So I have heard this a couple of times with people wanting the Vikings to draft a quarterback because of three deep, I'm sorry, a wide receiver instead of a quarterback.

And I just don't know what to say to that. I mean, even with the three deep, you had one great year of Randall Cunningham and then Jeff George comes in and you get Dante Culpepper and obviously he was great, gave them a chance to win, but it still took drafting a quarterback. Who is doing the quarterbacking here for those great wide receivers? If you think it can be just anybody, cause they're so good. I wouldn't quite say that. I mean,

I wide receivers, very, very valuable. It's great. And getting Marvin Harrison jr. Would really be something, but throwing that the man throwing in the football is going to determine more of the success than anything else.

So that one, I can't get behind because then you'd be, if you're trading up to three, then you're talking about trading everything for a wide receiver with no one to throw them the football. That's a, that's a little much for me, a little much for me there, but I have seen that out there that, that gets, that gets thrown out from time to time. So, all right, let me continue scrolling. I'll answer a few more questions. I know I said like an hour ago that I was going to, cause I got to, I got an early podcast tomorrow morning, but you know, you guys are just, you guys are bringing the heat here tonight. How can I, how can I stop? Let's see. Dennis says my other scenario is a trade with

new England before the draft starts. So if you get the third quarterback, no matter who falls there, that could, that could happen. That's what I can't figure out. What I really can't figure out is whether I can go golfing or not. Can I go golfing on draft day? Because every year I've had a tradition of going golfing on draft day, because usually the haze in the barn, barn nothing's gonna happen until seven o'clock or whatever and so i could just go out i feel pretty good all right i'm working all night but the rest of this day why sit around and be anxious and scroll twitter when you can go play golf i don't know if i could go though i don't know because they might make that trade earlier in the day to ensure that they get a top three quarterback that might depend on

how much they like jayden daniels if they are in love with daniels or with uh you know drake may then yes you could see that happening but wouldn't it have happened already then because they would want to guarantee that pick unless new england is thinking maybe someone gets more desperate, but who and how that's why I think it all hinges on number two. Freedom thinker says based on Daniel's agent, social media, it seems doesn't like Washington. Anyway, he pulls an Eli Manning pulling an Eli Manning just can't really happen anymore. I mean, what are you going to do if they draft you and you sit out? It's not what, how, what are you doing? How are you going to approach that? The only reason Eli Manning, this is, I'd have to go back and research this, but I think

someone can correct me if there's some article that says different. The only reason that the chargers were okay with doing the Eli Manning thing is because they could get Phillip rivers. That was the only reason they were okay with it. Otherwise they would have just held his feet to the fire because it wasn't like the Baltimore Colts. That's going way, way back. The way things work now, you're either going to play for your football team or you're playing nowhere at all. And how long you plan on sitting out? They'll wait. It's not like you can go develop them in the USFL, like back in the day with Jim Kelly or

something. I just don't see that scenario ever playing out again, where a player says I'm not playing for you guys. If Joe Burrow went to the Bengals, if Trevor Lawrence went to the Jaguars, yeah, his agent could be mad about it, but it really doesn't make any difference at all. I mean, it just, in my opinion, his agent is just trying to protect him, but he shouldn't be doing that. Um, sometimes agents do some unfortunate things. He should not have been doing that. And if they pick Daniels, then he's going to play there. That's what I think. Oh, let's see. Let's see. Get, couple more in before the end of the evening. Not Kevin O'Connell.

Any percentage chance the Titans or Jets draft a quarterback? No, I don't think so. The Titans drafting Will Levis, they got to at least let that ride for a year. And the Jets, no way. If you want Aaron Rodgers to quit and go do another darkness retreat, then yes, but I don't think so. I would give both less than 10%, but I don't think so. I would get, I would give both less than 10% chance. I don't think so. Uh, Janet says, Daniel Jeremiah thinks the Raiders trade up. I could see it. The Raiders only have Gardner Minshew as their quarterback.

We really talk about Denver more, but the Raiders are one spot back. There's going to be phone calls and this would be why the Vikings got the 23rd overall pick uh just a Super Bowl Vike Jefferson signing his contract before the draft that's that's what I'm golfing for sure I'm just about to tee off on the third hole and I get the text Jefferson is signing extension could very well happen. So, you know, anyway, uh, I, I mean, that's going to happen at some point. I just don't know when I would assume. So great, great stuff from all of you guys. When we've gotten to Joe Milton, uh, as part of the conversation, probably time to move along for the evening, but phenomenal stuff from all of you. Great stuff.

Sorry if I didn't get to some of the more recent chat stuff. The chat goes by faster than I can read and talk about all of your questions. Now, this is a good one. What is an insane scenario you haven't discussed? Joseph, my guy, I have discussed, I'm pretty sure almost every single scenario I come up with except for one.

And I don't think I want to discuss it, which is just them not landing a quarterback because I think they will. And also that would be so bad, so bad if they did not end up with a quarterback. Yeah, Dan says six quarterbacks in the top 10. I don't think I've discussed that. It doesn't seem all that realistic, but the one I haven't really talked about is that they just end up with nobody because I'm quite confident they'll end up with somebody. That's about it. Um, so, you know, anyway, uh, great stuff, great stuff.

And again, tomorrow, the draft guide comes out. So make sure you go to purpleinsider.com. Check out the newsletter there. Click on any of the articles. If you want to send me an email, there's a contact us there. You can always send me an email and we've got a few more days, man, a few more days. And we'll probably do another live stream before that. And I'm thinking maybe Tuesday night,

there'll be a bunch of videos though up interviews, Chris Trapasso and I do in the final draft sim. It's a yearly thing that we do every single year, Chris from CBS sports. So, I mean, there's a lot to come and I'm really excited. Going to have a couple of feature articles coming out. I mean, we're here. I'm making the most of it. So, I mean, there's a lot to come and I'm really excited. Going to have a couple of feature articles coming out. I mean, we're here. I'm making the most of it. So like and subscribe if you are new to the channel.

Welcome. Glad to have you here. And looking forward to, again, Thursday night. We'll definitely be live Thursday night, half an hour before the draft. So thanks, everybody. We'll catch you all very soon. And football.