Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What is the Vikings' timeline at quarterback? How does Justin Jefferson's contract play into that?

Episode Date: March 29, 2022

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom kick off Timeline Week, in which we look at the Minnesota Vikings' timeline from a bunch of different perspectives, starting with the quarterback position and what Kirk Cousins' contract means to the Vikings' future at the position. Also Justin Jefferson and his rookie deal running out right around the time that Cousins' contract is over. What would need to happen for the Vikings to reach the Super Bowl? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collard here along with Sam Ekstrom. And Sam, I want to welcome everyone to what I'm calling timeline week okay we are going to spend the week focused on not only the Minnesota Vikings timeline and how they get from point A to point B and where point B might be but also we're going to talk to some people around the league who cover other teams that are in very different places in some cases and in the same place as the Vikings in others. And here's what inspired me is Vegas over-unders on Draft Kings came out and the Vikings are at nine wins for their over-under and a pro football focuses

analysis of this is they have the Vikings at 8.3 wins of where they stand right now. And bettinglines.com or whatever it was called, some betting site that I looked this up on, has the Vikings favored to miss the playoffs at this moment, which I think this is all very interesting to talk about what our expectations should be this year, what the timeline should be for the team. And I want to spend a lot of time focusing on that, but also on timelines for different players, timelines for this upcoming draft, the quarterback situation, all those different things. So welcome. Welcome to Timeline Week, Sam.

I'm really excited. Consider me pumped for Timeline Week. And I'm excited to hear who else comes on to Timeline Week as well well i think it's going to be a lot of fun well we'll have uh nick underhill who covers the saints and uh rivers mccown who covers the texans to talk about those different situations and actually there's a texans connection to this as part of the inspiration which is i was thinking about this uh where the vikings stand the competitive rebuild thing and somebody asked me like, wait, shouldn't we still be Superbowl or bust from our expectations? This was a fan asking,

shouldn't fans still be that way because they are still doing the same thing? Like, why did our goals change? Why did the goalposts move when, you know, the expectation of signing Kirk Cousins and bringing him here was to chase after a Super Bowl, and they haven't done anything that would look farther down the road for this year. So why have our expectations changed? And then I was thinking about the fact that the Vikings checked in on Deshaun Watson. And so they come out and say it's a competitive rebuild. But if they were to have traded for Deshaun Watson, if he said, you know what, all I've ever wanted is to be in one city, that's two cities. That's what I want.

Split by a river. It's my dream. And would they have traded three first round draft picks and then gone all in to win right away with Deshaun Watson and how the words competitive rebuild connect to Kirk Cousins in general. Because I also think that if I was Kirk Cousins, I'd be like, what? Like, right. I mean, you just signed me to an extension. I'm 34 and you're saying competitive rebuild. So where do I fit in, in that entire thing? But I I just wonder, like, what would they have called it if they had traded for Deshaun Watson and had to give up a big chunk of their future assets? I mean, you know, Cleveland has nothing to work with in the future

in terms of draft because they went with Deshaun Watson. So it was only connected to the quarterback situation then? I don't know. What do you make of that? Yeah, you know, what would it have been other than a PR fiasco? It's crazy to think the range of possible outcomes of this off season. And they arrived somewhere in the middle. And Kwesi Adolfo-Menta kind of laid it out in his press conference last week where he said, you know, you look at the roster, you look at all possible outcomes, and sometimes the best thing to do is to do nothing. And that's, in essence,

what the Vikings have done. But the fact that speculation had them trading key figures and then potentially upgrading the most important position on the team as well, very polar opposites. And I think that we kind of did conclude Matthew that the quarterback was the linchpin and that perhaps all of the roster retention that they did stemmed from keeping Kirk Cousins that if Cousins had been dealt that might have precipitated other moves and it seems like they really went into this offseason as an open book. And I think we expected more of a direction, like more conviction after you interview for these jobs and you have to lay out your vision. Well, you would expect that to come to fruition. But from the sounds of it,

there wasn't necessarily a vision that was expressed in February and then carried out in March. It was more of a philosophy that sold the Wilfs on Kwesi and O'Connell. And then they kind of took the punches as they came. And maybe it was, well, you know, Deshaun's price tag is too high. Kirk's trade value is too low. We're just going to keep it as is. But the Vikings are now, I mean, not only are they going to be compared, we're going to compare all the young quarterbacks that they'd passed on over the years. We're also going to look at the franchises that have decided to move on and compare their timeline now to the Vikings. You look at Seattle, you look at Houston. I think you can even lump Atlanta in there. We're going to look at those franchises and say, okay, they might have been behind the Vikings roster-wise. Well, how long until they get back to being hyper-competitive, and will they beat the Vikings to that point because the Vikings have not bottomed out to the point of those other

franchises. And as we've discussed, they might feel the repercussions of that down the road. So are they in a better position this year to be in the hunt? Absolutely. Would I take, you know, Seattle, Houston, or Atlanta over them right now? Heck no. But it is more about a long-term vision that we haven't yet seen from, from quasi you wrote about it. Where is the rebuild in all of this? That's what I scratched my head about when he said competitive rebuild, I didn't know where the rebuild part was coming in. So it sounds very much like this was a, a wait and see off season and they were willing to go any number of routes,

which is, it's a little bit, you know, not really by the book. I think you kind of need to approach each offseason with a little more conviction and direction, to be honest with you. But, you know, Kwesi mentioned that he doesn't see things in a binary way, black and white. It's more about what are the available options? And that's, you know, kind of the way that he approached it, even though it's been treated in a binary way, which is it's only been one thing and has not been the other. And so that's where I want to talk about Kirk Cousins and where he fits into the timeline, because I got some messages for people about like, are they trying to do an Alex Smith

to Patrick Mahomes thing? Will they draft a quarterback this year and then, you know, kind of play out Kirk Cousins and turn the ball over to that quarterback either next year or the year after that, which is always possible. Maybe what the Packers originally planned to do with Aaron Rodgers and Jordan Love, which was to have him sit for a couple of years and then turn it over to Jordan Love. That just never happened. And I'm not sure why Jordan Love hasn't been traded yet, but maybe there's not that much interest for him. I don't know. But with Kirk Cousins,

and that's why I brought up his perspective of this, is that we do look at Cousins as kind of the independent contractor quarterback who is sort of like, look, I mean, I don't care if you're competitive rebuilding or chasing Super Bowl or whatever, but I'm under contract, so I'm going to play football the same way. That's sort of how Cousins carries himself. And I mean, he hasn't spoken, aside from a radio interview, about even signing a contract extension, which is odd. I mean, normally you sign the quarterback to a contract extension, they throw a big party and we're all out there at TCO Performance Center doing a bunch of interviews on it. I mean, they're having press conferences for Harrison Phillips, but not for the quarterback that's signing a huge extension. It's a little unusual, right?

But if I'm Cousins, I'm wondering exactly what the goal is here, because we have heard Cousins say the next level to his career in order to make this a success is to win. And, you know, I know that there are a lot of people who look at, you know, QB wins and all that and think like, well, okay, you know, it's about the complete team and that's absolutely true, but legacies are built on quarterbacks and how far they go and what kind of winning they've done. And Cousins has recognized that in his comments before. And that's why I wonder about how he would view this and what his timeline is supposed to be. Is it to play out this season, see what happens, and then they make

a decision together, him and the organization, about what they want to do after this year. And what I'm thinking about is the Detroit lions with Matthew Stafford in, in that they had to kind of go all in and try with Matt Patricia one more time. Let's sign some free agents. They spent a bunch of money on like Trey flowers and stuff, and it just didn't work. And I'm not guaranteeing that the Vikings won't work in the same way. Cause Matt Patricia was their coach and he was super bad at being a coach. But they went through this thing where they thought, okay, Daryl Bevel has found the answers to Matt Stafford. He's got these great receivers. Then the receivers got hurt. They had a terrible year and they all decided it's time for Matt Stafford to be traded and for us to do a rebuild. That's one potential scenario for Kirk

Cousins is that this just doesn't work. And they all decide together that he's got to go somewhere else and be someone else's rent a quarterback to try to chase a Superbowl. The other potential option is that they do win and they're in the playoffs next year. And then they're left with a conundrum of having a legitimately old quarterback at that point. Like by 2023, we're talking about a 35 year old quarterback. And as much as he, you know, eats his fruits and vegetables and all that sort of stuff. I mean, age comes for everybody except for Tom Brady. So that would be an odd thing too, if they were going all in next off season when they haven't done a whole lot to help their salary cap situation for next year so you're trying to like hope that this draft picked this draft class works out hope to hit on draft picks hope to develop some players hope to sign some final pieces that's i think and then go into the last year of cousins but then do you draft a quarterback when you're going to be needing to draft for need for next year, right? Like this is where the timeline just gets very muddy

with what the plan is exactly for Kirk Cousins. Yeah, this is the precarious nature of the competitive rebuild. It's that you can't have it both ways all the time. I know they're trying. I know that Quasey believes that it's possible to live in both universes, but you are robbing Peter to pay Paul in a lot of cases. You are going to put player development in large measure, I think, at bay this year. You're not going to play guys just for the sake of development unless you think they're absolutely ready. And that's going to in turn stifle some of that development. I think that you certainly need to weigh whether or not you want to draft that quarterback this year now, in case you have a quarterback coming off a decent season next year, and suddenly you've

used up two years of that rookie deal with that quarterback on the bench. I'm not sure if you want that either, because those years are so immensely valuable. I wish we knew what the handshake was between Kirk and the team, whether or not they view this as a two-year commitment or whether they view it as a year-by-year. To me, it seems a bit year-by-year with Kirk. As long as he's a Minnesota Viking going forward, I think that you kind of have to re-evaluate things. And having that quarterback in your back pocket this year would be the ultimate leverage to say, Kirk, we want you to move on. We want you to waive this because we're not going to give you any new money.

But the roster is, I mean, the quarterback is one story and then the roster is another one, like you still are going to be, I think, fairly old on defense. Offense, it's funny how these two you know things shifted because the defense which was mike zimmer's baby constantly got reinvested in with the same players they kept re-upping contracts and keeping the same guys and the offense uh it kept turning over but that actually helped its long-term cap health right because they just kept bringing in these young offensive linemen and um these new tight ends and it worked out where the offense is more sustainable than the defense, but the defense is a mess.

It's kind of, you know, tale of two cities with the way the roster is built. That defense at some point is going to need sort of a facelift. And the last time, you know, we had a mini facelift in 2020, it went really badly. So that comes down to, again, competency of drafting. Are they going to find players that they want to plug in this year and that can be contributors, or are they going to have the Zimmer approach where, no, they're going to cut their teeth on the practice squad, pay their dues, sit on the bench, learn from the veterans? Because the number of spots available are shrinking on defense.

Now with Jordan Hicks in a spot, Harrison Phillips in a spot, Channing Sullivan in a spot. So what we're looking at, a corner, a safety, and maybe another defensive lineman, but the starting spots are drying up. So there's not going to be a lot of super young players developing on this year's team, and that does muddy the waters of sort of the timeline, I think. Yeah, and I think that when we talk about timeline in general, defense is a very hard

thing to pin down of when it could be good because we're often surprised by defensive players showing up and being something all of the sudden. Anthony Harris is a good example of this. Tom Johnson would have been a good example of this. Some player that they picked up from the CFL who suddenly is like a really good contributor for them. Even Linval Joseph, where Linval Joseph was a very nice and well-respected player for the New York Giants. In 2017, he's got a case for the best defensive tackle not named Aaron Donald in the entire league.

He was that good in 2017. And then by 2019, he's just back to being kind of a run stuffer again. That timelines are always coming and going. Xavier Rhodes one year is the premier shutdown corner in the league. And by two years later, he can't track anybody one-on-one anymore. He can't be islanded anymore. And that's always a tough thing. It's like Jordan Hicks, Zedarius Smith, these guys are approaching 30.

And where is their personal timeline? Zedarius Smith's contract sent up some bells and whistles for me. Not that I don't think it's a good contract. I mean, if he plays well, it's an amazing bang for me. Not that I don't think it's a good contract. If he, I mean, if he plays well, it's an amazing bang for buck, but it also goes, all right, what does this say about his health that they're only, you know, you're really giving him a two-year deal and it looks much bigger on paper, but that third year will never happen. Like, what does that really say about this? So players individually, what you were two years ago can quickly change. And also you might not be good two years ago if you're a corner and then suddenly be good,

which we've seen. It happened with Mackenzie Alexander. What a rise and fall. Like Mackenzie Alexander comes into the league unplayable and then develops to be actually quite good and then comes back and is unplayable again for the Vikings. I mean, who can predict even individuals, much less an entire unit on the defensive side. That's why the offense is much more predictable. And as you're looking forward, that's where the question comes into play.

Like, when will you replace Kirk Cousins? Because he is going to be replaced eventually. He will retire or he will go somewhere else. And his contract does not suggest that he's going to be a Viking for life necessarily, unless he retires at age 36, possible, I guess. But are you going to do it this year? Because then you're sacrificing potentially finding a future edge rusher to replace Daniil Hunter.

His contract is set up for either a gargantuan extension or for him to leave next year. They've created a real inflection point this time. We thought that was this year, but I mean, it's super, super next year. So, you know, are you drafting that guy, George Karolafdis or something to take his spot long-term? Are you drafting a corner,

Sauce Gardner or Derek Stingley Jr. to be your shutdown guy? Are you looking for, you know, a trade back and picking the top offensive lineman to solidify the old line like there's a lot of things that you can do but the quarterback thing just just hangs over this of your timeline at quarterback because if you had planned to keep kirk cousins until the end of time until his whole end of career, I have heard that the option was on the table for the Vikings to sign him to a much longer extension that they chose against. So they've clearly said that at least for right now, someday there might be a

different quarterback here. It's just when, and everyone loves the 2023 draft class. And that, I mean, that very well might be true that the 2023 draft class could produce five superstar quarterbacks. It's always possible, but more likely than not, it's, you know, you kind of rolling your dice, getting the third best quarterback that that's where I just can't figure out exactly when this will happen, if it's next year or if it's long-term or if the plan is entirely to play it by ear and if kevin o'connell and kirk cousins just take this thing into space and are an unstoppable top five offense for years to come then they'll just sign them to another extension when they get there but if this year they do what vegas is projecting and miss the playoffs with nine wins, then I think you're talking about

going into that 2023 draft very strongly leading toward you have to get a quarterback. Yeah. I mean, everything we said before last season applies triple now, because we asked the question, if Kirk duplicates what he did stat-wise from 2020 to 2021, is that going to be enough? We even said, well, what if he does a 2019? What if they win double-digit games and one playoff game? Would you want to keep him around? And I think the answer was, well, not really want to, but would the team do it? Probably.

And they did. They kept him around longer, even though we kind of advised against that route. And if you're looking at 2022 in a vacuum, I love the idea of trading back in that first round if you're not worried about quarterback. I think that's great. I mean, there's plenty of teams that are quarterback needy that would probably move up there to 12. You could get some extra capital and you do need to have an influx of young talent. So, you know, increase some of those higher round draft picks. And I think that's a great method. But at the same time, if you want a quarterback, I think the most unsatisfying thing you could do is go get another Kellen Mond type,

somebody who is a third rounder where the odds of their success really plummet. I mean, if you are beyond the top five or six quarterbacks drafted, I mean, I know you can find talent in the third or fourth quarterback taken for sure. But once you get deeper, the deeper you go, I mean, you're falling off a cliff there in the likelihood that you're going to hit. There's only so many Russell Wilsons and Dak Prescotts. There just aren't a lot of those examples out there, and you can't count on that. So if you do trade back, you are, again, like, that is all competitive, and that is not rebuilt. If you are trying to get other, like, filling holes, getting a cornerback, finding a

guard, like that's all 2022. And if you want to admit that, that's fine. Like if you're going all in this year, you're trying to capture the Rams Stafford magic again. Great. I mean, at least you have sort of a direction or a compass that is guiding you in your decisions. Might not be great long term, but you're going to shoot your shot. I would almost respect that more than having the bets hedged, to be honest, because then it feels like, well, you're just flipping a coin like, all right, long term, short term, long term, short term, what do we do? I want to see a compass, I think, except asterisk is that quarterback.

Quarterback is the one exception where I think I could accept the result he even demands a trade, then you have your guy and your setup. And I think that the fan base would be happier about that, too, because then you could enjoy 2022 and the Super Bowl pursuit, knowing that there is a plan for the future that you can at least see. And it's not just ambiguous. And you're wondering, well, I mean, if Kirk's leaving, what are we going to do? Then you actually have someone in your back pocket. So I was thinking about this other option to try to play both sides, since that's kind of what they're doing with a lot of things, or at least talking like that's what they're doing, is to take the number 12 overall pick and then trade back into the late first or early second to pick whatever quarterback falls

to the bottom, the Teddy Bridgewater or the Lamar Jackson type of plan that, you know, in this draft, I'm thinking three of these quarterbacks go in the first and then the other ones fall to the second. I just don't know which one the league feels strongly about and which one that they don't. Like, is Desmond Ritter a real thing or not? Is Matt Corral a real thing? I read a really good piece by Mike Tanyer of Football Outsiders about the RPOs and Matt Corral and how there's a lot of red flags there that when he is not running RPOs, it's just not very impressive.

And someone like Kenny Pickett is very impressive. But then I read another smart analyst on quarterbacks who said he didn't even understand why Kenny Pickett is a first round prospect. So it's just, it's amazing how this thing kind of pinballs around. And remember Mel Kiper thought that Jimmy Clawson was going to be the greatest quarterback ever. And he went in the second round and did nothing. Like we don't really even know how teams feel about it. Last year, everyone thought Mac Jones was going to San Francisco. Then it's Trey Lance when it gets to draft time because they didn't tell anybody. The Vikings would not be going out and telling people, yeah, our real plan is to take a pick at 12 and then trade back into the first

to get Sam Howell or something. I think that's maybe the most both sides-y way that I can think about it. Tell me, you said trading back is a good idea. I'm going's maybe the most both sidesy way that I can think about it. Tell me, you said trading back is a good idea. I'm going to tell you the 12th overall picks and you tell me if this changes your mind at all. Because I was kind of blown away by this. Micah Parsons, Henry Ruggs, Rashawn Gary, Vita Vea, Deshaun Watson, Sheldon Rankins, Danny Shelton. That's a sad one. Odell Beckham dj hayden fletcher cox those are since christian ponder went 12th overall it's a lot of star power i feel like 12 is a very fringy star power type of place where if you trade back like you're kind of sacrificing the potential to get like a micah parsons level prospect i don't know like that i don't even i don't dislike that plan at

all like the idea of taking someone at 12 and then trading into the early second or late first and picking a quarterback if there's somebody that they think can be the long term. And then all of a sudden, all of this would kind of come together of what the timeline is and what a competitive rebuild is. We would be able to say, oh, it referred to the quarterback. Gotcha. Like everything else, I don't know. But it referred to the quarterback. Gotcha. Like everything else. I don't know, but it referred to the quarterback. Um, let me ask you, well, tell me if that, does that change your mind at all?

That the 12th overall picks have been great. Yeah, that's a pretty good list. I would like to see the 11th list and the 13th list. Like, is that just an anomaly that 12 happened to be a sweet spot or can you get, can you give me the same level at 11 and 13 or is that just a coincidence it makes sense because a lot of times the top 10 are heavy on one particular position if there's like a really top heavy draft because there's there's the the windfall after the first one goes the second one and third one go because teams get desperate so a lot of times you've got four quarterbacks gone and three receivers and the best, you know, the best at a couple other positions. And you're left with, in Micah Parsons case, the best linebacker, the best, like number one,

or you're left with, you know, maybe the best tight end or the best corner, whatever it is. Can I give you the highlights of number 11 overall yes please um okay so the last few years there i mean yeah there's some good ones here so we don't know what justin fields is we kind of don't know what mckay beckton is jonah williams hasn't really worked out for the bengals but minka fitzpatrick uh martian latimore vernon hargraves didn't work out trey waynes taylor lawan dj fluker don terry poe jj watt anthony Anthony Davis, Aaron Maben, Leotis McKelvin. There's a couple of bills for you. Patrick Willis though, Ben Roethlisberger, Dwight Freeney are also on that list. So that's still pretty good. I mean, that's not quite as good as 12, but it's good.

But still you have a few, I mean, Taylor LeJuan is a star, Marshawn Lattimore, Minka Fitzpatrick, JJ Watt. Yeah. yeah i mean look no none of the oh demarcus ware is in here at 11th overall too none of them are going to have just a hit every single time uh dante call pepper also but that that range like you said like when especially now here's where it's different quarterbacks were taken high last year and so that's a good point that you know that that, that you can see better prospects falling to 12. That would be top five players that aren't because of the quarterbacks number 13 just I won't read every single name. Number 13 weirdly has like less

talent, but you still have Aaron Donald at 13 Sheldon Richardson. Um, uh, Rashawn Slater last year has turned out to be a really good player.ater last year has turned out to be a really good player. Tristan works has turned out to be a really good player. I mean, you know, it's, it's not a bad range. It's not a bad range to be picking. So that's, um, but let me, let me move on to something a little different timeline wise than just the quarterback, which is Justin Jefferson and his timeline. So if you're Justin Jefferson and you hear the words competitive rebuild, which, you know, I just want to say that we're going to go back to this a lot, like the competitive rebuild thing, because it's the most

revealing thing that they've said. It's not to make fun of Kweisi Adaflomensa for saying it. It's the most, here's what we're doing thing that he just came out and offered from the beginning of his press conference. So trying to parse through like what, how this actually applies to what they're doing is kind of the goal here. But I would also say, I think Kweisi Adafo-Mensah made a big mistake in saying it because if I'm Justin Jefferson and I hear competitive rebuild from my team, I'm kind of throwing up my arms like Like what you guys have me, shouldn't we win because of me? We're not trying to fully win. Like once you say the word rebuild at all,

I think everybody goes, huh? Like, I mean, even if you're Zedary Smith and you just signed here and you're like, Oh, Stone Arch Bridge, I'm so happy to be here. And then like competitive rebuilding, like, wait, what? I thought I came here to win. Didn't you just tell me in the meeting? I was looking at the purple people eaters in the, that's what I want to be. What do we, what are we talking about? Rebuild for, you know, I just think it was, it was kind of like a, a, a tactical error

to put that out there. And I know people will say, oh, you guys make too much of this stuff. We've talked to enough people over the years to know that everybody hears everything. And that existed before Twitter, but now, especially since Twitter, everybody hears everything. Justin Jefferson at this moment is very aware of what his general manager just said. He's aware of contract extensions. He's aware of the cap situation. He's aware of what he thinks of his long-term prospects in Minnesota right now. And that's why I think your timeline has to match up soon with being competitive for a Superbowl with the time around when Justin Jefferson is going to

want to sign a long-term contract extension. That extension also will essentially act as a quarterback contract. These things have to match up. This is why Devante Adams is not with the Packers. This is why Tyreek Hill is not with the Kansas City Chiefs because great receiver contracts are now essentially quarterback contracts. And that will a hundred percent be the case for Justin Jefferson, unless something really crazy happens and he goes full like David Boston or something. But that's not likely. So what do we think of the way that Justin Jefferson should be viewing this team's timeline? Yeah, I think that Justin Jefferson could be one more year like he had away from trying to accelerate

that timeline and get paid early because he's that good and he would have the leverage. They have him under team control for five years. He's not going five without signing a new deal. I think the best the Vikings can hope for is that they've kind of got this two-year sort of arbitrary window where Kirk is still signed, Daniil is still signed, even though Daniil might have to restructure. But you can, in theory, play out two more years with an expensive quarterback and a cheap Jefferson. But then I think you got to swap. Then you got to have the cheap quarterback because if you pay Daniil what he's worth long-term and they've said they want to, and you pay Justin what he's worth

and they definitely have to, and you pay a quarterback, you can't. I mean, I don't see that working. I think then you're talking about 90 million potentially locked up in three players. I know the cap's going up, but that is crazy. Very few teams can afford that and still be successful unless you've got just a million young players running around.

But I think that the Vikings need to try to get that Justin timeline. If not pushed through 2023, at least any premature extension isn't introducing a whole lot of new money. They can lock him in, but they can keep those cap hits low because they do want to take advantage of that. This is arguably the second most valuable position in football now. I mean, it's edge rusher and wide receiver probably vying for that distinction. And you've got a lot of Brian O'Neill money coming in as well. You know, down the road, you'll have Derrissaw potentially. That's going to be big money. So, you know, at those high positional value spots, eventually you're going to get pretty expensive. So I think Justin Jefferson is, you know, not only is he one year away from getting potentially

demanding and wanting to accelerate those talks, but disgruntled. I mean, he said all the right things for two years, but you know, from year one to year two, there was a definite shift in, I'm frustrated. I have a voice. I've found my voice. I was the puppy in the first year. I was still finding my bark. Well, now I've got it. And it's only going to get stronger as I mature and get more leverage in this organization. And I think he's going to be empowered too, by this coaching staff to have a voice. There's not going to be really any, any censorship at all. He's going to be able to be him. So that, that, that matters. And this team has to prioritize him, but that could also mean that they have to come to the table one year earlier or risk, you know, possible holdout or

falling out or whatever it is. It makes me think of like Carl Anthony Towns with the Timberwolves, where he eventually reached a point where they needed to start winning games or Carl Anthony Towns was going to be gone. And you could tell his frustration was starting to raise and he was getting very down on where this whole thing was. And then your GM has some problems personally and ends up out and all these things. And it just looks like the world is collapsing on the Timberwolves.

And then they hit on a number one pick in Anthony Edwards, their trade with with Russell ends up working out pretty well for them to move on from Andrew Wiggins. And then they get some role players that they develop. And all of a sudden you're a contender and Carl Anthony town seems like he's never been happier. And so it can, it can change on a dime. And so I don't want to, I don't want to be like fear monger. You should be afraid of Justin Jefferson demanding a trade tomorrow, because like you said, he's not in a position at this moment to demand any sort of trade. But if you're Jefferson, I mean, we've seen Kirk cousins kind of

break the system a little bit with the guaranteed money that first time. We've seen Deshaun Watson break the system. Would you be shocked at all if a star player of his caliber three years into his career kind of tried to break the system and be like, you have to pay me way early. Like, you can't run this to the end. You can't run this to the fifth year option, or I'm going to find my way out. Because one thing we absolutely know about star players is if they want out, they're going to find their way out. And it's just been my impression of Justin Jefferson. And I think this is a huge compliment that I would only give to a handful of players is that he truly wears the wins and losses on his back. Like he, I think wants to win, like has a different sort of level

drive than most players that I've ever been around to win and is crushed when they lose. And like, if you see his face in those press conferences, when they don't win, it doesn't matter what his stat line was. He's a very unique player in this way that he came in immediately to the NFL. And as soon as he had success, he was like, okay, like I'm going to, I'm going to be a winner here. I was a winner in college. He talks constantly about winning at LSU. I think these things really matter to him. And so just like with Carl Anthony towns, your organizational goal should be entirely to match up. How much can you possibly win in the right timeline with justin jefferson ideally when you're cheap which is kind of why we were advocating for if you take a step back a little

bit this year rebuilds don't have to take very long like if you get your cap right then next year you can make a lot of changes and and that whole thing draft a quarterback this year develop them and then you're looking at that year to jump that a lot of quarterbacks have made. Like that was the logic, but now it has to be this year. It has to be next year or Jefferson, I think is going to end up with a lot of questions about where you're going to go. And so even though it feels like, Hey, like give them time. They've got plenty of time here. Like, yes, but it gets late early with a player who's this great on his rookie contract you don't get that long to actually work with this and you have to match it up so he wants to be here because he's from Louisiana I'm not saying he's going to want to go play for the Saints tomorrow or

something but like he's not it's not Adam Thielen it's not a guy who's from Minnesota and is going to keep working his contract out to stay here uh he doesn't have to. And I just think that they have to be very mindful of Justin Jefferson as a major part of everything that they do. Every decision that they make should be with him in mind. And it might have been for this year of sticking with cousins to say, look, if we give him Desmond Ritter, he's just not going to be very happy because that guy's not ready to play or Malik Willis or something. But I think it really comes within the next two years. You have to give him reason to want to be a Minnesota Viking for the rest of his career within the next two years, because we just know that if players want to move somewhere, they will often find their way to go. Yeah. People think we're only black and white on this podcast, but we can also speak in non-binary terms like crazy.

I think there is maybe a benefit that's been under-discussed to going in this year and keeping the guys intact is that your offense is in better health to be successful, to be affordable. And that is one reason to keep something like that intact, because that is more of a fuel of victory than your defense, which is a little bit more unpredictable. And, you know, as I mentioned mentioned before it is hard to get worse than they were last year you can like luck into being a better defense than they were last season certainly a more clutch defense than they were last season and that can just happen randomly so when you look so if crazy came in here and said all right we want to capitalize

on the end of justin's rookie deal, the years of Christian Derrissaw's rookie deal, Irv Smith's final year of his rookie deal. The offensive line is very cheap. The receiving core has one expensive guy. Tight end has no expensive guys. Running back, unfortunately, has one expensive guy. And Dalvin's a good player. So, you know, like, I guess you say, okay, well, Dalvin's not going to be around forever, but, you know, as long as he's got all this guaranteed money this year, we may as well like play, you know, get the most out of him and lean into this offense for one year. I think that there is one way to look at it where that is the smart thing to do and to capitalize on

the Justin timeline. Now, certainly, do I think they could have turned this around and been ready to make a run at it in 2023? I do. I still think that. But I can see the logic behind it if I twist my brain enough. So I'm not, not you know we can be fair and balanced on uh on this podcast contrary to what twitter tells us yeah well twitter is always going to be twitter uh if you saw it you know when will smith slapped chris rock the uh discussions on twitter were like every everything you need to know about social media and why it's the worst it was just that moment last night. Chris Rock could have died. He wasn't even knocked down.

But anyway, so I won't even get into that because that seems to be like a hot button sort of thing. But here's where- I think we should talk about it the whole rest of the show, actually. Well, look, the Vikings memes were pretty great is one thing I would say, that people were making memes out of it with the Vikings of like Mike Zimmer clock management, stuff like that. That was terrific.

But Will Smith is Norv and Chris Rock is Mike. Oh, wow. Maybe people deny that still. I don't know. That'll that'll be that's mystery week, which we did last year, I think. So anyway, the, where I would push back though, on that part of it is like, even if I understand the logic of you have to, you know, make sure that Jefferson has a good quarterback and you can't run them out there and have the guy end up be terrible and whatever else is that they just haven't done anything to help Kirk so far.

And there's a report that they could bring in Jesse Davis from the Miami dolphins and let's pull up Jesse Davis's numbers and yikes. Like he's certainly started a lot of games, but the numbers are pretty poor. He allowed eight sacks last year and did not have very good pass blocking efficiency. Did not have very good pass blocking grades. Like they have not. if, and this is, this is my whole point is like, if they had done some

stuff that was just wild and they went out and they got another receiver, they traded for Amari Cooper. Let's say, I know they couldn't afford it, but let's just say traded for Amari Cooper, got rid of defensive players to create cap space. The ones that are older, like Harrison Smith or Daniel Hunter and Eric Hendricks, and they create all this cap space and they just threw it at the offense and said, you know what, man, offense wins, Ed Donatel, do your job. If they did that, I think I would have been like, all right, like get out the Ferrari. Like, let's see what happens here, right? I mean, let's just see what Kirk does with this insane offense around him. If Jared

Goff could have a number one offense in Los Angeles with this type of offense and with Sammy Watkins, Robert Woods, Cooper cup, all these great players around him, then Hey, like we know that the supporting cast is usually a big determining factor of where your offense ends up ranking right but they haven't uh you know there hasn't been there's not even a number three receiver it's still kj osborne who we like but you know it's it's not a game changer uh at center and at right guard you're in very bad shape and at left guard they say they like Ezra Cleveland but it's not it's not like you have some dominant Will Shields force at like left guard uh you know I haven't I haven't pulled up Ezra Cleveland's numbers in a while I'm gonna do that like they they got better

at the end of last year like I think the trajectory is good but it's certainly not a guarantee and to add one more to your list KOC said said he wants to maybe go heavier than they were in L.A. But they've got one tight end. Right. And those tight ends might get hurt once in a while. What was his name? Johnny Munt? Is that a Zalian?

Oh, I forgot about Johnny Munt. Yeah, he wasn't the one I was talking about. But he is a person who's on the roster. It's my album. Forgot about Johnny Munt. Yeah, Ezra Cleveland last year was by Pff in pass blocking 47th out of 63 you know not really what you're looking for what was the overall i thought his i thought his overall was like his run blocking was very good yes his overall was okay um but you know even even the guy that they're bringing in here just

did not score particularly well as a tackle and maybe they feel like he's a guard but man that sounds familiar doesn't it it's just he's played all over i he's played um three seasons as a right guard so a little bit of experience not saying it's a great a great possibility well let me see what he did as a guard last year uh is that was that last year that jesse davis yeah his guard his guard season in 2020 was arguably his best season but i mean a lot a lot of the same i mean none of the grades were great so the whole point just being that you know you're not really overturning the offense to be something completely different and i think that if they had then i would be talking about it a

little differently even as it pertains to justin of like, Hey, Jefferson, you're going to be a huge part of this just, you know, monster offense where we're going to throw all the time and whatever. Um, and that was, I saw an nfl.com headline that was like, which one of these receivers will take the biggest jump next year. Andfferson was included i was like did you just want to put jefferson's name in this because he was a top five targeted receiver last year like relax cooper cup's gonna take a big jump next year i think right if what if we're playing madden jefferson was this close to breaking the team record folks relax uh anyway so that's kind of the point of like should they throw to Jefferson more like, no, they should have more talent on the offense and throw to him the same, but have everybody else be better. So anyway, the last thing I was going to ask for our first episode of the timeline, and I think it'll be a really fun week of discussions comparing the Vikings to some other teams and things like that. And Chris Trapasso will cover the draft part of the timeline,

what we should expect from previous picks, what we should expect from future picks. It's going to be fun. But what's the timeline for when you think that they'll be a, not a, maybe not the number one team to win the Super Bowl by Vegas odds, but let's just say a top five team. Like, well,

let me rephrase. If I told you that going into 2023, they had put themselves in the top five odds to represent the NFC in the super bowl for 2023. How did that happen? Trying to think of a comp. Well, the thing is that Vegas is smart, and they do understand things like roster health and salary cap.

So this team would have to,, I think be a top five offense where the offense is just so, you know, so insanely good that, you know, then you could theorize that the offense would pretty much look the same the year after that. And that maybe there's some defensive pieces that'll improve, but I don't think it's, I don't think it would be about balance. I don't think it would be, Oh, they were a 14th ranked defense and the 11th ranked offense that that bodes pretty well. I don't think that would do it i think that would still be a lot like the 2019 team which was um ended up being fringe playoff i i think they probably need to be exquisite at offense for that to happen i think it's the draft class like if they draft three players and those three players step in and let's say one of them is a receiver and you have maybe a defensive end in a corner and then you go three for three and all three players look great.

And all of a sudden you've got cap space to work with a little bit more next year. And you've got these three young players that you just drafted. And I don't know, Kenny Wong looked great. And Amir Smith-Marset looked great. And like, so now all of a sudden you have this group that's looking younger and where it's star power is. And I totally agree. Yes.

Like you have to be a top five to seven offense to get anybody's attention this year. You can't be 11th. You can't be 14th. You have to be like really, really, really good. And I think that a lot of that would depend and you have to be much more competent on defense to convince anybody for 2023. I think that would all depend on your draft class because there isn't much more you can do. You're signing Jesse Davis's to fill spots. Like that's

just the reality. Um, so, and that's, this did happen. I mean, it doesn't happen often, but it happened to the Minnesota Vikings in 2015. It happened to the New Orleans Saints in 2017, where they drafted Marshawn Lattimore and Alvin Kamara. And there's a few others in that same draft that were really good. The Vikings in 2015, you know, they pick Stefan Diggs by the end of 2015. He's a great looking player. And you could, I mean, I remember like that team, the 2015 draft that people were talking about, yeah hey man this team could be set up for a long time that's kind of the way that it would have to go uh okay i promised one more thing but i've got i there's one more thing uh the pff mock draft simulator did you see what they did did you see jordan davis no no no no what they added player trades oh oh i thought you meant

like they did a mock okay no no yeah they the uh the the mock draft simulator added player trades and it gives you a percentage that the trade would be accepted like the madden about this yes the madden meter and so what do you think that it would take to trade Kirk Cousins to the Seattle Seahawks? One and two and four. It's not even that much. So I was able to trade Cousins and 77 for number nine overall Denver's pick that they gave to the Seahawks. Just saying, we don't know if it's done no trade clauses until next year. I'm just saying,

just saying, I don't know, but it's super fun. So go play around with it. You can trade every player in the roster and see what it says. So have fun with that. And we will talk again soon. And this will be a fun week and we'll see if anything else

transpires like the vikings always have this tendency to surprise us where we think oh the off season's over and then they bring in sheldon richardson and everson griffin and whatever else so that's what happened last year uh so thanks for your time sam and thank you all for listening to purple inside