Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What should the Vikings do with Za'Darius Smith? (A Fan's Only podcast)

Episode Date: February 4, 2023

Matthew Coller answers Vikings fan questions, from whether the Vikings should release Za'Darius Smith to create cap space to whether the Wilfs will push for another Kirk Cousins extension to whether the Bears will win an NFC North title before the Vikings and much more Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider presented by Liquid Death. Go to liquiddeath.com slash insider and learn about the Tallboy can, which actually has water. Find out where you can get it near you at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and this is a fans-only episode where I will answer Vikings fans' questions, and if you want to submit some yourself, you can go to purpleinsider.com, use the contact us, and also if you're on Twitter, you can send me a tweet or a DM at Matthew Collar. That's the best way to get a hold of me. And normally I'll start off a fans only episode by touching on a news item or something like that going on with the Vikings, but there's not really a whole lot to say except for Aaron Rodgers. Well, golfing told the golf

broadcast that he's not going to the 49ers. So I guess there's that. And Ian Rappaport was on Pat McAfee's show. Now this is kind of a weird thing, right? Aaron Rodgers comes on McAfee's show and says what's going on, and then he has reporters come on and also say what's going on with Aaron Rodgers. But he feels like Rodgers is likely to be back with the Packers. I think we probably don't really know yet at this point, but that does change things about how we would feel about the NFC North. Not that I think that Aaron Rodgers is going to win 13 games again, but I think if you're on the Vikings side, you would prefer to see him go play quarterback in

the AFC because of what happened the last time the two teams faced off at Lambeau Field. And there's always that concern that he wasn't actually as washed as he looked during a lot of this year. So let's, with that said, get into some of your questions. We'll start off with this one that comes from IB Strafing on Twitter. Says, do you think that releasing Z'Darrius Smith would be a mistake? His contract is very reasonable for a proven pass rusher. Kwesi is probably aware that pass rushers age better than most positions. Well, I think that

it depends on the pass rusher as far as how well they age versus their position. I mean, when it comes to one guy's medical history versus another, we could be talking about two very different situations. There are pass rushers whose careers are over by the time there's a Darius Smith's age, and then there's Julius Peppers or something who goes on to play until he's 38 years old. One of the major concerns and the reason why Z'Darrius Smith has the contract that he has is because of his injury history. So that is a serious issue that they need to worry about for what his production is going to be in the upcoming seasons.

It's also why, if they cut him today, that they wouldn't take on a lot of dead cap because that was the type of deal he had to sign based on what teams thought of his long-term prospects. So he was essentially a one-year deal, and then year to year after that, because the Baltimore Ravens, we assume, this was not admitted to, but we assume, after they were going to sign him, looked at his medical situation and said, you know, we've got some pretty serious concerns,

and then wanted to rework the contract, and that's how Zadarius ended up as a Minnesota Viking. The other thing is, and it has to be pointed out, that the first half of the season, he was playing like an MVP candidate. And the second half of the season, and I looked at this, after week 10, his PFF grade dropped from an 88, which puts you in MVP conversation, down to a 70. His sacks dropped off the face of the earth. His pressure rate, his win rate, all those things after he was dealing with an injury, which he said was a knee problem. He told us repeatedly that it was solved.

It wasn't an issue anymore. But the numbers kind of said something else about Z'Darrius Smith and his production in the second half. So I think that if the Vikings were to let him go, it wouldn't be because they think that he can't play at all anymore, he's not talented, or that he's not a good guy to have on the team. It would be because they know more about his medical history than we do, and they would be saying, no, sorry, we just don't see this guy being able to get back out

there play 17 games produce again because of the just the accumulation of injuries on his body the only other reason to let him go would be just the fact that they might want to rework a lot of things on defense and if they were looking to move out all of the parts on defense that were older and try to build in the vision of their new defensive coordinator, he could be a part of that because they would earn a significant cap space. Cutting Zedaria Smith alone would basically chop in half how much they're over the cap. It doesn't completely solve their cap issues, but it would go a long, long way toward doing that.

So unless they're sure that Z'Darrius Smith is going to be back at 100%, and look, if he gives them 10 sacks again and is one of the top in the league in pressures, even if it's in the first half of the season, that's still pretty darn effective. But if they're worried that he's not going to be able to play the the season, that's still pretty darn effective. But if they're worried that he's not going to be able to play the full season or that his effectiveness will look much more like the

second half than it did the first half, then it's so beneficial to the salary cap that it does make sense. And you can spend that money to sign another pass rusher. You won't get probably a premier pass rusher that plays as well as he does but if daniel hunter is back and this is why there's so moving so many moving parts to every single one of these decisions because if hunter is back and they didn't trade him away and you know harrison smith stays then of course you're going to want zadarius smith to be retained as well because that means you're trying to take a jump with that defense under a new defensive coordinator. But if the overall direction

of the team is to move on from those guys and replace them with younger players, then you might want to look at pass rushers who are up and coming rather than just somebody who's a veteran. And also you might want to look at with that 24th overall pick deciding to take a pass rusher that's a premium position and the vikings have run away from that premium position in the first couple rounds in in recent history it's been almost shocking how few pass rushers they've taken even in the first two rounds in recent years, they have waited mostly till round three and four and five to take their pass rushers as they hope to land the next Daniil Hunter. And the next Daniil Hunter never really came along.

So there's a lot of things that have to be considered here with Zedaria Smith. I couldn't just tell you, oh yeah, they should get rid of him or absolutely not under no circumstances. I think that there's sort of a path where they would be right to do so. And there's a path where they would not. I mean, if they're trying to run it back and be good again and add a new defensive coordinator and shuffle things around and try to restock the cupboard a little bit on defense and hope that they can cobble together a top 15 defense to go along with their good offense, well, then it wouldn't make any sense to get rid of someone as good as Z'Darrius Smith.

So I think that was one of the best moves of last offseason to sign Z'Darrius Smith. And you saw how overall he performed. But there's way more considerations. And there's no way that you could say the second half of the season isn't concerning toward his future prospects. So if they do move on from him, I'll be able to kind of put together the reasons why. And if they don't, same deal. Next question comes from Mitzi here. Do you think that this year's terrible trades, with the exception of TJ Hawkinson being Mullins,

Blacklock, and Rager, are a bigger indictment of Kweisi Adaflomensa as a GM or of the scouting staff? Well, I think that with those trades in particular, I think that each one has their own story. When it comes to the Nick Mullins trade, I have no problem at all with that one. I would not call the Nick Mullins trade a bust of a trade. I mean, you needed a backup quarterback who knew how to play. And what they were handed last offseason by the previous regime was Sean Mannion and Kellen Mond. And I think that when they got here, their hope was that they could develop Kellen Mond a little throughout the offseason, and then he would be the backup. And I don't know if Sean Mannion was ever really in that mix, but I'm sure that his

relationship with Kirk Cousins mattered there. But once they found out that neither one of those guys could really handle that position, especially Kellen Mond, who seemed to struggle to really grasp the offense. They needed to go find somebody else who, if they came in the game and were forced to play, you could possibly win. So let's say Kirk Cousins, and think about the number of hits he took this year. Let's say that he got hurt for three games. It's possible with Nick Mullins you could win one or two of those games because he's

experienced enough. He has enough experience in a similar system. I wouldn't say Kevin O'Connell and Kyle Shanahan are exactly the same, but there are similarities. That was where he had played before in San Francisco, and they didn't give up much for Nick Mullins. So I don't have much of a problem with that one. You need a backup quarterback who could potentially bail out your season. As far as the Ross Blacklock one, I never really understood that trade. That seemed to be what we call on the show sometimes a little galaxy brain,

maybe thinking that they could get a similar player to Armond Watts and have him under contract for another year. But the problem is that Ross Blacklock had never produced in Houston and didn't produce in Minnesota. And again, I mean, this was sort of a swing that you're taking, hoping that there's some development there. There's some growth. There's a fit as maybe a situational pass rusher to replace a guy in Armond Watts that they did not feel like was a fit in their defense and that they assumed if he had a decent year that he would probably be leaving for free agency the next season. I just think with that one, maybe they overthought it. It was a little bit unnecessary to move on from Armond Watts and to bring in Ross Blacklock. Now, they would know more about how Watts fit exactly into that defensive line,

but one thing that I know that they were missing and have been missing for some time is a situational three-technique pass rusher. It feels like we end up on repeat a little bit with some of the things that they've left behind when it comes to adding. And yeah, that guy, that Tom Johnson, that Sharif Floyd, those players, Sheldon Richardson were very effective for them as interior rushers. And they never went back to that after, after those guys. They did bring back Sheldon Richardson a couple of years later, and it wasn't quite the same, although he ended up having to play some defensive end in what was that 2021 must have been he because of some injuries and absences and

so forth but they really didn't have an effective interior rush for quite some time maybe since 2018 and you know going to get Ross Blacklock maybe was an attempt to get somebody who could do that with a high ceiling, but it was also someone that the Houston Texans were willing to part ways with, even though he had time left on his contract, which is pretty unusual. If a team is willing to do that for such a low price, it means it's more of a swing for the fences. So I didn't love that trade when it happened. I thought they should have just played it out with Armond Watts. And if he was good, just keep him. And if not, just let him go and look for somebody else in free agency. There are those situational three tech guys who

kind of make careers out of that in the NFL that come up for free agency kind of all the time. The Jalen Rager trade is quite bad. And I guess he's got another year to prove that it's not. And I mean, even at the moment that it happened, you were really trading for a punt returner and not a receiver because there was no evidence that Jalen Rager could be an effective wide receiver from Philadelphia. And of course, there's always the hope. And I don't have a huge problem with hoping and praying and taking a swing at somebody who might find it with you that they couldn't find there. But that is a pretty good organization that was letting him go in a year where they were trying to win and giving him away for not a whole lot. And really, when you consider what his role was, even though

it wasn't a whole lot for them to get in return, it was something for the Vikings to give up. I believe, what, a seventh this year? And then it could be as high as a fourth, but I doubt it's going to be, depending on how many. I'm not sure what the terms were. They were never released, but it's probably based on receptions or something like that that he's not going to get. That one was another move where there was no real impact. He was a good punt returner before, and I thought at very least didn't make any catastrophic mistakes as a punt returner. Maybe that's worth a seventh round draft pick, but he also cost them as a wide receiver in the Colts game and never really played again. I think Jalen Rager reminds me in some ways

of Cordero Patterson, where you see the twitchiness, you see the athleticism, and it just feels like to me, he should be in the backfield that he would be better as a running back because he is kind of built and tough. I mean, you heard Matt Daniels, their special teams coordinator, talk about him earlier this year, like how well built and put together he was. He's not truly built like a running back in the same way that Patterson wasn't. But when these guys get the ball in their hand, they're pretty exciting. But as pure wide receivers, not so much.

Maybe there's some experimenting that they can do with Jalen Rager but that one's probably not going to move the needle and most trades that are made right before the season unless it's a Khalil Mack trade they're probably not I mean we usually make a big deal out of it like oh they got this guy but if somebody's giving away another player right at the end of the year, not likely that that guy is going to do a whole heck of a lot for you. We've seen it with Tremaine Brock, Blake Bell. These are kind of a routine thing that happens where they acquire somebody that doesn't do much. Now, as far as who gets the blame for that, I think that there's always a question about the scouts and what their jobs are. And I think that what the scouts jobs are is to give you information about players.

They're not the ones who make the decision. They're the ones who, and I had a conversation with Scott Studwell once, who was a longtime linebacker for the Vikings, but then was also in their scouting department. And he said, we did our job, meaning you gather information, you write your reports, you tell the decision makers what you think of that player and as much as you can find out about them. And then the decisions make makers make their calls. And then you respect that as a scout, even if, you know, you were against this guy or you wanted this guy.

I mean, I'm sure there's lots of scouts who said, I was in on Mahomes before anybody else was, or I knew this guy was going to be a bust. Those are the great scouting stories, but they don't make those calls. So someone in the Vikings scouting department wrote a pro scouting report on Jalen Rager and probably wrote that he was a good punt returner. And he was the year before last with Philadelphia. He was graded highly by PFF. His numbers were decent. And so that was probably in there and they really wanted a punt returner. But I think that if you look at some of last year's miscues that could be corrected. One of them is they tried to get Albert Wilson as receiving depth, Jalen Rager maybe they hoped would be depth or kind of a bit player, and neither of those

worked out. Usually you have to make a real commitment if you want another receiver to actually contribute because, I mean, we've got a lot of history that shows us that, whether it's Tajay Sharp or Jordan Taylor or Kendall Wright. Like a lot of the picking off the bottom of the barrel just doesn't really work out. So yeah, it's on the decision maker, which is Kweisi Adafo-Mensa. And I don't know as far as final say, they've never put this out there, but you know, is it, is it gotta be an agreement between the head coach and the general manager? I don't know, but any move that gets made, the guy with the final say is very likely

the general manager. So it ends up going on him. But also I don't think that any of those trades were devastating. Like the TJ Hawkinson trade is much more great than any of those trades are poor or crushing. Those are just very similar to things that a lot of teams do where they give away late picks on a hope and a dream. And the Vikings were on the wrong end of one of those with Mike Hughes a couple of years ago when they traded him for basically nothing to Kansas City. And then he played a lot of snaps for Kansas City and has had a career since then.

So, you know, this is what every team is hoping for, that maybe we can pick up somebody else's trash and turn it into our treasure. And that didn't work with those trades for Blacklock or Rager yet. They'll be under contract this year. So we'll see how those work out. But the Hawkinson trade was tremendous. I mean, he was a huge contributor. And had they won against the Giants, we would have been calling it the Hawkinson game because he was tremendous in that game.

And both times against the Giants, a big contributor, a guy who could be here for a long time. I mean, you could see TJ Hawkinson being a Viking for the next, what, like seven years or something like that based on his ability, his athleticism, how he fits in with this team, the type of teammate he was, which I thought was tremendous, how quickly he picked up the offense. I mean, that was a home run of a trade. So that to me, that's a big trade. That's a big risky trade that supersedes any of the other ones. If we're talking about the trades down in the draft, I think that's like a totally different animal because then you're talking about trade values and risk assessment and positional values and trading with your

division opponent and all sorts of things. So to me, just in evaluating Kweisi Adafo-Mensah's moves, I don't think there's enough moves to really say, oh, wow, this man cannot trade or this guy is great at trading or great at drafting or can't draft. Like, I don't think we're there yet. I think we've got a ways to go for that. All right. Next question comes from Joel.

When will the Wilfs realize that one playoff win is not worth their $150 million plus investment in Kirk Cousins? I realize they won't just dump him, but tell me they won't extend him. I can't tell you anything for sure that they're going to do or not do as it pertains to Kirk Cousins. But let's talk about the options a little bit here that they have with Kirk Cousins. I mean, number one is to just let this contract play out and they could draft a quarterback this year or wait to draft one next year. When Washington moved on from Cousins, what did they, did they wait? I don't know who they replaced him with. I don't recall. Did they draft someone? Gosh, they've gone through so many

quarterbacks, which I don't mean to scare you in talking about that. Um, but they've gone through a lot of quarterbacks since I'm trying to remember what they did immediately after Kirk Cousins, but it wasn't great. But they could do that. They could just wait and see, or they could draft a quarterback this year and let this entire thing just play out. And that does take the risk that Cousins plays better than he did this year and that they go deeper in the playoffs next year and then you lose your quarterback i mean that is something that i'm sure that they're talking about is like

what are the odds that you know i mean look if their defense was a little better against the giants we're talking about a team that is in the divisional weekend they likely don't beat the san francisco 49ers in divisional weekend But you also saw the 49ers quarterback just get hurt at random and the Eagles walk right into the Super Bowl. So you do never know what happens in the playoffs. And maybe there's some consideration that they are afraid that if they let him play it out, that either one of two things happens. I mean, that scenario where they go deep in the playoffs, Cousins is an all-pro and is fantastic in his second year in this offense with Jefferson. And then he's going to leave because you didn't sign him.

The other one is, if you don't buy into me, then I don't buy into you, which I think makes sense, although he'd be playing for a contract. But remember when the Atlanta Falcons showed signs of not wanting to buy into Matt Ryan because they were sniffing around Deshaun Watts and he demanded a trade. Now, are you afraid of that? Maybe you're not. Maybe you think that that's a great outcome. And if you think it's a great outcome, then okay, well, that's not bad then.

Playing with a lame duck quarterback does have its downsides though. And one of those might be just a lack of stability. How well can the guy lead when his team has basically said, no, you're not really our guy. And I do wonder even with someone like Derek Carr, where his contract entirely was set up to be able to trade him this year, if that undermined his leadership and authority with the Las Vegas Raiders as well. That is another option as far as Kirk goes, where it could be an extension, but it could be like a trade stention, where they're setting it up for the possibility of

trading after this year. In the same way that it was set up that they could cut Zedarius Smith if they wanted to, they could set it up like with Derek Carr to be able to say, you know what, we're going to get rid of you if we want at that point. But Cousins on his side got a no trade in his last one. So is he going to ask for a no trade in his next one? That also has to be considered as well. The long-term option doesn't seem all that likely

unless Kevin O'Connell was so smitten with Kirk Cousins that he wants him at quarterback and he wants to go forward. And Justin Jefferson went to the Wilfs and said, I will play with no other quarterback than Kirk Cousins. I kind of doubt that that happened, but if it did, well, then a long-term extension is more possible. And they might try to just build through the draft around him and work contracts around it's not impossible to win with an expensive quarterback if you draft amazingly well the problem with that is you're just leaving it to draft fate and leaving it to draft fate in recent years has not gone that great outside of nailing it with Justin Jefferson and Christian Derrissaw.

But a lot of the other picks have not really come through. And if that bad streak continues and you have Cousins under contract for many more years, then you could be talking about just sitting here year after year with the same thing. Which is why I think a long-term extension does not seem very likely. And then you have, I mean, the idea of trading him now also doesn't seem very likely because that would be essentially saying 2023 does not matter to us. We're drafting a quarterback. We're completely pulling this thing apart and then we'll just see what happens. Is there an argument for that? Oh, there certainly is. There certainly is.

That sometimes you get to the end of your run. But it's also a very hard thing to sell to the owners. And that's why, you know, you bring up the owners that we just won 13 games. But guys, we got no answers to get any better than that. That was the best season you'll ever see from us. And goodbye to all of our good players. All these things, they have to be weighed when we discuss this, where we can't just say, why did they do this or that? Because there's a lot of people's feelings on the matter involved.

There's a head coach, there's a superstar receiver, there's rich owners who don't want to see their team struggle. But then there's also, you know, maybe the feeling if we, and I've heard it said before, hey, the Wilfs are just kind of sports fans or football fans. Well, a lot of you are fans as well. And this is how you feel that they've tried this over and over and ended up with the same thing. So to your point or to your question, I don't know. I don't know how they're going to handle it.

Last year, I thought I had a better handle for that they were not going to move on from him and draft someone. I expected them to kind of play the contract out, but they went the shortest term that they could. They might do that again and kick that decision down the road and plan to draft someone in 2024. kick that decision down the road and plan to draft someone in 2024, that might be the most likely scenario is at least one more year of Kirk Cousins, but not a long, long term extension. I don't know if that makes you feel a whole lot better based on your question, but I think if we

were ranking the scenarios, the most likely to me is another extension that lowers the cap hit and goes out for another year if they can get him to agree with it. But from Cousins' side, we didn't even bring him up, but from the players' side, are you going to be okay with just another short-term extension when you just won 13 games? So if you go to the table, and usually it's about cash as opposed to cap hit, of course. But if you go to the table and there isn't 40 something million dollars on the table, well, is that going to be acceptable to you? Is that going to be good enough for you?

I don't know. If you're Kirk Cousins and you're reading headlines that Daniel Jones is going to get 40 million dollars a year, are you good with that? Not making as much as Daniel Jones potentially on an extension, but there's always ways. There's always ways to maybe lower the cap hit now, raise it later, but set it up to be lowered again, kick money down the road. But I think, at least as of right now, and this could change anytime,

that Kirk Cousins will probably be the quarterback in 2023. And then after that, maybe not, but I it's really, there's a lot of things going on that are hard to know. And I wish I could give you a definitive, like no way they do that, but I don't really know what's going on in different people's heads that are making decisions at TCO Performance Center. All right, next question comes from Jamie. What do you, let's see, who do you think wins the NFC North first, the Bears or Vikings? The Bears have an abundance of draft capital and money, cap space, while the Vikings have nothing but difficult decisions. That is true. They really do. As we've gone over for, uh, you know, a couple of weeks since the season has ended here with

a lot of these questions is every single one of them. I feel like I'm saying, well, they have this option and that option and that option and that option. And I don't know what they'll do. And that's kind of what everything comes down to is it has to start with the Vikings timeline, even with this question, because let's just say the Vikings had a very similar off season to last year. And I know some of you kind of are pulling hair out as I say this, but let's just say that they have a very similar off season. They find a Zedarius Smith. They bring back a Patrick Peterson. They get another linebacker or another

something else that's a veteran. Maybe they need a, I don't know, whatever, a veteran corner, probably. That's a big improvement if they can get a nickel corner who's more effective than Chandon Sullivan, say. Let's just say they do that, and they slide someone into the center position. They draft a receiver in the third round, but he's expected to play. They draft a corner who's supposed to start. I don't know. Like, you know what I mean. It's an average Vikings offseason that we've seen many, many times.

They can win the division with that. I fully believe that. I think that the Lions are going to be a better team than them next year, or at least as of this moment. We are so far away from knowing. But if I were to guess right now, the Lions are on a little better trajectory. But could you get one more win than Detroit if Detroit had a similar season, except for it wasn't spread out the way that it was, where they were cold at the start and hot

at the beginning? Let's say they were up and down instead. Can you win more than the Lions? Sure, that's possible. And how about Green Bay? Well, it depends maybe on Aaron Rodgers. But if Rodgers, let's say, comes back and is even more washed, then well, all right, that puts you in position. I think this Vikings team, roll it out right now with no changes, probably wins 10 games next year. So you could see that nine to 10 games next year, they're right there competing for the division. If they decide to run it all

back, of course, if they make a lot of teardown moves, then they're a year behind as far as chasing a rebuild where the bears got started last year. And as you mentioned, um, uh, in the full question, which I can't display on the screen, if you're watching on YouTube, but in the longer version of your question, you mentioned Ryan Poles that decided to tear it all down. And maybe he would have done that in Minnesota as well. And it does get the bears one year ahead with the most cap space in the NFL and a good amount of draft capital. I was looking at their draft picks. It's not absurd, but they have the first pick so they can move down and they can get more draft capital if they want to, because they are at the top selection. And I'm sure they'll get trade offers for that. That will be pretty high. And, you know, the thing with rebuilding is that you

can make it quick and you can bounce back fast. You look at somebody like the Jaguars, you know, that's, that's pretty fast. Get Trevor Lawrence and you're back. Even from, you know, last year, they're drafting at the very top. And then one year later, they're in the divisional round. That's pretty impressive. We've seen some other teams do that too. Even Cleveland raised the bar for what we expect from Cleveland now after years of being bad. But that's another point too, that if you do that, you always risk getting stuck down there. And a team like the Jets, a team like the Browns, those teams have gotten stuck down there. So I can't guarantee that the Chicago Bears are just automatically, by being the Chicago Bears and tanking, going to be back

or going to show the type of progress that even Detroit has because Detroit hit on someone like Aiden Hutchinson. They found an elite receiver in Aminra St. Brown. So you have to have those fines. You have to have your draft picks work out if you draft high. I mean, you go over and look at New York and they bounced back from some bad seasons, but they made a signing like Kenny Galladay that just blew up in their face. You know, if you spend that cap space not wisely, you can end up still stuck either in the middle or down. And I don't know yet what to think of Justin Fields.

I mean, Justin Fields really found himself as a runner last year, and it was incredibly impressive. One of the best running seasons ever by a quarterback, but they didn't win a lot of games and he didn't throw the ball particularly well. And how many years do you give someone before they need to show progress throwing the ball? Someone like Jalen Hurts, who is a quote, running quarterback, every year seemed to get better throwing the ball. And I'm not sure that Justin Fields really did, but this year at very least, they'll be able to give a test case and then draft someone in the future. If they want to,

their timeline is, is pretty muddy. I think next year they can be better. And the year after that, if Fields has worked out, they could be great. If he hasn't worked out, it's probably another year before they can be really good.

Will the Vikings win a division before, say, 2025? Probably. Probably. They should be there in that conversation, but maybe Detroit will own the division. I'm not sure, but I think it's a good discussion because it really depends on what the Vikings decide to do. I think they could win the division next year if they're all in on trying to win the division next year. Does that mean they'll go any deeper in the playoffs? I don't know, but they could. And the Bears are very unlikely to win the division next year unless Justin Fields has that click

and then just takes off. We have seen it. Josh Allen is one guy with great physical gifts who became a much better passer of the ball and took off with his team. Of course, getting an elite receiver eventually helped him. But yeah, I mean, I think that if you're talking about the long-term prospects, the next five years, who is in a better situation? If the Vikings don't win like next year, then it's the Bears because they took that step back. But it's going to take probably two to three years before they can be,

if things work out, a really, really good team. But eventually, though, they might see the fruits of that and they might win a division before the Vikings. All right, this question comes from Corey. Given the buzz about a potential trade for Trey Lance, wanted to explore the question with you. I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts and perspective. My thoughts are, if I'm San Francisco, I am keeping Trey Lance, and I'm going to see what happens. I'm going to play him next year, and I am going

to try to play him all the way through next year if I can, if he is physically healthy and doesn't get a bad break and get an injury. And I'm going to find out what I've got in Trey Lance. I know they have a veteran team that is good enough to win the Super Bowl, and that might change how they feel. They might chase Derek Carr. They might chase somebody else in free agency. But it makes much more sense in my mind to find out what you have there, because the setup is still going to be pretty good. Now, Trent Williams is getting older, but the receivers are pretty young.

Brandon Ayuk is pretty young. And Debo Samuel, I think, has miles on his body from being used as a running back, but he's going to be effective for years to come. Holding a defense together is tough, as we've seen year after year, but they're going to have Bosa for many years and they should trust how they Bosa for many years and

they should trust how they've put together that defense and give that a shot. Because if that clicks with Trey Lance, I mean, you've got the rookie quarterback contract for one for at least this next year and then one more year after that. And then if he needed to sign an extension, you can push out a couple more years before he gets wildly expensive. So you've got that advantage. You've got his physical upside, which is right in line with some of the most physically gifted quarterbacks in the NFL in terms of arm strength, in terms of running ability. That to me is too enticing. And also the fact that you have a fallback. I don't think that Brock Purdy's career is over because he's having the Tommy John

surgery. It sounds like it's a long recovery, but maybe by next season or the middle of next season, he will be able to come back in and play quarterback. So give Trey Lance his shot. And if he is just truly bad and you can't make it work, then go back to Purdy, who you've proven that you can win with. That's a logical way of looking at it, in my mind. It doesn't mean that they're going to do it. And as far as the Vikings are involved, this one is where I totally get where everyone's coming from. But what I can't get past is if you are Kyle Shanahan and you know Kevin O'Connell's good and you battled Kevin O'Connell's teams in LA and you saw him in training camp, you saw his offensive ideas, which produced the top 10 offense. Are you going to hand a conference foe that you expect to play in the playoffs? The guy that you were all in on, like not, you're not going to do that unless you think

he's awful, right? So if you're the Vikings, you'd be like, wait, are you giving us a Trojan horse right now? I mean, that's why a lot of those trades happen out of the conference, uh, that Josh Rosen was traded to Miami and that Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield were both traded to Carolina. They do that because you don't want that to blow up in your face in a playoff game. You don't want to give a division opponent somebody who might be good for years to come. That would be the big holdup. Now, if they made that phone call, I'd be very intrigued. If they said, hey, you interested in Trey Lance?

I would be intrigued. I think that it's a little bit of a tight window and he still has a ways to develop, but his ceiling could be a tremendous, tremendous quarterback. So yeah, I mean, I guess if they were interested, I just have a tough time getting around to why San Francisco would give such a gifted athlete and a guy with such awesome arm strength. And I've seen him up close in the training camp practices and i mean he's something to behold like why would you do that to somebody who you might be facing year after year in the playoffs i mean that's just giving an advantage to the team in your conference and the vikings and 49ers tend to run into each other quite a bit so um that's kind of

my thought on on trey lance But I don't have a good sense for whether he can be a really good quarterback or not because he is truly just not played in games. And I've seen a couple of them. One was a monsoon. I saw some practices that I thought that he wasn't quite there yet as knowing where to go with the football in the same way that Brock Purdy was there. But Brock Purdy played a ton of college football and Trey Lance did not. If he had had maybe another year or heck, you know, the way things are now, if he had transferred to somewhere great, maybe it'd be easier to figure out. But as for now, he remains kind of a ball of clay.

But he'll be in his third year with that system and he should know it by now so they could put him in, figure it out and go from there. But you never do know when a team is in its winning window, when they are going to panic. All right. Two more questions. This one from at the purple plague on Twitter. See, do you think there will be a market adjustment during the next several years where free agent quarterbacks are only in one of two buckets, big money or three to five for three to five years or rookie deals. Sort of, sort of. I don't think there will ever be a true middle class. I think the way that this is going to go is a quarter. They'll figure out if a quarterback is good enough through his rookie deal. And you saw this with Daniel Jones.

Even though it took a couple of coaches, they figured it out. Okay, he's good enough to get you to the playoffs and win games. So here's $40 million a year for Daniel Jones. And in the future, in the year 3000, that'll be more. It'll be seven gazillion Zyros in the future. But for now, we'll just call it $40 million. All right, there's your $40 million. But what's going to happen is they will set this contract up so they can trade him

if they don't like their results and then draft someone else. And what you have is if a guy gets a second contract, he's probably good enough to win some games, which means that he might be desirable for a potential trade. Like, cause I think Daniel Jones is better than someone like Baker Mayfield. We saw that in the playoff game. So if you're that level, if you reach the level of a Derek Carr, a Jared Goff, a Carson Wentz early in his career, or a Daniel Jones, sign him and then know and trust and believe that there will be teams who

call you and you think, oh, well, who would trade for Daniel Jones if they weren't able to win with him? Who would trade for Carson Wentz? Oh yeah. Everyone, like several teams. Washington is always going to trade for somebody, right? Go back to Jeff George back in the day. I don't know if that was a trade. That was probably a signing. But the point is that I think that's how it will balance itself out because there will be teams who have a bunch of rookie guys and do the salary cap space and are able to take on a big contract for a short period of time. And they feel like, oh, we're just a quarterback away. And how many teams could you look at this year that would have been pretty legitimately competitive if they just even had Daniel Jones? I mean, how about the New Orleans

Saints? That's a good team. Good example. If they just had Daniel Jones, and they're always going to say that because there's always going to be a coach who tries to save his job. And maybe Carolina is one of those teams. Maybe they could have been the playoffs if they just had Daniel Jones. They just had a certain baseline of quarterback play. Then heck, they can be competitive. Always going to be those teams. That's how I think this ends up working itself out. As far as free agent quarterbacks go, they usually just don't end up as free agents. The free agent quarterbacks usually are Jameis Winston, Andy Dalton, backup level players who have been around. That's actually what makes Kirk Cousins' career so unique is that these guys almost never end up in free agency. They're always going to have those deals that lock them into a certain amount of guaranteed money rather than hitting the free agent market.

That's, I can't think of another, trying to think of another big name quarterback that just straight up hit the free agent market. I can't really think of one. So that's, you know, something that's probably not going to happen that you will have these cheap free agent quarterbacks like that, that, you know, they end up get to the end of their contract. Somebody picks them up because they've got nothing else. Yeah, that'll, that'll happen. Um, but that's not really like the middle class you're talking about. There will never be a, uh, a real middle class. Um, and I, well, and, and yeah, actually you're not really saying that you're saying that they'll only be spread into these two buckets. And I think that that's correct.

That they will either be expensive or on rookie deals. And the expensive guys sometimes won't be that great, but they'll move around. And there won't be a middle class of quarterbacks at any point. We kind of thought maybe that would start to happen. But if Daniel Jones gets 40 mil, then there's no such thing as a middle class of quarterbacks. But I think what you're talking about is right. And anybody who reaches a baseline of capability will have a job somewhere playing for somebody at their expensive contract, but it's just the franchise that can afford it at that moment. And then once they can't, they'll move

on and the guy will go to the next team and we'll just sort of play that musical chairs forever. Okay. Final question for the show and appreciate all of you watching and all of these questions that have come in. They're just great, great questions. Very thoughtful stuff at purpleinsider.com. Contact us or at Twitter at Matthew Collar. Just send that over.

This one comes from Chris. Is Rick Spielman if, oh, okay. Is Rick Spielman still here if he pulls the trigger on the asking price to move up for Justin Fields? Remember there was the report, I think it was from ESPN, that said that the Vikings were considering moving up to acquire Justin Fields in that draft, as opposed to they end up with Christian Derrissaw, of course. I think that's a really interesting what-if scenario because Rick Spielman could have argued, we've got our quarterback for the future. They would not have extended Kirk Cousins after last year.

And Justin Fields, now let me work out the timing here. He would have taken over this year, I think. And yeah, I mean, there might be a good case for that, that he would have taken over this year. You would have given him Justin Jefferson. The offensive line would not be very good, but he would, you know, can run around. He'd probably get sacked a ton though. And I don't know how many games they would have won.

They would have handled things a lot differently as a franchise. You wouldn't be bringing in players like Patrick Peterson and Zedarius Smith. If you had Justin Fields, you'd be resetting a lot of things, but you'd still have Justin Jefferson to throw the ball to, presumably Adam Thielen. I mean, you're talking about a pretty decent situation as opposed to who in Chicago? Like nobody really. Darnell Mooney is pretty good. But aside from him, you're not talking about the megastar receiver that Justin Fields is.

I'm sorry that Justin Jefferson is. But yeah, I mean, I think that there's a decent case for that. The only argument against it would be if things were just so toxic in that front office. And I mean, you're probably looking at a different head coach if you do that. Then you move on and you try to get a Kevin O'Connell to coach the team. I think the ultimate downfall of Spielman was the relationship, though, with people in the front office and mostly the head coach, probably more the head coach than anything. If they were, as it was reported, not speaking to each other and there was a major rift caused

by Kirk Cousins and other moves that were made or maybe draft picks, it's hard to say. There's a lot of things that could potentially be on that list, but a lot of it centers around Kirk Cousins and decisions to keep Kirk Cousins. So if they had moved on, maybe Mike Zimmer would have seen it as job security to have time to develop the quarterback because he was still under contract as well. Or maybe they would have gotten a new head coach.

But I think there is a decent chance that Rick Spielman would have still been here because he could have made the case that, hey, we're going to have to transition this franchise in the same way that they did from 2014 into 2015 with Teddy Bridgewater, that that would be the same plan. That is an interesting what if, and what would we be saying about Justin Fields at this point? Probably the same things they're saying in Chicago is, wow, he's shown a lot of flashes, but also there's a lot to work on there.

And we still don't know whether he's going to be the franchise quarterback or not, but I love what ifs. So if you guys want to send those, then feel free to do so. All right. Appreciate everybody listening along, or if it's on YouTube, watching along with this fans only episode, make sure you listen to every Purple Insider podcast. You can get that Apple Spotify, wherever you get your pods. And we'll do this throughout the offseason regularly. And I'm excited for when we start to get some real movement. The other thing we'll do, too, is draft simulations. And we'll try to have a lot of fun this offseason because there are many, many, many decisions to be made by the

Vikings and always keep an eye on. This is why if you're watching on YouTube, you should subscribe to the channel. And if well, you should subscribe either way on the podcast feed, because you're always got to keep your eyes and ears out for emergency pods. Whenever there is breaking Viking news, there will be emergency podcasts, emergency YouTube videos. So keep an eye out for those as things start to trickle in in this offseason. Appreciate you all listening, and we'll talk to you later.