Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What will Justin Jefferson need to sign an extension? (A Fan's Only pod)

Episode Date: January 27, 2023

Matthew Coller answers Minnesota Vikings fans questions, starting with a discussion about the factors that will play into Justin Jefferson signing an extension this offseason... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Liquid Death, delicious water that's bringing death to plastic. Learn more at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Hello, welcome to another episode of purple insider matthew collar here and let's get back to our fans only questions as we continue i mean i basically should have just made this a theme week and called it fans only week because i'll have another fans only episode for you tomorrow and then on monday morning you will get in your podcast feeds, a reaction with Paul Hoda, Wanek and I to championship Sunday that we'll record after the games on Sunday night. So that should be fun to react to those as well. And that's kind of all

I got. There is one small update, which is that the Vikings did have an interview with Brian Flores. And one thing that I do find interesting about Brian Flores is that when you look at when he arrived in Miami, they had one of the worst defenses in the NFL. And by the next year, they were sixth in points allowed. So they did make big progress. And for two seasons, they had good defenses under Brian Flores. Now that of course goes along with getting better players. One of those years, they were trying to tank so much to the point that the owner was telling Brian Flores that he had to tank and offering him money allegedly to tank. And then suddenly it got better. Uh, but anyway, I did think that, you know, if you're looking for a guy who's kind of done

that before, taking a little bit of a bare cupboard and built out a defense, Brian Flores has some recent experience with that. So they interviewed him. But I also get the sense, especially since Steve Wilks is not staying on as the head coach of Carolina. They hired Frank Reich. I think that's a very smart hiring for them to bring in an experienced head coach, draft a quarterback, go forward with a roster that has some talent on it.

So a good hire there. But I wonder if the Vikings will look at Steve Wilks as a potential defensive coordinator. And there are other head coaching situations that aren't sorted out yet around the league. And I think that they are going to take a little bit of time here because they should, they should wait and see if other defensive coordinators become available after other coaching situations are filled. So we'll, we'll wait and we'll see what happens with the Vikings defensive coordinator position. But other than that, that's kind of all that's going on right now. So why don't we jump into

your questions? This question comes from Dan. Hot take, Justin Jefferson will not re-sign with the Vikings. What incentive does he have to re-sign with this team? Quarterback outlook seems abysmal over the next few years. He will either be playing with an overpaid, aging quarterback who doesn't trust JJ enough to throw him the ball with the season on the line, parentheses, digs much, or B, the offense takes a big step back by drafting a quarterback in 2024, no chance this year given their draft position, lack of picks, and glaring defensive woes.

Well, I don't, let's go through things I agree with, things I don't agree with. As far as not re-signing with the Vikings, I don't think it's a guarantee that he does. I do think that when someone comes to you at this point in your career and says, look, if you don't sign an extension now, it's going to be a while before you get this chance again, that you're going to have to go through next year, fifth year option, and then you finally get your shot, right? So it's going to be a couple of years. And instead you could just have all this money right now and just keep playing for the team you're already playing for. Last year was it DK Metcalf, I think, where they had this sort of conversation and he agreed to a shorter extension.

And I want to say that Terry McLaurin did too. A shorter extension that only went for a couple of years past where his fourth season would be when he would become a free agent. If they didn't pick up the fifth year option, well, those guys didn't have that issue. So it's a little bit different with them. But with the fifth year option thing, it just allows teams to have so much leverage over a first round pick

that you can either become the highest paid receiver right now, or you can play another year on your rookie deal, then play a fifth year option year where you will get rich and then you can finally get your chance. I mean, that is quite a while to wait. And then if, you know, of course, if you get through those two years and you're the best in the league, you are a hundred percent talking about a massive paycheck at the same time. If you sign right now, you get, I mean, what, you know, I don't know, like $75 million guaranteed. So you know that you're going to be set for life no matter what happens. If you have a horrendous injury that ends your career,

you're still going to get $75 million and be all set, all good. So there's that. I mean, that's a pretty big incentive to be able to do that. You could also make the argument that, look, no matter who the quarterback is, they're better because they have Justin Jefferson. You could make the case that if you're going to move on from cousins after this next year, which, Hey, by the way, I know that he didn't trust them in the biggest moment, but cousins did get them to 13 wins. And he did get Justin Jefferson, one of the great receiver seasons in all of history. So there is that there is that. And I can't put myself in Justin Jefferson's shoes to ask him or to say for sure how he feels about Kirk Cousins as his quarterback.

There have been times where I've thought that, yes, you're right, that there's still not that level of throw it up type of trust for Jefferson. But this year he did it more, I think. And Jefferson had just an unbelievable season. So there is, with Kirk, there is that guarantee he's going to get the football a lot, but he's going to get it with anyone. Even when you look at Larry Fitzgerald, he was still catching tons of balls from Drew Stanton and Ryan Lindley and John Skelton and whoever was out there.

And then they had a chance to win Super Bowls potentially with Kurt Warner and Carson Palmer. But he was still getting his numbers either way. And I think that Jefferson knows he's going to get his numbers either way. As far as drafting a quarterback, Jefferson's a good argument for how is that quarterback going to succeed? I don't know. Give him the most open guy who catches everything in the universe. You can make those arguments to him. There's a lot of cases that you can make that are good. I do think that the quarterback situation may play a role in that conversation that Jefferson has with the Vikings about a potential extension this off season. He's going to ask, okay, so is it Kirk who's going to be here and how that impacts his decision? I don't know. But as far as signing Kirk to a long-term extension, if that's something they're interested in, it can't really match up in terms of cap hits at the same time as Jefferson, because then you're essentially paying two quarterback level contracts. That's going to be hard to do.

Derisal will come down the road eventually. That's going to be a lot of money there. And then we've talked about Hunter as well. All of that is going to be tricky at some point. That's not necessarily Jefferson's problem, but I'm sure one of his questions is going to be who's that quarterback? Is it going to be the quarterback who's helped you get all these numbers? Are you taking a swing to potentially win with somebody else on the rookie

deal? Uh, that's yeah, it's something that I'm sure he's going to want to know. Um, you know, and as far as the offense, you know, taking a big step back by drafting a quarterback, I don't think that's really a guarantee that they would if they drafted one this year and then waited. But, you know, I think it's a fair point though, that rolling the dice and being uncertain if you're signing that extension about the quarterback situation is certainly a factor. So as we talk about how much hinges on Kirk Cousins and an extension. I've talked about it through really the lens of what they can do this year, because if they were to extend Cousins long-term, they have more flexibility for this year and less for the future. If they don't extend him and they play it

out, he's going to have a very, very high cap hit for next year. And they're limited in what they can do. And that would also signal that they would be able to draft a quarterback. But I think that some of it does, does hinge on that for Justin Jefferson. I just think that it's so favorable and this is done on purpose by the league. It's so favorable for the player to sign the extension now and just lock yourself into being a Viking for a very long time. Being a Viking has gone quite well for Justin Jefferson. He's already considered one of the

best in franchise history. He's already become a mega star. He's a top fantasy pick. He's sidelined at the Lakers game. Everyone does his dance. It's not like it has held him back from superstardom. He's one of the most popular players in the league. He has, though, seen his fellow wide receivers like A.J. Brown demand their way out, and they usually get out. Because if the guy's not going to sign an extension, you might as well trade him for a bunch of draft picks. Tyree Kill also falling under that category. I just think that the Vikings will be willing to move heaven and earth to make it happen. And that, you know, you could make a case like, look, you're going to be here for a long, long time and we're going to continue to be a competitive team. We're going to get you,

you know, good players around you and have a chance. But yeah, I mean, if it's if if he's got something in mind that he wants that isn't here and maybe it's the quarterback position, maybe it's not. That's it's always possible that that does not happen. And if it doesn't happen by the end of this offseason, by the end of usually training camp is kind of where some of those happen. But someone like Jefferson could go anytime. They're not going to hold that one off. But if by the end of training camp, if there's no extension, it's red alert, it's red alert on Justin Jefferson's situation and whether he wants to be long-term a Viking, but we're a ways away from starting to discuss that yet. And there's nothing out there, but I did find it kind of interesting that quesia daful

mensa mentioned like having some initial conversations and then adam schefter came out with a report about it which i'm sure came from his agent and it might it might get uncomfortable it might get uncomfortable if jefferson is not sure where this organization is going to go and i really think think, and this is, you know, like for being around him a couple of years, I think he knows that he's going to get paid, but I think that he really wants to win. I think that winning and going deep in the playoffs and getting a ring, I can guarantee you this man is watching AJ Brown right now with jealousy and thinking about like, that should be me. So yeah. I mean, if they can't present the plan for how that's, it's going to be different, uh, that might make

it harder because he's going to get paid by anyone. He's going to make a ton of money, no matter what, no matter what happens, that is a guarantee. It's just that if you do it now, even if something goes horribly wrong, which sometimes it does in Minnesota sports, uh, you're all set for your future, but you know, receivers, they don't have so many issues, uh, as, as far as longevity, it's not like they're like running backs or something. Um, so he could, he could play it out. He could play hard ball. I that's one where it's, if I had the bet, I would say he ends up a Viking for a very long time and signs an extension.

But I don't know what's going on in his head and what's going on inside his camp. And he did not give the typical answer that most guys give when they're asked, oh, do you want to be here? And he said, I want to be where I'm wanted, which I thought was a really interesting, like hard one to read into. Like, what does that mean? I want to be where I'm wanted. Like, I'm sure he's one to read into. Like, what does that mean? I want to be where I'm wanted. Like, I'm sure he's wanted to be here. And Kweisi Adafo-Menta made that clear the other day when he said like, it's a challenge, but it's a good challenge to have that you have a receiver

who's going to be the highest paid in the league if he signs an extension. But I mean, put it under, if we're ranking the storylines to watch for the offseason. Sounds like an article. Yeah, that's like way up at the top of the list. Does he sign an extension? OK, got a long email from Alex, but it's aggressive, so I'm going to read it. It says, I'm not going to lie. This is the most angry I've been with the Wilfs since I've been a Vikings fan.

I understand they wanted to fix the culture that they let get out of hand under Spielman and Zimmer, but this overcorrection was not a good outcome. I think they made decisions with their hearts instead of their heads and didn't allow the new GM and head coach to make decisions that would be in the best interest of the long-term success of the franchise. I firmly believe there isn't a good way forward with a very expensive 36-year-old pocket quarterback on an aging roster to which you added void years to veteran deals, major holes at important positions, a disastrous cap situation, and a team in 2022 that by most metrics was a middling team despite their record. If you want to say 2022 was a success, have at it.

I, however, prefer to look at the situation objectively and say the team I watched week in and week out was very flawed and realistically had no chance at reaching the NFC Championship game. If this is their idea of success, I don't know what to tell you. I am extremely envious of Ryan Poles and what he was allowed to do with the Bears. I think we're going to be paying for the Wilfs' fervent desire to squeak out as many wins this season rather than to have one bad season, even if it could help the team for years down the road.

Not sure that's a question, but how do you feel about this team going forward? Yeah, that rant right there, I feel like last year, once they decided they were bringing everybody back, I was already anticipating having the same rant myself. And what complicates that is the 13 games and the fun we had along the way. And we certainly did. Week in and week out. As you mentioned, there were a lot of signs on the wall that it would end the way that it did. And to have Philadelphia completely demolished the New York giants makes it worse because like they started out so well record wise. And there was a lot of that, like,

Oh, this sign is bad. This sign is bad for their future. And then the second half of the season, not counting week 18, they're five and three. And then they lose to the giants, which means that all among games that mattered,

the final nine games that mattered, they won five and lost four. And in one of those, they were down one of the wins, 33 to one of the worst teams in football. And so all of a sudden, the more recent sample size doesn't look very strong. It looks like kind of what we expected it to be rather than having the early part of the season where they won all those one score games. And you can set aside, if you want, the entertainment value of this last season, which was incredibly high. And I don't want to tell people everything that you enjoyed, every win that you liked was trash and meant nothing.

And this team coming together around O'Connell and seeing Kirk Cousins come out of his shell more and Jefferson having an all time great season, all those things, they all meant nothing. They were all pointless. There's no reason to live like, okay, well, that's a little much. That's a little much for me.

And I know a lot of you who have watched this team for a long time, that is your mentality. And I, and I get it because you've just seen so many seasons like that or other iterations of seasons like that. I mean, think about 2020, if they had won a couple of those close games instead of losing them or 2021, we could have been talking about pretty much the same season where, you know, they're in the playoffs losing the first round mediocre, and we're just kind of doing the same thing. It was

really getting to 13 wins, uh, which could kind of be called 12 if you're not counting over Nathan Peterman and Tim Boyle. Okay, so a 12 and 4 type of season. I mean, you could look at that and say, who cares if you weren't really strong enough to actually compete for a championship? And that's a hard point to refute, to tell you the truth. It really is. Because I could set aside just from the fun standpoint. And if we set the only goal is the super bowl, which is usually how we talk on the show. The only goal being the super bowl that if you never at any point had a team strong enough to go deep into the playoffs, then you didn't succeed as a front office. Then you didn't

succeed as an ownership. Uh, you just gave people some sort of cheap thrills. And, and, and that seems very, very harsh and very cynical to me. And because we had a lot of fun along the way, I don't want to say that. I mean, I just, you know, it's, it's, it's really tough. That's that is too analytical even for me. Uh, but I also don't have a good counterpoint for aside, aside from, but wasn't it fun? Like, I mean, didn't you feel good for the guys? Like, yeah, that's a hard one. That's a hard one.

Because you could have seen this outcome coming from day one, but also, if we're doing it in hindsight, you also could have won the division still without sacrificing for the future the way that they did. You could have left Cousins on his contract last year and not extended it and not given him the no trade. You could have traded away players. You could have drafted, use the extra capital to draft more guys and everything else that you'd be

talking about potential for the future and still ended up with probably 10 or 11 wins in a division title. I think that's where there may be some regret for some of the things that they did. You know, so as far as like relitigating that whole thing, it's something we'll be doing kind of all offseason is looking back and going, what did last year's decisions do for this year? And man, you bring up Ryan Poles. I cannot help but wonder what Ryan Poles would have done with this roster based on what he did in Chicago. And they were not in the same position. Chicago was so bad that they were never going to compete, but you do have to wonder, would he have signed

a Jordan Hicks or would he have just let Brian Asamoah see if he could play? Which would have been preferable, I think, considering that Hicks was one of the worst linebackers in the league in coverage. Maybe Asamoah would have been just as good or better. And so there's a lot of those things that we can kind of go back on and go, you know, did it, did it help to give this guy or that guy void years to the future? Did it help to give Kirk cousins a no trade and so forth? Um, if your only conversation is about the Superbowl and you just block out everything else. And I think that's kind of what you're doing. And I think a lot of Vikings fans do that. And I don't blame you for doing that because that's long been my approach in talking about it. Folks, it is time once again for us to have a discussion about liquid death. Now, here's the thing. My wife has been one of those people for a really long time that has carried around a water bottle and it's metal and it's gross and she drops it on the ground all the time. And so I said, look, why don't we try some liquid death?

You're a big water drinker. Give it a shot. And she has fallen in love with not only me, but liquid death as well. And it looks like sometimes when she's driving around that she is drinking a tall boy beer while she's driving. But it is indeed liquid death water. And one of the reasons that she likes it is that it comes in aluminum cans. The name liquid death comes from bringing death to plastic. And liquid death gives 10% of their profits to end plastic bottles, which are not easily recyclable. And that's another part that my wife is enjoying about Liquid Death.

And I am also drinking it as well, especially the lime flavored sparkling water, which is very good. So make sure you give that a try. Go to Hy-Vee, Target, wherever you get your groceries, go to the water aisle, look for the can that looks actually like a tall boy beer. And if you want to learn more about where to find it, go to liquiddeath.com slash insider. that's liquid death.com slash insider. Okay. Got a long email from Alex, but it's a aggressive. So I'm going to read it says,

I'm not going to lie. This is the most angry I've been with the Wilfs since I've been a Vikings fan. I understand they wanted to fix the culture that they let get out of hand under Spielman and Zimmer, but this overcorrection was not a good outcome. I think they made decisions with their hearts instead of their heads and didn't allow the new GM and head coach to make decisions that would be in the best interest of the long-term success of the franchise. I firmly believe there isn't a good way forward with a very expensive 36-year-old pocket quarterback on an aging roster to which you added void years to veteran deals, major holes at important positions, a disastrous cap situation, and a team in 2022 that by most metrics was a middling team despite their record.

If you want to say 2022 was a success, have at it. I, however, prefer to look at the situation objectively and say the team I watched week in and week out was very flawed and realistically had no chance at reaching the NFC Championship game. If this is their idea of success, I don't know what to tell you. I am extremely envious of Ryan Poles and what he was allowed to do with the Bears. I think we're going to be paying for the Wilfs' fervent desire to squeak out as many wins this season rather than to have one bad season, even if it could help the team for years down the road. Not sure that's a question, but how do you feel about this team going forward? How do I feel about this team going forward? I feel like this team, we talk about like the fork in the road and I've made that comparison.

I've quoted Jay-Z or whoever originally said it in hip hop, the fork in the road and went straight a bunch of times for what they did last off season. I don't think there's a fork. I think there's like a menorah or something like there's a bunch of different routes that they could go. And I don't know which one they'll take because if you lay it out, it's you bring back cousins for just one more year and then let him go.

It's extend them long-term. It's extend them short-term. It's draft a quarterback. It's draft a receiver and go all in on offense. It's try to rebuild the defense in one year through free agency by creating cap space, or it's extending a bunch of players again and reworking contracts because you like those guys. Like there are so many things that they can do that I really have to see what they're going to do before I decide. But as a whole, I have to tell you the truth. It's my job. I feel like they are not going to move too far away from where they've been. And I think that would be a major punch in the gut to a lot of people,

but that's just kind of how I feel. I feel like it's, it's, it would be very surprising to me if they decided to really go like all in and blow the thing up and make huge changes and, and have that one year drop back and try to jump back. So I feel like they are still, as far as how I feel about them overall, stuck in the middle with you and me. That's where they are. And it is hard to escape. Usually the momentum of the world, the inertia of the world makes you go down at some point. And it didn't happen this year. So will it happen next year?

Will it happen the year after that? I don't know. It really depends on what they do this offseason. As of this moment, I don't feel like they're going to take massive steps to escape the middle by next year. But if they do, I would happily be proven wrong because we've been talking about getting them out of that for so long. So that's how I feel about them right now. I feel like they are still stuck.

They've been stuck and they probably won't become unstuck. And it comes down to one of the other questions from fans only, which was talk me into a top five offense. All right. Next question comes from Derek. According to over the cap, the Vikings must cut players to get under the cap and create space to sign the draft class and fill some holes. It looks like they're in salary cap hell when you consider the cap space needed to sign

serviceable players for their defensive needs. However, have you seen the Saints cap situation? Take a look. Does our definition of salary cap hell need to change maybe the vikings can do more than i'm giving him credit for although i would love it if they were honest with themselves and just had a reset year one thing that is very interesting is how many of you are in favor of i like how you characterize it reset not tank not tear it all down, but reset year is exactly the way to characterize it. And I think I will use that going forward.

Like, let's see if they do a reset year. Cause I don't really love competitive rebuild. And I think Will Raggett's made a good point about this, that like what team is not always kind of rebuilding parts of their roster and all the teams that are competing and not tanking they're always doing this even the Kansas City Chiefs I mean they made a competitive rebuild type move to get their salary cap right by moving on from Tyreek Hill but they're one game from the Super Bowl so they can always argue competitive rebuild reset year, I think is better because it allows you to reset the cap situation, reset on some of your younger players that you're developing

rather than hoping to squeeze the last ounces out of older players. So I think it's a much better way of phrasing it. And I like that. So as far as the Saints go, yes, it is hilarious how bad their salary cap situation is. They are 58 million over the cap. They have a lot to do. They have a lot to do. And the Saints are a great example of a team that when you're in your window to potentially win the Super Bowl, you do anything and everything under the sun. And when we go back to 2018 and 2019, it's hard to criticize now where they put the money and where they put the all in moves. Yeah. We can laugh at, you know, the Corey Vedvik move or something like that. Like we can laugh at some of the weird kind of things that they did or desperate trades, but, uh, or signings of, you know, fifth string wide receivers, things like that. But, you know, at the same time that anything that was an all in move, like a Sheldon Richardson

or something, and it even goes back to Kirk Cousins as well. And signing Kirk Cousins was a justifiable move. Was it exactly right in hindsight? No, probably not because there were some other options there. But, you know, considering one playoff win in five years was not what you were looking for. But it was always justifiable to put Kirk Cousins onto a great football team from top to bottom and believe that you were going to have success in bringing it all back and just adding a better quarterback.

Like there's logic there in terms of doing everything they could to mess with contracts and schedule contracts out. So they were more expensive down the road and rework this money and move that money over there. All of that stuff. That's what you do when you have Drew Brees in the final couple of years. That's what Green Bay has been doing with Aaron Rodgers. It's what the Vikings should have done 20, even 2016 to trade for Sam Bradford. I always thought that move was justifiable because the roster was really good. And, you know, maybe

if they had had a little better offensive line or better health that year, they do get into the playoffs and they are a dangerous team because they did have a good defense that year and Bradford did play well overall. So, okay. Those are moves that make sense to go all in, but when you do that, eventually you have to pay for it. And the Saints, they're paying for it. They're paying for it big time. They didn't even spend a lot of money in their quarterback situation. And there's still 58 million over the cap.

That is how much money they push down the road. And every team in the league will get cap compliant. So they're, you know, they're going to cut people. They're going to, the Saints, I mean, they'll move money around and whatever, and they'll get cap compliant and they'll put 53 players on the field, but there is no hope for the new Orleans saints. There is no future for the saints. They're going nowhere. They are completely stuck. They have older players that are stars. They have no money to rebuild it. It's going to be a while before the saints are back. And heck, is it any surprise that Sean Payton went to

television and then now is moseying around to different teams, interviewing, looking for whatever team can make him look like a genius. Uh, I'm not saying he's not good at his job, but I mean, as soon as drew breeze was out of there one more year in that, Uh, I'm not saying he's not good at his job, but I mean, as soon as Drew Brees was out of there one more year in that, Oh, this is not going in a good way. See ya. Zoink. Um, no surprise there. And with this Vikings team, yeah, it's not as bad as the saints, but they're the third worst cap situation in the league. And when you look at all the options and things they can do, yes, they can move bonuses and change base salary and those things and lower cap hits. They can do all stuff like that. I was looking at Thelans and I think that they can lower Thelans cap hit to like 11

million. Don't quote me on that, but I think that's right. There's other guys, Brian O'Neill, they can move money around. I think Zed Zedarius Smith, uh, Daniil Hunter. I'm not exactly sure, but they could do the extension to try and lower his cap hit for next year. They can cut Delvin. That's an easy choice. Um, unfortunately someone like Delvin Tomlinson is on the books and there's not a whole lot you could do there, but you know, there there's, there's lots of options cutting Eric Kendricks.

Like that's another one. To create enough cap space to exist, they can make $5 million alone in cutting Jordan Hicks. Well, all right. I mean, that's a pretty easy choice. So now I've gotten you underneath the cap. The problem is how many players can you sign? How can you compete for any free agents that you want to chase? I mean, I'm going to do the same thing everybody else is going to do with the free agent list. And somebody sent me a question the other day is like, Hey, what free agents should they be looking at?

It's like, I don't know what free agents they're going to be able to afford. And every year, they shuffle money around just enough to get a Michael Pierce or just enough to get a Harrison Phillips. But there's not a lot of game changers that you can get for pennies on the dollar. So my plan would be to look at players who are 26 or 27 and try to get them on multi-year deals that maybe will stay with you for several seasons. In fact, I really liked the idea of Harrison Phillips, how he played. I thought he was okay. Uh, was not a game wrecker or anything, but a solid player in the middle, but his contract though, his age, I mean, he was in his prime, not that expensive. Like those are players that they need to look for or guys who are long shots,

former first or second round draft picks who busted out, who are looking for a new home that maybe you could try something. You bring them in, take a long shot and see what happens. Kansas city does this all the time. If you've seen a first round bus, they've picked them up and, you know, worked out pretty well with someone like Mike Hughes for Kansas city. Those are the types of players that the Vikings will have to look at because of their salary cap situation. So you can go through the expensive players on overthecap.com. Feel free to go play with it. And there's even a tool that they have that you can, you know, mess with salaries and

move bonuses and things. And it's a really great resource, fun to toy with. But, you know, you're going to get them cap compliant. Are you going to be able to change who they are as a team enough? And we went over this last year, and I remember, where we talked about how the Vikings needed to be 100 points better than they were the year before. And I think the same thing applies because let's have a look, see at the final couple of teams here and where their point differentials are.

Not shocking. They're all great. They are all absolutely phenomenal in terms of point differential as kind of we expected throughout the season. That's why we talk about point differential because most of the time that's a better indicator than just wins and losses. So you've got to be a hundred points better. Where's it coming from? Can you be a little better on offense? Yes. How much better? I'm not sure. Can you be a hundred points better on defense? Can you be 50 points better on defense? I don't know how that happens when you're removing players and not able to add anyone who's a game changer. You really have to rely on last year's draft class and then this year's draft class and finding a diamond in the rough or total home run. The irony though is

that last year they could not have done any better with their signings. So Phillips and Hicks and Sullivan did not do all that much, but they got superstars out of Patrick Peterson and Zedarius Smith. It's very rare that you get good deals for superstars. So those were great signings. They have to try to do that again and then some when it comes to rebuilding this defense. And then, yes, it's going to make a difference who they get for defensive coordinator that you know you're probably at least a game's

worth of points better based on the defensive coordinator still you're losing talent probably not net gaining talent um that's where the live in reality thing is and if they make every move for now and later but more later than now that to me is a net positive if they can make moves to get players experience to put guys into situations where we're going to learn who they are for the future is this a caleb evans someone who's going to be a player for you or not let's find out is lewis seen good or not? I don't want to see Louis Seen as the fourth string safety next year. If he is, that's a joke.

If he comes through, well, let's see where he is health-wise. But if he comes through training camp, let's say he's fine. And he's struggling to recognize route combinations or something. I mean, you got to play him anyway. You can't just be playing some veteran or playing Cam Bynum or somebody who's not going to be an impact player for the future. You want to see rookies start and play. That's what it means to do a reset. It means that you could put out a team that could potentially win the NFC North, but at the same time, we're learning what is there and

we're developing what is there for the future. So they'll move money around, but I think it would be wiser to not move money in a way that will hurt them long-term. So if it comes down to cut this player versus restructure or move money or create void years, that's going to have to be paid later, cut the player. I think that's what it really means as it pertains to dealing with their salary cap situation. Next question comes from Anton. Let's see, fans only question for you. There doesn't appear to be much as far as mobile quarterbacks in this year's draft outside of Bryce Young and Anthony Richardson, and both will probably be taken the first

round before the Vikings are on the clock. What are your thoughts on a competitive tank for Caleb Williams in 2024? This may well mark nine years since the Vikings drafted Teddy Bridgewater as their quarterback of the future. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. We get old fast. Holy cow. Nine years, Teddy Bridgewater. Wow. So the point about Caleb Williams, the problem with tanking for Caleb Williams for the Vikings is that they can't. They just can't. They're going to be too good. He's going to be at the top of the draft. And I mean the top, top, the number one pick. If the Vikings had a chance, and this is where I get flustered with people who hate tanking.

The Vikings were one in five in the year 2020. And had they gone full tank and drafted number one, Trevor Lawrence would have been the quarterback that they took. Now, if you paired Trevor Lawrence with Justin Jefferson, just saying that you would have never remembered in a million years that you tanked to get that guy. I'm just saying, but this team is not in a situation where they can do that. They just can't. They can't get to number one for next year. They're going to be too good.

The only way they could get to number one would be sacrificing Justin Jefferson more likely than not, because let's just say that they traded Kirk Cousins and they chose to start Nick Mullins. And they said, you know what? We love Nick Mullins. Actually, Nick Mullins might win you a few games know what? We love Nick Mullins. Actually, Nick Mullins might win you a few games, but either way, just follow with me here. We're starting Nick Mullins. He's our guy. We saw enough of Nick that we believe in him as the quarterback. Okay. So clearly tank it. You still have Justin Jefferson. You still have

Christian Derrissaw. And also how in the world do you go to the ownership and say, yeah, you know, that quarterback that just won 13 games and won the North and everything else. Do you guys have fun doing that? Oh yeah. We're getting rid of him. We're starting his backup. And Oh, by the way, uh, I shouldn't have said ownership. I meant Jefferson and, uh, but ownership too. And you know, by the way, this offense that we had, that was top 10, we want it to be worse. We want it to be the worst in the NFL. So we lose all the games, worst offense, worst defense. We're getting Caleb Williams. If they didn't buy into the rebuild before and trading cousins with Ryan poles, assuming that's what he wanted to do.

They're certainly not going to buy into it after 13 wins. And if Justin Jefferson, you're going to convince him to stay long-term, how exactly are you doing that? I mean, are you telling Justin Jefferson, Hey buddy, tough it out. We're about to draft Caleb Williams. You're going to like what you see. As a Donatello said, that is a really tough argument for him to sign a long-term contract extension when his team goes from 13 wins to tearing it all apart. You can't tell a player like Justin Jefferson when you're on the doorstep, we're going to lose all the games. And, you know, look, they'll know.

They'll know. Even if you don't say it out loud if you move on from cousins now uh without bringing in someone who's going to be an upgrade or at least appear to be an upgrade the trey lance thing is getting thrown around there i've seen you know on the internet and so forth and like i get i get that like that's that's something that's interesting is if you can i mean find your way to trey lance well then know, you're talking a little bit of a different type of thing. Someone who's developed for a couple of years, has a huge arm, mobility, all that sort of

stuff. But if you're telling Jefferson, no, you've got to lose 14 games so we can try to get this one quarterback. I mean, tough sell on, yes, I'll stay around for the next five to seven years and sign a huge, long, giant contract. I mean, why would he agree to that if he doesn't really know what it's going to happen here? And if you're Kevin O'Connell, how do you buy into that? Oh yeah, you won all those games with Kirk, but now we want you to lose all those games

next year, not try to compete at all and try to pick Caleb Williams. That's why they missed their chance. After 2019, that was the time because Cousins' contract was coming up. They could have moved on from him. They were bad anyway. All the defensive players left. It was like, this is your moment to go to the bottom, get Trevor Lawrence, or even if they had paid, you know, picked, uh, Justin Fields to pair with Justin Jefferson. It's probably a different story than Justin Fields in Chicago. Um, you know, so this moment is, is, is gone.

And now it has to be a reset. It has to be a competitive rebuild around the quarterback situation. It has to be another option trading up or, you know, drafting something, drafting the fourth best quarterback, fifth best quarterback, which, you know, can turn out to be pretty good sometimes, you know, Lamar Jackson being a good example of that, but you know, it's not always going to happen or Jalen hurts early in the second round, not always going to happen or Jalen Hurts early in the second round, not always going to happen, but they could do it that way. But I think that if they're drafting a quarterback, that's what it has to be. It has to be a trade up, which I just have a tough time seeing them doing, but that it would have to be when we get to the draft. And I know I'm talking about this year, but obviously 2024 could also be a possibility. So I guess you're asking about 2024.

I should go through that scenario. But if it's this year, they could do it if Cousins said no to an extension and was just going to run his contract to the end. And everybody agreed on that. He is a lame duck quarterback. He's going to play till the end. So then you trade up to draft a quarterback, whatever it takes this, you know, first next year's first next year, second, whatever it takes, you trade up to get Anthony

Richardson. And then you sit them for a year with plans to turn it over to him in the future. That is one way to go about it. Another way would also be able to let the contract just run out and pick whoever is there because let's say next year you go nine and eight okay well that's going to put you in the middle of the first again you can trade up or just wait till somebody is there when they drop i don't know what the rest of the 2024 quarterback draft classes looks like i guarantee you no one else does either um uh this far out uh you know things change so much but that kind of seems like a scenario that's very possible or that they extend cousins one or two more years.

And 2024 is when they decide, uh, to draft a quarterback. I think a lot of folks are sort of tired of this. Maybe next year we'll do it. Maybe next year we'll do it. Maybe next year we'll do it. Um, so this year would be an interesting time. But I, again, this is where it's just not easy to see with so many needs on defense that they're going to do it.

It would be right. It's always going to be right to draft the quarterback. But will they actually do it? I don't know. But the idea of tanking next year for Caleb Williams, the only way that they get there is the natural tank, which you'll probably hear a lot about this offseason from me. The natural tank where you try everything you can, but you go full Raiders and it just doesn't work out and you end up picking high anyway. I don't think they could get to number one unless Kirk

got hurt, but still high enough to draft a top quarterback prospect. That's, that is an outcome that could happen. Not necessarily drafting number one, though. I just, just can't see it. All right. This question comes from at Holland, John D on Twitter. I'd be very interested to hear your take on possible projected cuts, restructures, signings, trades, draft picks. Should be an interesting offseason. Well, all of those things are hard to cover in one answer, unless I want to spend a lot of time on each one,

because you could do a whole show on each one. But as far as cuts go, why don't we try rapid fire here? As far as cuts go, I think that Delvin Cook, Eric Kendricks, and Jordan Hicks are the most likely to be cut. As far as restructures, I will say Adam Thielen, though his wife's comments certainly change things a little. But I'll say Adam Thielen, Brian O'Neill get restructured, and Daniil Hunter gets extended. As far as signings go, I just don't think you're going to be all that impressed with the signings. I can search for some names on the free agent list,

but one of the issues there is that guys re-sign with their own teams. So the free agent list right now is not going to be the whole free agent list when it comes out because the contracts run out they resign people to their own teams and then it's a little more tricky but i can i can poke around and look for some guys if you want um i came up with some cornerback the other day for a question for a friday mailbag question i can i can look who that was that I thought was a, was a clever answer, but you know, I, I think that, uh, sign as far as signings go, it's not, there's just not going

to be any big names. It's going to be very hard to find any sort of big names, uh, that end up being signings. Let me see who I was looking at the other day. It's, um, Isaiah Oliver of the Atlanta Falcons. So he's 27 years old, a former second round draft pick. His numbers are okay in a small sample size, but he's the type of guy that you take a swing on as a corner and try to see what happens. But they're going to have to re-sign some of their own guys too. Even Duke Shelley is going to want more money than he was getting before. There's just not going to be a lot of money to use there for big signings and draft picks.

I mean, your guess is as good as mine, as far as what's happening right now. Uh, so much can change before we get to the draft. We have to know what they do in free agency, what they do with cousins, all sorts of things before we have any idea. If it was me right now, I would draft a receiver because I don't think there's anything more unstoppable in this world than two great wide receivers on a team. And you don't have to look any farther than the Philadelphia Eagles with Devante Smith and AJ Brown. Those guys have made Jalen Hurts, and I'm sure it's hard work on his part as well, but they've played a massive

role in turning him into a superstar passer where last year with Smith as a rookie and without Brown he's just okay he's below average of passing everybody ranks him 22nd or something in their quarterback rankings and then boom and again I'm sure he, but those guys played a big role. Find your Devontae Smith and rebuild the defense with later picks, with guys that you sign and take a long-term approach to that. But they already spent a lot on the secondary in terms of draft capital. See what happens there. I'm not saying you shouldn't draft defense, but if you're going to win anything, you're going to have to have somebody to go along with Jefferson.

And way too often we saw this year teams just doubled up on Jefferson in the biggest, you know, the biggest games, the good teams were able to do that and sometimes slow him down. And he's, he's still had one of the great seasons ever, but come on.

I mean, like the giants were able to do it. The Packers were able to do it early in the season. We saw Detroit do it. So you know that next year, that's what you're going to get. You need another person who is a legitimate deep threat who can go down the field and scare teams. I don't see that from Thielen. I don't see that from KJ Osborne and my banging of the receiver drum for the 11 D billionth year in a row will probably go unheard. But that would be how I would approach it.

Certainly a future edge rusher, or if they were to move Daniel Hunter again, I don't think that's likely. But if they were to do that, then edge rusher corner, just don't make it a linebacker interior pass rusher. It's been a while. Has been a while. And they haven't had a good defense since their interior pass rushers left. Just saying. So I guess there it is.

Like there's the fastest way I can possibly run through that. That I think they should look for as far as free agents. Cheap guys who are 26 or 27. They should look to move on from as many of the older players as they possibly can. And, you know, then, then see what happens from there. But they're going to have some difficult decisions with players like Harrison Smith and Adam Thielen, because it's not like they were so bad that it's that easy. Like Delvin Cook to me, it's super easy. You just move on.

Don't worry about it. Hicks is the same thing. Like the linebacker, this is a running back. These guys are the most replaceable players there is. But this is a wide receiver and this is a star safety. And if you're a new defensive coordinator and you come in and Quasey says, we'd love to have you, but we're getting rid of Daniil Hunter and Harrison Smith.

I'm not taking the job. I'm like, no way. You're not getting rid of my best assets. That's another consideration that has to be brought up here. And Thielen, as much as it seems like he's unhappy with his target share to get 70 receptions is definitely worth whatever cap hit $11 million cap it. If that's what they can change it to, that's worth it. And he's still effective as a possession receiver. It's just that they need that other guy and how they're going to get it. It's really only through the draft that they could, but if they

straight up just get rid of Adam Thielen, well, it creates a little more cap space, but not a ton. I don't know that there's a great argument for just straight up saying goodbye. Harrison Smith may be a little better, but even then he's got more dead cap than you save cap. And they might just prefer to move some money and restructure with him. I think that those guys, there's a better chance that those guys end up staying. So there's your like super quick run through trades. I don't know. There's a million trade scenarios that we could think of, but let's think of the actual trades and look, it could go crazy. I don't know, because I don't know what Kwesi's thinking.

They could go nuts. They could trade all sorts of stuff. But let's like think about the trades they actually made from last year. Jalen Rager, Ross Blacklock, they traded down in the draft. You know, I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't any like big monster trade other than TJ Hawkinson for a second round pick at the deadline. That one kind of fell into their lap. But other than that, the offseason trades were not that exciting. So this year could go different. It's just hard to see at this moment, unless Cousins tells them absolutely five-year deal or nothing or trade me right now, then things get crazy. And the same thing goes for Hunter.

If he says five years, I'm the most expensive defensive end in the league, outside linebacker or whatever, or trade me, then, you know, got to see what's out there and got to take a first round pick for him. Get an Ed Drescher in the draft instead. There's all sorts of options. I mean, you're right to say that it should be an interesting offseason. And as I try to answer these questions, well, what are they going to do with this or that? And it's like, well, let me lay out the options for you. There's a million

with all of these things. Um, so, you know, every one of those things, cuts, restructures, signings, trades, drafts, they all are their own kind of can of worms that we're going to sort through as we go along. And we'll just have to find out how they end up playing it. But options all over the place. This question comes from David. Fans only question for you. Can you test processing speed through neuropsychological testing? Do teams have sports psychologists that can do this for draft picks?

I hear over and over how processing speed is so important for quarterbacks. It makes sense regarding split-second decisions when routes develop. Oh, I mean, they've got all sorts of things. Now, I'm not privy to everything because teams keep a lot of it internal for what they do for trying to test players and test quarterbacks,

for how quick they react to things. I know that one is showing a player something on the board and then going out to the field or into the field house or whatever and going through it and seeing if they remember the reads and stuff like that. They try to do that at the senior bowl where they teach them the basics of an offense, and then they have to remember it in the Senior Bowl. But there's just no way to simulate it. And there's even, I don't know if they actually do this,

but I remember Case Keenum did something with virtual reality where he, I don't know, put on a virtual reality mask or something. And you'd be able to see, it must be some program where you can see where you're supposed to throw the ball and the players running and reads and whatever. I don't know. There's nothing in this world that can simulate playing quarterback. In my opinion, there's no tests. There's no grades. There's almost nothing in college. Truly, like playing college to the NFL is like playing slow pitch softball to Major League Baseball. It's so different.

It's so wildly different. And think about this. If you are a great college quarterback, let's say you start for two years. How many good teams did you face? How many NFL players did you face? How many NFL players did you face? How many NFL type defenses did you face? The answer is really none. But I mean, how many even NFL future good players did you face?

And then you get to the league and you're going up against stars at every position every week. I mean, not every position, but you know what I mean? Like several, every team has some great pass rusher. Every team has a good corner. Every team has great receivers or whatever. And there's not enough offensive linemen in this world to block for anybody. One or two teams a year have a great offensive line and everybody else just struggles along. How can you ever simulate that? How could you simulate leadership, the ability to convey messages to your team, even just to your offense, get everybody lined up properly, have everyone on the same page and running the routes they're supposed to run and all those

things. I mean, there is just almost no way. And I guess how I've looked at it is in recent years, I've tried to put aside even like skill sets, because if someone's going in the first round, I just assume that they have a good enough arm to go in the first round, good enough accuracy. And I only kind of look at how they carry themselves in college. And I look for guys that might bust because of that. And, you know, Baker Mayfield is kind of a good example that he was very immature in college, had problems there and busted out because of it. Johnny Manziel, things like that. But even then, like, it's not a perfect, it's not a perfect way of doing it.

But I think that relating to other people, relating to your coaches, that's another thing. It's not just, I mean, processing is very important, but there's so much to the job. Processing, I think, is a way of describing when you drop back and you see things going at a thousand miles an hour in front of you, can you anticipate where you're supposed to go with the ball, what the defense is going to do what's going to happen one millisecond before it happens to be able to get rid of the football and i just everything is so there in college it's so open there's so much time when i watch college football my brain breaks because the quarterbacks just sit there, drop back, sit there, sit there, sit there,

find somebody wide open. And it's not their fault, but that makes it really hard to know what it's going to be like when it's like one, two, gone. And that's why I was very impressed with Brock Purdy right from the outset in his first game with San Francisco. I was like, wait a minute, he gets rid of the ball. Like he hits the back foot and the ball's out. Like you don't see that very often, but you don't really know until they're at the NFL level. And Brock Purdy is a great example of that. If the league knew how fast that guy was able to process, I mean, they would have picked him way higher, but he didn't have that great of numbers. He's not that tall. Like, and even then, I mean, a lot of times these guys play with bad programs who are coached

poorly or just don't have a lot of talent around them or whatever. And it's so hard to figure it out. And then there are some guys like Josh Allen, who I don't know that he does process that fast. And I don't know if he ever really has, but he could just unleash insane laser beams. So there's a million different ways to succeed at quarterback, and that's what makes it so interesting. But whatever testing they're doing, they haven't gotten that much more accurate than they ever

were. And there's still Brock Purdy's slipping through the cracks, and you're still having the guys who are drafted as the third quarterback be the best quarterback and all sorts of things. And even then, like Daniel Jones, one week we think he's getting $40 million a year. The next week we think that he's going to be out on the street. So much changes with that position week to week. It's hard.

But I'm sure that they have all sorts of different ways of testing these guys. It's just that still, I don't know that there's anything that's ever going to tell us what it's like to play quarterback in the NFL. And that's why it's always so scary for the Vikings. They've always had Kirk and they know exactly what he is. And I think that that's always frightened them. Last year, I heard somebody say like, well, who are we going to get? That's better than Kirk. And my answer is, and was at the time, like, I don't know somebody cheaper though. Like, are you going to get somebody who's better than Kirk?

Who knows? You never know if you, like, we don't know if Kenny Pickett, who the Vikings passed on, if he could become better or not. We have no idea. We never did at the time. And if he does, we could look back and be like, well, what did you guys miss on that one? That, you know, you decided you didn't want Kenny Pickett and somebody else thought he was good, but nobody knows. The Steelers didn't know at the time. They might've liked them a ton. They didn't know. They just took a guy because they had to, and they took the one that they liked the most.

And now they're going to see what happens. And I still have no idea if Kenny Pickett's going to be good or not. The point just being that, you know, that's been always, I think something that's held back the Vikings from making a change at quarterback and continue to run cousins back out there at his high price. And he's always known that. And his agent has always known that is that he sets a pretty darn high bar. It's not easy to play better than Kirk Cousins as an NFL quarterback.

And a lot of the guys who get drafted are not able to do it. So that's what, that's what scared them. I think a lot from making a change and into continually giving him huge contract extensions because they know how wrong they can be. They know how hard this is. I know for a fact that teams had Kellen Mond, some teams had Kellen Mond ahead of Justin Fields. Some scouts had that. I know for a fact that that's happened. That just tells you how difficult it is. This question comes from Tanner. I've been thinking about this for a while, listening to many smart football people talk

about this, and it's made me wonder how much owner interference has led to the Vikings persistent run it back approach. This kind of patch up the weak spots and let's go perspective. I think it really gets pinned on the owners. It's persistent through multiple iterations of the team, new coaches, GMs and players, and the Wilfs never seem to want to take a step back. I just don't understand it. How can a fan have hope for a new front office and head coach when the most

important big picture decisions are being foolishly made by owners who want to keep their ticket sales up? Yeah. I don't think it's even about ticket sales for the owners. I think they've just always gotten talked into it. You know how we play our game. We play our game. Talk me into it. I think that they've always gotten talked into it throughout the Spielman and Zimmer era. And then after that whole thing went down, then they, well, let's, let's rewind. So think about like the Vikings brass gets here. It's Spielman and Zimmer together, 2014 Zimmer arrives, and he rebuilds it to the point where by 2016, they have a division win. They've got a bunch

of young talent on rookie contracts, and they know those players are going to get expensive within the next couple of years. The Anthony Barr, the Stefan Diggs, you know, so forth that helped them win the division in 2015. So they go all in with Sam Bradford. And then 2017, even when Bradford gets hurt, they're really, really good NFC championship. And of course, after that, they weren't going to say, you know what? I think that we should really just take a step back here and expect regression. Of course not. They were going to think we're going to be right back with Kirk.

And in some ways it's not, it's just like a classic thing. We always say is it's not Kirk's fault, but like it wasn't Kirk's fault that he missed out on the best year if he was here for 2017 who knows like maybe they do go all the way I've always wondered if Teddy Bridgewater never got hurt if 2017's the year or if Bradford never got hurt like all of those guys would have had a chance to go, but you know, it was case and eventually the magic ran out for him. But after that 2018 and 19, they had so much talent left over. They had to go all in. And I think after they won the playoff game, ownership got convinced that they were close

because of that and said, congratulations, pat on the back to Kirk. You can win in the playoffs, Kirk. And I remember Spielman saying like, Hey, Kirk proved that he can win in the playoffs by winning that game against new Orleans. And I think they bought into that, but why would Spielman and Zimmer be making that argument? Because their contracts were up and that's why. And it's self-preservation a lot of times in the NFL. So they're making that argument. They talked the ownership into it. And then after 2020, well, look at the second half of the year. Look how close we are. It's just a couple of players on defense. So they go out, they get Michael Pierce, they add a Patrick Peterson. All right,

we got our players on defense. And, you know, of course it goes the way that it goes and they fall apart. But I think that after the playoff win and winning 10 games that year, it opened the door for them to say, we're close and yes, we're going to lose some talent, but those guys were getting older anyway. And all we need to do is X, Y, and Z Z and we've drafted young players. So they got talked into it and we'll always still got this guy and we've got, you know, this exciting young, uh, receiver that we just drafted and everything else. Okay. So it's a reset year, 2021. That's really our year. All right. Okay. Uh, so you could see how that's how they would continue to buy into that and how

that playoff game really sent them off in that direction. So then what they hear from the players and just imagine you're them, that you're the owners and the players come to you, Patrick Peterson, Adam Thielen, Eric Kendricks, all these experienced players. And they say, look, here's what we need to win. We need a coach that believes in us a little more and treats us the right way. And we need a training staff that's a little more modern, keep us healthy, which was impressive this year. They did very well with that. We need a new culture where we are allowed to be ourselves a little bit more and

that we bond together. And that's how we'll win those games at the end that we lost, that were close. We just need that change. Give us a couple of more guys in free agency and let us compete. I mean, it's kind of compelling, isn't it? If you put yourself in their shoes, it's kind of compelling. For us, it's you just have, if you put yourself in their shoes, it's kind of compelling for us. It's a little more easy to look at the big picture. And we've all read football outsiders of PFF for so long and baseball perspectives back in the day. And we kind of know all the numbers on all these things. And we, we look at timelines and other teams and everything else. But I think as the owners, you have these players who you would assume are the smartest football people in the world telling you this is all they need.

And then, and this is why I have a real tough time seeing a full reset here. And then they win 13 games and they go to the playoffs and they're close. They're within a touchdown, but they lose because of the defense. So they say, well, it was just the defensive coordinator and just a couple of more players. That's all we need. That's we're that close. And if you're the owners, again, you might say, well, okay, I can see it. And that's where, that's where I think you have to, I guess, put it on the leadership of the team to make the argument that really ruthless decisions need to be made and harsh decisions need to be made

to actually have that reset. And I do think that like the, the 2019 to 2020 team, I mean, they did move digs and they drafted Jefferson and they drafted two cornerbacks. And so they were trying to do that to some extent. It just really didn't work out outside of Justin Jefferson. But I think that's how we got here. Like, I don't know for sure that the Wilfs are completely against this, this reset. I think it's more of been every time you got to the end of the year, there was always a reason and there was always a, all we need to do is this, and then we'll get there. And you might end up hearing that again. I don't know. Or they might say five years, one playoff win. The sample size is big enough. Let's try to do something

else. I guess we'll find out. We'll really find out. And I think that they were justified by the winning total this year to run it all back. But there's definitely another interpretation when you look at who they really were on paper and how the season finished and how the Giants season finished. And maybe that changes it. Like for an ownership that seems to kind of teeter a little bit on these things, maybe they look at what happened with the Giants and then how the Giants lost to Philly and said, you know what, we actually weren't that close. We weren't as good as that record is

and we have to do something a little more drastic. But that 13 wins, if you do something drastic, a lot of fans are going to be like, what? And I don't mean you guys. I feel like we have the smartest listener listenership in the world that understands these big picture concepts in such a great way. And it's really shows in these fans only questions. It's just that they're going to be worried about what the fans think. They're going to be worried that if they were to move

on from a bunch of players that just won 13 games, that fans are going to be like, what? What do you mean you're getting rid of these guys? How are we doing this? I tend to give fans more credit than that and think that Vikings fans want to aim for the Super Bowl, not for a first round out. But, you know, fan perception is a thing that owners care about a lot. So I don't know if that answers the question.

I just think that there was always a reason why they couldn't really do it. And even if some of us were saying, hey, now's the time and now's the time and now's the time, you could see why they would. And look, I mean, even if Kevin O'Connell came in and you hired him, you wanted to get a really good candidate. You wanted to get a candidate from a Super Bowl winning team to come to you. And it's pretty hard to be like, oh, so when you get here, what we're going to do is get rid of the quarterback who you know and is good. And also get rid of a bunch of other guys because of the cap. Welcome to the team. Like you could see where that would be difficult.

Now, a year under his belt, he's proven he could do the job. Maybe it's different. We'll see. I'm having a hard time getting there. I know you guys are hearing that in my answers. I'm having a hard time buying it that they'll actually do it because there's always a reason. But I think when you put yourself in their shoes a little bit, it makes more sense. It doesn't fully justify not doing things like getting another receiver.

It doesn't justify things like spending actual money on another defensive tackle who stuffs the run and a linebacker. And like those things matter to those things matter. Like we can pin a lot on the wool, uh, on the Wilfs, uh, for the overall direction and never really taking that step back. That might've been necessary. You can definitely do that for why the team got to a point where they couldn't really beat the giants, even though they were completely healthy. Uh, but also the way in which they use the assets that they had, there's a lot of opportunities missed there as well through the draft. If Spielman drafts even a little bit better, if they use some of their assets that they

created space a little bit better, then maybe we're not talking about this. If they didn't make a terrible hire at defensive coordinator. Maybe you're a little bit closer. Like there's, there's other blame to go around, uh, for why things didn't work out than just the owners and the timeline, um, for these last five years, lots of blame to go around. Okay. This question comes from J R G on Twitter. Hey, Matt, I have a question for the fans only series. Why is Ed Donatel being scapegoated? This defense was awful with Zimmer, who is considered a great defensive coordinator. At what point do we blame these old players who cannot keep up? Kendrick's trailing running backs

by seven yards on every swing route. I will be listening. Well, thanks for listening as always. Yeah, no, I feel you. I feel you. I think that with every thing, when it comes to the defense, it was everyone, everyone was wrong and bad. And the fact that they would not be aggressive, the fact that they didn't change up the coverages, the fact that they didn't make adaptations. But I would say though, that I think this defense was more talented than what Zimmer had last year. Bashad Breeland was not on this team.

Patrick Peterson played better this year than he did before. And Z'Darrius Smith and Daniil Hunter were here and they weren't last year. It was maybe, what, less than half of the season that Everson Griffin was at 100% and then playing with Daniil Hunter. And when was the defense at its worst for the Vikings last year? Kind of down the stretch, right? When they didn't have those guys.

I think that Zimmer got the same out of worse than what Ed Donatell did. And so it's not exactly apples to apples, if you will. If you gave Mike Zimmer, Zedarius Smith Smith and Daniil Hunter the way that they played this year and they played every game, oh, they're not ranking as bad as they did in 2021. I have no doubt about that. They were running out like all sorts of guys. I mean, there were guys who I had never heard of before that were playing in actual games like in San Francisco.

And they were getting some stops sometimes. I think Zimmer probably got as much as he possibly could. They had 50 sacks last year, if I recall correctly, as much as he could. But his fatal mistake was playing Bashad Breeland. And Mackenzie Alexander was horrendous. That was really bad signing to bring him back. That didn't work out at all. But teams just kept targeting Breland over and over again.

And I think he should have just bit the bullet and played Cam Dantzler from the beginning. But you understood why, as you saw Dantzler once again lose his job to somebody this year. I think that Zimmer was justified on a lot of things this year, as well as also proven that some of the stuff that he was doing wrong, you know, with the locker room and everything else, but other things were the same challenges that O'Connell and Donatello ran into. Somebody has to fall on the sword. And I think it's going to be everybody. I mean, everybody, but the head coach and GM are of course, who didn't take any responsibility. But when you talk about the players, there'll be a lot of different players. And I think that they know that a lot of those guys are at fault as well,

and they have slowed down as well. And you just can't have it go the way that it did and bring back the defensive coordinator and just have no one end up being the person who gets blamed for it. That's just not how anything tends to work in the NFL. But yeah, I mean, I think if, if Zimmer has this defense himself, it's, it's better.

It's probably quite a bit better, but it's only like 20th, right? I mean, it's, it was never going to be great with the way that they had it. I, I just think that Donatello fell short in a lot of areas,

but the biggest was you played the Giants already and the Giants did not have a good offense. No one can ever argue to me they had a good offense. They had a bad offense. This was not Aaron Rodgers with Devontae Adams shredding the Vikings. And again, like schedule matters, quarterbacks matter when you compare the two. Aaron Rodgers had two huge games against the Vikings and won MVP and had Devontae Adams. Like that didn't happen this year. They played barely any good quarterbacks this year. And still those guys were able to shred them. They didn't make adjustments.

They didn't have a very good game plan against the Giants. There's so many reasons that Ed Donatel was responsible for what happened. And so many players had their worst years, even guys that shouldn't be considered completely washed. So, yep, a lot of blame, a lot of blame, a lot of blame when it comes to the defense. But that's a hire I think that they probably regretted. But, you know, let me say this to your point though. Ed Donatello was the defensive coordinator for the Broncos. And I know Fangio was the guy calling the shots, but he was the defensive coordinator for the Broncos the year

before. And they were third in points. And so it's, you know, hindsight would go, Hey, why'd you hire this guy or whatever? They were third in points. They had a great defense the year before. And you know, sometimes it's, it's, it's hard to figure out, but it usually is the players to your point. And someone always gets scapegoated. Such is life in the national football league.

But I think that they can find somebody who can do better and someone who's more willing to adjust. That's the name of the game. It always has been always in forever. I think Zimmer was great at it that you have to adapt your defense to what's going on. And Donatello did not do that when they played teams for the second time, they got absolutely slaughtered by the lions when they played them the second time, the Packers, and then, you know, the, the giants. And that was really to me, and then, you know, the, the Giants. And that was

really to me, the, the final, you know, nail in the coffin. So, but you know, no doubt, no doubt, a scapegoating, as you said, and a lot of changes need to be made on that side of the ball. Okay. This one comes from Alex. Since Mike Zimmer started 2014, we've seen Teddy Bridgewater, Sean Hill, Sam Bradford, random shoutouts to Taylor Heineke, Kyle Slaughter, Case Keenum, and Kirk Cousins. Did Kyle Slaughter, was he ever active for a game with the Vikings? I don't think so. Maybe he was. Yeah, maybe he was. Let's see. With Kirk Cousins nearing 36 years old and no clear off-ramp for this competitive window the organization is obviously clinging to will we ever see Kwesi under the wheels get a chance to finally rebuild this thing

I've been looking forward to the post Kirk Cousins era for a few seasons now but now I'm worried that we're getting another veteran quarterback after him and the cycle continues on when ownership dictates you compete every year they hire people that agree with that assertion that they can be competitive now uh-huh not ryan pulls uh i'm worried that my favorite team is never going to actually hit the reset button and be stuck in nfl purgatory for decades to come am i crazy to fear this team is stuck in another dimension as far as the best way to compete in this era of the NFL. Decades is a lot. So I wouldn't say that you should be afraid of decades. I mean, cause whoever really knows or that we should feel at all certain about what's coming after Kirk Cousins,

whenever that might be. That's just so up in the air right now that if you told me a few months from now, they're going to draft quarterback, I would say, oh, okay, well, that seems about right with the timeline and where they sit right now. And if you told me that they extended Cousins for five years, I guess I wouldn't be surprised either way. If they extend him for five years, it's going to be very tough to argue that you're escaping purgatory because this was such a good version of Kirk Cousins over the last few years and asking him to be better is a hard thing to do. Even, you know, you could say, well, another receiver, a better defense. And if he plays the

same, but you can't capture the man in time and hold onto him and say this version from this year, we just need to put that in. Cause I mean, gosh, if that was in 2017, then wow, it would have, you know, probably been a championship team, but you can't do that. Uh, the version that they have right now won't be the same as two years from now or next year. And that's what always makes those arguments hard. Like, oh, well, we'll just draft some more and we'll add to this, but you're always losing from something else when you're adding. And that whack-a-mole game is never quite ever hit for this team. So if they do that, then it's going to be a little bit of a tricky argument to figure out how it's going to work around him. Let's assume that they don't though. And it's a

short-term extension or no extension at all. I think that you're looking at drafting a quarterback as the clear cut best way to build the roster. And with Kweisi Adafo-Mensah, I just can't imagine that this has been lost on him when you look around and see what's happened. And, you know, they could try after Cousins to get somebody else because there's always quarterbacks coming on the market now.

But you don't want to end up like the Saints where you're going, uh, let's see, James Winston, like that'll be okay, right? Like you don't want to be the Colts who are, oh, well, it worked with Phillip Rivers. Let's get Carson Wentz. Oh, let's get Matt Ryan. You don't want to be those teams.

You want to be the teams that draft the quarterback, put everything around them and have a chance and have a chance that that player could become great. And even if they're good, then you're likely to get an opportunity if you play your cards right. I mean, the Jets this year had absolutely horrific quarterback play and were on the doorstep of the playoffs. If they had even had decent quarterback play from Zach Wilson and they're the, they're always the, the most terrifying situation is a team that drafts a couple of guys hasn't, doesn't work out. They don't make the playoffs for a long time.

That's what everyone is afraid of when it comes to moving on from Kirk Cousins. To me, it's, you have to keep swinging because you'll never hit a home run if you don't step to the plate. That's the way I have always seen this. It's not my team or my money. So that's where it becomes a little more tricky than if it's the Wilfs. But I always think you are not that far away from in the NFL being at the top. And I guess all off season long, I'll have to keep coming back to

Philadelphia. I'll try to think of some other examples. How about Baltimore? Baltimore is a good example of this. Let's take a look. Where were they at the end of Joe Flacco? Because it wasn't that great, right? Like they were pretty competitive from year in to year out at the end of Flacco. I'm going to take a look here. When was Flacco done? 2018. So 2000, okay, this is, here's a good example. Flacco, 2017 Flacco is nine and seven and was okay, not that great, but still Baltimore went nine and seven.

The year before eight and eight, they were a pretty mediocre team for a while with Flacco after that Superbowl. And then 2018 is when they drafted Lamar Jackson in the 2018 draft before that season after Flacco had just gone nine and seven. And then after that, now look, they haven't won a Superbowl, but my gosh, they've been a dominant team since then. And they've been like Superbowl caliber every year. They go into the season thinking they can win a Superbowl since they got Lamar Jackson. And that was the middling of the middling list. Let me see. What's that 2017 Baltimore team like ninth

in points for sixth and points against, oh, they should have actually done better than nine and seven that season. Uh, yeah, they're expected win loss was closer to ten and six i mean think about that that's a really good team that's a very good team but they still drafted lamar jackson because they knew there had to be another level to this thing uh and it worked out for them i mean the chargers moved on from philip rivers of course he was old but he still played in the league and had a good season after that. There are teams who have done this and it's been pretty seamless. It doesn't always have to get ugly. And if you play your cards right, you can make it work. So when you say like decades and things like that, I don't look at it that way. I always think you're one at the quarterback position, particularly you're one big move away or one great draft away from having your team bounce right back up to the top.

I mean, even even from that perspective and this this would go under the like and I don't think that Cousins is as good as Dak Prescott, but like it's probably sort of close. You know, Dallas is a good example of this where Dallas had a couple of years where they were pretty mediocre and they had the draft where they get CD lamb and then they get, you know, Micah Parsons in the next year. And all of a sudden, like everything looks different when you get some of those superstars, but that's a hard thing to do, but you're always kind of one draft away. So I don't think that it has to be decades necessarily. It just has to be something to be that sparking point. It's, I think it's easier to get one quarterback in the draft

that works out than it is to get three or four superstars like a CeeDee Lamb or like a Micah Parsons or, you know, they've had other players emerge as really great players on both sides of the ball there. And Prescott is a really good quarterback, but you know, that that's kind of how the league works though, right? Is those are the only two ways you can do it. Either your quarterback is amazing and you build everything around him through the draft or you have the young quarterback and you hope he works out and you build everything around him. And the Vikings are sitting in the middle now for sure. That does not mean they have to.

And I've just, I'm going to give this as much patience as we can with Kweisi Adafo-Mensah, just giving him the benefit of the doubt that he has to be aware of these things or why else would they have hired him, right? If you're not aware of what wins in the NFL, you don't get hired to be a GM, right? So I've got to figure that there is a plan to get them on one of those tracks toward being a great team. I have to think that, and that's what makes this a little different than maybe the previous era where it really seemed like it was self-preservation. They are not in self-preservation mode after this year.

If anything, they've bought a lot of goodwill for the future and that could help them. So no, I wouldn't say that your team is likely to be stuck lot of goodwill for the future and that could help them. So no, I wouldn't say that your team is likely to be stuck in purgatory for the next 60 years or something. It's always around the corner in the NFL and you just got to find it. All right. That's it for now, as far as your questions go. But like I mentioned at the beginning of the show, we'll be back tomorrow with a whole other episode of fans only

because the file is still full. But if you want to send your questions, I'm getting too many of them now that we are in the off season. So send your questions, go to purpleinsider.com, use the contact us, or you can DM to me at Matthew collar on Twitter and I'll throw it in the file and try my best to make sure I get to it. So really appreciating these. You guys find a way to come at this from so many different angles. It makes me think about this team in different ways. Every time I do a fans only episode. So keep sending those questions. I really enjoy doing

these shows and we will talk to you next time.