Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What would a Vikings QB draft pick mean for the future? A Fans Only pod

Episode Date: April 13, 2022

Matthew Coller answers Vikings fans' questions, including about a scenario that would have the Vikings drafting a quarterback. Would Kirk Cousins be extra motivated? Why does Cousins have a no-trade clause? Rank these ridiculous things that have happened in Vikings history... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collars here, and this is a fans-only podcast where we take fan questions from Twitter and emails. Now I'm getting some emails. Thank you guys who went to purpleinsider.com and emailed me your fans-only questions there. So we got a few of those, and we discuss and break down whatever is on your minds. And as usual, I have copied and pasted the questions into a file, but I have not read them or thought about them yet. So we do it on the fly, instant reactions to everything, and we do it with the help of a little Diet Dr. Pepper. So let's get it started here and get right into your questions. All right. Our first question comes from Eric Vikes fan 28, Matt. I know the situation has been discussed recently on the pod, but if the Vikings drafted a quarterback in round one, could it have the same effect as the Packers drafting Jordan

love piss off Kirk cousins. He plays with fire for one year, then request a trade. It works for everyone. Well, I guess I would say, I mean, a few things here. I don't think that there's much in common between Aaron Rodgers and Kirk Cousins. Like Aaron Rodgers also gets the benefit of that narrative that he was fired up and he gets to act like he was Michael Jordan and he took it as a slight. So he went out and won MVP where now maybe this is similar to Kirk. I mean, a new coach coming in, Matt LaFleur was absolutely vital to Aaron Rogers, um, continuing to play at a very high level and taking it even to another level to be

back-to-back MVPs. But also, I mean, that roster kind of came together in the last couple of years that even though, you know, they had some injuries and we talked about how they didn't have number two receivers. I mean, Devante Adams was absolutely incredible the last few years. They had mostly, not always, not always, but mostly in the majority of the last few years since drafting Jordan Love, very good offensive line play. They loaded up their defense with Zadarius and Preston Smith. They drafted Jair Alexander. Aaron Jones became one of the best receiving running backs in the NFL. I think that a lot came together to make that narrative come true that Aaron Rodgers had taken it as a slight and played with some extra focus

or whatever it might've been. Also, he may have just been extremely unhappy with Mike McCarthy. And again, that might be the case with Kirk cousins, where if he plays better, uh, under Kevin O'Connell, we could say, well, look, they drafted this quarterback and Kirk was fired up when possibly it was just that they got a new coach in a better system. Uh system and that could have done it as well. I don't know that that's Kirk's personality anyway. He's never struck me as that guy. I think that what he aims to be is the very even-keeled type of quarterback who he's always talking about, you know, not too high, not too low, which is an NFL cliche.

But I think he tries to do that. And he's never done the stuff that Aaron Rodgers has done. He's never bit back at the critics. He's never gone on a Pat McAfee show and gone on huge rants about defending his political beliefs or anything else like that. I don't think that he has that same level of uh you could call it competitiveness or you could call it pettiness that aaron rogers has but there isn't that internal fire to prove everyone wrong inside of kirk cousins that we see at least ever expressed outwardly and i mean if he was going to be slighted and then go out there and light the world on fire it would have been last year like don't forget that kellen mond even though now in hindsight it looks ridiculous when he was

drafted it was viewed the same way is this kirk cousins replacement remember rg3 laughing at kirk cousins on draft night because the Vikings drafted Kellen Mond. If, if all of the criticism that Kirk Cousins has faced and his head coach pushing back against him constantly and making it clear to the public that he didn't trust him and the team trying to trade up for Justin Fields last year, and then drafting a mobile quarterback and talking about how much they love the mobility of Kellen Mond. If things like that have not changed Kirk Cousins at all to suddenly light a fire under him or whatever else, then I don't think anything really will. I think he is who he is. I mean, the other part is too, that it's just worth saying over and over how old he is. He's 34 years old.

I mean, that is absolutely crazy to think about because he hasn't been starting for that that long, but he's 34 years old. I mean, asking him to be different in any way, I think is a lot. Think about this. Remember how old Chris Chandler looked on the 1998 Falcons? Remember that? Like his hair, you know, was fading,

his whatever you call it, the hairline. And he looked like he was 100 years old. Chris Chandler was 33 that year when he went to the Super Bowl with the Atlanta Falcons. So, you know, I guess what I'm saying is just that I think if anything, you draft a quarterback to see if it works to have that player on the bench. And then when you get to next year and cousins has the no trade, what you would say to him is, and I know there are some other questions about this. Uh, so I won't say too much about it, but what you would say to him is, look, we're not signing

you to a contract extension. We're going to turn it over to Kenny Pickett, Desmond Ritter, Matt Corral, whoever it might be. And do you want to be traded to a place that will give you another two, three year contract extension that needs a quarterback. And if that's the case, then he would probably say yes to have another extension, to have stability, to make more guaranteed money and not be playing year to year into his late thirties. That's more of the formula than he's going to be different because he's upset. He's had plenty of

reasons to be upset throughout the years. And he's pretty much be different because he's upset. He's had plenty of reasons to be upset throughout the years, and he's pretty much played the same way, which I just wanted to add that I have actually a great amount of respect for Cousins when it comes to this, because no matter how many times we've seen a down game get absolutely destroyed by the national media, Cousins choked, he can't win, whatever else. He's not good on Monday night, which was always kind of a goofy criticism of him. But it used to be brought up constantly until he won a couple of times on Monday night.

And then it stopped being brought up because it was always a small sample thing or his teams were weaker, whatever. So the whole point is just that he's always kind of dealt with this sort of thing. His team in Washington, not believing him in him, his head coach here, not believing in him. And it, he's just been the same guy. And I think that it's an admirable trait to be the same guy, because if you need a draft pick to motivate you, then I'm not sure that's really good.

This comes from Eric O4 and a bunch of other numbers on Twitter. Tell me Derek Stingley Jr. isn't going to be injury prone with his foot. I'm nervous. He slides and the Vikings take him and he's hurt all the time. Well, what I would say about that is there is absolutely no predicting whatsoever ever in a million years how injuries from college or lack of injuries will translate into the nfl there just isn't i wish there was i wish that i had all their

medical information by the way and that i could look over it and we could report on it and talk about you know is this injury serious and maybe we could even call medical experts and ask them, but they don't post it on Twitter, what Derek Stingley's x-rays and whatever else looked like. So that one's really hard for me to say, but I have seen players in the past. And here's a good example, Mike Hughes, who had no red flags whatsoever when it came to the medicals. And then he tears his ACL right off the bat. He comes back from tearing the ACL, starts to play okay, and then has this neck injury and then has it again. And that's it for his career, goes to Kansas city, plays basically the whole season. And then he becomes a sought after free agent. So I don't know. I'm not sure

how sought after he really was. Has he found a new home? I don't know why I a sought after free agent. So I don't know. I'm not sure how sought after he really was. Has he found a new home? I don't know why I said sought after. But let's see. Has he found a new home? He might still be a free agent. Okay. No, he signed with Detroit.

Oh, of course. All right. I know what you're all thinking when I say he signed with Detroit. I know what you're, I'm not even gonna say it because I know what you're thinking. But the whole point is that Mike Hughes had no injury issues whatsoever coming out of college that I remember. And we never discussed it. It was entirely, is this the right corner to pick? Is he too small for Zimmer? What can he do right away for the team? We never talked about the possibility that it would come apart injury wise. And there are other guys who had

injuries in college that we talked about. This guy was coming off this, or this guy was coming off that, and it never came to fruition. And sometimes it does. So I guess I don't have a good answer for you. But I would say that I think with Derek Stingley, that I know that there are questions also about, did he play well in 2020? Did he play well in 2021? And his numbers weren't as good as they used to be. And we're still going off of something from a couple of years ago. I think what you do in the draft,

if you're trying to be smart about it, is you don't focus too much on the small sample size things. And you don't focus too much on the small sample size things and you don't focus too much on production all the time. That I think that focusing on what a player can do at the NFL level, how they match up, what their skill set is, what their talents are and how that compares is probably better. And you cross check that with production and it certainly makes you go, hmm, when you look at the 2020 and 2021 in those small samples, but the bigger sample

of his entire college career is great numbers because of how good 2019 was. So if the Vikings pick him, I know there will be questions about his injuries and I know there will be questions about his injuries. And I know there will be questions about the, the quote unquote tape, um, on, on Stingley jr. But I think that what his traits would suggest is he's the type of corner that they really, really need. He's somebody that might have the high end potential to be an Island corner, to be a shutdown type of player. And if they pick that, I don't think there will be a, you know, a celebration outside of us bank stadium, but I do think it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be a move that I would immediately jump to question because he had some injuries and because he didn't play as well in the small sample size, because you're really drafting for what, what does this guy do? Like, what is his high end capabilities? And can he reach that? Um, and every guy has question marks

about whether he can reach that once you get past the first couple of picks. And even then sometimes the first couple of picks are a disaster. Uh, so you take a guy that might have a high ceiling early in the draft, and then you, you know, hold your breath. That's every single draft pick more or less. Uh, all right, let's get to some other questions here. So I guess what I'm saying is that I would be a complimentary of the Derek Stingley Jr. Pick, despite some of the red flags that exist.

Even when you think about last year's number 12 overall pick, Micah Parsons, I mean, what he didn't play during the COVID year, I think, or he had very limited play. And there was some off-field issue that everyone was concerned about. There was a bullying thing that went on at Penn State that there were rumors and reports of, and he was an instant superstar because of his physical traits. So I guess I think that that happens a lot where we start to question all these things about somebody. Are they healthy? Can they do this? Can they do that? They didn't have this good game or that good game. And it's a forest through the trees issue sometimes. And if Derek Stingley is drafted by the Vikings and is a bust, I guess

we can all go back and say, should have seen it coming. But I don't like to do that with draft picks that make sense. All right. Matt from email here. How are you not sponsored by Dr. Pepper? That's a great question, Dr. Pepper. Come get me, baby. Here's one. That was the whole question.

Look, I don't know. I don't know why it is Diet Dr. Pepper is so much better than a lot of the other diet sodas, but it is what it is. I don't know what it's doing to my body long-term to drink this much Diet Dr. Pepper. And if you're a doctor or scientists, don't tell me, okay? Because this is not going to change. All right, this is from Tony. Can you explain why Kirk Cousins wants a no trade clause?

What are the benefits to him for having it or the detriment for not having it? I can see wanting input on his future, but is that it? For instance, not wanting to go to the jets. What more there is missing? Yeah, I think that that's basically it. I mean, everything in a negotiation is about leverage and how much you can get. So just compare having one versus not having one. If you have a no trade clause, let's say that the Vikings go 11 and six this year. That's a realistic outcome. They go 11 and six cousins throws for 4,500 yards. Let's call it 4,800 yards has an amazing season with Kevin O'Connell. Justin Jefferson is unreal. 145 catches and they win a playoff game, but the Vikings still decide that they want to draft a quarterback in the, in the following season and trade Cousins because they think that he's not the future. Still, like the Alex Smith thing, Alex Smith led the NFL in quarterback rating

in the year that he was traded. So let's just say that that's how it goes. Let's say the Vikings somehow land Malik Willis. They still want to turn the ball over to Willis and cousins has just had this great year. He can now say, no, I want to try to win the super bowl with this team. I don't want to hand over this great team that you've built with these amazing draft picks. You took Willis and Sky Moore was an instant star and you picked a lineman who turned out to be great right away. Jesse Davis was amazing. Who knows? Amir Smith, Marset, Kenny Wongwood all came together.

We've got this incredible offense. And now you want to send me to Pittsburgh where they've got nothing or like you said, the Jets where they've just failed on another quarterback. No, I'm going to stay here and try to change the narrative on my career here and not let you send me somewhere else. That's part one. Part two would also be if the Vikings were going to trade him to a team that wanted him as a rental rather than signing him to an extension,

Cousins now has the right to be like, no, I'm not going to go be traded to wherever the Houston to be a one year quarterback for the Texans while they wait for whoever Matt Corral or something, right? Like, or whoever they would draft in, in Spencer Rattler. I don't know. Right. He would have that ability to say, I'm not going to be your bridge quarterback. The only place I'm going to go is teams X, Y, and Z who would sign me to a contract extension. I get three more years, finish out my career at that place. Oh yeah. By the way, I'm still trying to change the narrative on me as a winner. So I want to go to a team that's ready to win. Like all these things would factor into it. The other part too is like, yes, players are independent contractors,

but moving stinks for everybody. No one likes moving, not the richest NFL player and not the you or me, nobody likes to move. So I think, I mean, there, there is that part of it of like, you know, if his family is here, let's even say that he wants in the future to have a house here and have a house in Florida or something and be a snowbird after he retires and he likes the airport. I don't know. There's a lot of things that could go into that where he might say, I don't want to be traded to wherever.

I don't want to be traded to Vegas or San Francisco or whatever team might need Miami, a quarterback after this year. I want to stay here in Minnesota. And now he has the right to say that and where that makes it harder for the Vikings and where the extension is more difficult to swallow for a lot of people is that it just narrows what they can do. Otherwise, they would have been able to just say, all right, let's extend them. Let's lower the cap hit. And I think from even my viewpoint, I would have said, all right, I totally get this because Kevin O'Connell does not want to come in and have a poor quarterback. And, you know, they still think like you can't waste the year of Jefferson. You've got to give him a chance and you can't put Desmond Ritter in right away.

You know, all those things. OK, that's fine. But now they have narrowed this to the point where Cousins has all the power and say in his future. And if he wants to stay, he goes day because his agent is very good at his job and used his leverage absolutely brilliantly to get that. Okay, this one comes from R. Gonzalez and a bunch of numbers. For your fans only podcast, John DeFilippo, who has worked with Kevin O'Connell in the past, tried to bring out the best of Kirk Cousins

by putting him in lots of RPO and new schemes. It failed. What can Kevin O'Connell do to make Cousins better compared to what John DeFilippo did? Well, I have a couple of answers. I've written about this just a little bit. And one thing is, and this sounds really simple, their screen game the last two years has been horrendous. It's been so bad.

And this is, you know, we always talk about Mike Zimmer not believing in Kirk Cousins and wanting to run the ball all the time as one of the main reasons for him not maximizing everything that's there in the passing game. But also the last two seasons, I'm going to pull this up for you on pro football focus, but it's actually kind of remarkable how little success they've had in terms of throwing behind the line of scrimmage. So last year, let me get it here. It's 2020. Let me get 2021. Last year, Kirk Cousins only gained 399 yards when throwing behind the line of scrimmage, 4.5 yards per attempt. So any throw behind the line of scrimmage for Kirk Cousins was basically a handoff to Delvin Cook or worse. And that made up 16% of his passes. He had a quarterback rating of only 89.

I mean, you usually don't have huge quarterback ratings when throwing behind the line of scrimmage, but 399 yards is almost nothing. And if you go to 2019, where Kevin Stefanski was dialing up the screen game, he gained almost 600 yards and 8.1 yards per pass attempt on the screen game at about the same number of screens at about 17% of passes were screens. That's a small area where you could just be a lot better. And I mean, think about like the deep ball is what's talked about a lot. That makes up less than the screen passes do most of the time. In fact, it has all three of the last, let me just check 2020,

two out of the last three years at least. Yeah, all three of the last, let me just check 2020, two out of the last three years, at least. Yeah. All three of the last years have either been equal or more screens than balls over 20 yards. So we focus on one of them and never even think about the screens, but the screen is entirely scheme. The quarterback, I mean, I'm sure quarterbacks out there would tell me, Hey, you got to do this, that, and the other thing. And you're not wrong, but the screen is 90% just deliver the ball to where it's supposed to go. And then it's all scheme from there. So if Kevin O'Connell can even begin with that part of it, just dial up screens better for Kirk cousins. You are instantly farther ahead than you were last year. I don't know that there's, there's, there's, there's talk about the Justin Jefferson thing.

Should they move them around more and, and should they do this and they should do that? One thing is I wouldn't mess with Justin Jefferson too much. I wouldn't, as we call it on the show, you know, I wouldn't galaxy brain Justin Jefferson too much because his overall numbers are so fantastic. But, you know, the other part of it too is Jefferson, I'm going to look up here. It's so funny because he threw a couple of passes last year that he has quarterback stats for passing depth. So I'm looking up here behind the line of scrimmage for Justin Jefferson. And this is where you can just be better. It made up 13% of his targets. So he got 18 total receptions, 21 total targets, and didn't even gain a hundred yards on throws behind the line of scrimmage to Justin Jefferson. I mean, this is an area where

you can just be better as finding ways to get him the ball in that type of quick behind the line of scrimmage game and gain more yards and make life easier for cousins. So maybe you're dialing up and on second down and 10, a successful screen, as opposed to a handoff for three yards, like this could be a decent benefit. It doesn't make the difference between you and a Superbowl, but it's a small thing right there that can help you out. Now, what John DeFilippo did was he tried to do something totally different from Kirk Cousins and what he had ever done before. So I think everybody's figured out by now that Kirk Cousins is at his

best when he's getting bootlegs, when he's throwing off of the cleanest platforms and, you know, he's, he's just got things kind of laid out for him there and he's pushing the ball down the field. That's at his best. DeFilippo had him doing quick game all the time. It was reading a lot of things at the line of scrimmage, Tom Brady ish. Like that's the reason that quick game worked so well for Tom Brady for so long is he's just a line of scrimmage genius. And I don't think that that's Kirk cousins. I mean, I think he's good at it and he can handle the blitz and things like that, but, but he's not the best of all time. And what D Filippo was asking him to do was basically play like Tom Brady.

The one thing I would say in DeFilippo's defense is that it was working early on in the season. And whether it was a lack of change later on in the year or Zimmer's pressure to run the ball, it really petered out as the season went along. But then still, this goes for the narrative thing on how we kind of write it after the fact because that was kirk last year too i mean if you compare cousins in 2018 to 2021 it's a lot of similarities of a hot start good pff grades good statistics leading the league and this or that and then as the season went along, he faded. And some injuries and some offensive line struggles.

And that's kind of how it's gone. So I do think that Cousins will be in a play action and bootleg and things like that type of offense with O'Connell. And they'll just pass a little bit more efficiently and maybe try to help them with a few scheme things. But I always do come back to this. There's always this push and pull with cousins where when he's not throwing the ball enough, we always want him to throw more. It's like Zimmer dealt with this last year, you know, when he was throwing it short and playing conservative

and not getting sacked, Zimmer wanted him to push the ball down the field more. But when he pushed the ball down the field more, wasn't as accurate and he had you know some issues with turnovers and things like that like held up onto the ball more often the sack started to go up like there's always this this back and forth and trying to get it right is extremely difficult and that's going to be you know the challenge of Kevin O'Connell is how can you get it to go beyond just the hot streaks that pump up the numbers and have him be a little more consistent or mitigate some of the downturns. Matthew question for you. This is from at orange suds in your career. What's the weirdest workout routine you've ever encountered? I seem to recall Laquan

Treadwell had performed some unique catch drills. Uh, yeah. Uh, well, Laquan Treadwell is definitely way up there. I mean, he would lay on the ground and have the jugs machine shoot the ball at him. And he would be rolling around like you were doing some sort of military drill. Like you were rolling under barbed wire and, and I don't know, firing a gun or something like he was doing that and then catching balls. So he would roll over and then he would have the machine shoot it at him. He catch it, or maybe someone was throwing it at him. I just recall him rolling around on the ground, like roll over, catch, roll over, catch. and i could not figure out what exactly that would do for you uh the the favorite laquan treadwell story that i have is just that you know when the local news in 2000 i think it was 17 local news spotted him in training camp running stadium steps

late at night and then later on at the next combine, Mike Zimmer came out and said, you need to stop running stadium steps. And I remember, I think it was Joe Schmidt was like, well, he's really showing some great, uh, you know, work ethic out here. And Mike Zimmer was just, no. So I guess we knew what channel Mike Zimmer watch, but like, no, he's not showing great work ethic. He's being a fool. He needs to be working on his routes or whatever it was. That was a really funny development, especially Zimmer just saying things that there was no

need to say. You could privately say to Laquan Treadwell, hey, there's no reason to run the stadium steps at night. Don't worry about that. Worry about this. But instead, he has to come out and tell everybody at the combine that that was his problem with Laquan Treadwell. I mean, there's funny things constantly. They have garbage cans that are flipped upside down that I think are supposed to emulate,

I don't know, linemen or defensive linemen or whatever. We've talked about on the show with Courtney from time to time that they have these big giant red balls that in warmup drills, they throw at the linebackers and they slap them down. The funniest was definitely in Mankato. And I haven't seen this, maybe I'm wrong, but I haven't seen this at TCO Performance Center where they would have all these springy things and the running back would have to run through them. I think you can envision it. And it would just go like, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong, bong.

And it's like, does this help? Does this do something? Uh, and Oh, uh, the all-time funniest is the donut and the offensive lineman cut blocking the donut. It's just, they would just, this giant donut is probably six feet tall and they would roll it out. I mean, think about a, like a human size donut and there's rolling it out and the lineman would chase after it and dive at it. That was a real thing. Like in the NFL, real players are being asked to do that. Imagine if someone got hurt. How'd you get hurt? How'd you break your arm? Well, you know, dove at the donut wrong. The six foot donut. I'd love one for the backyard me and the dog could have a great time with it uh this comes from au underscore m schmidt uh fans only question here

most humiliating and bizarre vikings event herschel walker trade the draft card snafu tice scalping super bowl tickets oh what Oh, what an organization. Uh, the Wizenator, the love boat, Tom Clancy's failed bid, Moss macaroni meltdown. Uh, there are others, but these would seem to be the least real world serious. Yeah. Good point on that. Uh, well, I guess we could rank them. I mean, okay. This may sound like a, maybe hot take cause maybe hot take because everybody hates the Herschel Walker trade with the passion of a thousand suns. But the Herschel Walker trade is, I think, the least humiliating to the Vikings because they were trying to get a great player and traded a lot for a great player. And at the time, now we talk about what a running back, what is wrong with you at the time, running backs were really dominating the league.

I mean, you had Thurman Thomas leading the league four years in a row in all purpose yards. It was a running league where quarterbacks threw for 3000 yards in a season, and that was considered to be pretty good. I remember having these football cards that said, the 3,000-yard passing club. Like, what is that, the first half of the season for Drew Brees or something? I mean, it's just, you know, that was how it was. And so running backs were far more valuable. Trading that much will always be absurd and insane.

But I think that's the least embarrassing because I, my guess is at the time, a lot of people thought it was a really cool trade and who cares about draft picks. So I'm going to say that's having a trade go wrong is something that's normal. That one was a little excessive, but it's normal to have a move, an acquisition, a trade, whatever. I mean, we could go through a bunch of trades for every single team or draft picks that went humiliatingly wrong and ruined their franchise. So I don't see that one as being super unique. The only problem is of course, that it caused in part the Cowboys dynasty. I mean, that's, you know, but out of all of these, out of all of these, I mean, there's a lot of ridiculous here. The draft card snafu is the second least embarrassing because it resulted in Kevin Williams.

All's well that ends well, I guess. Weird, certainly. Only the Vikings, absolutely. But you got a borderline Hall of Famer and a six-time All-Pro and probably will someday be in the Hall of Fame because of that. So you can't be too embarrassed about the draft card snafu. Your head coach scalping Super Bowl tickets is pretty tough. Let's see. I will say Tom Clancy's failed bid.

That's another thing that's not that unusual is like some celebrity. I don't really know anything about Tom Clancy, but some celebrity getting involved. When I was in Buffalo, Bon Jovi was trying to buy the bills when the Pagoulas ultimately bought them. So, you know, that happens. Celebrities kind of try to weasel their way into the mix. And yeah, I don't know. I mean, I don't know a lot about that situation.

So that I'll go next. So from least embarrassing to most, Herschel Walker trade draft card, snafu, Tom Clancy failed bid. And then I'll go, I'll go a Moss macaroni meltdown because even though that got out there and is just a, just a, just a very bad thing for Randy Moss to do. If you don't know the story, they get food every Friday, and he yelled while the person was delivering the food that he wouldn't feed it to his dogs and things like that. And it kind of became a famous Moss story that he's a lot nicer now than I think he was to people when he was playing at times.

I'm not saying teammates, but, uh, the outside world, but a player acting like a diva, not super uncommon, weird for this particular one to be mad at free food. I personally have never been mad at free food. Uh, so Randy Moss could have just not ate it and gone home. Um, it's a weird story to be attached to his legacy but i'll say that that's not as humiliating as some of these others uh tice scalping super bowl tickets now we're getting to the real ones here uh that is pretty close to the top and that's just absolutely crazy i know he was underpaid but that's nuts uh for that maybe that was common and he just got caught i don't know but that one is pretty

wild that a head coach could be caught scalping Superbowl tickets. The Wizinator, if you don't know what that is, just Google it. It's sort of spelled how it sounds. And I don't even want to get into the details of what that is, but there are, the Vikings used to have problems with off field issues. And that's one way to get around a drug test. But the love boat is the all-time. It is the legacy of the Minnesota Vikings. It's Steve Smith scoring a touchdown and then pretending to row a boat, right? Wasn't that having to do with the love boat?

I don't recall exactly, but I think it was. And, I mean, your players having a boat and it's a family friendly show, a boat party that is so egregious that it ends up having people in court is one of the funniest things to ever happen to any sports team ever. If it was made up in a Netflix show, you would say this has gone too far and is totally ridiculous. And my friend Judd Zolgad tells the story of him and Chip Scoggins going to one of the kids who worked on the boat, going to their house and their parents coming to the door. Just like what a disaster that whole thing was. So again, if you're not that familiar with Love Boat, then that's a Wikipedia, but also Wikipedia without the kids in the room. If the kids are not in the room, it is hysterical, the Wikipedia. So not safe for work. Absolutely not safe for work. rankings from, from least to most Herschel Walker trade draft card, snafu, Tom Clancy failed bid

Moss macaroni meltdown, Tice scalping, Wizenator love boat. So love boat gets the number one spot. Just did that backwards. Uh, this comes from Scott via the email. Uh, do T do you think the teams like the Packers and chiefs could trade in front of the Vikings at 12 and pick a wide receiver? If so, should we trade up? I would not be concerned with them doing that because there are a lot of receivers who are very similar in talent in this draft that all kind of exist in a mid first round. And unless they see somebody as being spectacular, you could just take whosoever is there. If you want that. I mean, think about this, like ask 50 draft analysts, if Garrett Wilson or Chris Olave will be better, you might get 25 on each side. Maybe Wilson is favored a

little bit there, 30, 20, at least from the way that I've seen people talk about a lave and his, uh, you know, his, his combine Garrett Wilson is a route runner and somebody called them like a lighter version of Robert Woods. So there's a lot of that going around that he's, he's very well-liked and there are other guys too. I mean, if you ended up with Jamison Williams and he couldn't play right away, but there was potential for him to be a superstar, which do it. I would, Hey, the rebuild part, it finally arrived. Uh, but I would be in support of that. So I think that there's enough receivers who are similar and, and Drake London is also in this mix. If we're talking about four guys who all would be between number say eight and 20, I think you want to roll the dice there and not trade up.

I just don't think this is the draft to trade up anyway. And just looking at the top group, I mean, there's tackles that seem like they're going to go maybe two or three. That's good for the Vikings because they don't need a tackle. So you can wait, let's say a quarterback goes, let's say two quarterbacks go. You can wait and still get a top player at one of the positions you need if just a few things go right. I don't find it totally necessary to trade up and give up future assets when you can just wait and you'll probably end up with a pretty good pick.

All right, this is the last one here from Terry R. Maybe Holt, H-E-a-u-l-t on twitter for the fans only podcast what recent vikings nfc championship team had the best chance to win the super bowl uh 1998 team is his opinion the highest you know high scoring um but do we slow elway enough 2000 the team was eaten by the Ravens defense. That would probably have been true. 2009, hobbled Favre. That would have been tough.

Manning probably feasts on them. And in 2017, Case Keenum, probably no match for Tom Brady. So I guess, you know, when you say recent, my answer to this is not any of those. My answer to this is always 1987, because I think that Vikings team, if they win in 87 goes on to win the Superbowl, because Washington did, and they blew out Denver. And I don't think that Denver was really a great team that year. And the Vikings were so hot and they were playing extremely well that if they get past Washington, I think they have a great chance to win it. But of the ones that you gave, uh, 98 is probably the answer. Let me look real quick at

the 98 Broncos though. I mean, this is, this is a pretty darn stack team. I, you know, when I, when I thought of, uh, when I think of like great all time teams, 98 Broncos is one that definitely comes to mind. But I don't know. Maybe they were stronger in 1999. I don't know. No, they were 14-2. Yeah, they were second in point score. No, they were actually weaker in – oh, it was 97-98.

Sorry, I've got it confused. They were weaker in 97 slightly in terms of their record. They went 12 and 4 and then 14 and 2 in 98. It would have been a pretty tough road to beat the second best scoring offense. 500 points that year for the Denver Broncos. And here's the absolutely crazy thing about that team. So they scored 500 points and played four games without John Elway. That's how good the 98 Broncos were. I'm not totally convinced there that Randall Cunningham beats John Elway in that situation. 2000 though, I mean, it's just not, it's just not a great team. So, you know, I mean, it's just not a great team. So, you know, I mean, because it was at home, is the pick 2017?

Like that Patriots team was just not that good. And it really showed against the Philadelphia Eagles. It feels counterintuitive to pick Case Keenum, but they had the number one defense and the Patriots defense was horrendous. And for some reason, Detroit decided to hire their defensive coordinator. I have no idea why. But I think 98 is the obvious pick. But when you talk about the competition of who they would have faced and the circumstance that you would have been able to do it at US Bank Stadium, I mean, it wouldn't have

had quite the same level of home field advantage because the tickets would have been a little more, uh, you know, expensive and corporate and that sort of thing, but it's your stadium. I think that would have been a really big advantage for the Vikings. And I think I'm going to pick that just because, because of the competition and maybe Brady was, I mean, Brady had a great game against Philly, but, um, you know, that was kind of, I don't want to say completely the beginning of the end, but he wasn't quite the same after that, uh, in new England for the next, what was it? Two years. So I don't know. That's a great question. The 2000 team gets, gets dismissed pretty quick here. Maybe that's not

right though. I mean, but when you get blown out by the Giants and then the Giants lose, that's really hard to make a case. That was the fifth best offense in the NFL, though, in 2000. And they had started that year 7-0. And also had another run that year of, what, four or five wins in a row. So, yeah, I don't know. They went into that playoffs not playing particularly well, went to New Orleans, won that playoff round. What was that team?

That team was 11 and five. Okay. I may have said something different, but that was an 11 and five team. So interesting. Yeah, no, it's a great question. It's a great question. I don't want to completely dismiss that one or the hobbled Favre I think is is not the answer you got to play Peyton Manning Favre was in no shape to come back even two weeks later and play well that one's that one's a hard one yeah all of them all of them are very tough calls but I think that it's probably maybe the least obvious one just because the Patriots weren't that good so another great fans only podcast here and I have actually hit the point where I think I've gotten through everyone's questions, which is awesome from the first run of asking questions. And you guys have tossed in some emails there as well.

So I have one more email that I'm going to get to before wrapping up the show. It's a longer email, but it comes from someone who listens in Japan. And he has kind of a tinfoil hat theory, he calls it, about what's going on this off season. So I'll read that and that'll be the episode. Okay, from Brian in Japan. Thanks for your podcast. They continue to help me feel connected to the Vikings and Minnesota even 30 plus years over here in Japan. Very cool, Brian. I feel like there has been a lot of discussion about this competitive rebuild

as we all try to figure out if it is competitive, a rebuild, or simply an oxymoron. Why did the Jim Harbaugh interview end like it did? Why did Ryan Poles choose the Bears over the Vikings? How recently have the Wilfs become involved in football decisions? Why wasn't Cousins traded? And why aren't there answers to these questions leaking out? Why doesn't any of it make sense? Yeah, you just defined the show over the last few weeks, my friend. Okay. What if, Brian writes, the Wilfs told their GM candidates that they need to see one more year of cousins with an all-in offense before it's okay to bail on Kirk. Then after that year, the GM could build the roster however they felt fit. With that condition, I think the current GM and coach hire start to make sense as they both might be okay with that condition as long as they have freedom after their first year,

Harbaugh and Poles perhaps not. If Adolfo Mensah is building the roster with the secret one-year ultimatum, then extending Kirk for two years followed by void years, it makes sense to guarantee a transition year in 2023 with Kirk still on the roster. Kweisi doesn't know when or how he will get his quarterback on a rookie contract yet, perhaps selling Cousins high to the 49ers next year, having a second rounder surprise us in 2022, or by getting enough draft capital by 2023 to draft one high.

In short, Cousins is a hedge bet and simply a short sort of Alex alex smith in quacey's plan gotcha quacey and o'connell are both grateful for the opportunity and willing to accept the 2022 ultimatum from the wilfs kirk was shot this offseason to get a feel for his market for the future kirk is feeling underappreciated but needs to have a good season and possibly to keep his trade value high could you explain his robotic ce corporate QB press conference? Just a thought. Oh, that's how you could explain it. Okay, gotcha.

And somehow with the premise above, everything is starting to make sense for me. Well, Brian, I appreciate the effort that went into that email. And I would say that you probably look like the guy in a beautiful mind with all the clippings from the magazines and tied together with yarn and things like that. I'm just kidding. But you, you said you acknowledged tinfoil hat on this. I think the explanation is probably simpler than that. I think it's possible that Ryan Poles, yes, was told that you have to be competitive.

Because what Ryan Poles has done in Chicago has said, well, we're going to tear a lot of these pieces down, trade Khalil Mack, let's get our cap right, and then we'll go forward and build from there the way I want to build. So if that was his plan for the Vikings, then maybe he decided when he was told that he had to stay competitive, that he wanted to go to Chicago. I never got that sense though, because he was the Vikings number one pick for GM. So I got more of the sense that the Bears just gave him a better offer. I think it was another year and more money.

So if the Bears gave him a better offer or as much money as Casey ended up getting, but another year tacked on, I mean, you're just going to take the better offer with the young quarterback and also plausible deniability if the quarterback is bad. So you go, well, it wasn't my guy. I got to draft a new quarterback. You need to give me four more years, right? Like I, you know, there's a little job security element of that as well. I also think that, you know, what makes it all make sense is just the idea, not so much that they needed to see Kirk for another year, because if they were doing the all in offense thing, they would have gone all in on offense and gotten more players on offense, but they haven't done that. I think what it really

is, is probably the most obvious explanation as most things when it comes to conspiracy theories, right? It's not UFOs. It's usually that UFOs are heard near military training bases. I think that's true. Not that I don't love a good conspiracy theory. Don't get me wrong. So I love this. I think this is great. But the more likely explanation is, they said, we want to be competitive. We do not want to tear this whole thing down. We do not want to win three games. So if you're going to trade cousins, it better be for a lot.

Somebody better come to you and give you the house. And if they don't, then we want you to go this direction. And then once you're in that space, you have to kind of go in the way that your coaching staff wants to build their roster. And that would mean, you know, at Donatello is going to want players on the defensive side because they kind of didn't have any and had a bunch leaving in free agency. I think that's more likely. And then, you know, Kirk Cousins agent takes advantage of his leverage and the fact that they weren't going to trade him gets the no trade clause. And then we all go from there. So, uh, that's kind of what I, I think happened in reality,

but if people want to send me their Vikings conspiracy theories, you know, I'm all for it. So thanks again, everybody for another super fun fans only episode. I'm going to put out a call out on Twitter, but if you're not on Twitter, go to purpleinsider.com. There's a place there where you can send me an email. Just, just say, Hey, this is for fans only. I'll put it in the file and, uh, and we can go forth and have fun. Thanks everybody for listening.