Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Where do the Vikings stand in the playoff race after Sunday's games?

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

Matthew Coller and Paul Hodowanic talk about the Bears melting down against the Green Bay Packers in the second half and what it means for the Minnesota Vikings, who play the Bears twice in their final four games. If you got $100 to bet on the potential playoff teams for the No. 7 seed, how much would you put on the Vikings? Do you think the Bears or Vikings will be better in the future? What do we make of rookie quarterbacks like Trevor Lawrence, Fields and Zach Wilson struggling? Does that say anything about the Vikings' future at QB? Who wins the AFC? Are we headed for another Brady/Mahomes Super Bowl? Visit tickpick.com/insider for football tickets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Want to remind you before we get started, the TickPick is the exclusive ticketing partner of Purple Insider and the Blue Wire Network. TickPick should be your first choice to buy football tickets because they save fans money by never charging service fees ever. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here with you, along with Paul Hodowanek, who is filling in once again for Sam Ekstrom. He's doing fine by the way. He'll be back but taking the weekend to recover from an illness. So Paul I called upon you to react to these games that we just watched how they affect

the Minnesota Vikings and then the story rhymes around the NFL before we get into Chicago Bears week though we've got to start out, Paul, by talking about, we've got a bunch of hot routes questions and things like that, but we've got to talk about this game between the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers. And I would just like to declare that the Chicago Bears are a horrendous, awful football team who will without a doubt have a new coach next year and it will no longer be Matt Nagy and this sets up perfectly for the Vikings to lose the week 18 game and miss the playoffs because they lose to this game or this team but I have to say that if the Vikings lose either one of their

games to the Chicago Bears they do not deserve to be in the playoffs. It would be almost as bad and possibly even worse than losing to the Detroit Lions because at least the Lions have a quarterback that's played in the NFL before, whereas Justin Fields still looks like mostly a mess as he did against the Green Bay Packers. The Packers demolish Chicago, even despite Chicago having the best special teams performance of the year by any team in the NFL they still got killed the Vikings should put up 40 points just like the Green Bay Packers the Packers had all their backup offensive linemen in and just open receiver open receiver open receiver oh I want to run for 10 yards easy running up the middle as well with these backup offensive linemen there There is no excuse

whatsoever for the Minnesota Vikings to lose either game to the Chicago Bears. They are horrendous. There you have it. That's where we're going to start. Well, happy to be here, Matthew. Thank you for having me. Yes, I actually, you know, through the first half, you're thinking, oh, okay, the Bears, maybe they're in this, but it turned out to just kind of be fluky plays that were keeping them in long yak touchdowns punt returns things that weren't super sustainable and in the second half you saw that um i think still justin fields is showing enough flashes where you're feeling excited but definitely not you know you're not mistaking this team for a playoff team this year probably one next year based on the rebuilding. They're going to have to do with the rest of the roster, especially as the defense ages a little bit.

So, yes, it was good to see Justin Fields in primetime and see how that would go. I was still encouraged with the way he played, but yeah, they're not good. The Vikings should beat them as they should have beaten the Lions and as they should have beaten some other teams on the schedule. So that's a dangerous word to play with, with the Vikings. But yes, I agree. They, the Vikings are much, very clearly the better team out of those two. So if we're putting this in a Vikings context, you look at this game and you say, okay, they should beat the bears and they'll probably be competitive with green Bay, but probably lose that one away from home. If we're prognosticating what it looks like. Well, we can talk about the Justin Fields thing in a little bit, but if we were ranking teams

from the bottom, so going from the absolute worst up, the only teams that are worse than Chicago is Detroit, obviously just the worst team in the league. The New York Giants are probably equal with Chicago and Houston, Jacksonville, and the New York Jets. That's it. Those are the only other teams that I would say are worse than the Bears. And again, this is a team, the Vikings team, that historically, and you did the research on this for an article that I did maybe a year and a half ago, about how even against the spread, the Vikings were way worse at Soldier Field than they should have been. Their record is, I think, what is it, maybe six of the last 21 games that they've won at Soldier Field. It's really a ridiculous

curse that has persisted even throughout the time that I've covered the Vikings. 2018, they blew one where Kirk Cousins said that they moved the game to primetime because of us. And there was the game in 2016 where Norv quit and Zimmer hurt his eye and they lost to a just God awful Chicago Bears team with Jay Cutler. So these things are real and they're possible. And it's always very scary for Vikings fans to go to Chicago. But if you don't believe in curses, then you look at these and say, these are, should be two of the easiest games, this Monday night football, and then the week 18 that might matter. And watching Chicago tonight, that was my biggest takeaway,

maybe even of the day, is I wanted to see just how bad Chicago really looked against the team that the Vikings went toe-to-toe with and could have won or lost the game against Green Bay. So if we think that the Vikings are fairly even with Green Bay at this moment, especially on offense, then they should really run Chicago out of the building. Yeah, for sure. And I was enjoying the triple cam that they were putting with Nagy, Fields, and the front office very, very constantly. Just like, hey, this is the group you got, Justin Fields, and hopefully next year for Bears fans, they are all different, though that split screen consists of two different coaches, different GM,

hopefully helping Justin Fields because we've seen that team is – the coaching is incompetent and the way that they're kind of just handling this whole situation where the rumor comes out that Nagy's going to get fired and then he doesn't get fired like this. Things are not going well for the bears. And it, it, again, it should be an opportunity for the Vikings to get a couple easy wins with two much more difficult games. The rest of the way they, they need both these bears games. If they're going to make the playoffs. Which brings us to our first question in this, we'll call it an unofficial Hot Routes episode here. People can see your Hot Routes show, by the way, on YouTube. And I'm also going to start using some of your Hot Routes over here on the podcast feed because

they're good. So let's just start out with this. If I was to give you a hundred dollars and you have to lay that money on the Eagles, Vikings, football team, or Saints to make the playoffs, one of those teams is going to make the playoffs out of those four. You don't have to put a hundred on one team. You can divvy it up however you want. You just have a hundred dollars and you have to bet it. I'm going to give you the playoff percentages according to FiveThirtyEight after today's results. The Eagles have a 38% chance, Vikings 33, football team 28% after a really bad loss to the Dallas Cowboys, a game that they basically no-showed and then tried to come back at the end. But that was a really, they would have been 70%

for the playoffs football team had they won that game. And instead they're 28 and the saints flickering around with Taysom Hill beating the jets are at 20%. So they're the Vikings have the second highest odds. How would you divvy up your $100? Yeah. And I, I did this mostly, I gave a little bit to every, to every team. So I didn't completely leave a team out. I mean, everyone is six and seven. So at this point, really any team could make it. Um, obviously there are some, I think are more likely I'm going to go a little bit against the, uh, it's not that much against the projections, but I'm gonna have the Vikings with the most money that I'm, I'm putting down right now, uh, $40 on the Vikings. So not going overly crazy overly crazy but when i when i'm looking at this and when

we look at the nfl in general usually it comes down to quarterback play who has the better quarterback play and how does that play out and of these of these teams kirk cousins is the best quarterback there uh the the eagles kind of have a controversy on their hands uh with people wanting gardner vinshew or jalen hurts and i think mean, I like both those guys, but, and their schedule is easy. We've documented it on past shows. Their schedule is very easy. So that's where you give, that's where you start to really believe in the Eagles. I'm still going to go the Vikings first on this.

I think the Eagles and the football team play twice. I wouldn't be surprised if they split those and kind of take one off for each other. So yeah, Vikings, $40. But eagles right behind him at 30 i still think washington that series with the eagles is gonna be super pivotal because if the vikings kind of fall off to me it's those two teams that are going to be battling for it so if the vikings do lose one of these bears games and they lose both to the rams and packers or just one of them and they're two and two and and they're kind of just, just treading water. I think if one of those Eagles, um, or football team gets both those wins that really, really catapults them. So again, I couldn't separate those much. So I had football team at 20 and then I actually added a, a 15,

even though that wasn't part of the prompt, I gave $5 to both the saints and the Falcons. The Falcons are atrocious, but their schedule is really easy coming down the stretch. And I think their point differential is like minus one Oh eight, which is only worse than the lions yet. They have a mathematical shot at the playoffs and they won and they've, they've been really good on the road for some reason. So just because they're also in the mix, I felt like I had to give them a few bucks. And I honestly, I kind of want to give them more than the saints. Cause I do not believe in the saints. That game with the jets today was not, it ended 30 to nine, but it was not that type of game. Uh, it was close most of the game and they kind of pulled away right at the end. And if

you're, if you're neck and neck with the jets, I'm not feeling really good about where you're at. So most of it goes to, or 40 bucks goes to the Vikings, but it's very evenly spread out as I think it should be at this point. It's really up in the air. Yeah, the reason I didn't include the Falcons is because 538 only gives them a 12% chance to make the playoffs,

which is interesting because they have the six and seven record, but that point differential probably weighs into the formula of saying like, who you really are is one of the worst teams in the NFL. Somehow you've eked out six wins out of this really, really, really bad team, uh, which they have. And, and I don't think that they're good. Um, the saints, you just never really know, like with Taysom Hill playing quarterback, you would think there's no shot here. hill is a really sean hill sean payton is a really good coach miss you sean hill uh but sean payton is you know a really good coach so you never know if they could get hot or something uh i think that this should be 75 dollars to the minnesota vikings wow 75 bucks and then 10 each to the Eagles and football team. And what does, what does that leave with the, that leaves five bucks left? Okay. Yeah. I'm as bad at the math as Courtney

is with the pie charts, but yeah, I think that the Vikings not only have the best quarterback and the best offense by far, but a schedule that is just not that scary with two games against, in my estimation, a bottom three or bottom four team in the league. And then a Rams team that has to come to US Bank Stadium that has not been playing particularly well in recent weeks. And Green Bay Packers, wow. I mean, if the Vikings can just catch punts and run with them, maybe they've got a chance to score on special teams. But they've already beat the Green Bay Packers.

Now, going to Lambeau Field is a bit of a different story than making the Packers come to U.S. Bank Stadium, which is much more friendly for you. But if you could split one of those two games against very flawed but good teams, and this is my thought about the NFC in general. After watching Tampa Bay let a 21-point lead disappear against the Buffalo Bills today, there is one good NFC team, one really, really good NFC team, and I think that's Arizona. Beyond that, they all have flaws, though I have another question about that later on.

But I would give most of it to the Vikings. I think that they are by far the favorite or should by far be the favorite, even if the numbers are saying that Philadelphia and Washington have better chances because of the quarterback situations. Taylor Heineke is not really good and he's got a knee injury. And then in Philadelphia, we've seen this from Gardner Minshew before. He has a great game and everyone says, oh, look, wow, this guy is so good. And then, you know, he sort of goes back to being Gardner Minshew. Same deal with Jalen Hurts, where you have a good game.

He'd run for 150 yards next game. It's just not there. So I think the Vikings should be by far the favorite here, even if the technical statistics go against that. All right. So you're sorry. Go ahead. No, I was just I'll go in my question after this, but I, I agree. Um, but if we're going,

putting money down, I, I, I feel sorry for the people or, and just have sympathy for the people who have been betting the Vikings all season. I'm sure it has been a absolute train wreck. So if I had a hundred dollars and I'm having to put 75% of them on the Vikings, I am sweating that out very heavily. I'm not feeling good at any point. So maybe that just, you know, crept into my mind a little bit. And yeah, but I do agree. They should be the heavy favorite, but everything we've seen from this team meet tells me they're going to

come back to the pack. And so that's why I had everything bunched up the way I did. And I know, I know what I'm saying here. And I know that people are listening and going like, dude, they just lost to the lions two weeks ago. And I know, I know I'm only comparing them to Philly, Washington, the saints. We're talking about backup quarterbacks on all of these teams. And if you can't beat out the backup quarterbacks with Kirk cousins, then you do the whole thing where we talk about blowing it up, right? Like this, this is, it may get blown up anyway, but with the talent you have on the

offensive side, compare it to these other teams. It's just not anywhere close. And the fact that you don't have like some crazy hard schedule, that's why I would say them, but I totally understand the people who are listening, going, what are, what this team, this curse team that always seems to come up short, uh, especially against the bears in week 18. I just think that bears team is done. So, and like, you just saw them as soon as something went wrong against the Packers and they weren't like, you know, getting punt returns for touchdown anymore. They just went like, okay, all right, we're not playing anymore.

And I think that will happen against the Vikings. You get a touchdown or two, they'll sort of back off. Mike Zimmer's record against rookie quarterbacks, by the way, I was looking this up the other day. It's insanely good against rookie quarterbacks. I would expect that against Justin Fields too. So I think that they will sweep against the Bears like they did in 2017. But could it not be the case? Yeah, they lost the line. So of course, anything is possible. All right, go ahead with your question. All right, let's move a little bit. Just I want to touch on some of the AFC stuff, because there were a lot of interesting games that happened this week. It was a little bit of a snoozer, all those one o'clock games, noon games, and then it got a little bit better with

a couple OT games and at least the first half of this Sunday night football game. So I want to know, I'm going to give you three teams and I want you to just tell me if you're more or less confident in them making the playoffs after what they did this week. The Bills, the Browns, and the Bengals. I think the Bills, I would be most confident out of those three teams that they make the playoffs. Because even though they got down to Tampa Bay and they clearly are nowhere near as strong as they were last year this is what happens that a team will have when it has a flawed quarterback which Josh Allen is he's very exciting at times but he's also flawed when the surrounding cast starts to slip even a little bit all of a sudden you go from being a 13-3 team to a 7-6 team. That's just how the NFL works.

They also got screwed today with a couple of one non-pass interference call and then a clear bad pass interference call in overtime that helped Tom Brady. No shock that a bad call would help Tom Brady against the Buffalo Bills. That's only been happening for my entire adult life. Even back to being a teenager, this is what has happened of Tom Brady against the Buffalo Bills. Regardless, though, it's a flawed team. I think their defense is overrated because they played some horrendous teams earlier this year. Dolphins with Jacoby Brissett, the Jets a couple of times.

The defense probably looks better on paper than it is but they have offensive weapons they get open and a quarterback who can make plays every time josh allen drops back on third down and long or fourth down you just assume he's going to run for 20 yards and get a first down or find stefan diggs or find cole beasley that to me is the most consistent of the things that exist between these three teams. As far as the other ones, wait, did you say all three of them? You said all three. Yeah, Browns and Bengals. Okay. Yeah. So the Browns are so up and down. I mean, they're like the Vikings where one week

they play well and you think, okay, this is it. They've turned that corner. And then the next week they really struggle. So we had one of those weeks of the upswing. I believe in them more than the Bengals because I think their head coach is better. The Bengals quarterback is better, but Cincinnati's coach is worse, Zach Taylor. And so I think I would lean slightly to the Browns. I also look at the Browns' entirety of their roster, and I still think that from the second best player on the team or second most important player, not the quarterback to the end of the

roster, they're still one of the better teams in the NFL, like complete roster wise. I will go with them over Cincinnati, but man, that throw the Joe Burrow made to Jamar chase. This is like when total aside here, but when people talk about like, oh man, like, I don't know about drafted a quarterback. Some of the quarterbacks this year aren't playing super well. I like that 2020 class though. Like, right. So anyway, that, do I have that as another question later on? Maybe I do.

Yeah, I do. Okay. So I won't, I won't ruin that, but give, give me your order. Cause I would go bills, Browns, Bengals in that order. Yeah, I think I have the same. I think they're all seven and six at this point. So they're all right there in the standings. The Bills, and I thought of this question a little bit because the Bills lost today,

but I still feel more confident in them than I did entering the game with them. Just because of the way they had played. I mean, they had lost to the Jags and only wins they had had in the last six weeks, I believe were against the Jets and then the Saints on Thanksgiving, both convincing wins, but not teams you're writing home about. And then last week they, they lose to the Patriots in that, in that Monday night weird weather game. And there's all these narratives about them just getting pushed around. And I know they profited off the Nikhil Harry muff punk, but it's like, okay, they, they lost 14 to 10, man.

Like it's not, they didn't get their doors blown off. Like there, there was still a chance at the end. Like I thought that narrative was a little bit weird, but I felt good about the way they came back. I felt good about Josh Allen going up against a top tier team in the NFC on the road and seeing a good Josh Allen performance, seeing him use his legs, which they've been a little bit hesitant to do this year. They haven't been running him a ton. Maybe they're just saving him for the playoffs, big games when they know he can run a little bit more.

So, yeah, I would have more confidence in them. And then I'm same with you. Browns, Bengals. Browns are just weird. I mean, they almost lost to Tyler Huntley today. It's like, what are we with you, Browns, Bengals, Browns are just weird. I mean, they almost lost to Tyler Huntley today. It's like, what are we doing here, Browns? But at the same time, if Lamar is out for any period of time or if he's hobbled, they kind of have the inside track on that division.

All four of the teams in that division have brutally hard schedules when you look at it. They're all playing some combination of the Packers, Chiefs and Rams coming in or something like that. Like it's crazy, their schedules, and then they're playing each other a ton. So for a lot of the same reasons, I'd have the Browns and then Bengals. And it just shows you kind of the differences between the two conferences

that multiple of these teams could be left out. The Colts are in the playoffs right now as we speak. So they're in the playoffs and some of these teams are on left out. The Colts are in the playoffs right now as we speak. So they're in the playoffs and some of these teams are on the outside looking in and it's like, compare that to the NFC. It's like, sheesh. I mean, the AFC is going to have some really, really good teams that are left off. The NFC is going to have a couple of bad teams that make it. So just an interesting way to kind of juxtapose the two conferences. Hey, everybody. Minnesota football is in full swing, and there is no need to exhaust yourself searching all over the internet for Minnesota football tickets because TickPick, that is T-I-C-K,

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to town. So you're going to want to go to TickPick.com and check it out and make sure it's TickPick.com slash insider because you can save $10 on your first order for Minnesota tickets. That's TickPick.com slash insider. Hey, do you think that they should not have conference be a part of the playoff thing? Because I do. I've never understood it. I've never really understood it. And I think some people will say, well, you play sort of against your competition, but there's so much AFC, NFC with 17 games that you're playing a lot of games against the other

conference anyway. I have always felt like in every sport that they overthink it, that it should just be the 14 best teams. Honestly, we probably didn't need the seven seed, but let's just even go with that. The 14 best teams in the NFL and then whatever tiebreakers there are at the bottom. And that's it. And the top two teams get the first week off and then you go from there. I think that's fine. Like this is a great example of there are much better teams in the AFC that are going to be home watching as an NFC team at seven and 10 or eight, nine or something is in the back end of the playoffs. And they're going to be going like, well, why are, why are we at home with nine or 10 wins? And that team with eight wins is playing in the playoffs. And so they get to tell their fans, oh, we made the post season last year. It was great. Like all

these things. And, uh, you have to act like you're a big giant failure. Even if you had a winning record and missed the playoffs. I don't know how you feel about that. I've always thought that this is sort of silly and it happens all the I don't know how you feel about that. I've always thought that this is sort of silly, and it happens all the time where the conferences are just lopsided. Yeah, maybe I'm a little bit of a traditionalist, or I like the history of it, just because then you're kind of losing that just a little bit. I mean, you get over that quickly.

But if I was going to make a change, I think, right away, I would probably do away with the division champs getting a home game. I would say maybe I'd keep the conferences at least at first and kind of phase it out. And it could almost be where you're not really doing the division thing. You're just kind of seeding those one through seven or however, however many playoff teams they have by then. And just kind of go from there, give buys seedings just solely based on that. Don't let a bad NFC East team just get to host a playoff because they happen to be in a division with a ton of other bad teams and i think that would be a logical

phase in for the conferences but you're right if they want the best teams you just go down the line and pick the top ones so i get the logic from that and maybe it's just me liking the rivalries and things like that and thinking that might go away a little bit because football rivalries are probably the best in in all the sports in terms of what you get twice a year with that. So part of me doesn't want to lose that, but I think at least with the divisions, you could make that change and it would be much more fair and productive. Yeah, I think it would be fine if you still play your division teams twice to build the rivalries, but you just look at the final record at the end of the day. And something that I thought about with this was in the nineties, you would have had the 49ers and Cowboys playing

for the Superbowl probably a number of times, which would have been incredible because those, those were like all-star teams with just hall of famer after hall of famer. And this in 94, the chargers ended up playing the 49ers, which was just no match whatsoever. The real Super Bowl was at the NFC Championship. And then how many times in the AFC has it been Brady versus Manning over the last 20 years? And then, okay, now we go on to the Super Bowl, but that sort of felt like the real Super Bowl in a lot of ways when you would get Brady versus Manning. And in the future, if the two best quarterbacks in the NFL are in one conference,

I want them to win and go up against each other in the Superbowl. But I, you know, this probably your logic stands. I think if I'm going straight off logic, that's, that's the way to go. Maybe a little emotion is in there for me,

but yeah, if we're just going logically that that is what you want. Okay. Well, they won't change. They'll put a team in Germany before they change that. So I'll just move on quickly since I already teased this. The rookie quarterbacks were bad again today.

Zach Wilson is scary bad. And that's one right there where we had a lot of fun watching Zach Wilson at BYU when we were doing skull searching, which may or may not show up again. We'll see. But was he ready to come into play in the NFL right away? I never thought that that was going to be the case coming from BYU, but it's been much worse than I thought it would be. Fields had some moments, also had some very bad moments. Trevor Lawrence, this poor guy.

Anybody who wants to judge Trevor Lawrence, please do not. His coach will not be that guy next year. That is now becoming a guarantee. It will not be Urban Meyer after the reports that have come out. Those reports are coming out so ownership can put pressure on Urban Meyer to fake heart disease and walk away. That is why they are coming out. They don't come out from NFL media otherwise. That's why they're there. All right. So because they're trying to get urban Meyer to quit so they don't have to pay him to fire him or something. I'm sure there's some deal in there. Uh, anyway, I would not judge

rookie quarterbacks right away because we saw Jared Goff struggle horribly in his first year with Jeff Fisher. By the next year, he's leading in number one, number two offense. So this has happened many times that quarterbacks have had a tough first year. But I've gotten the tweet a bunch of times of people saying, hey, does this scare you a little bit when you talk about the potential for the Vikings to draft a quarterback that the guys who are so highly touted from this class, aside from Mac Jones, have not had instant success. Your take, Paul.

I wouldn't be scared off of it. I mean, if you're just looking at the teams that have quarterbacks and then you put in who was there last year and you go, okay, is Andy Dalton going to do a ton better than what's happened so far this year? Maybe a little bit, but you're not going to the playoffs with that. I don't think Joe Flaccoacco is taking the jets anywhere gardner minshu's probably is not taking the jags anywhere like they were up high for a reason you have to take the shot and just every year you're gonna get five guys i mean maybe not this year but normal years now with the production

how early it starts when they're with quarterback gurus from age 12 or whatever, just working their way up and the kind of advancements that are happening in the college game and bringing them into the pros to be more successful. I think there's just continually going to be quarterbacks that come in and are going to be good and maybe not good immediately, but you usually don't expect that. And so I guess maybe if the Vikings were trying to draft one and you're in the mindset of, okay, we're going to try to win year one, year two with this guy while he's still on his rookie deal, that comes into the equation.

But normally when teams get like the really good production off these rookie deals, it's kind of in the back end of it. Unless you're Patrick Mahomes in your first and second season, but even that was his second and third in terms of a contract. So no, I'm not scared off. And if I was the Vikings, I would still be looking heavily there. If anyone, if people listen to me last year on these weekly pods and on hot routes, they know I'm apt to want to change just to kind of see what would happen. Cause we've seen what the ceiling looks like he's a great player Kirk is um good player um but he we've seen that demonstrated ceiling over and over and over again especially with the

contract he's been given so for me it wouldn't scare me I think 2020 shows you some quarterbacks like Tua can have a bad rookie year and can start bouncing back so you're seeing that evolution happen you're seeing Justin Herbert take yet another leap you're seeing Joe Burrow take yet another leap and yeah this quarterback class might scare me in particular, but in the thought in general of taking the quarterback up early, I'm not scared at all by what we're seeing this year. Yeah, I'm not either. And part of it is you have to talk about the teams that these guys are on. One of these rookie quarterbacks has landed in a good situation one of them's not playing trey lance and the other three are on absolutely horrific teams not just like oh i don't know

they're okay no super super bad the jets are incredibly bad the bears are incredibly bad and and the jaguars are reaching all-time levels of franchise truck So, so I don't look at this and say, Oh, I don't know. That scares me. I'm aware that one out of every two of these quarterbacks is going to be a bust that we knew when there were going to be five first rounders that either two or three were not going to work out. And we'll see ultimately which ones do or don't. But when I go through the list of top graded quarterbacks by PFF, Joe Burrow is third. So he was drafted two years ago. Justin Herber is fourth two years ago. Those guys have something in common. They have good weapons and good teams. Mack Jones is sixth

drafted this year. Good team, great coaching staff. You have Jalen Hurts is 12th. He doesn't even have a good team around him. A good part of that is running, but he's got his team in the playoff race here when he hasn't even been like anything super special and their team isn't all that good. And then Tua, who is supposed to be sort of the bust of that group with Burrow and Herbert, he's 13th because in part,

he's made progress this year. Now he's not a perfect quarterback, but if you have someone like Tua, who's kind of playing Jared Goffian-like football with the Rams, and then you can build everything around it because of the money you get, well, there you have it. That's what the Patriots did this last offseason. They just got a bunch of good players through free agency because they had all that cap space.

The Vikings, as of right now, minus $10 million in cap space, negative cap space. Now that's what the $45 million hit for cousins. The question that I would have for anybody who is not interested in drafting a quarterback next year and moving on, uh, would be, and this is assuming that we shouldn't totally assume that they don't go somewhere in the playoffs. It's possible if they get there, but so you can change my mind cousins. If, if he goes crazy and they have a great, you know, playoffs or whatever, that's possible to change my mind.

But as of right now, it's four years of the same results. And so I guess my question would be, how will it be different? Like what's the path? What's the plan? Because if you've got one, then great. If the plan is, well, you know, we'll just sign some bargain basement corners again next year. I don't know. I don't think that that plan it's, it's, you, you don't look at it through the lens of just the player. It's the entire context of the franchise. So could Kirk cousins be better than Kenny picket? Well, yeah, he probably will be, but can the franchise be better? Can the team be better for the years where he's on that cheap contract? That's where

the conversation changes. So yeah. And just one other thing on that, I think your point about the bargain bin stuff is a point well noted because I think for the defensive side, that has worked out about as well as you're hoping for the defensive side that has worked out about as well as you're hoping for when you're signing all those guys to one year contracts I mean Everson before the the mental health stuff was playing really really well Patrick Peterson when he's been in has been decent uh Xavier Woods when he's been in there has been decent Mackenzie Alexander same thing Rashad Breland hasn't gone well some of the others haven't gone well but that's what you're going to get when you're getting when you're hunting in the bargain bin. Some are going to be good, some are

going to be bad. And I mean, their hit rate on them this year has been better than they have in previous years. So I don't think you say we're going to do this again. I don't think their hit rate could be better, but I would say this is probably a good average and where you're likely to see that going forward if you're going to try that strategy again. Okay, I want to ask you my bonus question now since we're having this discussion, and then we'll get to your next question. Let's say San Francisco, after this year, goes deep in the playoffs with Jimmy G.

And let's even say they get to the NFC Championship game or maybe even the Super Bowl. I would say nothing is impossible in the NFC this year. And the 49ers called and said, I know you guys just traded Kirk to Pittsburgh for a first round pick. Would you give us those two firsts for Trey Lance? What would you say? I would say yes. Um, pretty quickly. I think, I don't think anyone should be judging him off of, I don't even how much tape he has, maybe two, three games this year.

I'm not sure what it is exactly. It's, it's really nothing. But from everything I've heard with the draft, the draft analysts, all they're, they're saying, they're pretty much saying any of the top five quarterbacks from this last

year would be the top quarterback in this year's class. So if that's the angle you're coming from, and if we're living in this world where Kirk has been traded for a first, and you have those picks and you just have to give up this year's class. So if that's the angle you're coming from, and if we're living in this world where Kirk has been traded for a first and you have those picks and you just have to give up this year's capital to go get a Trey Lance, who's better than whatever pick that you're going to have, probably the prospect, and especially with a quarterback, he's probably a better quarterback prospect than is going to be available whenever you or Pittsburgh or whoever in this fake trade scenario is picking. I for sure go and package those up and just see what you have, especially if we're already moving on from Kirk

at this point, because that's the best option you have. Even if we haven't moved on from Kirk and it's kind of part of the deal that Kirk's going somewhere, you're doing this. I just see it as a nice franchise reset. His ability to be dual threat is really really exciting everything before the draft just talked up about how smart he is how much he digests all this all the knowledge and everything like that's the guy you want and a guy that you can say okay maybe he had his warts but he has the right work ethic to be able to to overcome that he's a local kid which is obviously going to get people excited from around here i think that would be a good transition if you're to go off Kirk, which is bound to be a divisive move, if that does happen, bringing in someone like Trey Lance, I think would be good.

And again, I think he's better than any of the rookies you're going to get. And he's going to be cheaper than any of the veterans that you're going to try to get that could bring you a similar level of production. So I would 100% go in on that. How about you? Yeah, no, I mean, I would, because you get one year of production by someone else or a development some someone else. And then you could drop an experienced young quarterback right into your team.

This is not a thing that has a whole lot of percentage chance to happen. I just had it go through my mind when San Francisco got that drive out of Jimmy Garoppolo to win the game. And actually two of them out of Jimmy Garoppolo that like, what if this went really like haywire in the playoffs? And then all of a sudden Jimmy G's in the Superbowl for the second time. How can you, you know, not keep that guy as your quarterback fee gets you to two Superbowls or something,

you know, whatever. Then the, you know, the math starts sort of wait, could the Vikings do this? And the trade for, I don't know.

That's maybe that's what Reddit is supposed to be for, not the show, but it came to my mind. So I figured I know. Maybe that's what Reddit is supposed to be for, not the show. But it came to my mind, so I figured I'd bring it up. Your next question. Yes. So this stems back kind of from the Sunday night game. I'm fascinated about what this division looks like in the next one, two, three years because so much is going to change for the teams.

Presumably one, maybe two quarterbacks that are currently in this division are going to be there. Justin Fields is going to change for the teams presumably one maybe two quarterbacks that are currently in this division are going to be there justin fields is going to be there who's going to be that last one i would tend to say kirk's probably the most likely just based on his contract and everything um but a lot seems to be shifting the lions are going to be picking left and right they're going to be trying to rebuild who knows so i want to know from you i there's just such a lack of clarity so i want to do a way way way way too early 2023 nfc north power ranking so we're looking not even next year the year after in the future and i want i just want to give what you think what what's the landscape of the division looking like at that point i don't know about you guys but i've gotten very good in

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has it again that's s-o-t-a-s-t-i-c-k.com perfect for gifts and you can get that shipping free by using the code purple insider i mean it's a great question i feel like aaron rogers is retired or plays for someone else by 2023 that maybe he has this you know farvey and multiple team this really does feel like the last year that aaron rogers is going to be in Green Bay. I could be very wrong about that, but I just don't know how much longer this relationship can go on. Though if he reaches the Super Bowl, that would be another reset to this. But anything short of the Super Bowl for the Packers feels like he is the Denver Broncos quarterback next year or Pittsburgh Steelers,

just somebody that is not Green Bay. And then instantly I take Green Bay and put them down at the bottom. It's just Jordan Love is not that guy. You're going to have to draft someone else or you're going to have to trade for a Jimmy G or something else, whatever you're going to have to do there. But I don't know that it's going to work out. I don't think they're going to go on three all-time great quarterbacks in a row. It's not totally impossible, but just seems pretty unlikely that that's going to happen. So I think the Green Bay has sort of built everything for this moment. And when we've seen this happen with New Orleans, we've seen it happen with the Vikings. When you build everything for one season, then it off, you know, awesomely falls apart. And then that's what I think is going to happen. I can't pick them though,

even though I'd like Detroit's direction of tanking, drafting high, everything else. I can't say that Green Bay is below Detroit, just historically speaking. So we've got to keep Detroit at the bottom. I do think that their long-term plan is a good one, but they're so like dolphinsy of these just franchises, certain ones, Jaguars. They find ways to step in potholes, even when it looks like they've got the right plan. Jets are the same exact way. Giants are the same way. Oh, they're drafting sixth. They'll get a great player. They could get quarterback. Oh my God. They drafted Daniel Jones. Why? Like the same thing with Saquon Barkley sixth, they'll get a great player. They could get quarterback. Oh my God, they drafted Daniel Jones. Why?

Like the same thing with Saquon Barkley. Like they'll find a way to screw it up. So I'll keep Detroit there. And then it's between Chicago and the Vikings. Justin Jefferson, Irv Smith will come back healthy. These players matter. Now even KJ Osborne, two tackles. I think Christian Derusaw will be good.

The offense is going to say the most. And so if you get another quarterback to step in with these weapons around him, or if it's Cousins, they're still right there. The biggest wild card is just Fields and who's going to coach him and what that's going to look like. That team, I really don't know. I don't know what Fields is going to be because I want to see him with somebody who will actually coach to his strengths and with a year of development. Who knows what Patrick Mahomes would have looked like in his first year had he played. He came out in his second year and looked amazing, but a lot of these guys in their first years are so up and down who can make heads or tails of that. That's the hardest one

because if you told me they make the right coaching hire and probably fire their general manager too, Chicago would be at the top for me. But I think that the Vikings in Chicago are probably neck and neck there. Yeah, I had a very similar list. I had the Lions at last. Until they prove otherwise, I can't justify putting them above anyone. And in two years, they might be looking at another coaching change. I mean, I think I've enjoyed Dan Campbell and they seem to be playing for him very hard despite what week it is. But after two years, if they have another bad year, there's only so many losses you

can justify as a coach. And so if they're looking for another coach and that just, I'm going to, I'm going to put them at the bottom just with no clear, clear path to relevant success soon, like soon, soon. And then I have the Packers third. I think Rodgers will be gone by then. They have a good roster, but Jordan Love, I just, again, I don't think he's it. And then, yeah, it comes down to what you said. I put Fields and the Bears at two.

From what we've seen this year, i don't quite trust the ownership to make really competent moves repeatedly they made one good one in justin fields and we'll see what they can do with the rest of it but they had to give up picks for that they're going to have less picks moving a little forward so that's not going to help them in terms of rebuilding quickly their roster is rather old especially on the defensive end how long is Khalil Mack going to continue his level of production Akeem Hicks some of the just older players that have been part of these kind of scary uh Bears defenses for the past couple years I don't know how far those extend out then yeah I think the Vikings are at number one just because of that offense and I don't know I'd love to pick your brain on this, but I, I think Kirk is a likely option

to still be there, uh, just with the way his contracts are continually set up. And if Kirk is, if I'm putting, if I'm coming at this from Kirk is the quarterback, and then he's just having to beat out fields, Jordan love and whoever the lions are fielding, like that should be where the Vikings can strike and where they can kind of take hold of this division if that's if that is the case and Kirk is still here and who knows if that's best for four or five years down the road but in two years it still might be their best most competitive option it's so interesting how you could get talked back into cousins like it just this is the thing about when we discuss the draft like oh you know, and you know, I don't know, Zach Wilson,

everybody liked him so much. He's bad. Like maybe we should just stick with the guy who's not that bad. But then he, you know, like you watched the other night where he can't put the dagger in the Steelers who are giving you every opportunity or two weeks ago, you lose to the Detroit lions or it's last year against the Falcons or it's the year before against the bills, or it's the number of games that you just,

if you get one or two more plays or not sacks or whatever, third down conversions that maybe you've got a chance to be in the playoffs versus not, or to win another playoff game or whatever, like all the, all these things like they've just, they just happen over and over and over and over and over again. So it would be hard to convince me that like,

if he's the quarterback that anything has severely changed. Now, if you were signing up for cousins as a five year quarterback, it is possible they could rebuild it through the draft. But the issue with that is you can never get great players. You just can't get great players in the draft. If you're picking them 20th, that's doesn't really happen.

You get the great players at the top. I remember seeing them 20th that just doesn't really happen you get the great players at the top i remember seeing this in draft season where it's like the top five picks have like whatever it is number of hall of famers the next five picks after that is cut in half like that's where the great players come from and so if you can't really get great players to build it up you still end up in this perpetual sort of cycle of trying to win nine or 10 games. But is it realistic that he could be their quarterback two years from now? Yeah, no, it definitely is. And you're talking about like all the ups and downs that Kirk has that make you want to do that. All it, all it takes for me is watching Justin Herbert roll out to his right and throw a ball like 65 yards in the air

for me to go. I just want the possibility of something like that. If that's just like something we have the possibility of watching, it's just so enamoring. Like something like that, something like burrow where you just kind of get to watch these guys like just blossom. It's why everyone was so in love with Teddy was just the idea of what he could be combined with how great of a person he was, but it was just that potential. And at some point it feels like we've seen cousins as potential. And now we're just doing the same conversation over and over again. So give me your last,

give me your last question. Yeah, no, you're right about that. But I do think that that fear, it sort of strikes deep into football where it's like, you know, we're just finally in 2021

convincing people to go for it on fourth down and go for two when you're down by 16. Like this is just happening. So there's always the fear of like, what's next could be not as good. And that's, you know, sometimes when teams have moved on from good quarterbacks, it's worked. Sometimes it hasn't. I mean, it worked for Tennessee to move on from Mariota, or it worked for Kansas City to move on from Alex Smith. But there are other times where the grass is not greener. So, you know, it's the hardest decision in sports is what to do with your quarterback, unless you have Rodgers or Breeze or Brady or one of those guys. Speaking of which, last question is, are we going to see Brady and

Mahomes again in the Super Bowl? Because I was watching today and I know that I wrote this question before Tampa Bay let the lead go. I think partly because Tampa Bay is really beat up on their defensive side, but here's Mahomes just back everybody putting up 40 plus again and brady the nfc is not special teams melt down around brady we've seen this many many times it there's just it hit me today because that really gonna happen in a year where we talked about so much parody what's gonna happen i could never predict it and then it's like brady mahomes again there's there's a bit of a feeling of that yeah i i think it's going to be different if the teams don't get the one seed neither of them are in position for that at this point and just the the power to have that buy is super super important

right now it's the cardinals and it's uh the patriots i think and so they've got the one seeds right now and they're going to have home field going throughout the playoffs. And so I don't, maybe if I was betting on the most likely scenarios, that feels like the most logical, but I think both are going to have tough roads if they don't have the one seed.

And so if I'm a betting man, I'm betting that one of them isn't going to make it. I think that's just more of the obvious play, especially in the NFC with what we've seen from the Bucs. There's just more elite teams, at least in my mind. I feel that they'd have to go through. The Cardinals, I think, are really, really good. And I think hopefully with Kyler back and they can kind of make a stretch run

and make people kind of realize, because I think they were starting to take off when he got injured. And then it's like, oh, okay, this team's falling back off. And then you kind of just lose it and you move on to the next thing. But I think they are really good. I think maybe they'll make me look foolish with the Monday night game. If they get blown up by the Rams or something, but the Rams are obviously a team that you have to be reckoned with.

The Packers, I still think are there. The, the Cowboys, the offense has been struggling for them recently, but the defense played well today before Dak through a couple of interceptions that got Washington back in that game. But I think there's enough teams on that side to,

to threaten the bucks. So I guess if I was picking one team that might lose, I hate going against Tom Brady, but that feels like where I would go. Especially if neither get the one seat, if both of them get the one seat, that feels like another collision course. But right now they're both on the outside looking in.

So, so the AFC Tennessee is without Derek Henry. Their offense has not been the same since. New England has a rookie quarterback. I don't even, someone have to tell me the last time a rookie quarterback went to the Super Bowl. I don't remember that happening recently. Baltimore just got Lamar Jackson injured. And if we're being honest, they have been very bad on offense for quite a long stretch. Now, the Chargers are a pretty average team. We saw that when the Vikings played them. Indianapolis has Carson Wentz as their quarterback.

The Bills, Browns, Bengals, Broncos are your seven win teams. Tell me if you're convinced any of them beat Patrick Mahomes in a playoff game. And on the NFC side, yeah, Arizona. If you're convinced any of them beat Patrick Mahomes in a playoff game and on the NFC side, yeah, Arizona, Arizona is the team that you think they are the strongest team. But the rest of them,

the Packers have their flaws. Dak has not been the same since that injury. Stafford is doing his Stafford thing. I just, it really feels like a collision course for Brady Mahomes. I think it'd be awesome if it happened again too. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I guess like there's maybe a part of me that got really tired of Brady in the Superbowl and then you're like, well, how old can he be and still take his team to the

Superbowl? Yeah. I don't know. Um, but that, that's how it feels as of today that could change, uh, very soon. So I appreciate your time following the bears and Packers. So we're recording this late. So I appreciate you, uh, bears and Packers. So we're recording this late. So I appreciate you hanging out and taking the time, Paul, and always, always interested in any of your answers to any of these questions. You want to tweet them to me, email them to me, whatever you want to do. That's kind of why we do them. Cause I think that they're, they get you thinking. So anyway, well, good time. And this week will be, will be fun though. The week, you know,

leading up to the Steelers was only a couple of days, but what a just miserable couple of days. Like everyone is fired. It's the worst loss ever. And I'm watching today just to rub salt in that wound. I'm watching today, the pregame on Fox. And of course they're interviewing Jared Goff and they're throwing the like game winning drive. Terry Bradshaw looks into the TV and he's like, let me tell you something. This game showed me what Jared Goff is made of. He is mentally tough and I believe in him as a quarterback. He gave this impassioned speech about how great Jared Goff is after beating the Vikings to go to one in 10. And today, Jared Goff went 24 for 39 with 215 yards. That is 5.5 yards per attempt

and lost 38 to 10. Football, everybody. Just great. Just great. Come on. What? Terry's got to focus on his highlight reads, getting those down quick and smooth before he can. Celebrating Jared. I mean, it was like he player of the week and everything. Like what is going on here? Like what? And now they have the fun record of one,

one, one and one, one 11 and one, which is just fantastic. Yeah. It's a palindrome. So, all right,

Paul, take care. I won't continue to make fun of it. Uh, we'll see, we'll see you later, buddy. Thanks for your time.

Thanks.