Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Where we were right and wrong about the Vikings and what it means ft ESPN's Myron Medcalf

Episode Date: November 21, 2020

Matthew Coller and ESPN's Myron Medcalf talk about some of the things they expected before the Minnesota Vikings' season started and how it's played out. Did any of us see Justin Jefferson being this good? How does that change the Vikings' outlook toward the future? If GM Rick Spielman had full job security, would he take a shot at another quarterback? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm Grant Wall, and this is American Prodigy, Freddie Adu from Blue Wire Podcast. Hello, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with ESPN's Myron Metcalf. What's up, Myron? Not much, man. Ready to talk some football, man. A lot happening. There is, there is. And what I want to do here is I want to talk about, because you and I did the very last podcast of the off season, the day before the season started, you and I did a podcast and we made a bunch of predictions and we talked about what we thought

was going to happen with this season. And I want to talk about just where we were right where we were wrong now I didn't go back and write down every single one of them but we'll talk about our perceptions of how this season would play out how it has played out so far and then how we think it's going to play out kind of relative to all those things so So I'm just going to start right out with, I thought that they would probably be about four and five right now or around 500. And I'm going to give myself credit for that. But the order of operations here was very different than I expected. You could have easily sold me on, hey,

they'll have that tough quarterback schedule right off the bat and they'll have some tougher times and then they'll win some of the games they're supposed to win. But I did not expect it to exactly go this way. Yeah, I mean, what a weird, weird season. And then, you know, just sort of the kings of finding a way to somehow stay in the mix at like week 10. It's like the Vikingsikings playbook right like so many reasons to assume that like they won't have a prayer and now here we are going and these

potentially expanded covid playoffs depending on what happens that they could have a shot and you knew it wasn't going to be pretty, but it's just been downright ugly sometimes. But guess what? It doesn't matter, especially in a year like this. Who cares how you win? Like who cares how you get there, man? To be in the mix and to have a chance, depending on what happens in the next three to five weeks where, you know,

a lot of questions about that. But, yeah, man, this is not like they're a great team, clearly. But I thought they could be a terrible one-win team at this point. So to be 500 football-ish, that is surprising to me. I was, excuse me, thinking about the way that we've gone on this roller coaster of what we've just thought of this season and even where the franchise stands over the last few weeks. I mean, we start out the season with, okay, two losses.

You're in a really bad spot. You're probably not making the playoffs. Then you get to one and five, and we're thinking, there are so many things that need to change here. Maybe we're talking about, I mean, we even had a conversation about, do you trade mike zimmer to someone because you're tanking and maybe he needs to go coach the dallas cowboys and help them out instead and you can get a draft pick coming back and every question in the friday

mailbag at that point excuse me uh was just uh i blame you for this because we were laughing before and i'm still recovering about what yeah we can't say about were laughing before. And I'm still recovering. Can't say about what? Yeah, we can't say about what. But I'm still recovering with my voice from that. But, you know, so we go from like every Friday mailbag questions about Kirk Cousins and how to get rid of him. Everyone wants to know the contract details, how do you get out of it. And then it's always at the lowest moment of Kirk Cousins that he, it's like the sun will come up tomorrow with Kirk Cousins.

And it absolutely did. And now it feels like they're in a good spot. And the last time I can remember it being like this is probably 2016 only in the reverse where they start out 5-0 and we're saying, oh, my gosh, Peter King is writing that Sam Bradford should be the MVP of the league. They're a favorite for the Super Bowl. and then it all goes the opposite direction. So I just think it's fascinating about how even our view of where this franchise stands on the whole has been continually in flux really since the very start of the season.

Yeah, it's changed from week to week, to your point. But I'll say, you know, a lot of us thought at this point in my exam, you would basically see the writing on the wall, time for a change. Clearly this isn't the right situation. And now you're looking at it and going, I mean, this hasn't been easy to navigate, the personnel issues they've had, the moves they've had, the injuries, the situations they've had to deal with to be

middle of the pack and now i think the other thing that's really changed the outlook is the nfc north and all that and i think that's what's becoming more and more clear is that these are all winnable games in this league, including Green Bay, certainly against Chicago, as we saw, and also obviously against Detroit. And I thought coming into this season that if you stumbled early and you couldn't get your offense going consistently or you had these big defensive issues, that that would be exploited in league play, that Chicago and defensively what they could do, whether Nick Foles or Tr traviski played well enough that they were going to be have a slight edge you know over you in that situation green bay aaron rogers even with the

defensive questions they were just going to be too good to handle and then even detroit who remember those early weeks of the season were right there ready to win games against green bay and chicago so i thought minnesota was heading into sort of this gauntlet of being average you know wasn't gonna be good enough you weren't gonna be able to stay in these games down the stretch and now here we are it looks like this is in terms of top to bottom i don't think any division outside of the nfc east where everyone's just terrible you have more teams that are closer to each other in terms of their talent level, in terms of just overall how good they are. I think everybody in the NFC North, yeah, it's one through four,

but it just feels really close. And that's a good sign for a Vikings team that doesn't have to play superhero football. You just got to be good enough. And in the NFC North, that might be your ticket to a playoff spot. Do you think that along this way that the view of the organization about where these things are going to go has vastly changed? Because I think the answer would be yes. I think that the Wilfs ride the roller coaster along with us

when we do this kind of week-to-week overreaction. That's what makes the NFL go round. But even people like you and I try not to be prisoner of the moment. We keep an eye on the big picture at all times, what the numbers tell us and all those sorts of things. And yet still, at one in five, it was very reasonable to talk about how there needed to be major changes here and that they needed to be talking about, you know, can we draft Justin Fields at the top of the draft? Can we, should we all be on Saturdays watching BYU football to watch Zach Wilson throw the ball around, which I still highly advise because he is super fun. But, you know, going from that position

where you're talking about probably major regrets on some contract extensions and so forth, and then here we are several weeks later, I think that they have ridden the roller coaster as well. I also think that they probably shouldn't. If you look at what happened with Atlanta last year, I think they went 6-2 down the stretch, and they were like, Dan Quinn, got it all turned around. He's got the culture. It's all set. Matt Ryan, good to go.

We don't need to draft a quarterback and all those sorts of things. And then, you know, here they are, and they start the season winless until playing the Vikings. And I just – I think that when you have a long-term view, you should have a long-term view. And you shouldn't let that be altered um very easily by hey we beat the packers in 50 mile an hour wins uh we got away with the win against chicago detroit is just a joke when it comes to their coaching so of course you won that game but

i guess i i wonder how how you view that how you think that um just these things have changed as we've gone along well no i think they've changed a lot and my theory was this in the covid era if you were bad this year covid wasn't gonna bail you out and we've already seen that in houston we saw that in atlanta guys have got to fight you can't use the excuse of i'm going through COVID. The world has changed. Therefore, I deserve more time. If you're terrible, you're just terrible. But if you're above that, if you are sort of 500-ish, now all of a sudden it looks like you've overcome something. Like, wait a minute.

You went through all this. We didn't really have a preseason, and here you are. Depending on what happens in the second half of the season, you might have a chance in a league that doesn't look insurmountable. So I think that's what happened to the Vikings. All of a sudden, terrible, change everything, all of a sudden became, wait a minute, man. Look at what they're doing with all the challenges they've had.

So you make the difference. Gakwe now, you know, he's no longer with the team. Daniel Hunter never gets here because of the injury. Offensive line challenges. At the start of the season, you're going into the season going, how on earth are you going to replace the production of Stevon Diggs? Can you trust Kirk Cousins?

The mentality was you're not good enough and your quarterback isn't good enough to overcome these tight games, especially against good teams. And now here we're finding out that, well, maybe that's what the Vikings are with the way Dalvin Cook is playing. Justin Jefferson shows up and suddenly it looks like, you know what? You're not going to replace this Devon Diggs. He might be the best receiver in the league right now.

But Justin Jefferson is like the young receiver you'd want in the NFL. So it almost feels like everybody won there. And defensively, this was a defense that had an opportunity to be the worst defense in the league. To be

what we're seeing in Seattle and Dallas. It's been better than that. Despite all the personnel issues and despite having all the COVID challenges and young quarterbacks and young secondary. Like, this could have been like that Seattle team that gave up more yards, I believe, through six games than any team in NFL history. And it's not that.

So I think that's what's changing is what looked like a free fall toward terrible is almost starting to look like this uphill climb and like now the vikings are halfway up this mountain and you're not thinking about them falling but thinking about their growth and that's what's changed everything i don't know how you change everything in covid when it looks like a team is sort of overcoming to some degree and you've got these young promising pieces. Whereas if you're bad, like Houston, you just spent all that money on Deshaun Watson. Yeah. Yeah. Get rid of it.

Sorry. You can't coach your damn queen. You've had so many opportunities. Sorry. So in situations like that, it was sort of, their time was coming. Zimmer's sort of making the case that, you know what? You can make a change after the season, but considering everything we've faced, is that person really going to do better than what you've witnessed so far? That's my question. Yeah, and with Zimmer, when it comes to his status, even at one and five, I didn't look at this and say, wow, Mike Zimmer has lost the fastball.

He has no idea what he's doing out there. It was more of his quarterback keeps throwing interceptions. That's kind of a big problem. And with the personnel on the defensive side, I don't know what he was supposed to do. Like, oh, he's supposed to be the cornerback whisperer, right, but he didn't have much time to whisper to him when he came to that training camp. Now, the mistake maybe that they made was with some of the personnel that they went with. I mean, going with Cameron Dantzler right off the start for a guy who was a third-round pick,

trying to be a day-one starter was maybe too much to ask. Also asking multiple positions of Jeff Gladney, hey, play nickel and play outside corner. And, oh, by the way, you just got here and don't know what's going on. I think we've even seen in recent weeks that playing Chris Boyd might have been the better answer because he was on the team last year. But then, you know, the other injuries and things like that happen. In terms of where we were right and where we were wrong, I think that the big picture we would have said, hey, you want to see progress. You probably weren't going to have said, hey, you want to see progress. You probably weren't going to have a good defense, but Zimmer would scheme them up to be decent.

It's like it's sort of returning to being right, like where we thought this would be. But there are some specifics that I want to acknowledge my wrongness on. And one of them is Yannick Ngakwe. I mean, I thought when they traded for him that this would be the pair for a long time. Yannick Ngakwe and Daniil Hunter. They're going to play him this year. He'll get 10 sacks. They'll sign him to a long-term contract extension.

And then they'll go forward with those positions set. And even though some guys have shown some progress over the last few weeks, like DJ Wanham has played pretty well, I'm not ready to say that he's going to be the future starter. I think that Fadi Adenabo is probably better as a rotational player. Wanham might end up being that same way too. And so you still have that opening there. I would not have expected that at the beginning of the season.

Now, as it went on, I expected them to trade Yannick Ngakwe because he just wasn't as good as maybe they thought he was when they traded for him. But that one was not something that I expected to play out that way. I mean, you and me both. I mean, I thought like you were bringing in someone who, even if Daniel Hunter was still hurt and that lingered into the season, I thought you had someone who could be an anchor, you know, and who would just – I mean, at that position, you can change the tone of your defense. You know, when we talk about, like, that's a nasty defense, you know, a lot of times we're talking about that position,

kind of what you can do there. Like, that's how we judge it. So, yeah, that was disappointing, I think. And I think the trade more than anything sort of left you going, where do you go from here, you know? And you got the young quarterbacks and the questions there. But I think still the fact that we're not talking about a team that's the worst in the league defensively.

That, you know, and I think personnel-wise, it's all there for them to be that, you know. I think that's where you're going to give Zimmer more credit in terms of this is kind of what he's done. He's kind of worked with defenses that don't have the Daniel Hunters and these superstars, and you're kind of just putting these guys together like MacGyver. And I think going into league play in the second half of the season, I'm definitely wrong about him,

but I was also wrong about what I thought they'd be defensively at that point. You're trading him. Daniil Hunter's not coming back. Young quarterbacks, you're going to give up 50 points a game or something. So I think the fact that they're here and I'm not – that they're in a position where they don't look that different from the rest of this division. And in my opinion, the rest of the NFL, which to me is just one big middle

of the pack. There's no one that has kind of put it all together other than maybe Pittsburgh. You could say the Saints, but now Drew Brees is out. How long? We don't know. Taysom Hill is going to be the starter. It looks like going forward. Yeah, Kansas City is Kansas City, but we all understand that.

Once you get past three, four, five teams maybe in this league, everyone's in sort of that same imbalanced group. And I think that to me is what I was definitely wrong about, that they would somehow find their way into that crowd. I want to remind you to go to SodaStick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. There are many great designs. Someone on Twitter recently sent their John Randall shirt,

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SodaStick, original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. Code Purple Insider for free shipping. I do think we were right about how the NFC North would play out. That not exactly, again, in this order, but that the Lions would be significantly harmed by their head coach and come up short of their expectations. The Chicago Bears would be the definition of a mediocre football team because of their quarterback situation.

Now, I didn't think the Packers would be quite this good. I thought that they would regress from the 13-3 team to maybe being more of like a 9-7, and I still think that that's possible. I mean, they've shown some pretty significant weaknesses against the Vikings and then even against the Jaguars, where they barely escaped Jake Luton the other day against the Jaguars. So I still think that there's some continuing regression coming to the Green Bay Packers, and that at the end of the year, we'll end up with the leader of the NFC North being maybe 10-6 and the loser of the NFC North maybe being 6-10 or 7-9.

So I think that is how we thought it was going to play out now did you expect Justin Jefferson to be great right away I don't remember what we said about Justin Jefferson but I think that my expectation was the first half of the season would be kind of like working his way in and then the second half was when he should be able to take off because we could see the pure talent in training camp but to be nine weeks into the season and have this guy rank as pff second best receiver in the entire league that is way over the expectations i think you'd have for any rookie receiver yeah i thought i thought he had the potential to play his way into the rotation right away.

I mean, you're a football junkie. I mean, I watched those LSU games. And, yeah, Joe Burrow, it was all about Joe Burrow. But, like, you know, Justin Jefferson was really, really good, you know. That was a team that, if you looked at some of his big games, man, you could tell that he was special. And I thought he'd play his way into the rotation. I thought we'd be talking about him as the third option because I thought Irv Smith would kind of emerge

as this consistent target. Thielen would be number one. And then Justin Jefferson would be a guy where you said, okay, man, you have a third target, which in this league, that's saying something. But to see him be brilliant at this point, I don't think anybody anticipated that. And, you know, you don't want to stamp anybody too soon, but it's clear that you're saying as a Vikings fan, I would say,

that's the future. Dalvin Cook is the present, certainly. You're going to ride that train as long as you can, especially with him staying healthy. But five to seven years from now, it's Jefferson. I mean, that's the guy. You know, can you find and keep a quarterback to get him the ball, to use him to the best of your ability, put him in good situations to be effective on the field?

That's your ticket to having a great offense every year. So that part's been surprising to hear the way people around the league are talking about him and, you know, just how much he's dazzled everybody. I don't think anybody could have predicted what we've witnessed so far. If you were going to make a no-trade list for the Vikings and your no-trade list only had, you know, you could only have three players that no one could ever trade anything for them outside of Patrick Mahomes. Like, let's just assume that if someone is giving you Patrick Mahomes, you're trading anything for it.

But beyond that, Justin Jefferson is number one on your list of the do not trade, anybody who calls gets laughed off the phone, go away, especially because of the fact that you have a fifth-year option on the guy. I mean, if you are this good right away, even Daniil Hunter took a year to get going, and then all of a sudden he was great. But to be this good right away, to be an elite receiver right off the bat, I mean, you can have four years of elite receiver play for very little money. And there's huge, huge value in that.

And I was getting attacked by Packers fans over saying the Vikings have the brightest future of the NFC North. Justin Jefferson is my main reason why. Yes, Devontae Adams is an elite receiver and maybe the best in the league, but he's very expensive. He costs you a lot of money, whereas the next four years of Justin Jefferson do not cost you a lot of money, and then you'll sign him to a contract extension, of course, and then things get a little more tricky. But at this moment, you get an elite receiver for only a couple million bucks.

I mean, that is like someone handing you gold. We talk about the quarterback position for this all the time, but we almost never talk about the other positions. And this is where if the Vikings hit on some of the young corners, they'll be in a good spot too because that's a very expensive position. So, you know, I think that I don't want to, I mean, there's almost no level of hyperbole that seems ridiculous at this point with Justin Jefferson, but I want to say that his draft pick was franchise altering.

Because if you're talking about an older Adam Thielen and a bust first-round wide receiver, I'm going, I don't know what you give Kirk Cousins in the future. I don't know what you give the next quarterback in the future. Now, hey, come on here. You get this. I mean, we've seen how it's helped Kyler Murray to have DeAndre Hopkins. I mean, Josh Allen is a completely different human being with Stephon Diggs,

and we saw that play out here with Sam Bradford setting career highs, Case Keenum setting career highs. I've come around to the idea, My myron that give me a wide receiver in today's game over anything else except for quarterback i think that that is number two if you're ranking all of the positions in terms of value yeah no i think especially a league like this i mean it's the difference throughout this league you know, that Seattle team is a great example of a team that has a great quarterback and now has two targets, but like young DK Metcalf's emergence is the game changer.

That's how they're competing in what I think is the best division in football because of what he's been able to do and what he's evolved into. It's franchise altering certainly because now you have an anchor going forward. And now I think it's going to matter less what happens with Kirk Cousins. Because I think if you bring in a young talent to quarterback and you give him that, he's probably going to be okay, you know, if he's solid. Now, we thought that about Baker Mayfield to some degree, and there have been challenges in Cleveland.

But you'd rather start there and be able to bring in a quarterback at some point and say, hey, you get Justin Jefferson. The other important thing for this is one day fans are coming back to this stadium, and one day things are going to be normal again, and you need someone to sell your franchise, and you need someone that people want to see, not just buying jerseys and buying tickets that America wants to see. You want those primetime Sunday games. You want Minnesota to be a destination where people go, man, I want to be a part of that. Justin Jefferson is your ticket to that, because to me, he's is on the list of 15 to 20 players in the NFL where if you're like, man, I'm a fan, who do I have to see at least one time this season play and perform? Justin Jefferson is on that list. The rest of that list for the most part are quarterbacks. And Justin Jefferson might be one of the few wide receivers on that list that I feel like, man, you have to see that dude compete because he's just that good.

Isn't it remarkable that the Vikings have had this player for like 30 years now? I mean, or 20-plus years from Randy Moss to Adrian Peterson to now Justin Jefferson and Delvin Cook as well falls into this category. When he's at his best, he's a must-see player. It's like you are blessed to have this level of player. And I remember doing a radio appearance in Buffalo because they were breadth of talent for a very long time in Buffalo with football after the Diggs trade.

And I said, this is your best receiver that you've had since probably Andre Reid. I mean, there are many teams that have gone a very long time without anyone in this ballpark that are trying to like fill spots and just how can we, you know, get a couple of number two receivers or whatever. And there was a time at the receiver position post Moss that was like this. And you just get blessed with Justin Jefferson to fall into your lap. And hey, how about that? Well, they drafted Treadwell, so they can't scout receivers. Guess they can.

Guess the draft is random. Now, you alluded to something that I want to ask you about, which is Kirk Cousins. And would you select which one of these options? Option A is with Justin Jefferson, Adam Thielen, Irv Smith going forward, and Delvin Cook presuming he stays healthy, do you feel like that means Kirk Cousins has what he needs when we talk about the supporting cast, that he has that,

that he can be the Jimmy Garoppolo or Jared Goff that takes the team to the Super Bowl because everything around him is great? Or would you say that this is the reason to not keep Kirk Cousins because you can get someone else at a cheaper price to throw the ball to Justin Jefferson wide open, Adam Thielen wide open, Irv Smith wide open, and so forth? Which direction would you go with that? That's a great question, man. I think I'm number two. And I think I'm number two and I think I'm number two because of what I've seen in Tampa Bay and Arizona I don't know if people understand

how remarkable it is what Arizona did Arizona drafted Josh Rosen in the first round early the guy they thought was their franchise quarterback had a coach thought this is our combination for the future midway through the season they realized it's not going to work.

And instead of being the Chicago Bears and saying, let's just see if things maybe work out for the next four years, they said, no, we're scrapping. Kyler Murray's coming. We like him. He's got a coach he's familiar with. That's our combination. And then you bring him in, and it just changes everything.

Kyler didn't have those weapons right away, but then he eventually got them, and now you're looking at a guy who is a play away from sweeping the Seahawks, is a guy who's going to be in the MVP conversation. Tampa Bay has Jameis Winston throw for 5,000 yards, but they can't get over his 30-plus turnovers, right? They can't get over the fact that you can't trust him so they bring in Tom Brady now we still have a lot of questions about Tampa Bay but I do think if you're Minnesota can you get value at that position

spending less money clearly because the pieces are there like this to me is a ryan tannahill situation this to me is a deal where you go you know what if you're spending that kind of money and you're not getting a guy who is consistently elevating this team then i think you do have to consider your options because justin jefferson isn't just good justin jefferson has a chance to be great and that's the difference dalvin cook isn't just good. Dalvin Cook healthy is great. And now all of a sudden you have these next level pieces and components that can help you make a run. But I don't know, if anybody believes that Kirk Cousin is the guy in the driver's

seat to get you there, even though all the pieces, even though the table's set for you. I think at some point you got to go, let's change the chef, man, and see what happens if he can't get it done. Because what we can all say, whether Kirk Cousins is here, gone after this season, or if he's here for another five years, he's had his chances. And I think there are a lot of people who are going, you know what?

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And once you put out a statement that says we're not going to fire people, it usually means the seat is hot enough to be discussing firing people. We've done this dance long enough, right? We know that that's the case. The dreaded vote of confidence is usually not a great thing for you. And so they did that, not us. And when we have those conversations, it always goes back to what if they lost to New Orleans but if you think about if you were to say to Rick Spielman I will not fire you if you move on from Kirk and draft a quarterback that doesn't work out or I will not fire you if you sign someone else off a free agency to come in and run this offense

for very cheap. Let's say Cam Newton next year. Cam has played well recently. Let's just say if you take a big swing and you miss, it's the right move. So we will not hold it against you. I think that they make the big move. I think that they trade cousins and then they draft someone else or they get a free agent quarterback. I mean, who knows what's's going to come up I don't think we expected this year or last year at this time to be saying Tom Brady Tampa Bay Buck so you never know what's going to come up right and there will be other quarterbacks that come available and I think this is a thing that's happening more and more often as we go forward. So if you're doing the purely like process thing and not considering your own job status, you're throwing caution to the wind and making the right roll of the dice.

I think it's option number two. I also think that this thing has been a lot about preservation of jobs in recent years. And we are much more likely to see them just say, hey, Cousins' second half of the year, he had 103 quarterback rating, and he only fell apart that one time against the Jaguars and lost us the playoff position or whatever. Like, that will be talked about. When last year they were saying, oh, he had that comeback against Denver, who's horrible. Like, all right, yeah,

he also got you in a 20-point deficit in that game. But anyway, let's not talk about that. But, like, when they were holding up these things, I thought, oh, this is, hey, we still made the right move with Kirk Cousins. And I just wonder if you were able to give people that imagination land where their jobs weren't in jeopardy, what they would do. I think it would be a lot different. And I'd love to see it because, I mean,

it has been about keeping your job, you know, for a lot of these situations. Here's another thing you have to consider if you're the Vikings. You haven't made as much money as you've made in the past because you haven't had fans. You've been crushed financially. That has to be a consideration for the Vikings and everyone else. So going forward, you have to be able to sell this team to a fan base that has been affected by

everything attached to COVID. You have to be able to tell this fan base, here's why you spend your hard-earned cash in the middle of everything we're dealing with financially to come back and support your team. I think there's always excitement about new. And I think there's going to be less excitement about Kirk Cousins if this team ends up being, you know,

8-8 or something and not getting to the playoffs. And then you're saying, come watch me. Now, if you tell me Zach Wilson is coming, if you tell me there's a young guy coming in who maybe we should give a shot, if you tell me there's a quarterback, a Cam Newton, someone else, a name coming in, now all of a sudden there's an excitement tampa bay had all these pieces last year they made one change and that was that quarterback for the most part and it changed the franchise it changed how we viewed them and it changed the excitement about that team and every game would be a sellout if fans were allowed into these buildings

the vikings my opinion had to be thinking about that as well what sort of product are you selling because that's what this is going to be about too it's never been more about that coming out of this season like 2021 is going to be an incredibly significant season for everybody involved for the league, to see what happens after we have this wacky year. And I think if you're the Vikings, convincing people that you're willing to try something new feels like a risk. But I think financially it's a gamble that will pay off because people love new, and that's what the Vikings need to finally take a chance on.

And we also never consider the actual cash that owners are paying out. We only care about the cap, but Kirk Cousins is going to make a lot of cash from them. If you trade him away and go with a cheaper option, yes, you can spend the cap space in other places, but you can also spend less cash if you're the Wilfs, considering how much you've probably lost throughout this year. Not that I'm crying any tears for the Wilfs. I think they'll be okay. I think they'll make it through. There are a lot of people in maybe slightly harder situations.

Give me, before we wrap up, Myron, the wrongest you were. Is that a word? About the whole NFL this year. Like what was the preseason take where you were banging the drum and then now we are a little more than halfway through the season, you go, nope, nope, that did not, no, no, screw that one up. Justin Herbert. I thought he was average in college.

I don't think he had any next level ability. You know, I thought in a league like the Pac-12, you got to be sort of this dominant force. I didn't think he was that. He just didn't strike me as someone who's going to come into this league and be franchise level quarterback, you know. And here he is. I mean, they've lost like four out of five, but they've been in every game.

And if you're the Chargers, you can stamp him right away and go, yep, that's our future. That's the guy we can build around. So I was surprised that Herbert, who doesn't even get this opportunity if Teron Taylor doesn't get stabbed essentially, you know. I think he's probably been the most surprising thing because I was definitely – I was not very high on him. And he looks like a young franchise quarterback, man, to me.

I think you will still be right about Justin Herbert. That is a hot take. Really? I think you'll still be right. Yes, that's my take. I think that this draft class goes long-term, and this will be one that maybe I become very wrong about to a number one and then burrow number two and Herbert number three long-term.

I think that a lot of his success has been sort of heaving it up and having good receivers make plays and having the gutsiness to throw the ball down the field, but that's not really like a sustainable model for being a great quarterback. I worry about Burrow's arm strength a little bit. Doesn't seem like he can really get a whole lot of juice behind it like great quarterbacks. I like everything I've seen from Tua. I think he's mentally ahead of everybody else. And I'll be interested to see how it plays out because I could be way off on this, but that's how I'm still ranking them right now.

Again, trying to be long-term and not prisoner of the moment. For me, it's the team the Vikings are playing, the Dallas Cowboys. I mean, I thought that their offense was going to be incredible, which it kind of was before Dak got hurt. I thought Mike McCarthy would actually work out. I mean, a lot of times people complain about retread coaches, but then it works for a lot of these guys where they go somewhere else and then kind of revamp their career or whatever.

No, no, it did not. And their defense is so bad that it just derailed their entire season from the start. I thought they were a legit Super Bowl contender. No, not even close. So I had much less faith in Mike McCarthy. And my challenge with Mike McCarthy was, I mean, offensively, they had a lot of strengths already, you know,

with Dak and the way they were rolling last year. There were a lot of questions defensively, and there were just so many moments in green bay where that defense was average sub the low average and aaron rogers kind of bailed him out my biggest thing though was he's from that generation of coaches who if you don't understand that this new generation of athletes are different and their expectations are different in terms of relationships, I knew Mike would struggle with that. And I think three or four weeks into the season, you have these anonymous reports of players saying, this isn't our guy.

I mean, you had a guy, Mike McCarthy, who gets to the podium in his first press conference, and they say, hey, have you talked to Dak? No, I don't even have his number. That's not a good thing to say, Mike. Right, right. Analytics and things like that that where he was always resistant so i just thought he was going to have a hard time kind of parachuting into 2020 if he was going to keep sort of his old ways i thought he had to make some significant challenges

changes and he hasn't done that and i think that's a big problem yep i think i feel like i missed and this is usually something i don't do but i miss sort of the common sense part of it just like the don't forget it's still mike mccarthy you know like the don't don't miss the forest through the trees here of talking about how great cd lamb could be and he is good but um it's still mike mccarthy and what we're seeing and i think it's always been true, but coaching is still a huge freaking deal. So Myron, I appreciate you dropping by and dropping some truth grenades on us here and so forth. And we will,

we'll get together again soon, man. Sounds good, man.