Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Why doesn't Kirk Cousins succeed in game-winning situations?

Episode Date: November 24, 2020

Matthew Coller and Football Outsiders film analyst Derrik Klassen dive deep into what it takes to lead a game-winning drive and why Kirk Cousins has struggled in this area. Plus why it's unfair to ask him to do things that aren't within his skillset and we draft every QB in order by how they'd perform in game-winning situations. 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 and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, along with Derek Klassen. I needed a QB expert, Derek, for today's episode and I just want to ask you, are you ready for this? This could be the most intense podcasting experience you've ever had. Well, I'm not sure I'm an expert but I can try to hit the quote. I can do my best impression here. See, I don't think you can do that because your name on twitter is qb class as in classin and you write film room pieces for football outsiders you've also contributed to our local friends here at zone coverage watching kirk cousins tape so i think that you

qualify in fact you are exactly who i wanted to have this discussion with because the internet has been aflame with debates over kirk cousins and final drives after the vikings lost on uh well a final drive gone wrong one of many since kirk cousins arrived here so i want your opinion on final drives and i also want us to talk about who we would take above kirk cousins in terms of final drives to win or tie a game and we'll kind of rank them or put them into buckets or whatever but I just want to ask you do you think there's something to it because I went through all of his situations where he could either tie or win a game and he's three for nine there was the game against the Packers in 2018 there was the game against the Packers in 2018. There was the game against New Orleans, obviously, in the playoffs where he led a game-winning drive. But there have also been a lot that have left much to be desired.

So do you think from watching a lot of Kirk Cousins, as you have on tape, that there is something about him specifically that causes him to not succeed when the game is on his shoulders with a minute left down by seven or three or whatever so i think the thing with that is like in in those situations where you've got you know yeah like a minute left and you know you're down by a touchdown or four points or whatever the hell in those situations you have to have some kind of trump card, whether that's you're hyper aggressive and are willing to throw anything like Jameis Winston or whether you have just an outrageous arm like, I don't know, a Justin Herbert or, you know, Patrick Mahomes is obviously like the peak example. Or you need to be able to be a guy who can create time for yourself in the pocket with your mobility. And Kirk's not like a bad athlete, but he's not going to be scrambling around the way that, you know, I don't know, Deshaun Watson can or something like that.

He's not going to be able to make opportunities that aren't there. And so when you get into these situations where you, they're almost entirely dependent on the quarterback making an opportunity for themselves. And you're not a quarterback who really has a trump card even if you're otherwise a pretty decent quarterback you kind of fall into the situation where the game situation is such that you can't really play within the structure of the offense and then you don't have anything that helps you play out of it and it's I think for Kirk in particular that's a problem and you said he's three of nine and honestly that Saints game is

like not that he didn't make a good throw or whatever, but like the way that that one unfolded was not really because Kirk did anything spectacular. Yeah, he, well, first wins a coin flip. So that helps. Right. Over time, they did blow a double digit lead in the fourth quarter and not trust Kirk with the ball on other drives that allowed Drew Brees to set himself up to go forth and tie the game and if they win the coin flip I have no doubts that Vikings history is quite a

bit different after that game because I think that it would have been the game you blew in New Orleans to Drew Brees and they're uh you know maybe they don't call it a miracle if it's Drew Breeze and he does it. They just expect that to happen. But on the Kirk Cousins point with his skill set, he has a strong arm, but it's not a mega strong arm. And he has a little mobility, maybe more this year than I've ever seen him, but it certainly is not anything that's going to allow him to dodge tacklers and roll out and make all these different plays. And I think that those two things specifically hurt with the way defenses play in the final minute of games. Because you have, A, defensive linemen who are just frothing at the mouth, ready to come after you. They know you have nothing else that you can do except for drop straight back. So you can beat Riley Reif around the edge when that happens.

You can beat some guys inside. Reif had a very, very tough day. And that's the thing. If you have a good edge rusher and Riley Reif has to face you man to man with him knowing you're going to pass, Riley Reif is not a guy who's going to win that every time. So then you have Cousins, who is kind of averse to throwing into really tight spaces. And I think he hesitates sometimes in these situations and will prefer to throw it underneath to somebody open, even the throw to Jefferson that Jefferson dropped yesterday. That's still a Cousins final drive type of play to go underneath

rather than trying to push the ball downfield. Because I think at times he doesn't even believe in his own arm strength and accuracy. And I think a lot of Vikings fans would like to see him trust it a little more. Exactly I mean that's the thing is like Kirk does have a pretty good arm granted like you said he doesn't trust it nearly as much as he probably should and he's a decent enough athlete that he should be able to not make a tackler miss every time but at least enough to where he should be able to try it but the thing is kind of like I said like on these drives you really need a trait that's like a nine out of ten or a ten out of ten that you can kind of rely on Kirk has a lot of like seven and a half

which is great when the offense is doing what it needs to do it's not great when you have a situation like this and then you're also a quarterback who's like you mentioned kind of averse to testing these windows and really Kirk's arm is good enough his accuracy is good enough that he should be able to test these windows and it's not like these receivers are bad you know Thielen and Jefferson in particular I think are plenty good enough contested guys that if you give them enough opportunities over time these drives are going to work out but Kirk just for he's always been this way just for whatever reason really doesn't like testing those I was thinking about this with Cousins too about like when we look at arm strengths one thing we kind of don't look at is how long it takes to wind up to get that ball out of there and I think

with Cousins his interceptions and I forget who this was. Maybe it was Matt LaFleur who said when we asked him about Cousins, he was like, well, he's an anticipation type of thrower, so sometimes that results in interceptions. And I wonder when it comes to Cousins, he really has to do it exactly right to throw in the way that he wants to throw. He isn't a flick-of-the-wrist guy to get it out of there quickly, and I wonder if when it comes to those tight windows,

it takes more for him to do it than someone like Mahomes, someone like Rogers who can just snap their fingers and the ball is out of their hands. Even Jimmy G. I think that that's the difference between them is Garoppolo has that really quick release, which I think is harder for defenses. I think that that plays into it of why he doesn't have 1000% trust in his arm to fire it into tight windows. Yeah. And I think a lot of that comes down to how well a quarterback can like disassociate their upper body and still get a lot of strength versus their lower body. I don't think Kirk really has that in him where like he has to

have his feet under him in a particular way and like go through the the literal like perfect picture perfect uh throwing motion whereas you look at guys like i don't know mahomes watson russell wilson aaron rogers i mean basically all the best even dac prescott who really doesn't have like a great arm but he's very good at disassociating his feet when he needs to and still getting you know 95 percent of whatever arm strength he has I think he's really good at that Kirk I don't think he he is very good at that and that's why even while he can like get outside of the pocket a little bit there's too many situations I think if you have to make you know one quick jab step in the pocket to then make a quick throw

that's just not really something Kirk has in his arsenal the same way that a lot of these other guys have. I mean, even Drew Brees. Drew Brees doesn't have a good arm, which I think is more true now this year than in previous years. But if you watch, I don't know, 2018 Drew Brees, where the arm is a little bit more there, even though it wasn't great, he was still really good at just getting everything out of only his upper body and being able to make throws all over.

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see it it's almost like watching a golfer in slow motion where you can see all the parts work together and when he rolls to his left and does the flip your hips thing and throw across his body it's great i mean he really is he is as good as that as anybody else but when it comes to if he's gonna duck a tackler and then be on the move and all that it really has to be something open down the field and you can tell that he does not have any sort of trust in that and all those things play into why it's difficult for him now my question for you is how much does this matter? So, I mean, I mentioned nine games where I went through just all the box scores and remembering myself from covering the games.

And, I mean, over a sample size of two and a half years, nine games is a lot that you get into these tight situations. And especially when you're playing a bad defense, I don't think it's too much for a fan to look at this and say, or the team who signed him for a huge contract to say, can you please, can you please win more than you lose of these games? Because that's why we signed you. There's another part of me that says, you know, a tiger doesn't change his stripes just because you make the tiger a millionaire. Right. I mean, look, someone could tell me, Hey man, go out and dunk.

Here's 10 million bucks. I expect you to dunk. could tell me, hey, man, go out and dunk. Here's 10 million bucks. I expect you to dunk. Like, OK, but I can't. That's not something. Right. But I'm very rich now. I mean, so I think that there's this every time people tweet me about like they should expect him to win these games. He's getting paid this much money. I think like, well, that's not his fault. I mean, he didn't pay himself this, and it doesn't change who he ever was from his time in Washington to his first two years to who he is now and what you need to win with him as your quarterback. I think you're spot on.

I think, yeah, first of all, you shouldn't expect that from him in the sense that, yeah, like you paid him knowing who he was and you paid him with the expectation that you could have this run game and you could have this play action pass game, which actually they do have this year. The problem is the other part of the equation was having a good defense that would make that more effective. And they really don't have that this year. And I think we saw that, especially at the end of the Cowboys game. And yeah, I think it's just like, it's,

it's just kind of frustrating that he's ended up in that spot, but I don't know. So he said a tiger just is not going to change his stripes. I kind of just as who Kirk cousins is. And I think actually the other point is like those drives do matter, but at the end of the day, Kirk is also outside of this year. I think is generally a good enough quarterback who is letting you win games before they get to this point. I think he's an above average quarterback and wins you games before they get to this point. I think he's an above-average quarterback and wins you games before they get here.

So I think that matters than how well you can win these drives. It's just frustrating when you can't do both, obviously. And here's another little bit of my research, is that this year four times Kirk Cousins has led go-ahead drives in the fourth quarter, from being behind to being ahead. And yesterday was no exception to that. He is one in three in those games. So he got you ahead in the fourth quarter.

And then the Vikings gave up a fourth and six where Jeff Gladney did not have tight enough coverage. They give up it's third down and goal. They don't get a stop there. They give up a wide open touchdown. Somebody went the wrong way. And I mean, I didn't see Kirk

Cousins playing corner at that time and I and I know that I look I am one of the people that looks at QB wins and says over a big sample it tells a lot of the story like I saw someone tweet about Deshaun Watson and QB wins anybody want to gamble with me on whether he'll be a winning quarterback at the end of his career I bet he will will. It might be down now, but I bet he will because he's great. And I think that your quarterback does ultimately control that, and those situations play into it. But I also don't think that you should look at him and say, wow, got to get rid of him. He's the worst quarterback in the world. It's all his fault, for example, is what we got yesterday.

Like, this is this is why you can't have like look your team right now has a ton of problems and you extended a quarterback that is not a plays on a team with a ton of problems and wins quarterback so I think if you want to point the finger I don't know if you pointed at the guy who's always been himself I think you put it at the team for saying, well, no, he can just overcome this, this, that, and the other thing. And that's not who he is. Right. I mean, and really how many of those quarterbacks where you can fully overcome everything are there. And even then, like, look at Deshaun Watson, like you mentioned, he's Deshaun Watson might be the third best

quarterback in the league right now. And it doesn't matter. Granted, the Texans are like a really extreme example um but still yeah like I don't know I think Kirk has I think the funny thing about Kirk this season in particular is like you mentioned he's had a handful of those drives in the end where he did get a go-ahead and then they blew it um and I think the thing is like Kirk has actually I think been playing a lot of good football this year it's just that his bad football has been so memorable like I think the Colts game um and the Falcons game in particular were so bad and so when you couple that on top of the the fact that the team is has a losing record overall it's really easy to blame Kirk Cousins

even if like he's probably been like about average to above average in terms of like his overall you know body of work for what he is as a quarterback it's just yeah the team overall is losing even if it's not his his fault and it's easy to blame the quarterback for that even if like you mentioned there's like 500 different issues with this team and this why is why it would make so much more sense in 2018 to sign him, even though I had reservations myself. But in 2018, you sign him and put him on a team that just went to the NFC Championship. That makes sense. Putting him on a rebuilding team and paying him that much money

and not admitting that you're a rebuilding team, that's where I think you can have the trouble. So I totally understand the frustration for fans with this. I just think, like, this is who your team decided to sign up for. And that's not really his fault exactly. And like you said, there have been some great games where I think that they've put him in disadvantageous situations and he's kept them close. I think that his performance against Chicago and his performance largely yesterday against Dallas, those give you

a chance to win when you probably shouldn't have, right? So I don't know. I tend to like, depending on the day, go back and forth on this. But I think it's unfair to look at it and just focus on these final drives. Yes, they are a weakness of his and say, well, you know, this is why he's trash. Like, I just think that's a little much. Especially, like, if it was a situation where Kirk all throughout the year had been playing not that well through the first three and a half quarters and was constantly putting himself in these situations, okay, maybe you have an issue here.

But I think like we both said, like, Kirk has really outside of one or two games played pretty well and well enough to win in a lot of these games. And then just the defense in particular is making it really hard for him at the end. And when you're not a quarterback who can really make up for that, then you just kind of get put in this, you know, situation that makes it seem like it's probably more your fault than it should look otherwise.

You ready to rank some stuff? I think we can try. Let's rank some stuff. All right. So I think we should go back and forth, and then we can dispute if you disagree with the other person. So why don't we just get it off the table right away? I'll just pick with the number one overall selection to take a game-winning drive with

one minute left. Patrick, whatever his middle name is Mahomes because oh my god against the Raiders it was just like boop boop game over like this is we're talking about these are the hardest situations in the world and no one ever does great except for that guy it's easier for him if anything right like oh you're gonna play everybody back and I just have to dodge a few rushers like no problem so now who's second though for you who is after Patrick Mahomes I think Deshaun Watson because really I think in the way that they play out those situations is almost really identical and I think they're both really sharp really good at moving around the pocket it's just that if you

know Deshaun Watson is an eight out of, you know, an eight and a half on the physical scale out of ten, Mahomes is a ten. And so even if they play the same way, Mahomes is just simply more talented. But I think they're both fantastic, and Watson is probably my number two here. I will go A.A. Ron, Aaron Rodgers. He did it yesterday, and he will probably do it a bunch more times before he retires. The arm talent is just never going to not be a factor sorry for the double negative but like when you think about you

think about how there's only like 10 to 12 quarterbacks in the history of our lovely sport who you'd say oh yeah that guy will win it for you like just give him the ball john elway you know joe montana tom brady who will get to Aaron Rodgers like there aren't that many where you'd say that guy's going to win six out of ten as opposed to three or four out of ten and Rodgers will forever be that guy the creativity the arm tail and all those things so he would be my next pick yeah I think that's a good one I mean just if anybody remembers the Hail Marys he threw against Arizona like Like that alone is just like, and that's just what he does. I think my next pick, if I were picking third,

it probably would have been between these two. I think my next is Russell Wilson just because I think if you just look at overall body of work, he's probably the second best quarterback in the league right now. And even if, you know, maybe you think there's some other guy that, you know, maybe if you think Tom Brady is a little more clutch or whatever, which is, I think, a totally valid argument. I think Russell Wilson is just way too talented to pass up on this spot.

Well, I saw it right there up close and personal against the Vikings. Two fourth downs and just heaving it down the field. I mean, yeah, again, the arm talent, the escapability, and I think you laid it out perfectly. What 10 out of 10 talents do you have? Well, those are those two, and they translate perfectly to these situations. Well, now I think I got to go with OGs here.

Now, it's hard to pick between Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Ben Roethlisberger. I don't know if you have an opinion on which one of them at this moment you would take, but I almost just want to bundle them. It's like the olds who I don't want to have the ball because they're just legends yeah um I think I'm fine with just bundling all three on this pick um to me personally I probably would pick Brady just because I think one it's funny to say I think especially in comparison to Roethlisberger,

but I think Brady has the best arm of them all right now. How exactly he's gotten there is who knows. TB12, baby. Yeah, it's the TB12 diet. Avocado ice cream. Sorry. Yes. If you just assume that they're all fairly close in terms of like, yeah,

how well they process the game how well they handle pressure in these situations i think if all that's a wash and you just need the guy who's gonna maybe have a little bit more accuracy maybe a little bit more arm strength i think brady's the one right now after these guys who do you take because this is where it gets really interesting i think and this is where this is where our guy starts to come into play, our subject of discussion today. Like, okay, you would clearly not pick him over Drew Brees or Ben Roethlisberger or Tom Brady, but is he in the next ballpark,

or do you have other picks that you would go with first? I have at least a couple that I would put over Cousins right now for sure, and I won't say all of them yet, but I think the one I would put over Cousins right now for sure and I won't I won't say all of them yet but I think the one I would take here is probably Kyler Murray just because he's a guy who has a lot of those you know 10 out of 10 traits his arm is fantastic he's really good moving outside the pocket he's a really creative player which I think you need in a lot of these situations he's really I think the only reason you might not want to rank him higher is he's just so young and we just haven't necessarily seen him do it all that much yet but I think

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That's BLUEWIRE, all one word, BetOnline, your online sportsbook experts. This is a tough one for me because I was thinking about the wheels were turning on game-winning drives, and I was thinking about how Matt Stafford has a lot of game-winning drives, but also how often you need to be losing to have that many game-winning drives. Yep. It's just, it's like, wait, if you had eight in a season, that means, like, you were losing, and you lost seven games. That means, like, 15 out of 16 games you were losing late in the game are,

like, you probably had a role in that. I don't know how much credit I want to give him. I mean, he's got the great arm talent, and I don't know. I mean, is there, there's something to guttiness, grittiness, all those things. I don't know if he's got it or not, or it's just, he's it's circumstantial with him, but I think he goes next here because of the pure arm talent. I don't think Stafford is a bad picture. He, he is in my net.

He was one of the three that I was talking about. The other one is actually funny because I don't think he's a great quarterback on aggregate but it might be Josh Allen just because of the pure just the pure 10 out of 10 talent stuff I mean just his arm talent is like even if he's maybe not picking the right throw if he can throw it 60 yards down the field to Stefan Diggs like there's only so many times you can you can deal with that and he's obviously you know got the young, you can deal with that. And he's obviously, you know, got the young Ben Roethlisberger stuff where he can move around and just shake tackles. Like,

I think the boneheadedness matters less in these situations where you think you already might lose anyway, that stuff matters more when you need to not get into a position to lose. But when you're in a screw it, we got to flip the coin anyway. Like a guy like Josh Allen is is honestly not not bad to have no yeah I totally agree and his throw to Stefan Diggs against Arizona was preposterous and it was insane of course they were up like 23 to 9 and he threw some interceptions and made some bad plays that got them there exactly I mean there might be a

comp there with him and Matt Stafford of like he's obviously a better runner but um in Stafford's a little more accurate but maybe just that um starts the house on fire and then comes and puts it out kind of element now hard for me is Justin Herbert because he's got ridiculous arm talent but also he never really did this in college and he still hasn't really done it in the NFL, where there's something, I don't know, there. It's hard to say. I mean, skill set-wise, maybe he seizes up a little bit.

Maybe it needs more experience, more age. I don't know. He's got the talent to be great at it, but I haven't seen him be great at it. The other one is Lamar. Huge fan still of Lamar Jackson's game. I still think he's really good losing two offensive linemen, having an offensive coordinator that doesn't ever change his offense, not having receivers. All those have played into his drop-off. But when it comes to, buddy, you got to throw the

ball, that's where that's a problem. But my question is, would you put Herbert or Lamar ahead of Cousins slash Derek Carr who might be the same person I think I still would because even if you even if like Lamar and Herbert especially with being how young he is even if they haven't necessarily shown it all that much yet one with I think Lamar in particular like a lot of the times they're just leading in games and he doesn't even need to do it. So the sample on it is pretty small. But also, to me, if I put these guys in equal offenses and I just assume that all of them are not particularly great at this anyway, I'm going to just take the ones who are more talented. And like Lamar and Herbert, I don't think anyone would argue that they're not more talented yeah yeah so and like lamar and herbert i think i don't

think anyone would argue that they're not more talented than cousins so um i think i would i would probably take those two over cousins at this point so if we're starting to kind of form tiers in this i think we've probably covered like three tiers and then it's the next one where i think we do get to cousins with jared goff jimmyoppolo. One really interesting one is here, or there are a couple interesting ones, Teddy Bridgewater and Dak Prescott. Now, Teddy Bridgewater, when he was in Minnesota, was called Two-Minute Teddy. He had a lot of these. He does have great anticipation throwing, and he does have a mobility factor to him

and a creativeness to him to where he can escape the pocket, keep his eyes downfield. I don't know that he'll ever be the 2015 version that was ascending again, though. And Dak Prescott, I've seen him struggle in these spots. It seems many, many times. I feel like he's got the skill for it, but he has not had it translate similar to what we're talking about Herbert, except for he's got a bigger sample. And then there's someone like Matt Ryan, another old who I don't really know what to do with how would you kind of sort through all these things I think actually Dak I probably would have

either at the top of whatever this tier was or at the very bottom of the last one but I think I just love Dak like on aggregate even if he's i think also part of the problem with dac is like he's been in that situation so often in part because the defense has just been atrocious for a while sure that we kind of remember when these things happen to him so um but i think i love dac so i'd probably have him yet the top of this one or bottom of the other one um teddy like i think teddy falls into really all the same problems that Cousins does, where he's just not a quarterback who wants to be playing in these situations. And I don't think he has, like, any trump card, like I mentioned.

Like, he doesn't have anything that can be like, yep, that's how he's going to win you the game. It's he's the guy who's going to have won you the game with 30 completions in the first three quarters. Like that's just kind of the way he plays. Who are the other ones? Matt Ryan, I think is good. But at this point, I don't think he's anything special. I'd probably still take him over Cousins. Like if I just were to put them on the same offense,

but I don't think that one's one I would really argue all that much. Ryan Tannehill is actually one we hadn't mentioned yet, but I think I would comfortably have him over Cousins, I think, because I think even if he's not like that much more aggressive, really, I think his arm is just a lot better and I think he's a better athlete. So like he's really kind of just like a juiced up version. A former receiver, it's never been mentioned on any broadcast. I don't know if you do that. And Jimmy G, Jared Goff, kind of same deal, like even with Cousins?

I would have them under Cousins, actually, because I think neither of them are as smart as Cousins. Because even if, like, one, I don't think either of them are, like, more talented in a glaring way than cousins. It's like, maybe you could argue their arms are slightly better, but I don't really think that that's true.

And I think both of them are worse on the move. Honestly, even if we mentioned like cousins, isn't like, you know, good at making that one jab step move or whatever, neither of those two. So who cares if this is a comparison.

And like I said, I think Kirk is just overall smarter. So you might have more situations where he can string together a slower game winning drive whereas like with those two i just i really don't trust them for anything and guys we would definitely not want uh there are some who i'm not even sure nfl quarterbacks going forward drew lock is one of them uh i'm not seeing that i'm seeing uh maybe it was maybe we discussed this a little bit, that I was saying, like, Drew Locke has a Ryan Fitzpatrick career coming

where he plays 15 years in the league and starts for a bunch of different teams and nothing ever really happens. Jake Luton, of course, is at the top of the list. We forgot him in Tier 1. I don't know what to do with what's left of Cam Newton like he's trying really hard that's I I actually think Cam is playing really good football right now I think he had what it was like weeks four to he had the COVID four to eight maybe yeah he like he had one bad game before COVID actually he had one like pretty rough one but he's prone to have like

a few of those a year anyway. And then he got COVID. Yeah. And then he was, like, really bad for two weeks after coming back for it. But then he had had two really good – two or three really good games after that. And then he was okay this last weekend. So I would probably still have Cam above Cousins just because even if Cam can't really move the way that he used to I think his arm talent like is just there's gonna be some 25 year old 25 yard throw over the middle of the field

that he's gonna at least try that Cousins probably isn't even gonna attempt I saw even yesterday he completed a pass that traveled 58 yards in the air so he'll do that every now and then too he still got that okay I I like how we've we've laid this out uh Joe Flacco obviously we missed in the air so he'll do that every now and then he still got that okay i i like how we've we've laid this out uh joe flacco obviously we missed in the elites here baker mayfield to me i've got at the very bottom i just like that's a nope to me too they're working around him almost the same way that stefanski and pat schirmer did when case keenan was here i mean that's kind of the way that it looks. Carson Wentz threw three interceptions during this podcast to both of us. He's broken, man.

We don't have to get into that entirely, but Wentz this year is just something. He's just monstrous. He's just very wrong. The bigger discussion is supporting casts are a big deal for some quarterbacks. Let me wrap us up on this. Okay. Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields, Zach Wilson, these three fellas, you've got to pick one to win the Super Bowl final drive, a minute left, go blank the field, which guy are you picking?

I mean, I think it has to be Lawrence. I think he has the best arm. He's got more than enough of the aggressiveness in him to, to make all the throws that you need to. And he's plenty mobile. He might not be, I mean, he might not be Lamar Jackson or whatever, but like he's going to be able to move around and do all the stuff you need to do. And he's really comfortable throwing from those weird platforms,

like a Deshaun Watson or whatever. So. I can't disagree, but I do love Zach Wilson. I do love Zach Wilson. I thought about it, and for this particular situation, even if I think Fields is a better quarterback on aggregate, for that particular situation, I might take Wilson just because he will do something just crazy enough that might work out, and that's what you need in those spots.

I saw that he had a headband that said something like, any team, any time, anywhere. And I just thought, this guy's got a little bit of Jim McMahon in him that I love. Yep. Derek Klassen, make sure you follow him on Twitter, at QBKLASS. As always, tremendous content that you're putting out. And you are the perfect guest for booking, where I just send you a DM like,

you want to talk some football? Hell yeah, let's talk some football. So we did. Great stuff, man. I'm always down, man. You know, that's what I'm here for. I'm a great pinch hitter, you know.