Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Will Ragatz wants Kwesi Adofo-Mensah to take the reins

Episode Date: February 3, 2023

Matthew Coller is joined by Sports Illustrated's Will Ragatz to talk about how they'll evaluate the defensive coordinator hire and what timeline the Vikings are working on. Could GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah see things differently than the other decision makers? Will suggests that they take the GM's road and go with it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider presented by Liquid Death. Go to liquiddeath.com slash insider and learn about the Tallboy can, which actually has water. Find out where you can get it near you at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Hello and welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here along with Sports Illustrated's Will Regetts. And we don't even

have any football games to do hardcore breakdowns of Will except for the Senior Bowl which neither you nor I decided to travel to this year but I guess that's what I'll be doing this weekend just watching the Senior Bowl maybe some college basketball. It's going to feel pretty weird, man. Yeah, it's the offseason. Been a couple weeks since we got together for one of these. Kind of enjoying the little lull here. There's still obviously a lot going on and a lot to look ahead to, but kind of a down period right now while we wait to find out

who the defensive coordinator will be, and then it'll ramp back up in March, and we'll start seeing some of the the moves that this team is going to make tell me how you're going to evaluate who they hire a defensive coordinator because for me this is hard uh last year I thought what a good idea to hire Ed Donatell and we've gone through this before I mean when John DiFilippo got hired by the Vikings after his Philadelphia Eagles ran over them in the NFC Championship, and we talked with John D. Filippo, it was like, who was more impressive than that guy at the podium? And, you know, it was like, oh, wow, he's got lots of great ideas, and this is going to work out great and everything. And then, you know, obviously it didn't.

And then there are other hires that had no fanfare whatsoever uh pat schirmer got elevated mid-season and then brought back we're like okay i guess and then it worked out great in 2017 and even i remember the first press conference from kevin stefanski when mike zimmer made him the official offensive coordinator and you would have thought that mike Zimmer fired him. It was like a very uncomfortable press conference and no one seemed all that happy about it. And then Stefanski was one of their best offensive coordinators they had. So judging it on the press conference or what the person says and everything that Donatello

said and they said about his system, it all made so much sense. He knows Vic Fangio. They're going to line up the same but then play different defenses and deceive people and like, okay, okay, this will all be better. And it wasn't. So how are we going to judge this one? Yeah, I guess the best answer is like we won't really be able to. I mean, it's our job, so we will.

But you just don't really know I'm with you I when when they hired Donatel I thought that was a great hire I thought it was a great hire all through the offseason into training camp when Kirk Cousins was talking about oh it's it's so muddy post snap I don't know what's happening this is so hard to process and wow this defense is great and then we were at a at a training camp, like a scrimmage thing at TCO Stadium and the defense picked Kirk Cousins off like five times. And I'm like, is this going to be a top 10 defense? Like they look they look really good out here. And it's kind of a reminder that we will all have our opinions on these things. And then some of them will be kind of based on some level of understanding, but you don't really know like the intricacies of what a coordinator is going to bring and how they're going to do in that role.

Like right now, everyone in the Vikings fan base wants Brian Flores and loves Brian Flores and like hates the idea of Mike Patton like there's a world where and I don't think this is likely by any means where Brian Flores gets hired and doesn't do well and like Mike Patton could be a good hire I don't think that is how it would how it would work out but it's just I mean we don't really know so I think Flores is a strong candidate I think a Giro Evro, if they are able to get him, he's being looked at for kind of the final two head coach openings.

Will he go back to Denver maybe? Sean Desai I think is a good option as well. They've got some good options. So we'll see what happens, and we'll evaluate it. We'll talk about it, and then maybe something completely different will happen in September. Yeah, I think what I'm curious about is that they have candidates from the Fangio tree and system, happen in September. Yeah, I think what I'm curious about is that they have candidates from the Fangio tree and system, and then they have candidates who aren't from that system. And are

they going to say, well, what we tried to do last time, it didn't fit, it didn't work. So now we're going to flip a switch and go the exact opposite. So we're going to go away from playing the two deep safeties. And now we're going to load up the box and blitz people. Are they just, you know, chasing their tail there? And then, you know, I always kind of come back to, it's really just the players. And I think that whoever they hire, unless they are completely clueless,

which you can pretty much guarantee that Evero or Brian Flores, like these guys aren't going to be clueless, that you should really give them a couple of years as the defensive coordinator because it seemed like they hired Ed Donatel to get more out of the group than Mike Zimmer. And this was one where I was always skeptical about. I was like, I don't know, man. Mike Zimmer has a lot of faults, but defensive scheming is not one of them.

And so I was always wondering, like, is it really possible that they could get more out of it than Zimmer did? And the answer is when you can't cover people, no, you can't. And so for whoever they bring in, there's just going to be a curve here. It's going to be like 2020 where they're asking young players to play a lot of snaps next year. So are you willing to have some patience and develop players for at least a year and then, you know, get your salary cap right, add a couple of free agents and so forth down the road. But I just think that it has to be incremental progress and maybe logical progress. Like that was my issue with Donatello.

Not that they didn't have a good defense because I think the personnel did not scream good defense but a lot of it just didn't make sense and they should have been better than they were instead of being 28th maybe they should have been more like competent instead of completely lost yeah and the I think the thing with Donatello was just kind of the lack of adjustments and and that was kind of what frustrated people throughout the year. But yeah, it will be interesting. The two kind of things that go hand in hand here are the defensive coordinator hires and then the overall kind of approach that Kweisi and Kevin decide to take with the personnel

on that side of the ball. And we could see it's very within the realm of possibility that we could see kind of a major overhaul because Harrison Smith, Eric Hendricks, Zedaria Smith, like Jordan Hicks, there's a lot of veteran guys who played a lot of football who might not be back next year, whether for cap purposes, for performance purposes, or kind of a combination of the two. And so that could happen and you could see a much younger defense that um just kind of will take maybe a year or two to grow into something that you could imagine being kind of a a top half unit in the league and and that's where i think you would want um somebody who's going to

come in and be there for a few years and then you you would want to give them a little bit of patience or we could see a situation where they don't make that many tweaks and um they kind of run it back for the most part and there's some adjustments obviously because there have to be with with the salary cap but there are ways to work it where you can you can bring a lot of those guys back and you can put it on on Donatello and and make him kind of the scapegoat and say all right we like these these players for the most part. And we think with a different coordinator, whether they're running the Fangio style, but kind of deploying it better and maybe being a little more aggressive within it, or they're switching it up entirely and going with like a Brian Flores defense

and doing something brand new, like there's a scenario where that happens too. So those two things kind of go hand in hand. We'll learn about the coordinator first, and then we're're gonna see kind of what they decide to do with the personnel so yeah I mean it will be interesting because if you keep kind of the same core players like do you want to completely switch up the defense because then you're asking a lot of those players for the second consecutive year to make a total scheme switch and like i don't know if that can be attributed to some of the the struggle not not for the whole season but maybe early on so i don't know maybe you want to do a fangio style thing but tweak it

a little bit so you're not asking for wholesale changes it's just kind of a fascinating um issue or question that they have to answer here isn't't the next guy either way set up to struggle like early on? Because I mean, if they bring everybody back, then there'll be pressure on whoever the next person is to make improvements. But I don't know if you've taken a look at the opposing team schedule for next year, but I can tell you there's more good quarterbacks, including the both AFC championship quarterbacks, Super Bowl quarterbacks. I mean, it's going to be a really, really tough schedule for them to face, and you could play better on defense and still end up with

some of the same results if there's not a huge improvement just based on the fact that you're going against a lot of good teams and you know Detroit's going to run back a good offense as well I mean I think that they're in a spot here where if you're the defensive coordinator I think you've got a lot of questions yourself like are you going to get rid of some of my better players and then ask me to rebuild it and if so then I want a longer contract because I want actual time to be able to figure this out. And, you know, some of these candidates, they have multiple teams that are asking them to come in and fix their defenses. And this one, I think you want answers about the personnel.

At the same time, I just have trouble believing that the same personnel would have much different results. I mean, it could be a little better, but probably not because of the schedule. And then you add another year of age. So even if you keep Eric Kendricks and keep Harrison Smith and keep the two edge rushers and everything else, or extend Delvin Tomlinson, and those are all a bunch of what ifs, you're still talking about probably young corners. Not sure where Lewis seen is going to stand. If he's going to start week one, I would guess this moment probably not with that injury i think it takes a little bit longer than um just maybe it wouldn't even be a year it was like four weeks or five weeks into the season that it happened so i think that probably takes a year for somebody to be completely back like if they

run it all back and they just say you be better than than Ed Donatel, I think that's a little bit of a tricky ask for whoever the next person is. So either one of those paths don't sound to me like, oh, yes, sign me up to be the defensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings. Yeah, it's a good point. I would probably have a little bit of apprehension as well. But at the same time, it's a defensive coordinator job in the NFL. You're coming into kind of a culture and a program that if you were looking at what happened last year, I think you could be optimistic about long term just with Kevin O'Connell and with Kweisi and kind of what they did in the first year. And it's not you're right. It's not going to be a one year fix on defense if they run it back i don't see how there's some magical scheme that goes from giving up the 31st most yards in the nfl or whatever what to suddenly being like 10th

like that's just probably not going to happen because as much as ed donatello gets ragged on he wasn't like the worst defensive coordinator of all time it had a lot to do with the personnel as well so you're right but it also if they go and go younger and we're like all right Brian Asamoah Andrew Booth Louis C and Caleb Evans all these guys here you go like that's gonna take some time too these guys didn't play a whole lot last year they're not just gonna come in in year two and suddenly be above average starters necessarily so you're right it's it's an interesting kind of situation for a coordinator to come into. I would have some questions and I would, this is probably brought up in the interview, like what do you kind of think your general and how they view themselves is, do you think you were close last year?

Do you think that it's time to take a lot of stuff apart? Do you think it's time to draft a quarterback? Where do you stand on all of that, Will? I don't know that we've talked about it since the end of the season. I mean, we discussed it after the Kweisi press conference where we couldn't really figure out which way they were going to go. And I'm not sure at that moment, they were even a hundred percent certain of what they're going to do. But as you've, as you've meditated on it, reflected, gone to some Wolves games and

watched a team that drafted Anthony Edwards with the first pick. Sometimes that's good to have the top pick. What have you thought about it yeah i've also i've also gone to some wild games where they got kareel kaprizov in like the fifth round but that's different ah that's the russian he was in russia yeah that's different that's if he was if he had been a prospect because we saw him in the olympics if he had been a prospect over here he would have been i guarantee you a top. Yeah, if it was like he's for sure coming to the NHL, you're right. No, I have had some time, you're right, to kind of think about it. And I don't know if I'm any closer to having an answer than I was when I watched the final seconds tick off on that Giants game. I mean, it's the big

question, right? It's what we're going to talk about all offseason. They're just in this kind of weird purgatory spot that they've been in for a while now. And you just won 13 games. So that in and of itself, if you just consider that and you won the NFC North, you hosted a playoff game, you're like, all right, why would there be any question? Let's do it again. Let's hope year two, Kirk Cirk cousins masters this o'connell offense we got t.j hockinson in here for a full off season we have the best receiver on the planet great left tack like some defensive talent maybe we'll get a new coordinator like we'll run it back but it's just not that simple because you weren't a real 13 and 14 like Like, yes, they deserve credit for winning all those games,

but negative point differential, kind of what the DVOA and then those things tell you is that this team is a far, far way away from being on the tier of the final four teams that we just saw play this past weekend. And, like, that makes you really consider if they should kind of go the other route. And I just was writing about this because it's peak offseason content. Like, would you trade Kirk Cousins for Trey Lance?

And that would be probably taking a step back next year, but it would be doing something else where you're making an upside play and you're not just kind of stuck in this middle and you're going to get a young quarterback in who has who haven't seen a lot of football, but was the number three overall pick and has kind if the 49ers have any interest in that because they did give up a lot of assets to get Trey Lance, who still has upside. And I don't know that they want to pay Kirk Cousins a lot of money. So it's just an interesting situation when you're talking about the timelines. And I don't know. I mean, I think the logical thing that they're going to do is stay in this one foot in, one foot out competitive rebuild thing where they try to get better. They probably move on from some veterans for long-term kind of cap flexibility and they keep Kirk Cousins. And I mean, I think they could be a better team next year

and go like 10 and 7. That's just kind of the way their record ended up working out and that's the way the schedule looks next year. So I don't know. What are you thinking at this? Do you feel strongly about what they should do one way or another? I've been telling you guys about liquid death all football season. And there's a good reason why, because it's great.

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So it works on a bunch of different levels. And it looks like a tall boy beer if you're trying to mess with people or, I don't know, fit in at football parties. You can find this water revolution at Target, Hyvee 7-11 and more go to liquid death.com slash insider liquid death.com slash insider uh yeah well yes i and i i was thinking you might yeah and have every single year since 2019 uh you know, I think that what you lay out there, though, with the ideas about Trey Lance and Kirk Cousins, and I think that those just sound more attractive than ever at this point. After sort of seeing it run back with a lot of different things and ending up in the same place, watching Divisionalional weekend from home and

as you you mentioned the dvoa thing which is the football outsiders data that kind of is i call it smart yards as opposed to like because you know score effects can impact yards and stuff so what they try to do is adjust for opponent adjust for situation so the vikings all those yards against indianapolis when they were coming back would not have gotten a lot of credit from DVOA but you know the top teams who are in the Super Bowl and were in championship weekend were all the top DVOA teams they were all the top point differential teams you know it's like there's a reason why we talked about that all season long is because that stuff is usually pretty predictive not every single time but almost every single time and it really tells you who you are as a team so I think if you

took that out of your mind and also looked at the fact that in order to still be good at safety or wide receiver or whatever uh linebacker I don't think Kendrick's had a good year but you know what I mean like these these guys the fact that they're even playing the number of snaps that they are and playing well feeling harrison smith kendrick's they're already outliers for even doing that last year so you're just trying if you keep a lot of these guys around you're just trying to squeeze even more blood out of a stone where most of the time i mean the guys that have been stars by the time they're 33 years old, that safety it's over. It was over for Troy Palomaro by the age that he is, that Harrison Smith is right now. And Harrison has a lot of, um, with the way he plays a lot of bumps and

bruises along the way. Like there's just not a great argument in my mind for trying to run these players back and expecting better results when already we've seen the signs of aging there and from the quarterback situation what's funny to me is that it's always brought up how risky it is to draft a quarterback like well what if it doesn't go right but i was looking at teams that were kind of stuck in the middle or still are and how they either escaped that to become contenders or how they got stuck and the answer is a lot of draft picks so the saints when they escaped that that run of seven win seasons with drew breeze they did it by drafting michael thomas alvin

camara ryan ramchick marshall latimore and they got a bunch of stars on rookie contracts. They had to hit on four guys and have obviously a GOAT quarterback. But when you look at Tennessee, for example, they hit on Jeffrey Simmons. They hit on A.J. Brown. You need to hit on a bunch, just like the Vikings did before to get to where they were in 2017. They needed one of the best drafts, if not the best draft of the decade in 2015. They needed Everson Griffin to go from a role player to a superstar. They needed, you know, Anderson Dayhoe to be an undrafted guy and play well. They needed like a million things to come together as opposed to kind of one.

And then you can fill in the rest with all the money that you have. So whether it's a Trey Lance idea, which I don't know fits perfectly timeline wise with his rookie contract or trading up for a quarterback. I just, I actually think that it is less risky, even though if you draft the bad quarterback it just is, it's hellacious. It's just so horrible for the fans and the organization and everybody, people usually get fired. And I mean, that's just how it goes, right? Like if the Jets offensive coordinator didn't have Zach Wilson, he's still the Jets offensive coordinator, right?

I mean, if they had picked somebody else, even probably Mac Jones with as good as that team was, he would still be the offensive coordinator. So I get it, like the quarterback is just everything. But I also think that if you don't draft well or you have bad luck in the draft, you become the Raiders and your roster just falls apart and your middling quarterback isn't good enough and everyone gets fired anyway it's the nfl most people get fired anyway so i i'm all i am i have been for a while all in on the idea of just continuing to take shots at that quarterback

situation because i think that's the only thing that really breaks the mold but I can just hear the conversations with the ownership what like wait what didn't Kirk just play great last year like wait is it don't we just need a defense but it's always don't we just need a dot dot dot and then the landscape changes and we just do this all again and we live in this simulation that will never escape yeah the the thing that you have to do if you're going to kind of win a super bowl with kirk cousins is the big idea and build this roster around him is you have to draft really well and that's been kind of the one killer thing for this vikings team in recent years they just just haven't drafted that well they've hit on some of the big picks like Justin Jefferson Christian Derrissaw but they haven't really been able to fill out that depth on day two and into day three the way that they had some success doing at times

kind of look at 2015 and and a few other drafts kind of around then and so that's just that's put them in this weird position where they just don't really they're in a tough salary cap position because they're paying all their good players. And you need these young players to come up and kind of fill in and help. And it's just not really happening. And some of that last year was due to injury. And that was that was Kweisi's first draft is kind of still an incomplete because of that element of it. But I mean, you look at this year, they only have like four picks. I think they're going to get a fifth for compensatory.

But, I mean, they traded for TJ Hockinson, which was a good move, but you don't have a ton of capital this year to keep adding there. The one thing with your idea, and not just your idea, but the general idea of drafting a quarterback, and I think it's, I don't know I'll be curious to think here what you think of this kind of factor and or element of it is if you draft a quarterback like say they move to get Anthony Richardson or something and he just isn't good like he just can't really throw the ball he's fun with his legs but it just doesn't really work out and the team kind of

falls apart whatever then you're probably losing justin jefferson i would think maybe because he's gonna want to keep putting up big numbers and keep being on this historic pace and and like if if the team starts to not be good and you don't have a good quarterback like justin jefferson might want to get out of there and you can maybe sign him to an extension before that happens would take that away a little bit but if he then he still gets really frustrated and doesn't want to be here then that becomes a whole messy situation that we we saw one time with uh with Stefan Diggs so I that's maybe one element with that the Vikings have that other teams don't

where like you you can almost justify like running it back with Kirk Cousins just because it means Justin Jefferson's going to be really good. But the end goal is not to make Justin Jefferson happy and have him have 2,000 yard seasons. The end goal is to win a Super Bowl, which he can be a big part of in the right situation. So I don't know. That's something that I kind of at least have to think about a little bit when I'm when I'm considering the idea of taking a swing on a rookie quarterback but the upside could also be really high and that quarterback could grow with Jefferson for a long time so it's I don't know it's tough yeah I mean I think that your fears are reasonable and DK Metcalf and Terry McLaurin last year both signed kind of short-term

deals because they weren't sure where their teams stood um but they have less money since they weren't first round picks than jefferson jefferson could uh with that and endorsement deals just chill and wait uh if he wants to but then also like 30 million dollars a year is pretty convincing uh if you come to somebody with that like what if like what if you have an unhappy year justin here's 30 million dollars this is a very like chicken and egg type of thing with justin jefferson because like you could also argue wait is he happy now with how this is gone like he's got big numbers and he should be thrilled at that but also he's never played divisional weekend and this was his first playoff game and man you know i was watching um the 2011 nfc championship game between san francisco and uh the giants last night and i mean what a crazy

game that was the punt returner fumbled twice kyle williams kyle williams right uh so you know obviously that's how they ended up winning but i was watching alex smith and the number of times that alex smith had a chance to win the game and he just didn't make the big throw and eli manning after the ball hit kyle williams knee if you remember that long review it went on forever hit his knee third and 15 eli manning throws into double coverage to mario manningham for a touchdown it was like like, there it is. There's the throw. I mean, it's not just the Joe Burrow one from the other day, but like, there's the throw.

There's the throw that Justin Jefferson knows has to be there, but is not often there, if almost never, into double coverage. And I wonder if Justin Jefferson would be just as miserable knowing that he's not going to play on divisional weekend more likely than not. I mean, he's also smart enough to look at the roster and be like okay so if we lose this guy this guy this guy and this guy are we really going to be a contender right so there is that um and also i guess i would just like so to me that's risky to me staying in the middle is risky because you just slide down the slippery mountain every time like it's the same way with what they did 2018, 2019 into 2020.

It's just like you end up there either way. The other way just feels more miserable if you draft the wrong guy. And the upside to drafting the right guy is that you give him Justin Jefferson and he's unbelievable, right? Jalen Hurts probably has gotten better as a passer but I also think that AJ Brown played a pretty big role in that so there's again like it sort of goes circular right it's like well how are you going to find a quarterback as good as Cousins who's cheap and it's like well you do give him Justin Jefferson and let's take a look at how Cousins performed throwing to Jefferson versus everybody else. Seems like maybe Jefferson has helped him stave off age, I think, a little bit. So, you know, you can just go back and forth with this thing. I think Jefferson's feelings on the matter are important. And if he's saying, I'm not going to sign a contract until you guys make a decision at quarterback. That does become a little bit tricky.

But I also think that if you never make this change, what happens? You just stay with Kirk till he's 40 and he just gets worse at football because age, you know, like, I don't know. I don't know what other route they're supposed to be. Yeah, I mean, at some point they have to make a decision, right? You're not going to stick with Kirk Cousins forever. Like he's Aaron Rogers or he's Tom Brady and you're going to have him play into his forties. Like that's just not realistically going to happen because I think we've kind

of seen some of the best of what Kirk Cousins can be at time. I mean, last year it was all these fourth quarter comebacks and game winning drives and he had the right situation around him with Kevin O'Connell and all these things. But at some point, like there's just a ceiling there. And, and Kirk Cousins is a good quarterback. And if everything went really, really perfectly and you had drafted super well all these last five, six years, I think you could win a Superbowl with him,

but it just hasn't happened. And now I don't know that you're gonna have the kind of time and resources to build it back up to get there before he starts to maybe hit a wall when he's 36 or 37 or whatever like whenever normal non-alien quarterbacks tend to hit a sort of a wall and fall off a little bit and they're not just quite the same guy so yeah at some point they have to I mean Justin Jefferson I was thinking about this he said this in an interview like two years ago he was on Colin Coward show he's talking about Kirk Cousins and Joe Burrow and he was I think he was

asked about Justin Fields at the time because that was one of the big quarterbacks in that draft and he was like yeah at some point we got a plan for life after Kirk or whatever it may be and we're two years later and we're still talking about that and it's true like at some point, we've got to plan for life after Kirk or whatever it may be. And we're two years later, and we're still talking about that. And it's true. At some point, you have to make that decision. And whether it's this year or whether it's next year after his contract expires, whether it's a few years down the line, that's Kweisi's decision, and that's what he has to kind of figure out.

But it almost feels like you're delaying the inevitable the longer you wait on it. So I don't know. It's just a tough spot for them to be in because there is absolutely no guarantee or even maybe a likelihood that you find somebody better than Kirk because there aren't that many quarterbacks

better than Kirk out there. They just aren't that many of them. And that's why for the past several off seasons, when we've had this conversation, they've ended up two different regimes has ended up making the decision. Let's stick with Kirk because he's a good quarterback, but at some point you just have to, you have to do it, I think. And, and that's, it's the endless question with this team and with the timeline and everything, but now seems like maybe the time to do it with just some of the pieces, the expensive pieces that you have. And you could do like a little mini teardown and bring in a new quarterback and start to build it up and just try something else that might have a higher ceiling.

What nobody ever trusts in is that being worse than Kirk is actually better. It's not, it's not the worst thing that can happen because it's, I mean, if you draft a quarterback and he stinks and you're bad, you just, you can just do what like the Cardinals did. And I know Kyler Murray hasn't really panned out, but you can just draft another one. But I mean, he was definitely way better than they were before. I mean, at least for one season in their rookie contract, like this is,

this is kind of the point too. Like Kyler wasn't even that great, had maybe one of the bottom four coaches in the league and still they had a year where they had a legit chance in that rookie contract. And then, and they also had one of the worst GMs in the league too. So, I mean, you, you think that I would think that Kweisi and Kevin O'Connell would do better if they had had Kyler Murray on his rookie contract. Even Baker Mayfield had a game where he was this close, won a playoff game this close, one drive away from going to championship weekend.

And Baker Mayfield is not even good. I mean, that's kind of the point. Jared Goff went to a Superbowl. Like, yeah, this is the point. Like B if you're a little worse than cousins, you can still build it up and have a chance. And if you're a lot worse, if you're really, truly dreadful, it actually helps you. No one is going to ever enjoy that. And it's not going to be fun. And I recognize that people spend money on tickets. They invest a lot of time. The owners don't want to sit in their box and watch, you know, Nick Mullins or something, but man, it's really noticeable that in 2020, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati were all

terrible teams. And then they were in championship weekend two years later. So even the worst case scenario, Miami is another one. Miami traded for Josh Rosen and they were like, we're making him our guy. And then they were horrendous. And it wasn't that long. You know, Miami had, has what, three years in a row of winning records. Like this year was a little problematic with the injuries, but still three years in a row with winning records with Tua, and then this year if he had stayed healthy,

they would have had a legit chance to compete in the AFC. That's the whole point is that even if one decision does go wrong, then you can still recover from that, and if it goes right, you're in a great position. And there's always going to be a Jets of the world. There's always going to be situations where it it doesn't work out but i also think this is a situation where it hasn't worked out either because if you looked across the league and said last five years let's just look at how deep you've gone in the playoffs like what teams do the vikings compare to probably

a lot of mediocre teams like hey the jaguars just went as far as you've been in the last five years. Like, you know, the Browns have been as far as you've been in the last five years, actually farther, or no, just as far, because divisional weekend. A lot of, you know, a lot of teams have been in that same spot. So how are you going to actually escape that? And I guess my question is, when we talk about like Kweisi Adafo-Mensah, I think that when they hired him, my feeling was this is the guy who gets it, right? Like that's why you hire him.

Would confidence be shaken? You don't even have to say from your perspective, but maybe even from fans, in the idea of the new GM, of the fresh perspective, of the analytics GM? Because if they do a lot of the same stuff, then what's the difference between him and Rick Spielman? Yeah, no, I think it's a valid question. It might be. I guess the idea there would be he thinks he can win on these margins

in ways that Rick Spielman couldn couldn't but i don't really understand that because rick spielman was a good drafter historically like he he was he just kind of got stuck in this middle and now you're right when when they hired quacey i thought there was a good chance that that meant all right we're we're done with this middle stuff we're gonna we're gonna take a chance here to try to go out of that, whether we go up first or whether we go down first and then up. We're going to take a chance. They just didn't do that. So that's why I'm really curious to see, now that he's seen it for a year,

he's been around it, and maybe the good vibes of winning 13 games will factor in. But I don't know. I mean, I think he still obviously has to see that this team wasn't close. So is he going to change his approach this offseason? That's the big thing that's really, really intriguing to me as we head towards March. And you're right. I think the overarching kind of theme and message here that we're talking about and that you are you are kind of conveying to our listeners is like, yes, there is risk with taking a chance and moving on from Kirk and and doing something different but there's also a lot of risk of just doing the same thing and I I totally agree with that because you look at I mean the history of the Vikings the last time

they won fewer than seven games was 2013 that's 10 years ago they have won at least seven games in every season since then as many as 12 or 13 and at no point in the last decade have they been all that close to winning a title and I know the 2017 team was was was quite good but they weren't they weren't that close to winning I mean you saw that in the NFC championship game and they weren't going to go beat the Patriots in in a home Super Bowl anyways I don't think like they just weren't they weren't going to go beat the Patriots in a home Super Bowl anyways, I don't think. Like they just weren't they weren't quite there. And that was the closest they've come. And this this this team and like 2015, 2019, those were good teams. And that's kind of the peak that that they've been hoping for.

And it's been a competitive product for the last 10 years. You come to a home game at U.S. Bank Stadium, more than likely you'll see a win because it's a good home atmosphere and they've had good players and all these things but at no point in the last decade have they been really realistically contending for a super bowl so yeah i mean i i get that the wilfs like to kind of not be terrible but it's just you'd like to think that even they could understand that that might be a necessary evil but might you might have to get worse before you get better and I just feel like we're having the same conversation we've had the last couple off seasons but sooner or later do something so we don't have to keep having this conversation we can talk about a different direction of Vikings football yeah I know I know. I know. And last off season was pretty difficult. I think

after they made all the same decisions they always do, because then it was like, oh, okay. So the shine sort of came off there. But then, you know, after it went well this season overall, and you like, I'm not taking away from winning 13 games. So I can say that it was a very fun season. Exactly. And they ultimately ended up in the same place. They went in the playoffs of the home playoff game. At that point, you've got a shot. Now I think Vegas still had four teams ahead of you.

So even maybe Tampa Bay. Yeah. So like that's, that still doesn't say that you were the realist of real contenders. Like you're not the one seed and Hey, like, Oh, the Eagles had an easy path. That's because they were the one seed. That's why you get the one seed. So you get the easy path. That's the whole point is that you're always, you're always the second fiddle. You're always the team that's sort of hoping things go right.

And Hey, maybe if we get a win in new Orleans, we could go out to San Francisco, pull it upset. And then who knows? It's like, well, yeah, I mean, that's happened, but it's just not very likely. So that's what we're always talking about. And yeah, I mean, for me, it does feel like someone just like rewinded me right back to last year when they hired them. I was like, what about all these ideas?

And then nothing happened. But I think that this is, this is different because I think that this is, this is different because I think what the owners told them last year was, and this is based on what Mark Wilf said. I think he told them like, I want you guys to see if you can do it better than, than Mike and Rick, you know, and do the draft different and do the culture different and treat Kirk different and all those things. And there were, there were victories on a lot of battlegrounds that they had, not necessarily the draft, but certainly the Kirk cousins and a leadership element and connecting with him and all those things there, there were victories on some, on some grounds that they

had issue with Mike Zimmer, but ultimately you end up in the same sort of place. So now it's a crossroads to me for what this regime is going to be, because in my mind, this should be their choice now. Like, OK, we did it your way. We ended up out in the first round. Now it's our choice. And now also the owners, after seeing them build the culture and connect with the quarterback and all those things, there should be a trust element to that it should we trust you to go build this roster the way you guys see fit and move on from a way that the players that you want to move on from and so forth they got rid of all the toxicity so now they should be trusted that's kind of the way i see it or i guess that would be my appeal to the wilfs is like trust them but i guess i don't i've always sort of gone on the assumption that they get it like that. Kweisi Adafo-Mensa and Kevin O'Connell, like that they get it,

but they also just snorted 13 wins. So like, does that go to their head and like, oh, well we can, we could do that again. We just did it. It's our, it's our culture. It's our system. It's, I don't get that impression from Kevin O'Connell because every week he would be like, well, I don't know, guys, that victory was okay. And I'm happy about it, but I don't know. Like every week kind of felt that way with O'Connell. Yeah. Every week was like, yeah, we didn't play our best four quarter game, but you know, we made a 97 yard field goal at the end and we escaped with a, and we got two deflected interceptions, and I feel great about it, but we got a lot to work on.

So, yeah, I mean, Kevin O'Connell did a lot of good things in his first year as a head coach, and it would be hard not to be excited about his kind of long-term future, and I think there's a lot that we were able to evaluate because when you're the head coach, there always is, and there's – especially you're also the offensive play caller. There's his relationship with players and his scheme and his play calling and his game management, all these things. And there was a lot to evaluate. There just there wasn't a lot to evaluate with Kweisi Adafomense's first year.

It was kind of like, all right, you come in and you are not Rick Spielman, but you're not making all that many decisions that we can even evaluate. Like, I'm just, the TJ Hawkinson trade worked really well. The draft, I'm still giving him kind of an incomplete on because all of his picks got hurt. Some of the process stuff is definitely a little questionable when you see, like, Jameson Williams and Kyle Hamilton look like they could be pretty good, and you had the 12th overall pick, but whatever. But I want to see more from Kweisi Rafa Mensah, just more volume of decisions, more that I can evaluate him on and what he was probably selling when he interviewed to get this job.

Come in and put your stamp on this thing, and you can't really do that if you just say, all right, these players from the previous regime, they're pretty good. Let's play them, and let's just keep doing what they were doing and we'll make some minor changes. We'll bring in Harrison Phillips and Jordan Hicks and that'll make a difference. No, and I think this could be the offseason,

and that's exciting. This could be the offseason where we see that happen, where, all right, out with some of the guys who have been here, Harrison Smith, Dalvin Cook, I think especially, that would be one with just the whole analytics thing that happen where all right out with some of the the guys who've been here harrison smith dalvin cook i think especially that would be one with just the whole analytics thing and positional value like eric hendricks i don't know who adam deal and whoever it is several of those guys move on bring your own kind of flavor in you there's a lot of pressure on you in this draft now to do better but just sort of start to build it up in your own analytic-y Wall Street background,

in your own vision and change things up and really put the cards on the table to do kind of what you were hired to do, which was bring this franchise in a new direction. So that, I would be surprised if there weren't some some major changes this offseason because I don't I don't know how Quasey can kind of rationalize just all right we saw what happened last year we weren't that close let's let's just do it again and I'm going to trust Kevin like to me that doesn't really feel like you're doing your job I don't know if that's if that's fair to say but it just I don't know I I don't see how you can just all right let's even though we won 13 games I get that the schedule is going to be

tougher next year you're not going to go 11-0 in one score games like you have to consider all of those those elements when you head into this offseason so I I'm expecting whether it's a complete kind of 90 degree turn and different approach or whatever it is, or it's just a slider. I'm expecting at least some significant changes in kind of the approach and the outcome of this offseason. Well, there is a question about what Kweisi Adafomense's job is, because there are GMs who are the czar. Like they are everything and they decide all the moves and whatever else, or say they're combinations of coach and GM. And they're the two guys who are in charge and they're in lockstep and they do everything together.

And then there are GMs where, and this exists across all sports, where it's sort of like in name only, where your job is to be in charge of the front office's operation, and it's to help find the players for your head coach, but you're not the one dictating everything that's going on. I mean, you are managing the scouts, managing the personnel people, but you're really working for the head coach or working for the owners to execute what they ask you to do football teams are not that different from like corporate america and the way that it works like a general manager i'm sure that any gm would tell

you i'd love to have someone on the show to talk about this but like there's hilarious tasks that the general manager is like involved with that you would never guess. Like the sponsorship on the training camp field and stuff like that. Like there's just funny things where you'd be like, wait, that's the general manager. And it's like, yeah, they're actually responsible for everything, for everything that's going on. And it's not just like, oh, make this trade or whatever. And sometimes in a corporate structure, you are just executing the whims of the ownership.

And sometimes you are the person that's dictating where it goes. So we assume that Kweisi is the one that's dictating it. But I don't know if he is. If he is, it is interesting to me that he has always cited people like Howie Roseman and Andrew Barry as his mentors or as people that he looks up to as, and of course you just pull out like the smarter GMs or whatever, Howie Roseman, everyone would say that. But I also think that like,

if you can see sort of the meta of Howie Roseman of like, how, how does that, how does that work as an overall philosophy? Then, you know, you can execute a lot of the same things here. It's just like, does he actually have that power and i think we'll learn about that because i totally understand and i and i will i will always say this that i just totally get it even though i disagreed with it why the wilfs wanted to just see like let's just get a test case let's just see let's just see if it works with kirk and kevin o'connell let's just see if we get these other guys and bring it back.

And it was Mike Zimmer's fault because the players are telling it is like, I get that, but now we've seen it and you had a middling overall team by, by team strength. And you had a first round out to a bad giants team. In my opinion, I just never respected the giants as a good team. That's validated with what they did the

following week right right yeah so i think um good sorry well i was just gonna say that i i just think uh i will find out is what i mean like we'll find out is he the one with because if he cites those people as his influences then he should probably follow their tracks uh And I've always, I've always wanted him to just have the power, like just have one guy just decide, like the collaboration thing. I don't know. I think you just got to have someone call shots because calling shots is hard. It's hard to get everybody to agree to anything. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's a throwback to like the triangle of authority days with the Vikings. And yeah, I think, and I've already talked about this. Like if you're the Wilfs, I get it. I agree with you.

Like, sure, we'll have some influence. Let's see for one year. But you hired this extremely smart guy to be your GM. You are good owners, all that, you spend money, but just stay out of the football stuff and let him do his thing. And don't be like a Jim Irsay, Jerry Jones type owner where you're like always meddling in it. And I know they really care about this and they want to have a good product. But again, it's having a good product is not trying to go nine and eight every year and hoping you luck into a miracle Super Bowl run one of these times.

It should be understanding that you have to take real steps to build up to contention and try to make that sustainable so I yeah I I think they should just give Kweisi all the power and then let him let him make the decisions and then I'm Kevin will be all the collaboration talk he'll be right there as well um on the personnel side and all those things but it has to be it has to be different and it can't just be continuing to kind of beat the same drum and do the same thing over and over if for nothing else for us for our sanity um we will we will start getting i can't write any more kirk cousins trade articles i know i know i know i mean honestly like uh 2018 we're talking about well should they have just drafted lamar jackson anyway that you could almost go

every single year where it's like well what about trading and the josh rosen thing was was a thing like should they just trade for josh rosen to see if anything's there should they you know draft jalen hertz was part of it uh he was in my draft sims in 2000 and what 20 or 19 whatever it was so I don't know like yeah it just it feels redundant with each offseason saying this because the results have been redundant and you think like it's time to to make a shift here and now really is the time when you've seen because a lot of times they have to see it you've seen Harrison Smith not be the same you've seen Kendrick's not be time when you've seen, because a lot of times they have to see it. You've seen Harrison Smith not be the same. You've seen Kendrick's not be the same. You've seen Adam Thielen not be the same. So like, you don't have to worry, oh, are they going to go somewhere else

and I'm going to look stupid? Probably not. So anyway, are you excited about the Super Bowl, Will? I am excited. I think it should be a very good game. I think the Eagles are the better overall top-to-bottom team and roster, but I also think Patrick Mahomes is the only quarterback that I've ever seen do some of the things he does. I think he's – him and prime Aaron Rodgers, I think, are the two most raw, talented quarterbacks that I've ever watched play football. Tom Brady, he just retired. He's great, all that, seven. Tom Brady, he just retired. He's great.

All that, seven rings, extremely, extremely good player. Legitimate GOAT argument. But just raw talent-wise, like Patrick Mahomes and Prime Rogers, I think there's a case that they're better. And I don't know that that's even that controversial. So Mahomes levels the playing field, and I think it should be a lot of fun to see what happens in the desert. And I think that Mahomes has something that Rodgers didn't, which is like a relatability and maybe a security in who he is.

And maybe that's getting too deep. But Aaron Rodgers has always had this deep insecurity, and he's always been very defensive. And I wonder if that sometimes got him um maybe not i mean they should have recovered an onside kick against the seahawks in 2014 yeah there's there's a lot of bad luck that went into that they shouldn't have gotten a punt block that's not aaron rogers fault but i think that if you're comparing the two arm talent wise yeah that's that's the only comparison to make.

And then Mahomes has this other superpower of being just like a dude that everybody relates to and seems to get behind, as opposed to sort of these constant, like, this person doesn't like him and he doesn't like this person. It's amazing how Mahomes avoids any of that, even with his Michael Jordan esque stardom but uh I guess that's his that's his superpower as well uh yeah it should be fun I'm gonna pick the Chiefs because of Mahomes that's it I think it is you know I agree with

you they're probably the Eagles have a better roster but one of the funny things though just before we wrap up is people are talking about how the Eagles didn't play good teams or good quarterbacks. They had an easy schedule and that's a hundred percent true. But also I think no NFC team played good quarterbacks. If you didn't play the AFC West, like did you play good quarterbacks? Yeah. The,

the balance of power is just the quarterback play between the two conferences is kind of wild. And maybe that'll start to shift back in, in future years. I don't know, but yeah, I'm taking, I'm taking the eagles i think just top to bottom they are an extraordinarily good football team that maybe maybe people are discounting that because they haven't

like beaten this murderer's row of opponents but you know you can only beat who you play and they just handled a very good 49ers team although they didn't end up having a quarterback who could throw the ball but still like i think this is a really good eagles team, although they didn't end up having a quarterback who could throw the ball, but still like, I think this is a really good Eagles team. I think they win a close game. Yeah. The Eagles running game versus the chiefs run defense. The Eagles running game is special.

So that could be a thing. They can kind of control the clock really well and just kind of move methodically down the field. And then when you're not expecting it, they'll hit a 60 yard bomb to AJ Brown or Devante Smith. Like it's, it's a really good football team. Not that we've seen that in person in Philadelphia or anything.

Will, you're doing great work over at si.com. And so people should go check that out. And you, you actually dipped your toe in the Trey Lance waters. Is that what you did recently? You, I did go there. Yeah. I that what you did recently? I did.

You had the courage to go there? Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I'm just looking for stuff to write about, and some people got mad at me for even writing it. But I was just exploring the possibility and why both teams would consider it and then also why they wouldn't. Some people got mad about everything. So, anyway, well, good to talk with you again uh throughout the off season it'll be more periodic because we won't have hardcore

games to break down but i'm looking forward to our discussions as lots of things are to come and i also wanted to say that maybe next week i think we'll try to have like a little more thematic shows and a little more fun. This has kind of been the big picture stuff, tearing it all apart and figuring it out. But trust me, not every show will be me making a case for drafting a quarterback, I promise. So thanks for your time, Will, and we will talk soon, man.