Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Will the Vikings let Mike Zimmer coach without a contract extension?

Episode Date: June 8, 2020

Would it make sense to let Zimmer coach into his final season? What is the value of having stability? How difficult would he be to replace? How will ownership judge Zimmer in 2020?  Plus things that we're sure about in the 2020 season.  Read Matthew Coller's written work at PurpleInsider.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Matthew Collar with you. And I want to remind you to go to purpleinsider.com. That's where you can subscribe to all of my written work covering the Minnesota Vikings. And if you could rate and review this podcast, that would be a major, major help. It allows other Vikings fans to find this podcast when they go searching and type in Vikings in whatever podcast app they're using. If you rate and review, this will be the first one that comes up. So it is greatly appreciated. All right, we welcome in ESPN's Myron Metcalf.

We used to get together every single Friday, so we are recording this on a Friday. It feels like old times, Myron. Happy to be here, man. I'm happy you're doing this, man, and this is an awesome venture, man. Kudos to you that you're back and giving the people what they want, man, making us all feel like we're smarter than we really are about the Vikings reading everything you write and produce here, man. So congrats on that. Well, I appreciate that.

Sometimes maybe you will, and other times you'll just get appreciations for Dante Culpepper and things like that that show up in your email if you subscribe to Purple Insider. I want to start out with you, Myron. Every Friday I do a mailbag, as you know, as a subscriber to Purple Insider. I want to start out with you, Myron. Every Friday, I do a mailbag, as you know, as a subscriber to Purple Insider. And one of the questions I thought was very interesting from a subscriber, which was about how the ownership of the Minnesota Vikings, the Wilfs, how they feel about Mike Zimmer and the fact that Zimmer has not gotten a contract extension so far that we know

of. Sometimes these things happen and if anything happened this week we would have probably missed it pretty easily behind the scenes but as far as we know usually the national reporters get wind of things like that like contract extensions and now we're getting pretty close to training camp and Mike Zimmer apparently does not have one meaning he would go into the final year of his contract. And that says a lot, I think, about the pressure that is on Mike Zimmer here to continue the momentum from last year, despite all of the changes, to continue to be a playoff team, to continue to keep your team in contention, and then show something for what's down the road as well. But it's also a little bit curious in a way, because we almost

never see this. Usually they'll give a token contract extension, and even if they decide to fire somebody later on or halfway through the season, they usually just don't want that conversation. So they give a contract extension. What do you make of the fact that they have not done that so far for Mike Zimmer? It says a lot about the season we're heading into. And, you know, did it happen? If it has happened, I don't know that it promises any level of security. I mean, I think it's clear whether it's public, whether it's private,

whether it's not offered at all, this is the make or break year for Mike Zimmer. And I continue to believe, Kyla, that if this thing is a disaster by week eight, something happened, I think, in that moment. I'm not saying it will be, but I think you're clearly going into a year where ownership has to decide, is this all in Spillman's memory that I think can lead us into the next two, three years. Because everything in the NFL is, unless you've got Patrick Mahomes or you've got Deshaun Watson, you're on a two- to three-year window

if you're lucky. So I think that, to me, is the philosophy there. But I think the other thing is, where do you turn? Like, I think that's the thing they got to really spend a lot of time with is, if you say that this isn't the right duo and you get rid of one or both, if there's a disastrous kind of year, who do you bring in? Like, we had this whole coordinator vibe where if you got a guy and he was under 45 and you know that was the the secret and now you got matt lafleur publicly

beefing with aaron rogers you got sean mcveigh who went from the coolest kid on the block to uh hey sean i think you should win this season right you've got all these hip and young guys who were supposed to be the answers and maybe they will be but have also had their struggles in just managing the weight of an NFL franchise there's a reason that all these veterans continue to win Super Bowls there's a reason that the culture of the teams that have veteran leaders have been able to weather some of this stuff in ways that other teams couldn't, you know, if you don't have someone with that experience. So I think it means they're trying to figure out what they're going to do next. But I also think they understand

you don't want to make the wrong decision and set yourself back for a decade because that's the danger here with the Minnesota Vikings. And putting themselves, though, in the we're not all in but we're also not out type of situation, I think is a really difficult spot to put yourself in as an ownership because your head coach feels like, well, I mean, I think is a really difficult spot to put yourself in as an ownership because your head coach feels like, well, I mean, if you guys aren't all in on me and signing me to a four or five year contract

extension and showing that you really want me to be your head coach, then I feel like I've got one foot out the door just based on how this industry works. And if anything goes wrong for me, I'm just done. If Kirk Cousins gets hurt for eight weeks and they go two and six with Sean Mannion does that mean I'm done or will you look at that and say that's not my fault if the defense has bumps in the road this year I mean this is a head coach who has not had a below average defense in points since 2010 but if these rookies come in let's say Daniil Hunter gets hurt for eight weeks. I mean, how are you going to pressure the quarterback with all these young players that you're developing and you have been developing,

but they're not ready to be the next Everson Griffin or Daniil Hunter. Even Griffin and Hunter took years to develop. The same with cornerbacks. Xavier Rhodes was not a shutdown elite corner his first year. It wasn't until his third or fourth year that we started to see those signs so you can't expect Jeff Gladney or Cameron Dantzler to be those guys right away so if your ownership there is probably some patience required with you're just based on the circumstance not going to be a perfect team from top to bottom so if you go seven and nine

does that mean that your coach was terrible if If you go eight and eight, does it mean your coach was terrible? If your offense regresses based on who you play as opposed to last year, does that mean Gary Kubiak forgot how to offense? I mean, these are the questions that they're going to have to answer. And sometimes, Myron, I think it might just be on how it feels. Because last year, you go into the playoffs, 10 and six, you're headed down to New Orleans you've got a chance in that game and yet it felt like the world was falling apart for the Vikings after the Packers loss at the end of the season to the point where ownership had to put out a message saying no we're not firing Mike Zimmer and I fully believe that if they had lost

that game in New Orleans we might have been talking about them trading him to Dallas or having an entirely different coaching situation. So, you know, even though the team was good last year, it always felt like, yeah, you know, they can't quite get over the top, and that might end up being the story of the Mike Zimmer era in Minnesota. Yeah, and I think it's clear that there are conversations about what's next with Mike Zimmer. You have to put out a statement saying, no, we're definitely keeping him.

That means there was a conversation about possibly letting him go. I do think the advantage that Mike Zimmer has is who wants instability right now? Who wants to go through whatever it is we're facing with this season? And whatever it's going to take, I mean, the NFL might not feel like the NFL again for a year. I mean, 2020 might be a season, but not when we necessarily recognize. So you're talking about going through big changes in all of this uncertainty.

That's something they have to consider too. I'm always in the NFL about stability. Stability is what every team fights for. And then from there you go, can I add that piece to the puzzle, that elite quarterback, those targets that maybe I didn't have in the early years, that defensive presence, can I add the pieces that take us from stability and maybe contending for a playoff spot to actually competing for championships? But it takes a long time to find stability in this league.

And defensively, what Zimmer to have. I mean, you can count on this team being a good defensive team every year under Zimmer. They're always going to give you more than maybe what you anticipate. He gets the most out of those guys. But in a league where the offense is evolving in real time and you've got quarterbacks and you've got offensive sets that just don't resemble anything we saw 10 years ago,

it's hard to kind of look around the league of sets that just don't resemble anything we saw 10 years ago. It's hard to kind of look around the league and not feel like you've got to be ready to make changes schematically, personnel-wise, because if you don't, you get left behind, and then you go from being the contending team to Detroit, and you're just kind of stuck. And you've got a franchise quarterback, but you just have no way to get over the hump. And I think that's why this year is so important for Zimmer

because if you have to make a change this year, it sets up instability in what's already an uncertain climate. You don't know when you're going to get this opportunity again as a franchise. Like, you went to the NFC Championship game. You got a quarterback to replace Case Keenum, who has been on paper a good starter in this league. You paid him because you want to lock up that position.

You've got a bunch of things that have taken you a while to put together. If you wipe that slate clean and get rid of everything that you built up, it might be a long time to get it back. And that's why I think you have to be really, really careful about hitting the button too quickly and doing something you think is right in the moment that hurts your franchise. Go to sodastick.com to get all your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. If you haven't seen this stuff yet, you've got to check it out. One of my favorite designs is the Minnesota Moon,

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Code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping. I agree. And, you know, you look at somebody like Mike Tomlin, I wouldn't be surprised if the Steelers bounce back this year and even what they did last year to be a relevant team despite having no one at quarterback. Duck Hodges and Mason Rudolph at quarterback, and you're still a 500 team, is pretty darn impressive.

But Mike Tomlin's been through some times where his job has been questioned and his contract situation has been questioned and his contract situation has been questioned. But tell me where you're going to find a better head coach than Mike Tomlin. And usually the quarterback situation, and this goes for Zimmer too, ultimately determines where you end up. With Case Keenum, that's a complete anomaly, but you go from feeling like you're going to be stable for 10 years or more with Teddy Bridgewater to complete instability at the position to having Kirk Cousins here and then underperform in the first year and perform to about what he can be as Kirk Cousins and nothing more last year. And it's usually how far is this quarterback going

to take you, especially when you're a defensive head coach and you're often cycling offensive coaches and things like that. That has made it for a more unstable type of feeling throughout the Mike Zimmer era. The amount of offensive coordinators, the amount of quarterbacks that they've changed, and to still have the record that they have, I think speaks to his side of the ball. And that is where Zimmer's value exists the most, is if you have a defense of all average players that would be 16th in the league, Mike Zimmer will make it ninth. I think his ability to scheme, his ability to teach, his ability to develop players. How many guys have we seen gone from undrafted or late picks who become very good players? Steven Weatherly just got paid to go play somewhere else. And that was a guy who was a seventh round pick.

Afadi Adenabo is a seventh round pick. He's going to start at defensive end. Anthony Harris is a guy that you're paying a lot of money. These are all developmental projects with Mike Zimmer that not everyone has the capability to develop above average players who come from the bottom of the draft. I think it's not just the scouting staff, but it's also the coaching staff as well that plays a big role in that. So if you move on to somebody else,

you are risking losing that value of guaranteeing that you're going to have at least an above average defense at worst and the number one defense at best. And on the other side of the ball, having a former head coach and a proven guy in Gary Kubiak, like this is about as stable of a situation or as predictable of a situation as you can have. So if you make a change there, that's where you go, well, okay, I don't know what's coming next.

And I do think, Myron, that Zimmer has an opportunity here, though, to take a fresh batch of players and right some of the wrongs or do things a little bit differently than he may have done in the past. You think about the Anthony Barr thing with saying he had a tendency to coast that really stuck with Anthony Barr for quite a while. I think even in somewhat of a Tom Coughlin fashion, some players have felt alienated throughout the years that I've heard off the record from some guys that they'll say well Zimmer says different things in the media than he says behind the scenes and there's the being hard on people all the time that can grate on you if

you're with Zimmer for five six seven years but now you've got a new group and I think there's an opportunity here for him to take sometimes a little bit of a different approach. And even in recent days of Zimmer backing off, putting out a statement about George Floyd, allowing his players to make videos, to post on the team Twitter account and social media accounts to speak out about injustice, I mean, that is something that four years ago, Mike Zimmer was not even going to begin to approach allowing his players to do that. You remember the linking of arms. I think there were a lot of players who wanted to say more than that, but didn't feel comfortable doing so. So maybe there's an opportunity for him, and he's done a great job with this defensively. You mentioned

the offenses have gotten better. Well, his defenses have always shape-shifted to match that. But I think if he can alter his handling of players to some extent through these times and even adapt to what the front office wants, which is more of an analytical approach, that he has a chance to be the head coach of this team for much longer. Yeah, because you don't want to be involved in the drama around this this division and like there's so many personnel problems in this league that have to be dealt with what are they going to do in new orleans man after drew breeze and and what he said i know he put out a statement that's not going away for everybody in that locker room he's gonna have to navigate that matt lafleur and aaron rogers i know they just marched together. I think they protested together.

I think LaFleur joined that, but that doesn't change what happened in the NFL draft and what Aaron Rodgers is saying about finishing his career elsewhere. The drama in Chicago, I mean, that's going to be fun to watch. And I think all of those scenarios come down to leadership. And do you have a coaching staff that can help you navigate that in real time in this season? Because if you can't, you're going to struggle.

And I think the advantage that the Vikings have right now in this division is everybody's got drama. Matt Patricia, who knows what this guy's going to say any given day. That franchise has certainly not rallied behind him. If you've heard all the stuff that former players have said about being under him with the Lions, it ain't good. The culture there has not been good. Chicago and the mess that they are now.

The plan from what we thought they were going to be when they got Khalil McIntrade on those picks to who they are now, night and day. And then you have Matt LaFleur openly challenging the last quarterback in the league that you would want to have a public spat with. If there's any quarterback in the league who would take that locker room and turn it against you, it's Aaron Rodgers. And now you just challenged him to be what he is and to make people take side and i guarantee they're going to take aaron rogers side and here you look at the vikings and you go stefan digs is gone yes you lost some key personnel there's a lot of things that you have to navigate but you still feel like there's someone in control you still feel like

there's someone who can walk into that locker room, get a message across. And that's not something that any other team in this league, I think right now can say. So that stability goes beyond just having the same coach who's doing some of the same things and who has been consistent on the defensive side of the ball. It's also about what he represents and knowing that those players can look up

and go, Mike Zimmer has been here before. And in this climate, if I were a player, I'd have some concerns about a young or a rookie coach trying to help a franchise navigate this. What are you going to do next year when the protests start? What are you going to do next year when you've got to navigate and answer some really, really big questions? Having a Mike Zimmer with his experience, I'd want him in that position.

I'd want someone like him in that spot. And I think that helps because, again, you move on, what are you moving on to? Like where are you going? Is it one of the young trendy coordinators? Well, some success for others, not so much. You're going to go with another defensive coordinator who's proven himself elsewhere. Why, how much better can he be than Zimmer? You got to get the offensive coordinator, you know,

who's turned out some big time offensive units. Maybe, maybe that's the secret. But I just think stability is just so hard in this league to recover from instability. It's just like almost impossible. Like the same teams, the Dolphins are 30 years in to trying to, like, figure out life after Marino, you 20 plus years in like it's hard it's hard to rebuild in this league really hard so I guess my question is because as you laid out

though the opportunity is there with the NFC North the Packers I think still are the team to beat maybe they weren't really a 13-3 team last year and got some good breaks, but still a talented team with a very good defense now. We haven't been able to talk about the Packers in that way in a very long time. And a top-10 quarterback. How he's motivated or not motivated by the draft pick of Jordan Love is yet to be seen, but let's just assume that he's going to have a fire lit under him and be at least what he was last year. You're still talking about one of the 10 best quarterbacks in the NFL, but the Packers are far from unbeatable. You should be

able to get over them. Nick Foles is the quarterback in Chicago. Again, a team that has a lot of talent, but is not a legitimate Super Bowl contender. And Detroit might be the most talented team in the entire NFC North, but you can't trust them for anything. The door is open for Mike Zimmer. So my question for you, Myron, and this is always something that, you know, maybe two months from now you change your mind or it feels different than it was, but how would you evaluate it? I mean, is it on a win-loss record? Is it on how it looks from the outside? Because think about this, when Mike Zimmer goes 8-8 in 2016, by the end of the year, his cornerbacks are defying him in Green Bay and going rogue.

And then this year you go 10-6. It's still, by all standards, 8-8, 10-6. Those are okay seasons. 10-6 is a good season. Could have been 11-5 if they beat Chicago in Week 17 in a senseless game. That's a good record. But yet you're having ownership still have to put out a statement that we're not going to fire him, and there's rumors out there that they might trade him to Dallas.

So when things have not gone 13-3 over the last few years, there has been this feeling of a lot of tension inside the building between players and Zimmer, between the front office and Zimmer, between the front office and Zimmer. And I wonder how much that would play into your mind, not just the win-loss record for how you evaluate the job that he does this year. Yeah, man. Win-loss record is going to be really interesting this year because I don't know what home field advantage is. I don't know what playing on the road is. You've got players who haven't had the typical mini-camp schedule training. Like, I don't know.

There's so many variables that make it hard for me to think that you go all in on wins and losses. That feels impossible to me. And really, it feels unfair, just considering the circumstances. And I know everybody's facing them, but you just want progress, I think, in a year like this. But in commentary in the locker room and the perception, you'll know. Whereas I think if this thing is stable and there is promise here, because to me the question is, is this the coach you want for the duration of Kirk Cousins' tenure here? Let's say it ends after this next extension. Do you want to make a change or do you think he's the guy?

If you're a good team competing, especially in this, hopefully making the playoffs, do you really shake things up now? But I just feel like it's going to be an extreme. It's either going to be an extreme disaster and you're just going to see this thing fall apart and it's going to be apparent to everybody involved that

you've got to make a change or we're going to look and go, man, you know what, maybe we didn't realize what we had. Maybe that's a guy who, yes, he's been more consistent than successful in some of the big moments.

But his team and his organization, I don't know that you can get much more than that. You know, we may look back and go, NFC Championship, disastrous season with Kirk Cousins. Next season, you get the playoffs and you beat the Saints on the road. Maybe that's the high mark here. I mean, maybe that's really what this team is going to do. Maybe you get lucky a year or two and go, man, we made the championship game somehow. Maybe you get to the Super Bowl,

but maybe he's getting the most out of this organization. And if that's the case, it's going to be hard to sell that to anybody. All right. Before we continue the discussion, I have to tell you about BetOnline. There's no shortage of action going on right now in our exclusive partner, BetOnline. NASCAR is back and BetOnline has hundreds of other games, events, and sports to get in on. You can still bet on simulated NFL, NBA, UFC events 24-7, or you can participate in a $10,000 Madden Bracket Challenge, a March Madness-style NFL simulation tournament that you can enter for free. And live right now on BetOnline's YouTube channel, you can find an exclusive interview with ex-Chicago Bulls Ron Harper,

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draft one 23rd overall, which is usually a pretty risky play. I call that the Brady Quinn zone. When you get into that late first round, I mean, that is the red area, that you're picking the fourth best quarterback. Now, sometimes for Lamar Jackson or Teddy Bridgewater, those things work out, but that might be a different conversation. But sometimes when you're taking that guy, I mean, that's not a position you generally want to be in outside of a handful of outliers for finding your next franchise quarterback. You would have to bank on, you know, somebody else becoming a free agent that you look at, and are they going to be an outside of a handful of outliers for finding your next franchise quarterback. You would have to bank on somebody else becoming a free agent that you look at, and are they going to be better than Cousins, and can you work at it? Those conversations are not that different from with Zimmer.

And the fact that Gary Kubiak decided to stay and work with Zimmer did say kind of a lot to me because you're not going to find a better offensive mind than Gary Kubiak. You can go to whatever youngster you want to go to, but it's just like Zimmer with defense, where these guys have proven over a very big sample, not a one-year wonder here as an offensive coordinator, a defensive coordinator, and then all of a sudden you get this job. But you're talking about a huge sample of these guys consistently raising the level of play of the players that are on the field. And last year, Kirk Cousins is the best example. He's got Kubiak as the somewhat offensive coordinator using his offense and Kevin Stefanski as the OC,

having the best year of his career in terms of quarterback rating. Well, that doesn't compel me to say, well, they need to go get an offensive head coach. And if you're going to go get a defensive head coach, all right, well, but who's better than Zimmer? Though, I guess I could counterpoint that with saying, look at what happened in Dallas, where Jason Garrett is a good offensive coach. They had one of the better offenses in the league, but eventually you just got to a point where he was making such bad decisions in game management that they had to go out and try somebody else, even though it's another offensive coach that they bring in. The way I would evaluate, tell me if you agree with this, Myron, is what will it say about 2021? Because I don't want to say don't pay attention to 2020.

2020 is going to be a fascinating season. But 2021, when you're talking about players that you've developed over years, like Brian O'Neill, Garrett Bradbury will be a couple years into his career. Irv Smith will be a couple years into his career. Jeff Gladney will have the experience. Justin Jefferson will have the experience. These guys entering their prime, it has the same feeling of the young players before in the Mike Zimmer era. So you have the chance to reboot and have 2021 and 2022 be legitimate contending

seasons with as well as this team drafted. So if they show signs toward that being where they're headed, then I think I would want him to continue to be the head coach because I would believe that he could lead another team like that back to an NFC championship or beyond. Well, and I think the decisions they've made, your Anthony Harris, the way you drafted, you're drafted like a team that feels like it has another three-year window with Kirk Cousins. I mean, you're drafting like a team that is saying, yeah, when we signed Kirk Cousins,

we felt like that was the window after going to the NFC championship. But now they're investing like a team that feels like, no, we're not done. You know, we're going to try to get another one in this run. And, you know, again, is another coach certainly the right decision? You bring up Dallas and you bring up Jason Garrett. Jason Garrett's biggest challenge was, yeah, the in-game decisions he made. And there were just moments where you just felt like he had lost that team. You go out and hire a guy who, by the end of his tenure in Green Bay,

had clearly lost his team. A guy who has publicly stated his opposition to analytics. He's massaged that a little bit since he arrived in Dallas, but for the most part, he's been a guy who's said, I'm not going to change. So you replace stubbornness with stubbornness. Is it the right decision? We'll find out. But I don't think anyone in Dallas feels like they're getting something new. Oh my goodness, look at how we're going to change. Because the NFL is just such a slow moving kind of situation, man. We've been talking in our generation about the same coaches for 20 years.

Like Andy Reid winning his Super Bowl. I remember Andy Reid of the Packers in the 90s. All these guys have been around for a long, long time. And until we see another trend, those are the guys that are stabilizing their teams. I'm not saying some of these young guys won't become that. But certainly there is a proven kind of stable of coaches who just get it, and they're so experienced. There's not a situation you can really throw at them

that's going to throw them off. That's why I feel like you have to think, again, I keep saying the same thing. If you're going to make that change now, going into next season, 2021, it better be good. going into next season, 2021. It better be good. It better not be recycled Packers coach who lost his team. It better not be young coordinator who, oh, yeah,

we think that he'll be able to do something different. Like, you better have someone who is a definitive change and improvement. And I don't know how many guys can be a definitive improvement from Mike Zip. Yeah, I think if you were going to make that change and just let him run out his contract and go coach someone else, then you would have to be looking for someone who was kind of similar in his experience and proven success in the past, but was just a different voice. And sometimes that is what's necessary. And I think that's what Dallas is really going for. Like, is Mike McCarthy that much smarter about offense than Jason Garrett? Probably not.

Is he that much better at in-game decisions? Maybe a little if he's really studied up on those analytics, maybe, you know, percentage points wise. There's a few better decisions that could be made over a season, but it might just be that, and we saw this last year in the game between Dallas and the Vikings, that after they ran the ball and went right into the middle of the line, I think twice in a row against the Vikings when they had a chance to go win that game, you saw some of the players throwing their hands up like, I'm just tired of this guy.

And even they know they're on tape all the time. So even the slightest amount of body language like that is worth noting. The frustration and looking over guys looking over to the sideline like why were you running we were shredding them all game long decks thrown for 400 yards and now you're handing off directly up the middle when the game is at its biggest point and uh you know there were times where maybe if you're if you've got Belichick as your coach or Andy Reid as your coach you go well he must have seen something because give him the benefit of the doubt. When you stop giving your coach the benefit of the doubt, then it's probably over.

So if you were the Vikings, that's the type of guy you'd have to get is someone who's just as proven but is just a different voice. But I agree with you. It's really hard to find a coach who can win 60% of their games, have a number one defense, an NFC championship experience, with the fact that they really haven't had a Patrick Mahomes, a Deshaun Watson. And even with Kirk Cousins, his first year was such a struggle. Then his second year, he puts you in a chance to win, and you do win a playoff game. But I also think if you're ownership and you've spent as much money as you've spent on Kirk Cousins, it's fair to say, look, we set the bar at a certain place after 2017 and we're not moving it.

We're just not going to slide it around. You get back to the NFC Championship game. That's what we expect. So before we wrap up, Myron, I wanted to go through some things in this uncertain world that we are sure of in the NFL. So I've written down a couple of things that I'm sure of, and I want to hear yours as well. My first one is, I am sure that at some point this season, the NFL will be playing with fans in the stands. Not full stadiums, but I think that they will be playing with fans in the stands. And one of the reasons is I saw that certain baseball stadiums, if baseball comes back, are going to be allowed by their cities and their states to let fans in, and Major League Baseball probably isn't going to challenge that.

Let's say the Texas Rangers, if their state is open, they're going to let them bring in however many people they think is safe, and I think the NFL will ultimately do something like that or find a way not to have completely empty stadiums. I'm sure of that at some point we have 15,000, 20,000, something like that in stadiums. I agree with that. I mean, I think that makes, it makes sense. Three months ago, everything's changing so quickly. Three months ago, we thought that sports would be the first test to see if people would gather again. But restaurants and stores are opening and churches are going back. So now you're just a part of the next thing that's opening up, the biggest crowd, of course.

But I agree with that. My first thing I'm sure about is that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will be the most interesting team since the mid-'90s Cowboys. That the coverage of this team, the storylines, just the spotlight and the fascination, like this is social media heaven. This is personality heaven. Bruce Arians is like the perfect coach for this group. And I don't know what the marquee is for them.

They can be a playoff team, certainly, I think. But I just think the coverage of that team will be fascinating to watch. And it will be unlike anything we've seen in the social media era in the NFL as uh somebody who used to read the sports illustrated NFL preview every year there was always something on the cover that was like the most hyped whatever it is number one the most hyped player the most hyped team if SI was what it was in the 90s now, it would be Tom Brady and Gronk without shirts on or something on the cover of Sports Illustrated. And they would dedicate huge, huge space to them and what their season is going to be. And what I learned from the SI covers is that they were often accursed.

And I wonder about this with Tampa Bay. I tend to think that Tom Brady was better last year than his numbers indicated because the situation was so poor and this situation is a lot better but you know we were looking at a team like the Cleveland Browns last year and saying Paul all signs point to them being a lot better and so many times in football the team that gets the most hype going into the season how about the 2018 Minnesota Vikings? We were that. Every national media in training camp showed up,

and they all asked, is it Super Bowl or bust for Kirk Cousins? Every single week, he got to the point where Cousins had to tell reporters, please stop asking me that. I've answered it a million times. Let me play this preseason game. And yet they end up 8-8. And I think that that is a reasonable possibility. But if they're struggling with Tom Brady and Gronk,

that coverage is not going to change. It's still going to be through the roof. And it won't matter what's happening. If Jacksonville shocks everyone and goes 13-3, Tampa Bay is still getting the coverage in the state of Florida. I am certain, Myron, that no matter what Kirk Cousins does this year, short of winning the Super Bowl, we will still be talking about quarterbacks in the draft next year. There are a lot of good quarterbacks, at least at this moment. Two of them stand way out,

Justin Fields and Trevor Lawrence, but then we always see other guys emerge the way that Joe Burrow did this year, and I think that if Kirk Cousins goes and, say, wins one playoff game, and then that's the end of your season, that we're looking a couple years down the road and saying, well, isn't this kind of a Mahomes situation where you could draft a guy and he can sit and so forth? I don't think that his contract extension eliminated that conversation for next year. In fact, I'm sure of it. I love it, man. I mean, Trevor Lawrence will be gone at number one, but Justin Fields, man, those numbers, his first like seven or eight weeks, look, he was doing ridiculous things, man. And I think this feels like the draft where the Patrick Mahomes, you might get someone who sits for a year and can really blossom into like a big-time

starter, man. I think if you're the Vikings, you have to be open to any personnel move that elevates the team into becoming a contender consistently. Nobody's safe from that. No coach is safe from that.

So I would agree with that. I like that, man. I'm certain that Lamar Jackson will improve but somehow lose the MVP. I think that Lamar, if you watch what he's done, he has gotten better every single year and really throughout his entire career. He gets better every time. He really works it. And I think next year he's going to be as good as last year, if not better. But I think Mahomes healthy will have an edge over him.

I think a Tom Brady playing in an offense where Jameis Winston threw for 5,000 yards is going to be really fascinating to watch in the NFC. Drew Brees coming back, if he's healthy all year, I just think Lamar's going to have more competition. So I think he's a better quarterback this year with more competition than the MVP. Well, with Lamar, the thing that maybe goes under-talked about is that as a passer, I mean, he has passer rating and passer statistics were really good. But even as the PFF that grades every throw, every individual throw,

showed pretty clearly that he was not a product of just a system and wasn't just throwing short passes and running after catch and then running. This was not a Tebow type of situation where they just kind of figured out how to work around his shortcomings. He was legitimately one of the top at throwing the football. And if you look from year to year to year, passing grades, not the overall ones that would factor in his running just passing grades those are usually consistent when it comes to quarterbacks year in and year out that they don't have a huge huge variances in how well they throw the football sometimes circumstances change a lot Kirk Cousins probably wasn't that different last year than he was in 2018 his circumstance was just a lot better last year with the system he was playing in.

His passing grade was a little better, but it's kind of the same guy still. But with Lamar Jackson, he showed everyone that he can be a legit passer and that the Ravens know how to work to his strengths. And sometimes it's almost like that's a criticism of him, but that's exactly what happens with Kirk Cousins and Patrick Mahomes and every other great quarterback who's ever played. How about John Elway? They bring in the Shanahan and Kubiak offense. Elway wins two Super Bowls, and I feel like it wasn't said enough. Like, oh, is he a quarterback at age 37? Like, no, he just had a system that finally truly maximized his ability

and sort of worked around his older age at that point by giving him some easier throws. So the same thing happened with Lamar Jackson. Okay, he's not great at a 15-yard out route. Don't have him throw it. I mean, how many quarterbacks are good at every single throw? Very few, if not almost nobody. Maybe Patrick Mahomes is the only guy who can make every throw. All right, one more for me. A guy, another guy who can really heave the football, I think is

going to have a lot of success this year despite his extremely difficult division, and that is Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals. I am sure that the Arizona Cardinals are going to be a highly competitive football team. I'm even going to say a playoff team, Myron, that they will make their way in. I'm thinking three playoff teams from the NFC West this year, and one of them will be DeAndre Hopkins, Kyler Murray taking his next step. Cliff Kingsbury showed me something last year, and their defense has improved as well. Are they the most interesting team in the league right now outside of Tampa Bay?

I'm going to say yeah because Kyler Murray is such a unique and dynamic player, and another guy that he, this guy was a baseball player. He has an incredible arm talent, and then the ability to make plays off schedule, to run, to be a part of the run scheme, and I went back just out of boredom and watched a couple of his games last year, and there were certainly his rookie moments, but there are very few guys who have even put up the numbers that he put up with a terrible offensive line without a true number one receiver anymore. Sorry, Larry Fitzgerald, you're still great as a possession receiver,

but you're not DeAndre Hopkins or Julio Jones. And the fact that they were able to get DeAndre Hopkins, I think that is a complete game changer because we've seen Deshaun Watson, anytime you're in trouble, just throw it up to DeAndre Hopkins. Well, now Kyler Murray has that. And Kingsbury, the way he adapted from early season, trying to put in his college offense to what Murray did well in the middle late season, I thought was really impressive. Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating, man, how he kind of under the radar because of Lamar and Mahomes had a pretty amazing debut, man,

for a guy who also was a top ten pick in baseball. Like, you shouldn't have that much athletic ability. Save some of that for everybody else. I'm looking forward to really watching them. There will be sort of a new push for your Christian McCaffrey's, your Dalvin Cook's, guys like that who are going to demand to be viewed as athletes and not just running backs. The death of the running back has been accelerated in the last couple of years. And now I think you're going to see a group of running backs try to break off and not necessarily create a new

position, but be viewed viewed because i think right now running backs more than anything are fighting for perception they're fighting for not necessarily their survival but are they truly significant in today's game and a handful of them are clearly but certainly you can get the most value at that position on offense but i think you're going to see more and more guys especially young guys coming, who are going to make it clear that, no, I'm not just a runner. I'm more than that, and I want you to respect my abilities. And they're going to demand that those opportunities

in their offensive schemes. They're going to demand that they're used more as receivers. They're going to demand that they're in a better position to employ all their talents. Yeah, and, you know, I think that their demands should go even beyond that, that running backs should demand to maybe be allowed to come out of college a year earlier because a lot of their prime is going to be used up. And if you think about it it like what percentage are actually drafted I mean out of all the college running backs 130 to 150 college running backs there's seven drafted

so but you know those guys when they're ready to go there's a guy from Clemson who was one of the best running backs in the nation he's got to wait another year he's got to put another year on his body before he can come out and be drafted. I think that if you have a good chance to be drafted, that you should be able to come out at age 20 and not have to wait until 21 or whatever after two years in college if you're a running back. It's either that or allow them to hit free agency a year earlier, but I think that that will even push teams farther away from drafting them. So giving you another year where they're not getting beat up, you think about even Delvin Cook, how many carries he had in college.

He comes into the NFL with – and that's what college coaches will do. They're there to win. They're there to drive limos and, you know, fly helicopters. So they're there to make their money and win football games. So they're not – they're going to hand it to Delvin Cook when he's in college time and time and time and time again. But that is one of the reasons that they wear down. So changing the rules for them is necessary.

I'm not certain it will ever happen. Myron, this has been a lot of fun, and I hope we can get together again soon, buddy. Anytime, man.