Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Will the Vikings run it back, rebuild or something in between? (A Fan's Only pod)

Episode Date: January 24, 2023

Matthew Coller answers Minnesota Vikings fans' questions, from whether the team will take a rebuilding approach or run it back to whether they will draft a quarterback, which veterans will stay, whether there is a case to trade Danielle Hunter and how much ownership will be involved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Purple Insider is presented by Liquid Death, delicious water that's bringing death to plastic. Learn more at liquiddeath.com slash insider. Welcome to another episode of purple insider matthew collar here and this is normally the part before i get into your fans only questions where i mentioned something that was talked about a tco performance center or an injury report or any type of news before we jump into all of your questions, but I got nothing. The best I could do is that the Vikings interviewed Ryan Nielsen for their defensive coordinator job. He works for the New Orleans Saints as their assistant coach, and we already knew that

that was happening. So that's all I got for you. And maybe he's a good candidate. Maybe he's not. It's very hard to know. I do know that the saints have had good defensive systems for a while. That doesn't guarantee that he will be good or not. Who knows? Ed Donatel came from the third best defense in the league last year. So, you know, we'll see what happens with the defensive coordinator search. I think what i'm supposed to do is have like really strong opinions about they should hire this guy or hire that guy but i i

don't know it's very hard to know i thought ed donatel was a really good hire it made a lot of sense to me to hire someone from the fangio system with lots of experience it didn't work out so we'll wait until they hire a defensive coordinator. We'll discuss it. We'll hear from that person and we'll go forward. That's the best I can do for all of your updates related to the Minnesota Vikings. And that's it.

But let me say, you guys have sent an unbelievable amount of fans-only questions. So I'm going to ask for patience. If you sent them, I'm going to get to them. This is a big week for fans-only podcasts. I'm expected to have Jeremiah Searles, but he is also because of his agent duties, he's traveling to different bowl games and stuff like the shrine bowl and the senior bowl and stuff like that. So he's going to be a little in and out, but I'll try to catch up with him, try to catch up with Will Raggetts. But aside from that, I wanted this to be your guys week for episodes. So I'm hoping for three

fans only episodes to get through. If not all, then as many as I possibly can of your fans only questions, because I know you guys have a lot of great comments and thoughts and you're going to hear as I get to them but so many of you have short shared just how you generally feel about what went down and what you'd like to see the team do and i i think it's great for me to get that perspective so i love when people add more to the fans only question than just hey i'm going to ask will they keep this guy or that guy but i love fans perspective as well because i i learn a lot about how you guys are feeling about the team through a lot of these questions.

So since I don't have any other updates, let's jump right in and we'll get to a lot of questions in this episode. Appreciate it, everyone. This question comes from Ale. Hey, Matthew, I've got a fans-only question for the start of the offseason. With this team having so little draft capital, do you think Daniil Hunter is an option for a trade to get legit capital back? Right now, I think they have like one top 100 pick,

and this roster is full of holes. They have to swallow hard and make some hard decisions because right now this is an old roster that is bad in a lot of key spots and they need draft assets to get younger losing hunter would suck but for the long term of the team i think that they have to strongly consider it yeah the the history of this team seems to be that we talk about all the guys that they could potentially trade and then they don't trade them it just has been that way for a while and that's why i wonder about whether quesia da fomenta is sort of given the keys fully to the car to manage this offseason in the most economical way or if there will be

nostalgia factor or just like look it's hard to say that you don't want Daniil Hunter here, even if it makes a lot of sense, because he was really good again. I don't think that he was Miles Garrett or he was Nick Bosa, but he still ended up with very good pressure numbers, good against the run, a fair number of sacks that would put him in the argument to make a lot of money. And just how much money is that? I was looking up the edge rushers and the top paid players. TJ Watt gets $28 million a year. Joey Bosa, 27 miles, Garrett, 25 Khalil Mack, 23 max

Crosby, 23. You're talking about a very, very expensive contract. And as always, you know, you can do the extension and you can move money around and it won't be insanely expensive right away, but eventually it ends up being that way. As of right now, 2023 is the final year of his contract and he is set to carry a $13 million cap hit. But if I'm Daniel Hunter, I'm picking now to finally start playing some hard ball with this team and say, you've either got to figure out a trade for me or figure out an extension for me because Hunter, you know, the rules did change a little bit a couple of years ago when it comes to sitting out

a training camp and holding out but if we look at Hunter and how much money he's made throughout his career he could certainly stand to take some big fines on if it ultimately meant getting a final contract that's worth a hundred million dollars or 90 million dollars guaranteed or something like that. And when you talk about draft capital, there would be a ton of interest for Daniil Hunter. I mean, like 31 teams are making the phone call and it does say something about Daniil Hunter for sure. And it's funny because for his entire career,

we've always talked about how young he is, but that's actually going to change pretty soon. He's 28 years old now, and that is not ancient. Edge rushers can continue to be good, but this year he was excellent. And how many more years is he excellent the way that he was this year? I don't know. I mean, he's in incredible shape, but he also missed the majority of two seasons with injuries from the past.

And those things don't always come to light right after that. I mean, sometimes it could be down the road with an injury like a neck or a torn pack or something like that, that you could start to see some drop off. I don't think that that's going to be a massive issue. It really comes down to you had one of the better pass rushers in the league this year and your defense still ranked 28th and 31st in yards because one or two players is just not enough to make for a great defense. And even if we put a lot of that on Ed Donatel, even if we put more than he deserves on Ed Donatel, I mean, what does that mean?

If they had the best defensive coordinator in the universe that they would have ended up with the 20th best defense, that's not good enough. And so, I mean, I think that the argument has always been there with someone like Daniil Hunter to make a trade, turn that into multiple players or a younger player that's going to be incredibly cheap, especially, you know, in the draft where you can get edge rushers high, that's going to be incredibly cheap, especially in the draft where you can get edge rushers high, there's going to be multiple quarterbacks taken high, which pushes everybody else down the draft board a little bit. You could replace him with a prospect and start developing that player

at that key position and not have to be very old at that spot with Z'Darrius Smith and Daniil Hunter and very expensive in the future. However, the more good players you give away, the farther away you are from having a good defense, right? And so it's always this kind of push and pull. I think that what you're saying matches up with the timeline that trading him away, getting draft capital, replacing him with a free agent on a short-term deal and a draft pick at edge rusher makes some sense. But it's just going to be a hard case to make when they go to ownership and say, yeah, we're actually going to trade away one of the players who was good last year.

One of the only players who was good on defense, we're getting rid of him. And that's how we're going to get better because there's going to be this, you know, kind of back and forth. I'm sure in the front office between people there and also with the ownership of you just won 13 games. Aren't you a decent defense away? I mean, you can hear that, right? Aren't you a few moves on defense away?

Aren't you a better defensive coordinator away? And if they make that argument in the front office, then you are going to end up extending Daniil Hunter for life essentially, and making him a super expensive player. Now, I don't think that that's a bad move by the way. I think that the mentality of only being a player to, or a defensive coordinator away is bad, but I don't think it's a, a franchise ruining move to sign on to someone like Daniel Hunter. I do have some concerns over the injuries, but he's not that old.

And the guy is an absolute Adonis. I mean, he's just cut, you know, incredible physical gifts that don't seem to have fallen off. I mean, he's just got, uh, you know, incredible physical gifts that don't seem to have fallen off great strength, speed, quickness, all those things that he can very likely play successfully into his thirties. So they, if they extend him on a huge deal, I won't say, Oh wow, you blew it. But to your point, when we talk about trading players away,

there's always this thing that kind of happens and I'll never forget. I got an email and I'm sorry to the person if they're listening, that sent me this email was years ago. So maybe not that said like, can't we trade Laquan Treadwell for a starting guard? And this was after two years straight of Laquan Treadwell failure, or maybe three years. It was like, no, I think that other teams usually like to keep their good stuff or only trade for other good stuff if they're going to give up something significant. So it's always going to hurt when you have to trade something away. It's kind of like what the twins did with Louie Sarai's. Nobody was happy to see luis arise go but you have to trade something good if you want to get something back and it matches up in my mind with where they should be thinking to trade away

something that you have that's older and expensive to try to get something back as a key piece to rebuild but this is also a business where you you know, it matters to the owners. It matters to the front office. It matters to the coaches that they have someone like Daniil Hunter, a consummate pro, perfect guy to have in your locker room, just excellent for his entire career. Every single year he's been healthy. You can't ask for much more. And so if you move on from him

and have to replace him, that's not going to always be easy to do. So I think that's a really difficult decision decision, and it might actually come down to Daniil himself. If he says like, look, I either want to be the highest paid defensive end in the league, or I want out, then you can send him packing. Uh, because I don't think he's a guy that needs to be the highest paid in the league. If you gave him a decent contract, maybe, but if he's asking for TJ Watt money, there's a lot of the numbers under the surface. When we talk about how much attention those guys draw, pass rush win rates, how consistent they are as an impact player, there are better guys than Daniil Hunter, Watt being one of them,

Garrett being one of them. Micah Parsons, of course, goes in this list. So if that's his demand, make me the highest paid or I'm out, then see you later. If he's going to be very reasonable about an extension, then I think that they have to have that discussion. But I don't think that you're crazy for bringing up any possible idea that makes this team younger and cheaper. All right, next question is along those lines from Jeff.

Outside of the obvious disappointment, time for a mailbag question. Given that we have limited draft capital, not that I would complain about the Hawkinson trade, and next year a horrific schedule, which is a perk of winning the division and having nine away games. Do you think that Kwesi decides it's a reset year? The highly paid veterans get rid of the highly paid veterans, take the dead cap hits. We probably don't make the playoffs though far from a pure tank and get some solid draft capital to clear up the books.

I think what you're talking about there is when I say live in reality and when I kind of use their own words of like, be honest with yourselves about the landscape that you're about to face, all the things that you described there is probably right. And if we look at the team as a whole and creating the cap space for the future, there's not a ton of guys that after this next year would really be destroying them. I mean, so Harrison Smith has a $19 million cap hit right now, and it's going to carry $11 million if he's cut before June 1st. But when we look a little closer at down the road with Harrison Smith, it's really not that bad after 2024. But my gosh, this is one of the worst contracts extensions you're ever going to see in your life. It is unbelievable. He is carrying 19, 19 $22 million through 2025. And even in 2024, it's $8 million in dead cap if they get rid of him. Wow.

I mean, it does create cap space, but it doesn't create anywhere near as much as you would like. So that's a guy that would be more of a trade candidate if someone would be interested in taking this giant salary cap. But the problem is if the Vikings trade, and this is just what you have to deal with as far as public perception goes and the ownership goes. And I apologize to everybody who's going to hear me talk about the ownership. We almost never did before, but then last off season, everything just really changed as far as the amount of control that ownership has over the direction, which seems to be a ton. But if you're going to them and again, trying to make this argument, yeah, actually what

we're planning to do is get rid of one of our all-time best players and we're going to trade them for a fourth round draft pick because that's what another team's going to offer when they look at the contract. They're going to say that contract is so bad. We're going to give you a fourth. We're not going to give you a first, even if he's a great player. If I'm another team, I'm not giving up a high draft pick for someone who has a $19 million cap hit at the safety position, which is one of the more replaceable and lower paid positions in the entire NFL.

So that's where these decisions get pretty tough. Your point, I think what you are doing is you are living in reality that it will be a tougher landscape with the away games next season, that the roster at some point does have to get younger and you do have to move on from some veterans. And I think that I would be impressed if they did that. Like no one thinks, and I agree with you there. No one thinks that it's time to tank. It's just time to reset a lot of things. Last year, they talked about competitive rebuild and never did the rebuild part. So now it's time to do the rebuild part. And if they know that, and I would also say this, that I'm not sure, but I could speculate that as part of the initial conversation, when Kweisi, Kevin O'Connell, and the ownership talked about the five-year plan for a team. I'm absolutely certain that's a discussion is what's your long-term plan for the team that part of it had to have been at

some point, we have to move on from these contracts. At some point we have to rebuild the roster. And I think that's part of why he used that language of competitive rebuild. Now, I don't know that he thought they were going to win 13 games. I'm not sure any of us thought they were going to win 13 games, but it may have been part of the discussion that after this year, when you looked at those players who were still part of the core, there was options to get out of at least some of them. And if they weren't playing at the same high level as they did before, which I would say of all the calm, the 2017 years of all the people still on the team who were there

in 2017, uh, aside from a Hunter, I don't think any of them were playing at a very high level this year in comparison to their absolute peak. I mean, Harrison Smith, Adam Thielen were still good this year. It's good. They were good players at their position, effective players at their position, but they were not like it was a couple of years ago. And yet their paychecks would suggest it's like from a couple of years ago, something has to break at that point. And Kwesi though, I think left the door open for exactly what you were saying in the end of year press conference, where he talked about some of the younger players that play on special teams and how they're going to step up into these roles. Now, when you look at

the roster, it's hard to find who he's talking about exactly when it comes to these less experienced players who are ready to step into these bigger roles. But I felt like that was kind of a bit of a signal where he's saying like, there's some guys who don't have a lot of experience and maybe we don't know if they're any good or not, who we're going to have to play because there's no other options. So as they go into this off season, you kind of have three or four different ways you could go. And maybe some of it connects to what happens with Kirk cousins. But one of those ways is to clear it all out, deal with the dead cap money and just leave it and just do nothing. Almost fill the spots, but use the players that you already have. Use the players that you draft,

even if they're a little over their head, try to take some swings on some guys. I mentioned Devin Bush, who did not play well at all for Pittsburgh as a high draft pick for them, but that's kind of a move where you could take a swing on a guy and see if maybe there's something that he can develop or get better or be a better fit. Like those are the type of moves that they could make is just kind of let everybody sink or swim, evaluate it from there. And you probably still can be a very competitive team next year. And if they come together and some guys emerge, they might be even better than the older players who were there.

Like that's how football works sometimes. So that's one potential route. Another route would just be to restructure a lot of these deals, to kick cap space down the road, to sign another Jordan Hicks type and another Harrison Phillips type and another Patrick Peterson type or bring him back again and then hope that the defensive coordinator can be better. That's another route that they could take.

So, I mean, I don't know which one it's going to be, but I think that a lot of you who are making this case of like, hey, it's finally time. It was a fun ride to get to 13 wins and nobody thinks that they need to trade everything and play Nick Mullins and have Justin Jefferson want to leave or whatever. No one thinks that. Um, but you, you have to eventually call it a day. And I remember when I was, uh, maybe a early teenager when the Buffalo bills and when I was growing up, they cut Andre Reed, Bruce Smith, and Thurman Thomas all on the same exact day.

And it was heartbreaking for all of Buffalo because those guys had gone to the Super Bowls with them. It was just time for them to go. Bruce went to Washington. Thurman went to Miami. And I can't remember where Andre Reid went, if anywhere. He might have just ended up going to Washington or something or retiring. I don't recall.

But none of them ever really did anything again. Bruce might've had a couple of years with Washington, but that was it. It's just at some point, every team, even the greatest teams runs into this where it's clearly the end of the line. And if they deny that this is the end of the line,

they're sort of just, you know, bound to repeat the results or worse for next year based on the circumstances. And you mentioned the schedule. So I think this is a very much a crossroads. I felt like it was last year and it turned out not quite to be because they got to 13 wins that they were able to squeeze one more year of competitive football and a division

title and all those things out of these guys. But the signs are all there for the future that this is the time to do this. Don't wait another year and then end up with eight wins and look around and go, okay, well, we're not even in position to draft a quarterback or do whatever that they need to do. So we'll find out as we go along which way they decide to go with this, but I'm kind of preparing myself and all of you that that might not be the way that the way that you laid out that seems very logical to me. That might not be it because the ultimate decision makers might just step in and say, you won 13 last year. Go do it again. Folks, it is time once again for us to have a discussion about liquid death. Now, here's the thing.

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All right. This next one comes from TJ. Talk me into the Vikings, having a top five offense and average defense next year and repeating as NFC North champs. Defense is much easier to improve year over year. And with a new scheme and some younger, faster players could average be realistic. Yeah.

I think average is still kind of a stretch, but you don't know when it comes to the rookies. That really is going to rest on the rookies from last year and the rookies from this year. Because if you told me that Caleb Evans, Andrew Booth Jr., and Louis Seen, three guys that were all hurt are a hundred percent healthy and they all step into their roles and they're fresh and exciting and fast. Like you were mentioning, and they're making plays out there and all three of them have a lot of talent. They have a lot of raw talent. So I wouldn't count that out. You just don't know with players careers, when it comes to young guys, what's going to happen there. Uh, so, okay, let's say that that happens. They make a couple of good acquisitions, get some interior pass rush. They get a faster young linebacker out there to go

along with Asamoah and they get the best defensive coordinator in the game at developing players. And it's an aggressive scheme and all sorts of things. Could you get to average? Probably. Yeah, probably. The first place schedule does make that hard though. You know, they're probably going to face a murderer's row of quarterbacks. Whereas last year they did not, they only faced a couple of good quarterbacks and even bad quarterbacks did whatever they want. They are a long way from average. You know, I mean, they have to gain half the league essentially to get to average, right? If we think average is 16th, I mean, you got to jump 15 spots

in yards against and whatever number, what, 13 spots. That is a big jump to make, but no, I wouldn't say that that's impossible, that they can be average. Almost anybody can be average, as you mentioned, with a couple of breaks and so forth. That one I could probably get around to a little bit easier than coming up with the top five offense. I mean, if you're trying to make that case, you would probably say that this year they were eighth in points overall, and maybe they're more comfortable in the system. And we could sort of do that whole thing that we've done before, but we've also seen the same quarterback operate year after year after year. And they're usually a fringe top 10 offense.

Certainly you can have one year where it all clicks. You would probably have to draft a receiver in the first round. I'm assuming Kirk Cousins is still the quarterback. So you draft a receiver in the first round. That receiver is unbelievable right away. Very possible. We have seen that before as well. But also with this quarterback the vikings had

two of the best wide receivers in the nfl and they always have until really i mean 2019 thielen was banged up and this year he took a drop off a bit with his play but for most of the other years great great great receiving you could say the offensive line on the interior gets better. You're losing Bradbury. Maybe they replace him with someone who's a better pass blocker, but are all these things kind of the deck chairs a little bit outside of an unbelievable draft pick receiver who I totally think could take this team to a top five. But that whole idea of, Hey, well, you know, we've got the new, you know, the system that we all know now and didn't know it before. There's varying evidence about year two of systems that suggests that maybe that's a little bit overrated. And I'm sure that the players would tell me I'm wrong there. But the bigger picture does not show that there's a guarantee that you take that big step. This is not me necessarily trying to talk you into it.

But I guess if you're talking about a path, what is the path? That's what it is, is those rookies from last year and the draft class step up on the defensive side. And let's just assume that they're going to find their way to a few more draft picks. And they get another receiver who is amazing to go along. Let's say they move on from Thielen, grab someone else, and then it's Osborne, Player X, Jefferson, Hawkinson, and Ingram takes a big step forward. Then, yeah, you're a little more dangerous and they don't have to be wildly more dangerous. But I mean,

that's assuming so much though. I mean, it's assuming that people are healthy. It's assuming that, you know, that they could be a better version of themselves. They could play better and still end up with a worse record just because the circumstances are harder. If that makes sense, the road games is kind of a big deal being forced to play nine road games instead of seven, which it was this year. So it's a little bit of a tough ask to say, could this sort of magic utopia that we've been talking about forever? Hey, if you could just get a top five offense and an average defense, then you can be this real contender and everything else. And another thing to remember is Detroit should be better. Chicago will be vastly better. They have the most cap space to spend. They're going to spend it.

I think they have an okay coach. And even if it's Justin Fields, like he's going to have much better circumstances next year and he's kind of dangerous either way, but their defense is going to be way better. And we'll see what happens with the Packers. I wouldn't be surprised if Rogers comes back and I imagine they try to get him another receiver. But if the Packers play like they did in the second half of the season, if Rogers comes back, you're talking about a pretty darn good division. All those things make it hard to imagine a circumstance where they do something they've never done before with cousins. I do think that Kevin O'Connell's overall ideal for the offense, which is to pass first and run second,

that could be another thing too, that maybe O'Connell, uh, figures out his run game a little bit more. Maybe they get a running back. Who's a lot more spry. I was watching, um, the Kansas city and Jacksonville game and both running backs are younger guys. And they looked a lot quicker than Delvin cook. Just that just that's the game. It's a young man's game. And one of those dudes was drafted in the seventh round. And yet he runs a four or three and he's fast. And he got more yards than I saw Delvin cook it in a lot of games. Those things could make them better, but that's the ultimate best case scenario. And that's always hard to achieve.

So it's, it's the same conversation as usual around the quarterback is everything needs to be perfect in order to make that happen. I would not entirely say it's impossible, but because there is a path, but it's hard. That's, that's a really hard thing to see from this team to have all of those things on offense and defense go right. But no, I wouldn't say that it's completely impossible for that to happen. And I think that the case that you're making right there might be the one that Kevin O'Connell makes to Kweisi Adafo-Mensa. He might say, get me a faster receiver, get me a

younger running back, develop these offensive linemen a little bit more, get me a pass blocking center, and we're going to be a top five offense. I think that's a little dubious, but I would not be surprised if that's the discussion. We're going to have a top five offense and then get me a new defensive coordinator, a handful of other players. We're developed these rookies and we're back baby. Um, so that, that ties back into the timeline that, that, that talk me into game that you just asked me to play. They might be doing that in the front office themselves. Okay. This one comes from Dan. Here's my off-season wishes. Don't extend Cousins. Get cheaper and younger on defense, even if the defense has to be bad for another year. Don't extend Bradbury. Spend that cash on a guy who can pass block a

little. Don't spend any big money on running backs, and don't spend any picks on low-value positions for the first two days of the draft. Overall, I want them to get their house in order. So the cap isn't such a mess in 2025, whatever they do, I'll be looking ahead a year to see if they've mortgaged their future again. Yeah. I mean, Dan, I think we go five for five on that. I, we really do. I mean, this, the cousins thing is the linchpin to everything.

It really do. I mean, the Cousins thing is the linchpin to everything. It really is. And it always is with the quarterback. But with Cousins, I think it either has to be one of two things. They either have to decide that Kirk Cousins is their quarterback for life. He and Kevin O'Connell are tied at the hip. And they are going to ride this thing until the wheels come off, if they didn't already. And that's how it's going to be. And they're going to ride this thing until the wheels come off if they didn't already. And that's how it's going to be.

And they're going to extend them for five years. And then it's either it's just live or die on Cousins O'Connell. You can do that. I'm not saying that's a good idea, but I think that's favorable to, and I'll make my case for that favorable to a, another year extension like they did last year, uh, or don't extend them at all. And the reason I think it's favorable is because you have seen teams build around expensive quarterbacks through the draft. Now you have to hit on draft picks and you have to hit on them a ton in order to make this work, but I'll give you a few examples. And I know some of you will say,

but that quarterback's better than Kirk Cousins. And you're probably right. But Aaron Rodgers is one of them that they hit on some draft picks and made a good move to get Zedarius Smith. But mostly it was Jair Alexander and Aaron Jones and a couple other guys who were key to them through the draft. Offensive lineman Elgin Jenkins is another one. So big time players on rookie contracts and they won 13 games a couple of years in a row with those guys playing key positions

around Rogers expensive contract. Uh, drew breeze is another one that comes to mind where they had a tremendous draft. They end up with Alvin Camara, Marshawn Lattimore, Ryan Ramchick. Again, these are high paid positions, at least several of them. And Michael Thomas was also on a rookie deal. So they hit on a lot of these rookie deal guys around Drew Brees and his $30 million contract didn't really matter that much. And they were able to still win a lot of games and be competitive and put themselves in position to win the division and potentially go to a Super Bowl, if not for being miracled and

so forth. A couple of times there was actually the pass interference miracle as well against the Los Angeles Rams. So there's those teams. And I'm sure I could think of at least a couple others that have built around expensive quarterbacks by hitting in the draft. This might actually happen to Detroit. Detroit, if they have another good draft and they go into next year with golf with a big contract, they could still have a great team because Amon Ross St. Brown was a big hit.

How about the 2017 Vikings? This is another example. They spent a lot of money on the quarterback position when they traded for Sam Bradford. You add up Bradford Bridgewater's first round contract, which was still on the books and Keenum. And I think that they were like a top five cap hit team, but they had the 2015 draft and all of those guys were on rookie deals. So if that comes together and Jefferson is not expensive yet, then you have a chance to still remain competitive. Where it's tough is when Jefferson does get expensive down the road, but you can push that back. If you look at these other contracts, AJ Brown's is a good example. I don't think AJ Brown becomes wildly expensive for two more years just because of the way

the thing was structured. And you can do that with Justin Jefferson, where it's 2023 and 2024 are very reasonable after that. It's pretty tough 2025, 2026, but then you're talking way down the road. You can work around that at that point but you could still manage it for now and that would be one way that they could possibly go as far as a cousin's extension the other way like you're talking is the short-term extension and then all the other things that followed are all getting the house in order is a good way to put it all of

those things like not extending garrett brad, don't spend too much money on a center. Don't spend any money on a running back. All the things that you're talking about, they're all under that category of understanding who you are this year and taking that competitive rebuild approach. If they don't, then it all becomes kind of rests on the draft and whether you get draft luck or not, because if you don't, you can become Seattle in the last year of Russell Wilson. You could become the Oakland Raiders, Las Vegas Raiders, Los Angeles Raiders, wherever you

want to call them. Uh, but that's what happened to the Raiders. And if you look at recent draft picks, Derrissaw and Justin Jefferson are big time stars and there's almost nothing else. KJ Osborne's a nice player and Ezra Cleveland is somewhat competent. But aside from that, there's not a lot of drafted players who have contributed a whole lot. So that would mean that the drafts would really have to hit from last year, this year, and the next year to have a chance at some point, again, to be a Super Bowl contender around Cousins' contract. And then there's, of course, the natural, can he do it with a team like that anyway, which is always going to be a discussion because then we're talking about a Cousins that is 36, 37, if we're talking a year or two down the road, it's really tough to make

it work. And that's why I'm really thinking about the Cousins extension or not extension as everything else kind of has to fall in line behind that. Because if they extend him, they can lower his immediate cap hit. Like Dak Prescott this year, his cap hit is only $19 million. So you could lower his immediate cap hit if you gave him a huge long extension, and that would allow them to sign some players at least, but it would kind of be the same stuff as before. And what you'd be arguing is that they'll stay competitive, hit on a bunch of draft picks,

and then have another year just like this, maybe two years from now with cousins in O'Connell. But if it doesn't hit, it becomes Tannehill. It becomes Derek Carr. It becomes Jared Goff in Los Angeles. All of those things can happen if it doesn't all go right. Or if he just hits the age thing. I mean, we are talking about a year where Kirk Cousins had his worst numbers. And

so there's no guarantee of, oh yeah, next year when he's older and took a ton of hits this year, that he'll be better two years from now that he'll be just as good. That that's a really hard argument to make. They're in a very difficult position. This is a challenge. This is a major challenge to be able to try to work their way out of this situation that they were put in, in part by the previous administration, which can't be said enough. How many draft picks were botched and how many moves and dead cap space and everything else. Uh, they're still paying for the 2021 draft that went horribly wrong. Um, so that, that is a position they were put in. And then the position they put themselves in by making bets on players that really, uh, in some ways paid off, but in other ways were

replaceable last offseason, but they wanted to bring it all back and take a big swing. So when you do that, eventually it comes back to get you. All right, this question comes from Jonathan. What are the odds the Vikings draft a quarterback in 2023? Kevin O'Connell is eventually going to want to find his quarterback and not be tied to cousins. Young Stroud and Will Levis will likely be drafted high. Richardson seems to be the most realistic first round target. Yeah, that's true. And I have put off some fans only questions that asked me, I guess now is the time about mock drafts and things like that. Like I didn't want to say the word mock draft until we got to this point where we were really

in the off season because every week meant so much to this team and, uh, you know, trying to get deep into the playoffs and all that. But, uh, you know, here we are, uh, you know, I, it's so hard to figure out if they would be interested in drafting a quarterback without knowing what the deal is with cousins contract. If they did a five-year contract with Kirk cousins that immediately takes it off the table and there's no point in even discussing a quarterback. If they do not have an extension with cousins by the draft, that becomes very realistic. And I think a lot of people would have questions about that.

Like, wait, wait, wait, you need an entire defense, but you're spending on a quarterback. But that goes back to the Alex Smith thing where they went 12 and four with Alex Smith the year before they drafted Patrick Mahomes and Patrick Mahomes has now taken them to five straight AFC championships. Uh, so, you know, I'm not saying that the Vikings will definitely draft Patrick Mahomes, but there were a lot of people. And I remember this extremely well when the chiefs traded up to get Patrick Mahomes, there

were a lot of the brilliant genius draft analysts that you guys know. I love so much who were like, what, what are they doing? This is not even a sure thing. Quarterback, he's got bad footwork and they need corners. They need a tight end. They need it. Well, maybe not a tight end at the time. I don't, I don't remember. Receivers, they need what, right? Oh, they need, they have so many other needs. And yet, and yet here we are. It's always a good idea to draft quarterback. People lost their minds when Jalen Hertz was picked it. They picked, they lost it. How about Russell Wilson? Oh, they've got their

quarterback in Matt Flynn. Why are they drafting Russell Wilson? What are they doing? F minus draft grade. It's always a good idea. And sometimes it fails. Sometimes it fails spectacularly. And that's life. That's how it goes. But it's always a good idea to think about your future at the quarterback position and think about that rookie quarterback contract and what you can build around. I mean, the Philadelphia Eagles were able to spend so much to keep everybody

and to put that roster together, and they have a house of a team. I don't think that Jalen Hurts is a perfect quarterback, but that team is perfect. They have no weaknesses. And at the last minute, they're making a trade for the corner there, uh, Johnson from new Orleans because they can, because they can do whatever they want with the amount of cap space around the quarterback. They can trade for AJ Brown. They can give their quarterback somebody special, um, to be that final piece that takes them to the next level. So if there's a chance for the Vikings,

if they do not extend Cousins, or even if they extend him by one year, but I would say if they do not extend him, then it becomes like red alert quarterback season. And if it takes trading up to get one, it becomes very risky with so many other spots to fill, but you can fill those through free agency. If you have all the money, that's kind of the point that if you're paying

like, look, it's no surprise that when you look around Daniel Jones, rookie quarterback contract, Joe Burrow, uh, my homes is expensive, but almost nobody else is josh allen's contract i think has not gone full crazy expensive yet i think that's actually next year um because he signed the extension and it's maybe like uh 16 million or something like kirk cousins had the third highest cap hit this year if you keep doing that it's just not going to work um So if they were to look forward and say, we can rebuild a lot of other parts, if we've got all that cap space, then they have to consider it. And also I love the idea of drafting a quarterback and sitting him for a year. I just look at so many rookies and how much they struggle. And I think that you get a great sense for the league and you can also

build things around those guys. It's just a good idea. It's almost like Trevor Lawrence. I mean, what did he learn from year one and then year two? Oh, and by the way, is he on a rookie quarterback contract? Joe Burrow, look at some of the things they were able to do to rebuild that roster, and I know their offensive line is banged up, but I mean, look at the offensive line they were able to put together,

the defense, Trey Hendrickson, like all of these things to help those guys succeed. It's not a guarantee. Nothing is a guarantee. It never, ever is. But that's the ticket. And so if we get to approaching the draft and there's no extension, yeah, we're going to be talking a lot about those quarterbacks and a lot about the possibilities.

How can you trade up if you want to get somebody? Because I think that there's going to be four in the top 10 to 12, and maybe there's one guy left out. It could be Richardson, and he's the perfect candidate to sit for a year for sure. All right, this comes from Dustin. If I'm Kwesi, I am drafting a first-round quarterback to sit behind Kirk for a year, cutting and trading older players with bad contracts like Cook, Thielen, Z'Darrius Smith. His contract isn't really bad. Hicks and Kendricks. Depending on who the defensive coordinator and scheme will be,

figuring out what to do with Hunter and Harrison Smith. Find Justin Jefferson some help, maybe a third round receiver or nailer to develop more. I expect 2023 to be regression background 500. Hopefully Ingram can take a step forward. Seen Evans, Asimo and booth can all come back healthy and replace some of the veterans that are no longer here with teams, uh, with the team's success this year, do you think the Wilfs would allow them to do this type of reset, or are they going to want to run it back? I wish I knew. I wish I knew. You know, I just look around at teams that have won this many games. And I struggle to find one that said, yeah, you know what? We

won our division and it went great. And now we're going to take a big step back and we're going to draft a quarterback. And this is why that Mahomes Alex Smith thing is brought up so often is because it's so rare. Like that, that did happen in that case, but it's very rare. It's hard to find teams that are willing to do that. Usually what happens is they have to see it first. Now I'll give you another example. I actually brought this up. Maybe last off season is the Buffalo bills with Tyrod Taylor. They, when Sean McDermott got there, they played Tyrod Taylor.

They made the playoffs. It was kind of a feel good story, but they drafted a quarterback, took a big step back the following season and then took off from there. It does happen. It does happen. And I'm sure there at the time, what they really wanted was for them to add around Tyrod Taylor and don't draft a quarterback. You've already got a quarterback and you just made the playoffs. Why are you moving on from this quarterback who made the playoffs for you? Right. And that turned out to be the smart move.

Let's take a look from last year's team. Did anybody take a step back on purpose? Let's see. I mean, Pittsburgh had their quarterback retire. So not them. Tennessee. Yeah, you could make an argument that Tennessee did, but did Tennessee. Yes, they did. They did. Tennessee did this and it did not work out for this year for sure. But what do they have now? They have flexibility at the quarterback position. They can move on from Tannehill if

they want to, and they don't have to pay AJ Brown. I'm sure, however, that they would have rather paid AJ Brown and kept him. They kind of did this though, by trading AJ Brown, they had to step back and they realized that that 12 and five season. And I don't know if that was intentional or accidental that they did that, but I think that John Robinson, their GM who got fired because of it, again, this is why it doesn't happen all that often, because if you do it and it doesn't work, then you get fired. And this is not to say trade Jefferson. I would never say that, but, um, Tennessee would be a team that did make some moves that were kind of future ish. And even drafting a quarterback, drafting Malik Willis in the third

round. So future-ish and they had a bad year and everybody ripped them, but maybe they'll be better in the future because of it. Who else? Well, hey, look, you know, Indianapolis is the exact opposite where they kept going all in on rosters that were fading and weren't as strong as they were before when they had Philip Rivers. And they eventually just had the natural tank, which could be next year. If a lot of things go wrong, the Raiders, uh, they were a negative point differential team in the playoffs. Then they tried to reload with Devante Adams and Chandler Jones. That did not work. Um, just looking for any other teams. I mean, Hey, like the Packers didn't really, I guess by moving on from Devante Adams, but they've never really done a reset of their roster. They've mostly brought everybody back. And even they eventually hit the wall, um, Tampa Bay,

they did the same thing. They had injuries. Brady came back. Maybe, I mean, if Brady says he's coming back, I guess you have to let him, but it was foreseeable that they wouldn't be the same. Um, even new Orleans, like eventually had to finally start letting people go. But I remember new Orleans, the fan base being like, Oh no, we're going to be fine. We're going to be great. Uh, and they were not, uh, this year. So anyway, uh, to, to your point, usually, um, people have to see it first, uh, ownership. They have to see it fail and then they say, OK, fine. But after it just succeeded, are they not saying, hey, why can't we run that back with just a little bit better, a little, uh, it's like the men in black thing where they, you know, somebody flashed something and they forgot all about other history around this. That's, that's certainly a possibility, or they could very much understand that this was their last shot, um, and need to do a lot of the things that you brought up.

Um, but I guess I, I would say I say I wouldn't be surprised either way. I'm going to find out when you guys do, because I haven't been told, oh, they're doing this or doing that. And I don't think that they know if they're doing this or doing that yet. Those things are going to surround the quarterback, which veterans are willing to take pay cuts if they want to do that what the trade market is like all these things are very much yet to be determined okay that's enough for now plenty more fans only questions to come so keep your eyes out and if you sent a question i'm working through it but lots of these episodes coming out over the next couple of weeks so keep sending your questions absolutely love answering them really really enjoy doing these episodes coming out over the next couple of weeks. So keep sending your questions.

Absolutely love answering them. Really, really enjoy doing these episodes and we will talk to you next time.