Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Will there be a Vikings trade? Where should Vikings fans not want Rodgers to land?

Episode Date: May 12, 2021

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom talk about what's still to come in the offseason for the Minnesota Vikings, including any trades that they could make and possible Aaron Rodgers trade that could totally shift the expectations for the Vikings' season. Plus since Tim Tebow is back, which player would we steal off the Vikings 2012 roster and bring them back? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get Coors Light in the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate. Welcome to another episode of Purple Insider presented by Scout Logistics. Matthew Collar and Sam Ekstrom here. And Sam, I think what we need to do is we need to bring back What Now, Sam a little bit in this episode. But I want to do that in a minute. But I was having a conversation with someone, our friend Lauren Cox,

who does the Locked On Bears podcast. And a topic came up that I wanted to start us right off with because I really love it. Who do you think the quarterbacks will be in the NFC North and a topic came up that I wanted to start us right off with because I really love it. Who do you think the quarterbacks will be in the NFC North in the first day of the year 2022 NFL season? 2022. We have Rodgers drama. We have a little bit of a lack of clarity on Jared Goff's future. We have a lack of clarity on Kirk Cousins' future. And then we have Justin Fields. So I'll fill in Justin Fields, Chicago Bears will be the starting quarterback 2022 for them. How about the rest? I think the rest are really interesting.

All right. So the Lions don't have the heir apparent. And Goff's contract situation is still really binding. Like, I don't know if people have looked at the salary info, but $30 million dead cap in 2022. It feels like a two-year project for the Lions to sort of use Goff as the bridge and then get the team ready for the next quarterback in 2023. And because they don't have the next quarterback there, 2022 is going to be, I think, the learning from the bench year for whoever that might be.

I think Goff starts in 2022, but he's looking over his shoulder, and then the Lions can cut him at relatively low cost after that or trade him, probably trade him because he's a quarterback and he'll fetch something on the market. For Green Bay, I don't think it's necessarily love. I mean, I don't think it's Rodgers, especially, like at most, at most Rodgers would play this year. And you know what? I'm going to retract that. I don't think Rodgers plays this year unless he's extended in a very lucrative fashion and has his ego massaged and given a bunch of power in the front office. So I guess

in that case, he could stick around beyond this year. I don't think that's likely. So I don't think it's Rodgers, but I don't know if it's Jordan Love. I think it could be quarterback unknown. Could be like a veteran bridge. Is it Teddy Bridgewater? I don't know. I don't know who's going to be the quarterback in Green Bay. Do you have an opinion on that? Yes. So I came up with a bunch of different potential options of who it could be outside of Jordan Love, which I agree with you. It's worth throwing up the red flags all over the place that the guy was not their backup. I mean, teams know pretty fast about whether these guys are going to work out or not. They'll never say it, but they know.

I mean, I've heard coaches even say by like the first couple of weeks of training camp, we know whether our draft was good or not. And then, you know, sometimes you get those guys out there and you go, oh, no. Like, what are we going to do with these draft picks? And I think that that does happen with quarterbacks at times where you just realize after a year of practices and training camp that this guy probably can't play in the NFL. And if you can't master the offense,

as we have seen many a practice squad quarterback try to threaten Sean Mannion, but we know that if you can't master the offense, you can't go out there and play. It's just not going to work. So if that is the case for Jordan Love, who is only 22, by the way, still. But if that's the case for him, I had a couple of names come to mind. One was Jimmy Garoppolo. Now, I know that sounds weird because you're like, well, they got Trey Lance.

So they're not going to do that. Now, that's true. But a three-way trade with another team to acquire Rodgers, but they send draft picks to San Francisco and San Francisco sends something else to Green Bay or something like that. Some sort of three-team trade that would land Jimmy Garoppolo in Green Bay. Remember, Matt LaFleur plays the same type of offense as Kyle Shanahan so I think that would be a good fit the other one is I just think you always need to keep one eyeball on this franchise the Las Vegas Raiders Rodgers lives in LA LA is very close to Las Vegas I think that he would

love to play in Vegas Gruden is a nut but he also knows that Derek Carr probably isn't it. And at some point, I'm sure that he wants to take that franchise to the next level. I think that there's a halfway decent chance that if you're making a trade with Aaron Rodgers, that it ends up involving the Las Vegas Raiders somehow. Yeah. Las Vegas has been curiously quiet in all of this. I know they were momentarily

rumored to be a Russell Wilson landing spot. I was all about that. I thought that would have made a lot of sense. But you know that Gruden and Mayock are not just sitting idly by and ignoring all the noise. They know what's going on. They're well connected. I'm sure that they've, you know, got relationships with Rodgers from the years in the league. Like, I mean, Mayock's been in the media. Gruden's been in the media. They kind of understand how to manipulate a situation, how to, you know, the importance of these relationships. I think that Rodgers would enjoy playing for them. And you're right, it's a desirable landing spot with a little bit of talent on that team. I don't know if it's like stacked and ready to win a Super Bowl,

but obviously Rodgers would, you know, elevate the possibility of that. It's funny you mention the 49ers kind of giving Garoppolo to the Packers because right now, if you're Green Bay, you don't want Rodgers ending up in the conference. Right. But if you're the 49ers, you know, I don't think you care where Jimmy Garoppolo goes. If you're the Raiders, I don't think you care where Derek Carr goes because those quarterbacks are not existential threats to your team if they're on another team. The Packers are the ones who need to worry about it. And that's why the Denver Broncos thing, to me, still makes a lot of sense because it's AFC and it's a new GM. It's George Payton.

It's a new GM. It's George Payton. It's a new GM. They don't really have the quarterback thing figured out long term, and they passed on a quarterback in the draft when they could have taken Justin Fields. I still think there's something there in Denver, which would be in the same conference as Las Vegas. So you know Las Vegas probably is hearing about this, sniffing around and saying, what can we do to cut to the front of the line and make sure he

doesn't wind up in Denver Green Bay what do you need from us so I'll give you some other ones that would be really fun or interesting from the AFC and so this makes Vikings fans happy to have Aaron Rogers in the AFC Miami is one that came to mind so there were 10 and 16 last year with Tua not playing particularly well and Ryan Fitzpatrick. If you are Miami and you have a lot to give, you have young players, I mean, you could trade, I don't know, Jalen Waddell to them, which would be the irony of all ironies, right? If Rodgers was traded for a receiver. But that's a great team and a team that needs better quarterback play to get over Buffalo. So they, I think, are ready to win, potentially win a Super Bowl.

New England also. They did all this stuff in the offseason, spent so much money to stack up that roster for Cam and Mac Jones. But if you were to trade Cam and Mac Jones for Aaron Rodgers, there's so many fun possibilities for these teams that are not necessarily set at their quarterback position. I don't know. I mean, I guess Indianapolis is kind of set with Wentz for now, so I don't know if I could pull off a trade there. But those two AFC East teams

really came to mind for me that I think should be calling. Now, let me ask you another question related to that is which team with an established good quarterback, would you still trade for a shot at Aaron Rodgers? Like, would you trade Josh Allen for Aaron Rodgers? I would, I would do that because Josh Allen's about to get paid. So you could go, oh, he's younger, but he's going to be incredibly expensive anyway. And I think that even though he is very talented and good, he's not MVP Aaron Rodgers level. And that team could win a Super Bowl with Aaron Rodgers. I don't know that they can do it with, you know, with Josh Allen. So how about the Chargers even? Like if you were the Chargers, would you do Justin Herbert for Aaron Rodgers?

So many interesting ones. I would too. What about like Baker? I would do Baker, right? Baker or So many interesting ones. I would too. What about like Baker? I would do Baker, right? Baker or Mayfield? Yeah. I would do Baker. I would do, I don't know about Allen.

See, that's tough because Allen is like, we've talked about, you know, how progress isn't linear thing. Like he's not necessarily going to be as good or better than he was last year. The stars aligned for Buffalo. Like it was a really good situation. But I think one of the keys to being a successful quarterback is backing it up

with the second great season. That's what separates the greats from sort of the one-hit wonders. Rodgers, obviously, is not a one-hit wonder. I'd give up matt ryan i would give up how about so i i would do the allen thing because i'm not sure he'll be able to do what he did last year and i also think that rogers drives your success where allen does with his legs especially his playmaking but you know Diggs really elevated his play. Diggs and Rodgers together would be insanity.

How about Lamar Jackson? Would you trade Lamar Jackson for Aaron Rodgers? That's tough. I would say no, but. I might think about it. I might think about it. I might think about it. I think Lamar is just a different breed.

I think Lamar is pretty good. I would stick to Lamar. But I did think about it. You did get me to think about it. Let's switch it. Who wouldn't you think about it for? Mahomes? Mahomes.

I mean, Brady, obviously. Russell? Wouldn't you think about it for the homes? I mean, Brady, obviously Russell. I would trade. I think I would trade Brady for Rogers, but only because Brady is, he's got to fall off sometime. Right. What about Joe Burrow? Oh yeah.

I'd easily do that. Yeah. A hundred percent. I would do that in a second. I, I, I like Joe Burrow a little, but not a lot.

I mean, I think that Joe Burrow and Mac Jones are kind of the same guy. So if you didn't love Mac Jones, you probably don't love Joe Burrow as someone who is just taking a team to a completely different level. I like him as a Jared Goff-style rookie contract quarterback who you can build around, and I think they'll win because of it at some point. But I don't know that there's anybody outside of Patrick Mahomes and maybe Russell Wilson that I would not do it for. I think the, you know, let's go back to the 2014 NBA blockbuster trade of the year where LeBron James basically said, I don't care about Andrew Wiggins.

He's an unproven commodity. I want Kevin Love, the proven commodity. And he makes his new franchise, trade the number one pick to the Timberwolves for Kevin Love, and LeBron wins the title and Andrew Wiggins flounders. So there's your question, though. Justin Fields, Trevor Lawrence, Trey Lance. Zach Wilson, right. Kind of the big four.

I would love to get one year before making this decision, but if I'm doing it blind, not having seen any of them in the league, I think Trevor Lawrence probably has the best chance to be really, really good. Yes. Zach Wilson is boom or bust to me. I think there could be a pretty low floor. And I kind of feel the same about Trey Lance as well. Justin Fields probably has a higher floor.

I like Fields a lot. I would not do Fields. I would not do Lawrence. But if I'm the Jets or the 49ers, I think I'd make the move. And the 49ers, I mean, how make the move. And the 49ers, I mean, how much sense would that make to finally like kind of make amends for the draft of not taking Rodgers and then bringing him home? I agree. I think if you're San Francisco, what makes that hard is that you've just put all of your eggs so much in Trey Lance. Like you've

said, you're a franchise. We spent all these draft picks for it. And whoops, now you're trading. I don't know. It's a really hard thing to sell, maybe. But I think it's a really interesting discussion because the door ends up so wide open for so many potential options. Before we play What Now, Sam, I have a very brief interlude question for you. Because the world is talking about Tim Tebow and look I don't care personally at all about whether Tim Tebow makes the Jaguars as a tight end if he does then uh God bless and have a good time and play tight end for a football team I don't know what what do you want from me like this happens all the time and I I people getting outraged. He's taking attention away from Trevor Lawrence.

Like, are you serious? The man has not played in the NFL in like eight years. He is not relevant anymore, except for you guys keep trying to make him relevant. Like the mean girls thing that Courtney brings up all the time. Stop trying to make fetch happen. Stop trying to make Tebow happen nfl media but i do have a fun question for you okay off of this which is um two two two actually two actually but so the last time you played was 2012 right if you could grab somebody from the vikings 2012 roster that's

not adrian peterson because that's obvious. Whom would it be? Who would you just bring back from the 2012 Minnesota Vikings and drop them on the current squad? The answer might be too obvious. Okay. All right. Don't give it to me right away. So this is going to be me, like, rattling off, like, all the players that I can remember and then arriving at a conclusion.

So the running backs were Peterson and I don't know, the backup was irrelevant. Um, Toby Gerhardt. Toby Gerhardt. Yeah. Toby Gerhardt. Um,

yeah, you're right. And fullback might've been Jerome Felton. Maybe. Are you bringing back Jerome Felton? Um, okay. Offensive line would have been Khalil.

Nope. Um, okay. Offensive line would have been Khalil. Nope. Um, Charlie Johnson. I think Burke was still on that team or maybe John Sullivan. No, it was John Sullivan. You'd probably bring back either one of those, but these are, these are not the obvious answers for who you'd bring back for the 2012 Vikings. Yeah. Okay. Defense, Jared Allen, Jared Allen. Okay. There's one. Uh, there are, there are several. Antoine Winfield would have been one of them. Antoine, for sure. Still not the number one choice.

The number one choice is also not Blair Walsh, although he was unbelievable in 2012. It might be Blair Walsh. Maybe it is. It's a 2012 version of Blair Walsh. He was phenomenal. So Kevin Williams was also on that team, but they're kind of set on at defensive tackle. Jamarcus Sanford was the safety with Harrison Smith. Greenway. Aaron Henderson might have been a linebacker, I want to say. Still have not reached it yet.

I haven't. I haven't. Okay. Tight ends were Rudolph and maybe John Carlson. Wide receivers were Harvin. Yes, Percy Harvin is the answer. I've gotten the wide receivers. It was Harvin. It was Michael Jenkins. Yes, yep. And I don't even know who their wide receiver three was, but Harvin for sure.

That's usually the case around here. Jerome Simpson was wide receiver three behind Jenkins and Percy Harvin. Jerry's right also. Yes, Jerry's right. Jerome Simpson was wide receiver three behind Jenkins and Percy Harvin. Percy Harvin. Jerry's right also. Yes, Jerry's right. Percy Harvin on this football team, the version of healthy Percy Harvin, would make them the best offense in the NFL. I think outside of maybe Kansas City.

I think it would be the best NFC offense hands down if there was someone like Percy Harvin. One of the most explosive, exciting, unstoppable players that you could line up anywhere and do anything with. Even Mike Zimmer would have to pass the ball at that point. That's really a great what if in Minnesota sports lore is what if you could have gotten more out of Percy? Because the Vikings basically got three and a half years of Percy. One of two of those actually were lost years. Like the 2011 team completely tore it all down. They had McNabb and pivoting into Ponder as a rookie. Year before that wasn't supposed to be lost. It was supposed to be like Favre, you know, revamp number or Favre 2.0, but it flopped.

So they really only got one impactful Percy year. And that was his rookie season. And then the first half of 2012. And then he got hurt. He got mad. He never played again for the Minnesota Vikings. But he, for as little an impact as he had, like in terms of like being on meaningful teams,

I think Vikings fans think of him in a legendary sense, maybe because he was affiliated with Favre, and everything about the Favre year just has, like, the Midas touch to it. But Percy, like, as a kick returner, was so fun to watch. Like, his ability to just weave through traffic and make that one cut and go, the way he kind of, his switch of directions midfield was insane. Like the way he could just cut on a dime. Awesome, awesome player.

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on social media. Follow them at SodaStickCo on Twitter and at SodaStick.com for your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. Code PURPLEINSIDER for free shipping. I think he has a highlight reel that would rival almost anyone, even though he didn't have a full career. There was a YouTube video of him where it was all of his 20 plus yard touchdowns, including kick returns. And the video was like 10 minutes long. I mean, it was just incredible. It was like every touchdown he scored seemed to come from, you know, like some sort of incredible explosive play. So that to me was the correct answer, even though there was a handful of others. The only other one that I had for you is,

what Vikings quarterback would you have turned into a different position? Like, Vikings quarterback that didn't work out, that you would have turned into something else. The quarterback to tight end thing has worked before. Like, there have been other guys, most recently Logan Thomas, who has become a solid NFLfl player going from quarterback to tight end i'm not mad at tebow i wasn't mad at him for playing baseball he was good at playing baseball like he was he had like 270 in double a which is pretty good i mean he wasn't an mlb star

but there's a lot of prospects who fail to ever get close to double a so i i'm fine with it like i don't understand why people get so upset about this guy. He's going to be a huge distraction. No, he's not. Not at this point in his career, man. Stop. So anyway. Yeah. Like, I mean, he certainly had enough going for him, like marrying Miss Universe and all of that.

Like, he didn't need the attention of minor league baseball. Like, he obviously just kind of wanted to do something fun and play a game and, you know, try to make the big leagues. He didn't. That's okay. But now, what was the question? Oh, yeah, quarterback conversion. Quarterback to another position.

The easy answer is Joe Webb, and they kind of did that. They tried to make him a receiver. It didn't really work out. But Joe Webb hung around in the league. Good for Joe Webb. Like, he continued to make himself useful, even though he wasn't really work out. But Joe Webb hung around in the league. Good for Joe Webb. He continued to make himself useful, even though he wasn't the traditional quarterback. I think by the end of Dante Culpepper,

you could have turned him into a trenchman, like someone in the interior offensive or defensive line, because he was certainly, you know, he had the weight to be there. Do you have another answer? i can't think of anyone off the top i was thinking taylor heineke punter because remember that taylor heineke had punted in college i also thought of like maybe him as a as a scat back or something because he's short and quick um i don't know i'm gonna have to take like uh maybe some answers on twitter or something for that there is there's like a ruthless answer which would be like christian ponder should have been I don't know. I'm going to have to take like maybe some answers on Twitter or something for that.

There is there's like a ruthless answer, which would be like Christian Ponder should have been the towel boy or something. But that's it's too much. But I've said it out loud anyway. So, you know, I mean, I don't know, like even you go back to Boris wasn't so athletic that you could have moved him to another position or something like that. It just sort of came to mind. Like, I don't know, moving players of positions was something I love to do on Madden, and I can't believe the Vikings do it as often as they do. But quarterbacks changing or people changing to quarterbacks has always been fascinating to me. So anyway, now let's play a little what now, Sam. The Vikings still have $10 dollars in cap space they haven't used it for anything you did a piece on the website purpleinsider.com about just you know

how they handled their their salary cap I don't want to ask you about what they're going to do with the cap space because we can get into that but how do you think what they did this offseason with their cap space will impact their future so we were just talking about the 2022 like did they sacrifice in this offseason their future in any way with salary cap to make these things fit with signings that they made or with the way that they handled the draft was something that came to my mind yeah I think it comes into better perspective when you research what other teams did. And that was sort of the premise of my piece is there were a lot of teams in Cap Hell. Vikings were about 12 million over. And it wasn't as bad as it could have been like the Packers,

the Falcons, the Rams, who I wrote about. They were 20 plus million over. And that extra difference made a lot of a lot of difference um but like the rams they didn't want to cut anybody so they just restructured donald ramsey cup um woods whitworth like they they made sure that all of the core veterans stayed they let all of their like second tier free agents walk so they lost a lot of depth on that team and they kicked some major salary down the road. So the next two years, the Rams are going in like a bottom five cap situation. They're going to be over the cap next year. And then after the year,

after that, obviously we don't know what the cap is going to be. There might be a huge increase and they might be fine, but the Rams are taking a pretty big gamble because remember they don't have future first round picks either. They've given those up and now they've pushed millions and millions of dollars of salary down the road. The Vikings haven't done that necessarily. Now, they could still mess around with the Hunter contract and Brian O'Neill is going to get more money on the books. We don't know about Harrison Smith yet. So I guess they could still like put themselves on the hook for some future cap commitments. But the only real finagling they did that kind of hurts them long

term was the Adam Thielen restructure. They pushed them some Thielen money down the road. And that was a really sensible move. That's a move they've done with almost all of their second contract veterans in the past. That made sense. But they resisted the urge, I think, to do that with other guys like Anthony Barr. Instead of kicking salary down the road, they just said, okay, you can be a free agent early. And they kind of cut it off after 2021. So I think that's actually smarter for like a sustainable roster makeup than constantly moving money around and pushing it into 2022, 2023. And the Packers did a little bit of that too. Like Green Bay didn't cut a lot of people. They tried to retain everybody. They carved out money through restructures so they could re-sign Aaron Jones to a big contract. And I think you know how I feel about extending running backs.

It's not always the best idea, and Green Bay made that a priority. So they didn't add a lot of depth. The Rams didn't add a lot of depth. They just tried to keep people on the team, whereas the Vikings, they cut people pretty willingly. Like they cut Stephan, they cut Bailey, they cut Reif, they cut Rudolph. And they gave themselves leeway to make moves. And I think for a 7-9 team, that was smart.

They didn't tether themselves to these assets that were part of a bad team. And they tried to get better, at least on one side of the ball. Say what you will about the offensive approach to not really bring in anyone to help Cousins at all until the draft. But I think the way that they bolster the defense with the money they cleared up was actually pretty smart compared to the way other teams dealt with it. I don't like anything the Rams did. I really don't. And I thought it was a good example in the way that you broke it down, that if the Vikings had done something similar, I think we would have been very critical of it.

And that even goes for trading for a quarterback who's not much better than your current quarterback, if he's better at all, and who is less healthy. This is one thing that the Rams clearly did not factor, is that Matt Stafford gets hurt all the time. He's always, oh, Matt Stafford, he's playing through 69 injuries. It's like, that's not a good thing, man. Like, I know that he's tough and all that and i'm sure that that gets the respect of the locker room but if you got a broken hand and a broken foot and you got a torn acl and you're going out there and you know playing average or below like this is not

good this is not getting your money's worth the monday after every like meeting against the vikings in the zimmer era it was like Matt Stafford seeking opinion from back specialists after getting sacked six times. That's right. That's right. This is that. And he gets sacked a ton. That's another thing that I don't think that they're factoring out there is that Jared Goff, for all of his issues, the results have been pretty darn good. And I'm not sure that you're going to get a whole lot different, especially when you lose your defensive coordinator

and you lose a lot of defensive talent, Troy Hill, John Johnson. These are not household names. But it's just interesting because they're on the Vikings schedule, and we'll talk about our whole schedule stuff when the schedule drops. And we're going to do another live stream on WCCO's social channels, which is awesome, when the schedule drops. And we're going to do another live stream on WCCO's social channels, which is awesome, when the schedule drops. But it's just interesting that when I compare the two, where the Vikings are at very much in a win-now type of season

and where the Rams are at in a win-now situation, the Rams did a lot of things that are just highly, highly questionable. If it doesn't work out the way they think it's going to with Stafford, I'm very skeptical. I think I'll pick them to be like an 8-9 team. I just don't think they're going to be that good. And with the Vikings, though, this is one area you have to give them a lot of credit because there has been times in the past where they signed players to contracts

or made moves, and you just went, I don't know if down the road that's going to play out very well. And the prime example is Anthony Barr. When they signed him to bring him back for 2018, it's like, okay, well, yes. Or 2019, sorry. It was like, yes, you want him back for this year. His contract is okay. But down the road, this is going to hurt you.

And it has. It did last year. And it will this year. And so, you know, and then you're in a situation to not play that contract out and have to move it around and change money and all these things. They did a lot of that to make sure that they kept people together. And then ultimately it blew up between 2019 and 2020. And so there was a lot of questions like, did you really kind of look forward for that or were you desperate? With this offseason, it's a short-term contract with Delvin Tomlinson. It's a short-term contract with Patrick Peterson.

I think they paid too much for Patrick Peterson compared to the rest of the corners who signed after. But it's not going to hold you down for a long period of time. Even the way that Kirk's extension is structured, you could trade him after next year. There really isn't a whole lot of anchor type of contracts or things that they did this offseason that I would say, boy, down the road, I don't know how you're going to operate. Really, if they do change quarterbacks at some point, it should be matching up with a timeline where you're getting a peaking roster in 2022. Well, I think when you don't tie yourself to a lot of guys beyond this year or next year, they've actually put themselves in a situation where if they have to eat all the

Cousins money next year because they don't want to extend him, they can probably stomach it because there's a lot of money coming off the books after this year. Maybe Anthony Barr, like that's a pretty big savings if they don't have to pay Anthony Barr next year. If they don't pay maybe Harrison Smith next year, like there are a lot of ways where they've kind of created now a situation where in 2022, they're not dead. Like Cousins will not be like the-all, end-all that ruins that team. I think as it stands now, I think they're like $7 million under the projected cap, and the projection might even be more.

It might be over $200 million next year with all the new deals, and that's without shedding any other salary with the traditional roster cuts. So they'll still be able to do business next year, even with the albatross that is Kirk Cousins' contract. And, you know, I looked around the league too, like at the Falcons in my story, Matt Ryan has 40 plus million dollar cap hits each of the next two years. Like Atlanta has two more years of that. Ryan is turning 36 in May this month. So 36 and 37 year old Matt Ryan, who's been under 500 each of the last three years. And the Falcons don't really seem concerned at all about their future at quarterback. They drafted a tight end and granted that's going to help Matt Ryan, but they

could have also taken Fields or Jones and they didn't. So the Vikings seem to sort of be like eyes wide open about their future which you have to give them a little bit of credit for they're keeping their options open which you know you can include the Kellen Mond draft pick and all of that like the pivot is beginning it's not too late to reverse course but at least they've gotten the ball rolling so what I was going to say is their biggest win now move last year did not come until before training camp and this is where we get into what now sam what now sam do you think that let me just run through some what now options trade is there a trade still in the winds

for the minnesota vikings do you think and if and if let's say i told you sam they made a trade still in the winds for the Minnesota Vikings, do you think? And if – let's say I told you, Sam, they made a trade. I call you, Sam, they made a trade. What would you think? I'm probably on the golf course that you're calling me about a big move. Guarantee it. Guarantee it that when we go golfing, there's going to be this trade. But what would you think I was talking about?

If I said they traded – they made a trade, like what would you think it was for before I told you? My first intuition would be Daniil Hunter. It's been so quiet on that front. And I would say, well, that's stupid because you didn't get any extra draft picks this year. Like that should have been your priority is to capitalize in 2021 on that deal. So I would immediately think that, and I would say that's dumb.

Even though they probably would get a nice haul for next year, it'd probably be good for the 2022 Vikings. Second, intuition would be, wow, Kirk Cousins, this is happening. Kirk Cousins is going to Denver? I guess I don't know who the trade partner is. Houston at this point? If they don't have Watson, I don't know where the quarterback neediest teams are at this moment. It seems like a lot of teams kind of have their plan laid out. Five teams drafted quarterbacks this year that might play in week one.

Thirdly, boy, Harrison Smith got traded. I think, and I don't know who his successor would be there. I mean, you've got Xavier Woods and I guess Cameron Bynum, who we're both kind of excited about. I can't think of any other real candidates, to be honest with you. So what I was thinking is, well, let me first rewind because you said Kirk Cousins to the Broncos. And it's just the funniest because when I was working in Buffalo, hockey fans will remember this. People used to call into the station all the time and say, you know what the Sabres should do? They should back Ted Nolan now Ted Nolan had been their coach who uh won coach of the year and then got fired and then they had a lot of success with the next coach and but there was always this group of

people that wouldn't let it go and we used to make fun of them and be like come on guys that was so many years ago and then the Sabres did it like they actually brought Ted Nolan back hockey fans will know exactly how crazy this was that he came back that would be like the what if we traded for Teddy and and all of us go come on come on come on come on they're not trading for Teddy and then they actually did it as if like maybe Denver traded for Teddy to trade Teddy to the Vikings and then have him be the quarterback for next year. That would be the craziest. A Hunter trade would probably be like for next year's first or something. It's still really, really hard to see. What I was thinking is the Vikings would trade their next

year's first for blank, for Brandon Scherer for something. Let's just say that they don't necessarily believe Wyatt Davis is an instant superstar, but they trade a first-round pick for Brandon Sheriff and they give him an extension or something. And they're like, whatever. I don't know. Maybe you're not doing that if you just drafted Wyatt Davis. But he's a third-round pick. So you wouldn't not do it because of a third-round pick. The other thing I thought of was like a pass rusher.

If there's somebody with a contract dispute who wants a contract extension or something, like what we were supposed to be looking at right now was Hunter and Ngakwe. And to tell you the truth, I mean, they probably would have been better off. They would have had to pay Ngakwe. You don't want to do that. But right now, if you had two pass rushers who were capable of double digits, sacks, you'd feel a lot better than Steven Weatherly and Hunter. It just feels like, are you really going to let Steven Weatherly be your starter

when he started for Carolina last year and got no sacks? So I don't know. The trade wins still seem to be, I don't know, at least I think that they might still be blowing. Sure. Or the free agency wins too. Like there were some links to Ryan Kerrigan, who I believe you were targeting back in March. So good eye for you. Played in 16 games with Washington last year, a decade with Washington. Five and a half sacks last year at age 32. You know, he's been double-digit sacks four times in his career.

I don't hate that move. He's like a hundred-sack career guy. That's somebody that I wouldn't mind having on the team. I'm curious, how would you split up the defensive and opposite Daniil Hunter reps right now? Because you've got Weatherly, you've got Wanham, you've got Patrick Jones, you've got Janarius Robinson, and you've got the dark horse, Kenny Willekes. So how are you going to – what's the pie chart of defensive end reps?

And they're not all going to make the team either. Like you're going to have to – Kenny Willekes might be in trouble. Like let me just – for all the Kenny Willekes apologists out there. He may not be on the team this year. I'm so, so sorry. And I didn't even mention Jalen Holmes. They've got a ton of them. Hercules Mata'afa is on the team. Do you have to mention Jalen Holmes and Hercules Mata'afa? Maybe not at this point. I think Kenny Willekes ends up on the practice squad, so go there. And then it's Jones and Robinson as the backups for Wanham and Weatherly in a rotation, but that's why Ryan Kerrigan would be a perfect fit, I think, because then Weatherly and Kerrigan can mix in as the

starters. DJ Wanham, if he shows something great, if he doesn't, then he doesn't. But usually guys like DJ Wanham, it's, I mean, it was like this with Afadi Adenabo and Weatherly. It usually takes more than one year for those guys to develop. It's usually two, three, four years before we see them become anything if they're not a first round draft pick. So I think it's going to be Hunter. They get the contract worked out and rotation between Weatherly and player X. And then on third downs, Weatherly rushes over the guard. Maybe that would be the thing that ends up happening because they certainly are not using Michael Pierce on third and seven.

They're going to run somebody else in there and they don't have a defensive tackle to run in there now. Maybe Geno Atkins becomes that guy if he decided that he couldn't get a starting role and he could only get a rotational role. But I think that the options are numerous of what they could do. And clearly they are showing interest in wide receiver three. There was reported interest in DeeDee Westbrook from, I think, Josina Anderson was the one that broke that. And I'm a little hesitant on that one because of his past history of domestic violence and how that would come across. I mean, it already comes across bad, but especially with the Jeff Gladney thing,

from a receiver standpoint, he would be a very good fit, I think. So here's the question, though. If you had a choice between, let's say, Melvin Ingram is the best free agent left or a trade for another defensive end, or you could take $10 million and get four players at positions of your choosing who are okay at football. Not superstars, but just okay NFL players remaining in free agency. Which would you rather do? What now, Sam? Yeah, at this point, I think you've kind of – you've got the depth pieces

that you need you don't need to do any more um casting of wide nets i think you can be more targeted in your approach right now um the 86th through 90th players you add on the roster typically aren't impact players unless you go get somebody who you have like research like researched, like Yannick Ngakwe, who this team, you know, clearly specifically went after thinking he could fulfill a certain role. And it didn't work out, mind you, part of that because, you know, the Vikings went one and five and they thought they were going to tank, and then they kind of came back to life and then missed him.

But I think the trade route does make a little bit of sense because in theory, you wouldn't be adding a ton of salary to your cap in that situation. Depends if it's player for pick or player for player. There is a certain appeal to the free agency market because I think the cost on these guys is probably pretty low at this juncture. There's not going to be a lot of high demand from Ryan Kerrigan from a salary standpoint. So if you can get a free agent for a couple million dollars, and I think the Vikings have only a couple million to toss around after they sign the draft class, that's a route that I'd be willing to take. You might have to wait until after June 1st, too, because that's when the Kyle Rudolph money comes back to you

and you'll increase the cap space considerably. So I would, instead of signing five players from, like, rookie tryouts, I think I'd prefer the Vikings leave a couple spots open for late, late free agency and see who's available in June and July. Hey everyone, I want to tell you about our friends at Scout Logistics, and I really do mean it when I say friends. They are fans of Purple Insider over at Scout Logistics, and since they reached out wanting to support this show, I want to tell you about what they do. Scout Logistics is just-in-time transportation for full tractor-trailer loads, and if you're wondering what that means exactly,

well, if you own or work for a company that needs shipping solutions, they are the preferred carrier of Fortune 500 companies across North America, and we have quite a few of those in Minnesota, right? They can ship perishable, non-perishable, FTL or LTL, and they have on-time delivery rate of over 99%. So if you're like them and you enjoy the show and you have shipping needs, check out ScoutLogistics.com or call 855-217-2688 extension 232 to connect with them directly to find out how scout logistics can minimize risk and overperform and go the extra mile for your company well i was thinking sign five players like who are proven like you know nfl players who are free agents i think that that's a better route than getting the one player who's real good like melvin

ingram because if he gets hurt again then that sort of goes down the drain. Whereas if you sign two veteran wide receivers who are left that maybe aren't Westbrook or as proven, but say it's like Marvin Hall or someone who, you know, I who's even heard of Marvin Hall, but he's just a speedster who might fit in somewhere with you and you sign, you know, one other guy. Okay. So you got two wide receivers. You sign another veteran safety to be a backup. you sign another veteran safety to be a backup you sign another veteran corner to be a backup you sign a veteran pass rusher to rotate in who is only expected to play 34 adrian clayborne 34 percent

of um 30 or 40 percent of snaps something like that i think that that was the way they should have gone last year with late free agency still having a lot of good players, and it still does now. And they decided to go the Ngakwe route. So I'd probably go the opposite way, because I think of this roster similarly to last year in that if we go position by position and ask, what if blank happens to this guy? Usually the backup situation is not good. I mean, what if Michael Pierce hurts his knee? Who's the backup?

Armand Watts, I think, is the backup there. I mean, what if Eric Kendricks hurts his finger? Then you have Nick Vigil playing and Troy Dye playing. There's a big drop off in a lot of different positions i would try to fill those out i think if i were the vikings that's where maybe their weakness in my mind is their starting lineups are good but anything beyond adam thielen is falling off the edge of a cliff there so it'll be interesting what now sam i don't have any other questions yeah well i mean, I mean, yeah.

I mean, you got to have faith in those three UDFA wide receivers, Colin. Wap Fillier. Wap Fillier. Yeah, yeah. Short for Wapper. He's fun to watch if you've seen him in college. He's an entertaining player. Wap Fillier is my sleeper to make this roster.

Oh, okay. I don't know if people didn't Oh, okay. I don't know. If people didn't read the story, I'll spoil it. My projection on the UDFAs is you're going to get a wide receiver, you're going to get a linebacker, and you're going to get two specialists off of that list. I think it's going to be a big UDFA year. Is it a big UDFA year if it includes two specialists?

Is that big? I actually should. Okay, let me ask you that. What now, Sam? Last one. Who's kicking for this football team? Because now I've started on Twitter to use eyeball emojis any time a kicker gets released by a team.

So someone named Elliot Fry, who sounds like a novelist, he was released by Atlanta. And I'm like, eyeball emojis? Like Chase McLaughlin got released and then picked up on waivers by someone. He's on his, like, 14th team already, briefly a Viking. Yep. Who's, let's, like, come on. Who's kicking?

It's not some guy that they have now, Greg Joseph. It's not this UDFA they brought in, Riley Patterson. It's, come on. Who's – let's – like, come on. Who's kicking? It's not some guy that they have now, Greg Joseph. It's not this UDFA they brought in, Riley Patterson. It's – come on. Who's kicking? Who's kicking? Well, I was going to say Patterson. You think so? Is he good?

I think it's Patterson. I don't think – Was he good in college? Do you really think that the plan would be, all right, let's sign two guys, have them compete, and then have neither of them be the kicker? Yes, I think that's the plan. That can't be the plan. So maybe the only way that the plan gets changed is if somebody who's, like,

really good gets inexplicably cut, sort of like a Dan Bailey, like someone with, like, an impeccable track record and the team wanted to save a few dollars and go younger. That's the only way that the plan changes. I think this is legitimately the plan to have two unheralded kickers compete. And I think that I would prefer to have the one who's young and under a cheap three-year deal to become the kicker so you can sort of generate some continuity. I don't think Greg Joseph should have any advantages because he's a veteran because he's done nothing in the league.

Riley Patterson has a big leg. I think he's going to be good. Okay. I'll have to look it up. Like, remember how we looked up Corey Vedvix kicking stats in college? We were like, guys, he wasn't even good at this in college. Well, neither was Carlson or Walsh, though. Like, the Vikings love inaccurate college kickers with, like, the right tools.

That's kind of how they roll. And Patterson's the same way. What? Okay. Yeah, well. Long levers. Maybe not a great way to do it. But, yeah, I think what they'll do is they'll have this kicking competition

that you will do, because I never do this, but you do. And this is the difference between us, is you'll watch every field goal and you write down your notebook and you'll be asking other people, was that one good or was that not good? And I'll be like, I was watching the tight ends over there. I don't care. But you're going to have a market for that this year, watching the kickers when it comes to or the uh kickers when it comes to tight end you can be watching

the long snapping competition because we have one of those as well the kickers when it comes to training camps what i was trying to say that you'll be watching them uh but i think it's going to be all for naught i think both guys will kick their little hearts out and then somebody will get released at the end of camp and the vikings both of them and pick them up. That's my prediction. They have done this with the punters before. I can't remember who, they've had such a long line of punters, but I think Matt Weil came in after all of it was done and took the job from everybody. Did that happen with Colquitt as well? It did. I believe, yeah. They have shelved their punting competitors a couple of years in a row. So I can't say that they wouldn't do it again.

I do look forward to it, though. Okay. The next time we talk will be on WCCO's Twitter and Facebook streams when we break down the schedule just minutes after it's released. We're going to go live and do that on Wednesday evening. What is it? Is it at seven that they're putting the schedule out or like whenever it is, you'll see it if you're on the internet. So,

okay. We'll talk then Sam. Thank you for your time. Thank you.