Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Would Penix Jr. have worked better with the Vikings' timeline than McCarthy?

Episode Date: May 9, 2024

Matthew Coller answers Vikings fan questions about the mystery of the compensatory pick, whether losing draft picks will hurt the team in the long run and JJ McCarthy's timeline matching up with the team's roster peak Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here with a fans-only episode. I know it's been a little while and my email inbox has been backed up a little bit. With all of you who went over to purpleinsider.com, go to contact us. That will send it right to me and I will get it on one of these shows. And now that we are past draft season, yeah, we've got rookie mini camp OTAs and some things to get to, but there will be plenty more room for emails to be answered. So keep on sending them. You can also send them on Twitter

at Matthew Collar, shoot me a DM they're open and I'll get your question on the show for those of you who can't join the live shows or just want to maybe think out your question a little bit more than in the comment section. So feel free to do that. Happy to answer them. Got a ton of stuff that I am excited to get into here as we all kind of think about this state of the Minnesota Vikings following the NFL draft. So why don't we dive right into it and let's start with Adam's question. Will giving away our mid-round draft picks come back to bite us next offseason as we have little to no ammunition for draft bodies or to trade up for proven vets? I guess I would say that I don't

know what the result is going to be long-term because I went back and I looked thinking about third and fourth round draft picks. All right. Who's been a difference maker for the Minnesota Vikings in the third and fourth round in recent years. Now that doesn't mean that there are not third and fourth round draft picks around the NFL who become difference makers. There are, but just for this franchise, how many guys could I have not lived without or could you have not found somewhere else and I had to go back to 2015 when the Vikings drafted Daniil Hunter to find the last player that I went yeah okay there's a guy that you could not have gotten anywhere else you had to draft him you had to get lucky in the third round. Pat Elfline

had a very good 2017 season, struggled after that with the Vikings. That was an important draft pick for them for 2017, but never really recovered from the injury that he had in the NFC Championship against Philadelphia. As you point out, you might need ammunition for a trade that you really can't make because you can't throw an extra third, throw an extra fourth on the pile to acquire a player. And there is such a thing as depth and you have to develop that depth. So when you get a starter injured, there's somebody that you've been working on who's ready to step into their role. But I guess when I think of it, what is the odds difference between that being a fourth rounder and being undrafted free agent or a third rounder and undrafted free agent or the players that they've developed over the last few years, or even just going into free agency and finding a veteran using the cap space that they have to fill up a spot that they might

need. I mean, it is definitely important to hit on draft picks, to develop players from the middle rounds and to create depth for your roster. And every so often you're going to hit big on one of those players. And so I can't really look into the future and tell you, well, you know, they would have been able to draft this guy in the third round or make this trade. What I do know is that they have enough players on this roster that have been handpicked by Brian Flores, for example, as players who might develop into something. Will they? I don't know. Will Gabriel Murphy go from undrafted free agent to a player on this team?

Will Andre Carter go from UDFA to somebody that the Vikings can have as a rotational rusher or depth? I don't know. And a lot of it depends on that. And I guess what it is, is that the security blanket of those draft picks is gone. And so now if you sign a player, just for example, last year, they signed Dean Lowry and they didn't give him a huge salary. They brought him in to be a role player on the interior, but he got hurt and it didn't work. So the answer isn't always free agency, but it isn't always a third round draft pick or a fourth round draft pick either, as we've seen so many of those fail. I think what the Vikings are looking at with giving those picks away is that it's the star players that are going to move the needle. And that if you look at Brian Flores' track record, even just going back to last year with Ivan Pace Jr. and other young players who were getting in the game and making a difference, that they feel like they can find those players in other spots. And they also feel like they can use that cap space.

It doesn't mean that it's necessarily going to work, but I think that that was their logic in like, let's build a foundation around the star players. And then we will find guys to fill out the rest of that. But I mean, we can only say we're going to find out it's a bold strategy. And as Casey Adolfoomenta said on the show, sometimes you do have to take a risk in order to get difference making or needle moving type of players.

Of course, he was comparing that to the Timberwolves and Rudy Gobert and that trade that was so criticized at first and then now has turned out as go bear as a defensive mvp and the wolves are a championship contender that's what he wants out of some of these traits he wants to use that extra pick to ensure they get their quarterback jj mccarthy he wants to use the mid-rounders to move up and ensure they get their edge rusher who could be a difference maker but if he's not then everyone will go back and go hey we could have had those third and fourth round draft picks and you gave them away but if he is a difference maker then the impact of losing out on those draft picks will be so much less so i guess

the best answer i could give is we're gonna find out i think it was a good calculated risk to make that the upside is so high that it is worth doing, but there is an other side of that, that in order to get something, you have to give something up. And they did with those middle round draft picks. Dan asks to put their best 11 players on the field. The Vikings have to play three safeties. Do you see them running three edge rushers at a time a lot so they can maximize talent on the field? And so what you mean is they have to have Josh Metellus, Cam Bynum, and Harrison Smith out there. And then with the edge rushers, it will be Jonathan Grenard, Andrew Van Ginkle, and Dallas Turner. Now, one thing about Andrew Van Ginkle that's worth keeping in mind is that he is more of a hybrid player, that what we're seeing Brian Flores do is kind

of the opposite of what Mike Zimmer used to do, where Zimmer would find guys that fit his exact specifications for what he thought those positions should look like. So he would go out and get his type of defensive tackle, his type of 4-3 edge rusher, his type of linebacker, his type of corners, and those guys would fit his defense. Where Brian Flores has looked at players and said, can you do something well? I think you can. Let's get you into a position where you are able to do that. And he likes more of versatile players who can line up in a lot of different spots, who can be comfortable playing multiple positions.

If Josh Metellus has to play deep safety, he can. If he has to play a pure linebacker, he can. And we saw him play at the line of scrimmage last year. Well, Van Ginkle is that kind of player as well, where if you look at his usage inside linebacker, out at the edge, he does a lot of rushing. He does a lot of dropping back in coverage. So there will be options for them to use

those three edge rushers because he is not, Van Ginkle is not a pure edge rusher where he's only going to be in one spot. Grenard could move around a little, but I think he's going to be a little more anchored in. And Dallas Turner is another player that can move around a bit. I don't think that you want any of those guys out there. I mean, Grenard maybe, but I don't think that you want Dallas Turner as a rookie to have so much on his plate.

So it's going to be a lot of mix and match. And one thing that I noticed last year about the defense, and I thought this was very interesting and clever of Brian Flores is there would be times where he was playing 20 different guys in a game. And we never saw that from Mike Zimmer. We never saw that from Ed Donatel. Mostly it was your starting lineup and those guys were playing almost every snap. Okay. It's the base package, the nickel package, and that is about it with this. There's really no such thing as a base package, a nickel package, a dime. I mean, they have names for them, but it's just, everybody's going to get on the field that is suited up on defense that day.

And you're going to mix and match in a lot of different places i believe they will do that situationally so it's all right well in this situation we believe that you know the other team's tendency is to run x y and z so we're going to put it out there like this on first down and 10 or this is a better running team or this is a worse running team there were weeks last year where Sheldon Day was on the field and we never saw it coming, but what, what, what? And it was just because Brian Flores felt like he had worked out well in practice against whatever it was that they thought the Chicago Bears wanted to do. And so Sheldon Day was in the game all of a sudden,

even if he hadn't been in the game the entire year. Sometimes we saw Kyrus Tonga out there. It's going to be a lot of the same thing. And they went out and got a couple of defensive tackles for that purpose, probably matchup based week to week. Is this team going to play more bigger personnel or just how they play will be determined a lot by whether Dallas Turner and Andrew Van Ginkle are in certain positions, how much Turner plays week to week. I guess it's going to depend on him, kind of like with Josh Metellus, where Metellus thought that he was going to play a decent amount,

a lot more than he had before. Then suddenly he's playing 60, 70 snaps in a game. He's like, what? Because he earned it. He played extremely well. He fit into that role really well. And so if Dallas Turner is making an impact off the edge consistently throughout training camp and then early in the season, then I'm sure Brian Flores will say, all right, well, Andrew Van Ginkle, now you're going to be in a different spot and you're going to mix and match a little bit more on these other places to pass rush from, to drop back from.

And there might be a little more rotation with Ivan Pace Jr. and with Blake Cashman. It's a little bit of good problems to have that you could take Cashman off the field or you could take Pace off the field a little bit more and move Van Ginkle into those spots. I mean, this is just really going to be a fascinating defense to see how Brian Flores gets all the pieces on the field and the way that he uses them. I love that question. And I think that there will be a lot

of Andrew Van Ginkle and a lot of Dallas Turner playing at the same time. And I also think that, you know, Andrew Van Ginkle might find himself lining up in a lot of different places, just really dependent on that week's game plan, which again is something that we did not see during the Zimmer era. well because it wasn't guys who could necessarily master everything that he was asking them to do. But now with Flores, we've already seen him squeeze a lot out of everyone's talent. And with Turner and Van Ginkle, that's something I'm going to be looking for a lot during training camp. Where is he putting Andrew Van Ginkle? Because of course he's going to want him on the field quite a bit. Next question comes from Jay Chass. I need you to talk me out of being absolutely perplexed at best on the handling of next year's comp picks. The Vikings were slated for two third round comp picks and then signed Shaq Griffin. So perplexed

is my constant state when it comes to comp picks. And everyone has already sent me the article from overthecap.com that attempts to figure out what the Vikings, not the Vikings, the NFL's formula is for deciding on comp picks. But it's not public, and I've never done a good job in figuring it out. And I don't know that a lot of other people have either when it comes to what we assume they're going to get than a year later when they actually announce what they're getting. It's always been a frustration for me. And at some point I just threw up the hands. I don't know. We're going to have to wait until it's announced next year, but I can tell you this Ben Gessling of the Star Tribune reported that the Vikings did not believe that they were going to get two comp picks.

They thought because Kirk left and Hunter left, but they also signed people and you're trying to juggle. All right. Like how much did you lose? How much did you bring in? That even though it has been put out there that they did lose an extra pick because of Griffin. Again, this is just guesswork. And some of it, I'm not slamming anyone. It's just educated guesswork about what they think they were going to get. And maybe the Vikings have a better guess than this. I mean, this is not outside of Kweisi Adafo-Mensa, who's only been a general manager for a couple of years. This isn't a bunch of noobs in the Vikings front office. I mean, Rob Brzezinski has been there for a very long time.

I'm sure they thought of it. If you thought of it, then I'm sure they were like considering what their compensation was going to be when they signed certain players. And that's not to say the Minnesota Vikings always get everything right, but only to say that Ben Gessling reported when there was a lot of buzz out there about, look, they screwed up the comp pick thing. He reported that they had never believed that they were going to get two third round picks. So that's all I can really tell you. I have tried on this and a lot of people ask about it you guys love comp picks I wish I loved anything outside of fullbacks as much as you guys

love comp picks but at least from his reporting it doesn't appear that they blew a comp pick on signing Shaq Griffin which never truly made a whole lot of sense to me about how that all is supposed to work. Again, that's not to criticize anybody who has been studying this and trying hard to figure it out. It's just that I've never really been able to say definitively that yes, they will get this because we can't go to whatever website and just plug in. Here's what they lost. Here's what they're getting back and boom, get an answer. Now it's another question of why, why can't we have that from the NFL that I don't know. It's a strange thing to hide.

And maybe they don't want teams to dictate how they're acting in free agency by what comp picks they're going to get. So that could be why they try to be secretive about the formula. So I guess we may never know if they would have gotten a second one and if they blew it or not. I guess the only thing I could say is if they did,

if they did mess that up by signing Shaq Griffin, I mean, I don't understand it either based on the timing, but it's also a position that they really needed and that it seems Brian Flores wanted to hand pick so they could play more man coverage and move by Byron Murphy inside. It is a one-year deal, but if Griffin is good, he could be here for multiple years. So would you give up a late, late third round draft pick to have a really good corner next year who helps you compete for a playoff spot? You would. Now, if he doesn't play that great, then it's not going to look good no matter what.

But if it works out well, then I think we'll say, I don't really care about the mid round comp pick or whatever, but I wish I could be more helpful. I really do. I don't really care about the mid-round comp pick or whatever, but I wish I could be more helpful. I really do. And I have read everything that I'm sure you've read about this, and I can't really figure it out either. So I don't know. I'm actually glad now that comp pick season is over, though.

So we'll check back in next March when we find out the answer to that question. Nick says, would you trade the 2025 first round pick for Brandon Iuke or keep it and take a shot at another defensive player in next year's draft? The problem with trying to trade it for Brandon Iuke is, well, there's the one football problem. I mean, you've already spent two first rounders on your wide receivers, a whole ton of draft capital to acquire your tight end. That's a lot of people who have to get the ball thrown to them. I know three deep I'm aware, but Brandon, I, you seemed unhappy last year with his workload with the 49ers. They're more of a running type of offense and then play action off of that they already have a true number one with Debo Samuel would Brandon Ayuk want to sign an extension here and by the way Brandon Ayuk is very very good so his extension it's not going to be as expensive as Justin Jefferson but it's also not not going to

be as expensive right like I mean it's going to be in the ballpark of somebody like Amin Ross St. Brown. He's going to want to get 25 plus million dollars as a top-notch wide receiver, former top draft pick of the 49ers. And that's where the math would start to get dicey. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I wouldn't want Brandon Ayuk on the football team, but that's where the math would start to get dicey because you have other positions that you need to spend salary cap space on. You're going to trade a first round pick, then give him a ton of money. Then you're not going to get that extra cap surplus by drafting someone next

year. And then you have to pump him the football. Well also getting the ball to Justin Jefferson, who's going to cost you $30 million. Like in Madden, this works great. I'm not sure in practice that it would actually work out as good as we want. And the other thing we always have to remember when we talk about three deep and trying to recreate that. And again, no one has vouched for drafting wide receivers and trading for them and acquiring

them more than this guy. I mean, what did Tampa Bay do when they got Tom Brady? They went out and they got Gronk for him. They got Antonio Brown for him. And they just said more receivers, the better. And it worked out for them to win a Super Bowl. So I'm on board with that. But you do wonder about the sort of, I mean, the wide receivers are going to be wide

receivers. And something that we let go in the past a little bit is how selfless Jake Reed had to be in order for that to work because Jake Reed was one of the top wide receivers in the NFL. And he went from producing a thousand yards to more like 500 in part, you know, major part because Randy Moss shows up with Chris Carter. And so he's getting the football a heck of a lot less. Is there someone is Jordan Addison? Is that going to work for him? Is TJ Hawkinson just out of this office? Like you already traded a lot for this wide receiver three type in TJ Hawkinson. I'm not sure that you could pull it off and make it work in real life with Brandon Ayuk. I also think that you need to draft players sometime. We talked about the amount of draft capital that they've already given away in part two to get Hawkinson. To me,

it's a little too rich for my blood to be trying to chase Brandon Ayuk as well. And does one first rounder and no other change to throw in there? You can't throw in a third. You can't throw in a fourth. Would that be the top offer for Brandon Ayuk? Probably not. I mean, another team considering what wide receivers are worth these days, looks like they're probably going to show up with more draft capital to give up for Brandon Ayuk. So maybe that's the Pittsburgh Steelers or a team like that. The 49ers also would not want to trade Brandon Ayuk in the NFC. They're not going to give a really great player. And this was always the Kirk trade to San Francisco. Wait a minute. The Vikings don't want to help San Francisco with their quarterback situation. And I'm sure it's the same thing with Brandon Ayuk. That said, really, really focused on this battle for the wide

receiver three and four spot. Tyler Boyd signed with the Tennessee Titans. So that's another guy that's off the list. And looking at the remaining players who are out there, Hunter Renfro had a good season a couple years ago. There has to be a reason why nobody has signed Hunter Renfro and he dropped off big time last year. Most of the receivers that are still on the market kind of remind you of the Kendall Wright or the Tajay Sharp, the players that the Vikings brought in in the past to be wide receiver three. And it didn't really work out. So I think that they might have to just roll with Brandon Powell, Jalen Naylor, et cetera, and see who emerges throughout training camp to be that player. I think it's going to be hard at this point in the game to get another wide receiver,

though I was kind of surprised that they didn't make a bigger acquisition there this offseason. Next question comes from Ryan, says, which positions would Dallas Turner have been selected in the previous three drafts? Is he a steal because of the unique offensive drafting this year or not so much so my opinion on this is steel is kind of an odd framing because you are where you were drafted right i mean it's hard to say someone is a steel based on consensus board or whatever else because the entire league has analyzed the draft and they have decided or this team has decided he's worth the 17th overall pick. So we have the answer to the test. We don't have to guess what he's worth or how good he is. We know now, just like with Michael Penix, we don't have to say, well, he was really the 38th best player. Nope. He was eight. That's where he was drafted. That's, that's what it's always going

to say next to his name. So Turner is the 17th overall player. But what makes it so unique to me, and I guess you could use the word steal because of this, and you could use it for everybody who was drafted after the quarterbacks went off the board, is that if we go season by season, how many times ever has there been six out of the first 12 players picked a quarterback? The answer is never. There isn't even six in a first round ever. This was a very, very interesting situation that never, ever happens before.

It'll be looked back at when we study which one of these guys worked and which ones didn't. We'll be saying, you remember how crazy it was that six quarterbacks went in the top 12 draft picks? That right there, every one of those teams were drafting a quarterback. None of those teams were going, should we pick Turner or a quarterback? Like clearly they all predetermined, we are drafting these quarterbacks.

And that means of the non quarterback drafting teams and players that went off the board instead of 17th, he's the 11th player. where he was ninth overall. And that looks closer, right? Then because those quarterbacks, there were only three of them that were consensus top 10 draft picks. So now we're getting closer to where he was picked with what the consensus really thought that he was. And then you have to also throw in that the Arizona Cardinals were locked into drafting Marvin Harrison, one of the best prospects for a wide receiver to come out in a very long time. The New York Giants picking Malik Neighbors, who was neck and neck. And I think the NFL has also caught on that wide receivers are making quarterbacks around the league. So that would have influenced their pick.

And then you start tumbling down. Now, I don't know, maybe the team's drafting tackles also could have taken a shot at Turner he wasn't the first defensive player off the board so we have to factor that in as well but I do believe that the Vikings look at this as a pretty rare opportunity with the 17th pick to get a player of this caliber and I can't guarantee you that it's going to turn out like Christian Derrissaw or Justin Jefferson. I just know that the last two times I was in total disbelief that someone tumbled down the board in the middle or late first round. Those are the players that they

turned out to be. That the consensus was very high on Christian Derrissaw. We were all surprised when they were able to trade down and then pick him. And he ends up working out to be a Pro Bowl caliber player. I don't know if that'll be the case with Dallas Turner, but it is an unusual player of his caliber, his production, his athleticism, his combine scores, what he could become in the NFL. And I went through this. I looked at all the recent draft picks who had been consensus top 10, and I believe it was five out of the top seven highest paid defensive linemen in the league were consensus top 10 by Arif Hassan's board. And that's where Dallas Turner is. And that's the bet that they're making. So you can call it a steal if you like,

it's hard to call it a steal when you had to pay so much for it. That's another part. I mean, but you could also contextualize this, which in my mind is extremely important that I believe in the draft charts. I make fun of them, but I know what they say. I know why they're there. And I totally understand the history when we look back and go, Hey, remember when the Saints thought Marcus Davenport was worth it and then he wasn't? Okay, okay. But let's factor in all those things we just talked about into the analysis,

into the right here, right now, not trying to compare this other draft from years ago to what's happening this year. And that's what makes draft analysis very difficult. Paul sent me an email and said, can we just sign he being Kweisi Adafo-Mensa and Kevin O'Connell to 15-year contracts? This was in response to the interview,

which if you missed, make sure you go back and give it a listen with myself and Kweisi Adafo-Mensa. Clearly, Paul was impressed. I was as well. And I know that I've had a lot of conversations now over the last few years with Kweisi Adafo-Mensa, press conference settings, of course, as well. And I think that what people saw in that interview, and again, make sure you go back and check

it out. I really enjoyed it, was just a different setting for him to talk about their plan and talk about his philosophy and his own background a little bit going from San Francisco and and learning there about how a front office works and how the the football people interact with the data people and how you meld those two things together and his relationship with Kevin O'Connell surrounding the data, how they analyze JJ McCarthy. It was really, really fascinating. I mean, right up my alley, of course, finding out about the data and such, but I just thought it was a little bit different of a look at him and how his mind works than just

a press conference setting, which you might get asked one question about JJ McCarthy. And then the next question is about your punter competition. And the next question is about, you know, whatever, whatever, a guy driving 140 miles an hour. And it's, it's more chaotic. I think for somebody like Kweisi Adafo-Mensa when you're up there at the podium, rather than in your office, having a one-on-one conversation and so yeah I enjoyed that as well and I think the biggest thing it showed is sort of maybe I don't love this word but intentionality is something that you could really see that they have intent with everything they do we can question the comp pick situation We can question how much they traded up to get

Dallas Turner, but there is a thought and a plan behind all of that. And my biggest criticism for the end of the Zimmer-Spielman era was that it all just seemed haphazard. They seemed very desperate and it's not entirely their fault. Circumstances were a part part of it but it seemed so desperate so haphazard so oh man we got one player hurt we got to go trade a fourth round pick for chris herndon who just had been you know pretty much washed out a long time ago the kicker slash punter the bashad breland like we all know them the we're going to sign Michael Pierce because he's the missing piece to the defense. Really? And not that Pierce isn't a good player.

It's just you weren't a Michael Pierce away. They weren't allowed to or refused to live in the reality of where they were. And I think what we've seen from Kweisi Adafo-Mensa and Kevin O'Connell, these last two off seasons have been very much living in the reality of where they were. If they tried to run it back in 2023 and they end up going 8-9 or they end up going 9-8 and getting eliminated as the 7 seed, it would have been a disaster because they wouldn't have cap space in the future. They would have hurt themselves in the long term for no short-term gain, which the previous regime did a number of times. So we've seen this plan come together. I think anybody, you could go up to a Vikings fan on the street and just say, hey, what do you think the

Vikings plan is? And you know what they would say? And this is even before they drafted McCarthy. Any person in your office could tell you the Vikings plan, and that's how it should work. It should be so clear that you could spot it from space. This is what they're doing. And then what was great about that interview is that we got to hear some details of how they really thought about it inside the front office.

But every person on the street would have been able to tell you, well, they moved on from those older players. They're moving on from Kirk cousins and starting fresh around these star players that they have, like Justin Jefferson, TJ Hawkinson, Derrissaw, and they're going to use the cap space from letting go Kirk to now build around these guys in the future. Like everyone could figure that out. And I think that's sort of the, the smell test to a franchises. Are they doing it right? Or do they know what they're doing? The easiest one is, Hey, let's see the Kansas city chiefs. Like they believed that moving on from Tyreek Hill,

Patrick Mahomes is so good. They could figure it out around him and they needed a lot of other players on the rest of the roster. Everybody could figure that out. Right. And so it should be that easy. You shouldn't be sitting here going, well, you know, if you do this and you see this player over here and you, they could move this cap space. And I think that's the plan, but they can't really win, but I guess they could,

if a million things and Trent Dilfer won that one time, like if that's what you got to get into, then that that's, that's pretty hard to figure out. But to your point, your question is about 15 year contracts. I have always thought that if regimes could be voted on as a public, like, I don't know what you call it, like a position of office, that it would be better than hired and fired by owners. everybody got to vote after three years. Do we keep them? Do we move on from them? And I know that everyone wants to fire everybody all the time, but I think that the wisdom of the crowds would play out there,

whether it was smart to keep someone or move on. What we've seen from this group here with O'Connell and Kweisi Daffel-Mensah is executing the plan they laid out when they got here. Part one, what will determine how long they're here is part two. And that is now it's time to win. Not today. Not right now. No one thinks they're a Superbowl contender, nor should you put that on them for this year. But as they go forward, that's going to be the expectation and that's fair and then we're going to judge how good they are at their jobs because this part was easier it's easier to get rid of kirk cousins it's easier to get rid of delvin cook it's easier to get rid of eric kendricks than it is to find the next

franchise quarterback superstar running back all pro linebacker right so they've built themselves a nice foundation but if you build a nice foundation and ugly house, you're not selling it for a whole lot. No, one's going to go look at the foundation and be like, Oh boy, this is sturdy. You did a good job down here. No, they're going to look upstairs. They're going to see the flashy stuff, right? And they're going to decide, all right, did you really put together a great house or not um so 15 years is a little much but i also think what we can't do last thing on this is just you can't go year to year with this and at the end of next year if they go seven and ten be like hot seat

let's not do that let's let it play out unless it becomes some sort of calamity or total disaster let's let it play out and then we'll decide at the end and this is hard for my job where i talk to you every day but that's going to be my approach just the same way as the middle of last season a lot of people were saying hey what's this you know is what's is quasey doing a good job is o'connell doing a good job and my stance was well i want to see what they do during the off season. Are they going to stick with Kirk? Are they going to rebuild? And then now that we've seen it, all right, now the approval rating is very high and everybody

gets it. But that doesn't mean your approval rating stays high all the time. You'll have to be patient, but we're also going to be judging along the way how you get from point A to point B. Tony is our next question. Tony says, if the Vikings have identified 2025 and 2026 window and are throwing away day two picks to get there, wouldn't Pennix be a better quarterback to peak in those years? Well, you know, I don't look at J. at JJ McCarthy as needing like five years to develop.

I can't think of too many successful quarterbacks around the NFL that needed that long. It's usually year two, year three, year two with some special quarterbacks for sure. Like, you know, Patrick Mahomes sat his first year, maybe you've heard. And then his second year, he's great. Josh Allen really didn't emerge as being an MVP type of quarterback until year three. McCarthy is pretty young, but I mean, with Penix and McCarthy, I just didn't factor the age that much because we all know what it's about. It's about the rookie contract. And if he sits in year one, that's fine because year two, year three, year four is the years that you are prepared to really chase the Super Bowl.

But that doesn't mean that Penix was going to be wildly more ready than him by year two. And with Penix, he has more playing time and he likely could have played right away. So this is the difference. But by year two, everyone's been in the NFL for a year. All the whole thing about, you know, the combine and flying around to different people's facilities and just the exhaustion that goes into all of that for a young player. That's why when someone like CJ Stroud shows up and plays well right away, she's like, okay, this is different. That does not happen much. But when we're talking about Pennix versus McCarthy, I think that McCarthy should be ready to lead this team to wins by 2025.

It wouldn't shock me if he won the job, by the way. We're not there yet. But 22, 23 years old with a year or two under his belt of being in the NFL, it doesn't take that that long. If it did, then they wouldn't draft him because of the rookie contract. If they thought it was going to take sitting for three years, that may have happened way back in the day, but it doesn't happen outside of Jordan Love anymore.

So Pennix would have been more likely to play day one right away. But you know, sometimes that's even overstated where we just assume, Anthony Richardson changed my mind on this. We just assumed Anthony Richardson was not going to be able to play. I remember talking about, hey, if the Vikings landed him, they could sit him for a year. It'll be great. You develop them. He goes in and I'm not saying he was a superstar, but he looked like an NFL quarterback, like day one, he had the offense down. He was doing what he was supposed to do. And you go, Oh, okay. Well, he was super young and he stepped right in. So there's

no guarantee that one guy or another is going to be better at that. But with McCarthy, I really look at year three as the year where a quarterback starts to reach the beginning of their peak and where we start to really have an answer. Is that guy a franchise quarterback? Is he just barely good enough to win with? Is he not that great or is he terrible? By year three, you could put everybody in a bucket and feel pretty darn safe about that with quarterbacks and probably get like a 95% rate through the rest of their careers of what they become. And with McCarthy, if that's where he's starting to reach his peak is 2026, all the players that

they have as a part of their foundation now are very likely, and it's football, so you never know, but likely to be here for the next couple of years. They can spend the money in the off season, and then you start chasing that two to three years on the back end of the rookie contract and you go for it. But I don't feel like Penix being ahead of McCarthy at this moment means that 2025, 2026, he will stay that far ahead. Like that's where McCarthy is going to close the gap because they'll both be NFL players at that point. Sarah asks, do you think Quacey will be able to accumulate draft picks for next year?

Even though I'm happy with our picks, it would be more comfortable to have more next year. So we've gone over to great pains, the compensatory thing. So they'll have at least one from that, I'm assuming. The rest of it though, hard to figure out exactly. Now there are other ways. So for example, let's say that sam darnold starts off three and five and then you're looking at is there anybody off this roster that could be traded at

the trade deadline for some late round compensation there is one player that comes to mind i think that they'll want to keep this guy long term and cam b him, but he is a free agent after next season. So there are a few of those players. Aaron Jones is another one that if imagine they struggle, they're three and five, they don't feel like they're going to be able to make the playoffs. And someone comes calling for Aaron Jones. Who's having, let's just say a good season and they want to give you a fifth round pick a third round pick whatever it might be to get aaron jones's services then you can get you know more draft capital that way if they're struggling if they're not then you're not going to feel like you need that draft capital so much because you'll be looking around going look at all the things we have and when you look at next

year's free agency another guy is harrison Phillips as well. Another free agent. They will have to get a feel for whether they want to resign these guys rather than trade them away. But if, I mean, Aaron Jones is a good example of someone who is on a one-year contract because he's 29 years old and you likely wouldn't be signing him to a multi-year extension after this. So you'd prefer to get what you could get back. So if they're struggling, then the answer is yes, they can acquire more. And if they're not struggling, then no, it's going to be harder because they're going to be good in the same way that, you know, they weren't able to move away to Neil Hunter last year because they felt like they could compete for the playoffs. Something that, you know, we still kind of question about last year

especially now with all the conversation about the comp pick well that would have been a second round pick more likely than not for daniel hunter so yes in hindsight should have moved him and this year maybe they'll do that they'll move everything that's not nailed down if they are struggling if not then it's just going to be hard to get a lot more draft capital going forward in the future there's no like great way and you could trade down in the first round that might be something in fact that we see them do next year is let's say they have the 14th overall pick somebody wants to trade up for a quarterback you're moving back to number 20 or something you're getting you know i know everyone will be freaking out if they trade back, but maybe keep it to only a few spots this time, not go from 12 to a 32. Brett says since

1999 quarterbacks, 21 and younger who were successful started 10 games in year one. Oh, I see quarterbacks, 21 and younger were successful, started 10 games in year one were unsuccessful. So put it this way. Oh, I see. I, you know what I include, I forgot to include part of this in my reading of it. Quarterbacks 21 or younger started six games and the ones that were unsuccessful started 10 games. My apologies. That along with KOC comments would make you think McCarthy is going to sit. So I apologize, Brett, for not getting that exactly right when I put it on the screen. But what you're saying is that the 21 and younger quarterbacks, they played less if they were successful than the ones who started right away and they struggled.

Now, that is a small sample size, of course, I'm sure of quarterbacks who were that age. And it is always, in my mind, helpful to sit quarterbacks right away, especially if they are on the younger side, give them a chance to develop, give them a chance to feel comfortable. There is a little cause and effect issue, though, because if you're in a place where you're not going to play a quarterback a ton in year one, it might mean that your team is good enough to be able to do that and good enough to be able to sit you for a while and let you develop and keep playing and isn't forced to toss you right into the mix. Whereas teams that are terrible are going to say, why don't we just play our guy? And how they've been split up from this category to that, that also might affect it as well. If they're a terrible franchise and maybe someone like Sam Darnold, who started right away as a

very young quarterback, maybe circumstance plays a role in that. And that's one of the reasons they struggle right off the bat. So it's hard to pick apart that part of this. But I can say that they know how young he is. They know how far he has to go. And I just think Kevin O'Connell is very committed to the idea that you just don't throw people to the wolves and let them struggle and suffer and take the criticism and everything else. Even if we believe that JJ McCarthy is mentally tough, if he's not ready, it's going to be very hard to lead a bunch of people who have been in this offense before. So you have Jefferson, Addison, Hawkinson, all those guys in the offensive line. They know this thing inside and out. If their quarterback

doesn't and is in over his head, it's just going to cause issues and it's going to be harder for him to lead the team and for them to buy in and believe in who he is as a leader. So you have to make sure that he's fully ready. And that just is important to them. I think it's smart. I think that, you know, maybe O'Connell puts a little too much into, Hey, we're the ones who are going to make him successful or not. We will determine this doesn't always sometimes a team and a franchise is terrible and the quarterback is great and it doesn't matter. And sometimes the organization is great and the quarterback just isn't good. San Francisco with Trey Lance, for example, but in the, in the middle though, in the 50th to 80th percentile outcomes, the team has a lot to do with it. I think that they

correctly believe in that. So yeah, McCarthy's age should factor in to him. Maybe not playing right away. Tony says Flores seems to find roles for people with an incomplete skillset. That's an interesting thought. Quacey must love that because it's efficient. Probably. Can this be successful or does the circus get exposed as it seemed to late last year? Yeah,

I think that these, the circus, I assume you just mean as you have like Ivan Pace Jr. as a small guy who doesn't quite fit or what they want to do with Gabriel Murphy potentially or Andrew Van Ginkle was a fifth round draft pick. Guess who found him? Brian Flores and this misfit toys idea like can the misfit toys like a josh metellus can they form a complete group that is coherent enough and conducive enough and talented enough because you are in some cases talking about fifth rounders sixth rounders but now they go with a proven edge rusher a first round draft pick edge rusher

whoever they're going to draft next year the first round probably is on the defensive side unless it's everybody's favorite guard position that they take in the first round i think it's difficult to make it great because always and forever elite talent is what makes defenses great. And Hall of Famers are what make defenses great. It's hard to just scheme and pluck this guy and slide this guy in here. I also think that when players get injured, it becomes so much more difficult. And that's what happened last year, where they had a couple guys get hurt. And then it was like, oh, what do we do now?

Because that guy was doing a bunch of stuff now i gotta do a bunch of stuff and we saw that at corner we saw that with dj wanham where there was just no other answer and if it's josh metellus for example and it's this big part of your defense that this guy does xyz and then suddenly he's not there so you go wait that we can't really recreate what he can do that is where it becomes more challenging than just we got stars and here you go go out there and be stars uh or even if you have guys that are very much rigid in their roles then that means your backup is probably also rigid in the same role. If you drafted guys specifically because of a vision for your defense, for this position, this detail,

I want them to have this length and this speed and this whatever, then the guy behind him probably does a lot of the same things. Whereas if someone who's a versatile piece isn't available, then you have to try to fill in the gaps. That is definitely harder to do. So they have to find numerous players who can be reflective of those guys. So maybe it's like a Jay Ward can play the role of Josh Metellus if he ends up going down. A couple more quick questions here. This one comes from Nolan. Kweisi must have a different trade chart than

other GMs are working with. I think he has a model to compare the player on his board to the capital he's giving up rather than pick for pick. Might be. He has never shown me his model. I do know for sure that he has a different model than the Jimmy Johnson model, which has been used in the NFL for a long time. But I think in recent years, they've moved away from that, using that as gospel that a lot of teams have done their own studies on it. And I'm sure he has too. But when it comes to something like going out and acquiring top players, it feels more instinctual than it does super hardcore analytics.

And part of that is because he said that publicly, both on my show, essentially, and in his press conference where he said, sometimes you have to take off the Clark Kent glasses and go be Superman and make a big move. So I think there's some of that as well. I like the concept that hacking UDFAs is something that they believe in, that you can find talent in the undrafted market. If you pay enough for it, then you can get the top guy. So think about it this way, your fifth round draft pick versus the number one priority free agent, you know, it may, may not be that far away as far as actual talent and fit might be a big deal as well. So there's

different ways that they can look at it, but I don't know that this, the decisions that they made were mega analytical. He has some crazy giant chart in his office and he's scrolling it and going, aha, I've seen the secrets. This is actually what this is worth um that's going to be factored in whatever he thinks analytically but in dallas turner's case i'm sure that what they were talking about in the draft room was we see this guy is potentially elite and to get him you got to make a move so are you gonna pick 23rd and get the next guy which might be good or might be as good, but we don't think is as good of a prospect or just draft who's ever there, which you can do. Or Hey, if we give up a little bit here in the middle rounds, we could get someone who is our Vaughn Miller, our whoever,

you know, fill in your edge rusher. That's what they're aiming for. And it does create this a higher bar. There is a higher bar for Dallas Turner to be successful than say if they had picked Terry and Arnold with the number 23 pick if they had just picked the guy then we would have said all right well you know okay he's turned out to be a good player some success you know like uh I was comparing him to other edge rushers who had been drafted in the middle of the first round like quitty pay do any of you think quitty pay is unbelievable the edge rusher from indianapolis no but he had eight and a half sacks last year's pretty good that'd be a great pick at the back end of the

first now the guy better be great or you gave up too much that's just how we're going to evaluate that. Uh, Stanthony Edwards, obviously a Twitter name says to what extent will Darnold be executing an offense structured for McCarthy strengths versus Sam strengths. Seems like if Darnold is a placeholder, you go with what JJ needs. The way I think of this with Kevin O'Connell is that he has his offense, and that is what they're going to run, regardless of who's playing quarterback. And we learned that last year. And I know he said, oh, I can change that kind of thing, like Rocky IV. If I could change, you can change.

But I don't know about that. I mean, I think that he believes that his offense works, and he picked a quarterback with it in mind to run this offense. And Sam Darnold's going to have to learn it, and so is McCarthy. And there might be small changes between the two. You might run a little different formations. But I actually look at these guys as pretty similar quarterbacks. I don't think that they have crazy different strengths.

If you watch Darnold play, he's very mobile. He can run with the football. He can scramble. Sometimes he does too much of that, but he has a very strong arm, just like McCarthy can fit the ball into a lot of windows. He can be a really good quarterback at times, kind of what, you know, at times what you're hoping McCarthy becomes, except for more consistent, but the scrambling element of it, the fact that he's got some wheels to him. But I don't think that there's, it has to be a lot of big differences.

Usually even with backup quarterbacks in general, teams look for a backup quarterback that fits what they already want to do. So they likely got Sam Darnold because he fits what they want to do. There were other quarterbacks that were veterans that they could have picked up, but they said, this guy is what we want for our offense. And then they drafted a quarterback with the same thing in mind. So I I'm thinking it will be the Minnesota Vikings offense. Both quarterbacks are going to learn it top to bottom. And then when JJ McCarthy plays, we'll start to get a better feel for what works and what doesn't. And then they will make those adjustments with

that. All right. Last fans only question here. Dan asks, where does Wes Phillips fit into the development of the quarterback? So the main players in the development of the quarterback are clearly going to be Kevin O'Connell and Josh McCown. Josh McCown is an extension of Kevin O'Connell because O'Connell has to run, you know, the whole team and not just the quarterback, but the experience that Josh McCown has playing in the NFL is really hard to recreate for anybody else who has never gotten under center or in the shotgun and played quarterback. And McCown just has so much experience there, but also like small technical things, how you throw the football, like those types of details are much harder in my mind for people who are

just trying to teach that without actually having done it themselves. And so I think where Wes Phillips fits in is like, this is a guy who has a lifetime of X's and O's from his grandfather to his dad, Wade Phillips, to his career, I believe in Washington first, then out with the Rams with Sean McVay, the people that Wes Phillips has been around and worked with the encyclopedia of knowledge has to be absolutely insane. So I think where Kevin O'Connell wants Wes Phillips to really thrive is, I mean, number one in practice, you're, encyclopedia of knowledge has to be absolutely insane so i think where kevin o'connell wants west phillips to really thrive is i mean number one in practice you know you're you're you know setting up everything for the offense in the meetings where you're implementing it you know

the head coach can't be everywhere all the time so you know meetings but mainly game planning scheming all of those things um is going to be a huge role, I think, for Wes Phillips. And that's why he is a major part of what they do as the offensive coordinator. So that's the part that he'll be developing, which is coming up with scheme, leading meetings, doing the install, all those things out in practices, but not necessarily saying, Hey, JJ, throw it like this. It's probably not how he's going to do it. So tremendous questions. Great stuff. Really appreciate it. Again, purpleinsider.com, the best place to go and hit me up. I'll get the email or you could go to Twitter at Matthew Collar. Lots more of these to come throughout the off season. I'm really excited to answer your questions and also keep your eyeballs out

for rookie mini camp OTAs, all that stuff, all that summer stuff. We'll be on top of it. Thanks everybody.