nicksaviking

St. Louis is desperately trying to drop payroll, they're looking to move everyone. Gray has still been really good the past two years.

Actually the Cardinals are paying 20M, which is half of the 40M left guaranteed. So they're paying half his salary and getting two nobodies back in return. The MLBPA has got to be freaking out right about now; this is not a good sign for player contracts going forward.

Unless they make a Stafford-like trade (Mike said Burrow) I don't care what vet comes in because I don't want him on the field AT ALL. If it's not going to be JJ, go draft somebody again. If it's not that guy, go draft someone else. I'm so tired of the narrative around the Vikings and the Twins being that us quaint little Minnesotans should just be happy to have an Average Joe who is competent but not great. I want freakin' great, it's not nearly as hard as everyone makes it out to be. Allen, Jackson, Mahomes, Stafford, Hurts, Maye, Daniels, Burrow. That's 25% of the league. Is it really that much to ask that the Vikings can have a QB in the top 25% of the league once every two decades? I don't care if you have to go through three JJ McCarthy's to find it, I'm not shutting up until they get there.

Brosmer is a statue in the pocket and doesn't have the arm strength typically required of an NFL QB. Yet, I have a feeling the rest of the team is going to play up for him, I'm going to predict a one score game. No team scoring more than 24 points.

They might have to trade either Jones or Purdy this offseason or risk having a QB controversy in the near future. Honestly, both players seem almost exactly the same to me.

I don't see Mac Jones becoming a top tier QB. Or even a 2nd tier QB. Could be usable, but not a difference maker. Even a 'fixed' Mac Jones is just a game manager, he never had top end QB traits coming out of the draft, he only profiled as just a guy. And Shanahan's QBs are all the same; statue pocket passers who run Shanahan's offense exactly as he calls it up. I think if what he teaches them was as easily transferable as the national narrative seems to think, his former QBs would be having more success when they move one. Garoppolo, Mullins, Bethard, Gabbert: all backups. Even if someone wants to give him sole credit Darnold, which I absolutely would not, that's not a good success rate.

I'll trade Addison for sure, but I really don't want Jones. He feels like a purgatory trap; good enough to win games, but nowhere near good enough to lead a team to a championship.

I'll guess a 2nd and a 4th. And it will be paid for by Pittsburgh who is even more concerned with not losing than they are with winning, than the Vikings are.

I'm less worried about him being young than I am with him playing college locally.

The Twins after gutting the roster and flushing payroll for two seasons: "WE didn't want to do this, but you fans are finally getting what you wanted, I hope you're happy!"

Three seasons of a rookie QB sitting on the bench has only ever worked twice though. And both times they were sitting behind a HOF QB, not Sam Darnold. And then wasting the rookie QB pay scale, ouch, I want to take advantage of that. There are QBs who can play day 1; even if they aren't great, they can hold their own and you can see the potential. Most years there's at least one if not two or more. I'm thinking the lesson might be to maybe NOT take the 4th or 5th best QB in the draft class. I know that generally goes against the Vikings aversion to being bad enough to pick in the top five, but come on, nobody cares if you have three wins or seven wins. It's a bad season either way. Also agree about Nix, he'd put the Vikings in purgatory for a long time. I think the Broncos are a good team stuck with a mediocre QB. Andy Dalton. Maybe they'll get lucky and do the Defense Wins a Super Bowl bit and he's the Baltimore version of Joe Flacco. But I hope not. Screw Sean Peyton.

I'd always been hearing his mechanics were good last summer. I wonder if he just can't keep it together and the things he's learned in practice fall right out his ear when he gets on the biggest stage. Which to be fair, would totally happen to me as well. After I was done vomiting on myself, I'd trip over my shoelaces and have to get dragged off the field.

Yeah, not sure how much they knew, but physically he looks the part. Which is why I'm not saying he'll NEVER pan out, just not soon and just not here. Figuring out if a 22-year-old will mentally implode under pressure is probably harder to evaluate. Particularly if he didn't do that in the NCAA's biggest games.

Yeah, well they're asking for tinfoil hats to be put on since this is the exact same scenario as week 3 if you swap out 'brain' for 'ankle'.

Yeah, earlier in the year I was worried about a QB controversy when the QBs were McCarthy, Brosmer and Wentz instead of Montana and Young. But if this concussion stuff is really a cover and/or if Brosmer keeps the job the rest of the year, that probably means they've already made the call on McCarthy, and there is no controversy. But agree, if Brosmer is merely competent and not transcendent, they better see through that and start looking for the next QB of the future ASAP. Lots of fans are going to love this and I don't want it turning into a Gardner Minshew situation where the story and the player are just so entertaining they overlook the fact that he's going to take them nowhere.

Maybe I'll bring this thread back instead of dwelling on the season long issues in the weekly game threads. So McCarthy is in the concussion protocol. There is obviously going to be skepticism about this, just like there was skepticism about the ankle sprain. As frustrated as I am, I've taken a step back and feel a bit bad for everyone. IF like me, KOC and KAM thought Darnold was a great find but still wasn't capable of winning a championship and that was also their goal, it's really hard to fault them for trying McCarthy this year, even if they knew he wasn't going to be ready. It's also hard to place any blame on McCarthy. VERY VERY CLEARLY he would have benefited from staying in collage, getting more reps, learning more and maturing. But his coach was about to get banned from the NCAA and move to the NFL and his school was about to get crushed by the coaches actions. Transferring probably would have been the right move, but it would have been a terrible look; leaving the National Champs for another school and not going pro? That doesn't look very confident, which would have also hurt his standing. Clearly the biggest issue is Vikings leadership incorrectly thinking they could get a young man who was barely old enough to drink, up and running an NFL team. He had the physical talent, but there was a lot missing. So I'm not mad, this was always a possibility and I'm glad they took the shot. Just don't stick with it past the point of no return. So here comes Max Brosmer. All I ask is that he is either Kurt Warner, or a complete bum. I don't want a Gardner Minshew or Aiden O'Connell situation where the team runs with what should be a career backup QB longer than they need to.

They haven't won more Super Bowls, and that should be the only goal for this franchise at this point. They haven't had back-to-back double-digit win season or even back-to-back playoff seasons since 2009 and they haven't had a streak of three such seasons since Denny Green was here. They are not going to be a legit contender until they regularly start getting top playoff seeds and actually start winning those games.

And bounced in the first round again. This team is constantly one of the oldest in the league; that's not sustainable, if they want to be a year-to-year contender, they have to start building a strong group of good, young and cheap core players and every year they have to continue to draft good, young, cheap players for when the last crop become expensive free agents.

Most fans don't like Falvey because he seems insincere and talks like a huckster. KAM is the complete opposite, he's likeable. However, Favley did build an excellent rotation and bullpen, his problem was that the team didn't develop hitters. But that's baseball; you don't know for 4+ years if the guys you draft will pan out, in the NFL you should know after two years. Hence, KAM absolutely SHOULD have a shorter leash.

To be fair to the Spielman/KAM comp, I'd seen enough of Bridgewater to know that his ceiling was that of a game manger QB, which I didn't want. Far and away the best QB of those we're talking about though.

Ponder, Bridgewater and who? People were ready to run Spielman out the door years before he finally was. And that's despite him drafting Pro Bowl if not HOF players just about every year. And somehow, four years later, this team still has more starters from Spielman's drafts than from KAMs drafts.

Are we reading the same message boards?!? Derek Falvey might be as reviled as the Pohlads based on the posts that I've been reading.

JJ might end up being OK. But it should be clear by now that it will only happen with the Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, Geno Smith method, which means it won't be on this team. This all is too much for him as a 22-year-old kid.

Probably depends on if he plays the Rams again. Or the Lions. He also didn't play well against the 49ers. I don't like his chances against the Eagles either. So maybe if he plays the NFC South winner. Or the Bears, their defense stinks. Unless you ask JJ McCarthy.

I don't want the extremely slim chance of getting a game manager to win a Super Bowl, particularly when that comes with also needing an all time great defense. The better chance is to keep grinding until you find an elite QB. And If they start making decisions where the primary emphasis is to save their jobs instead of winning a championship, it's time for new leadership.