Ask to Jason's question about your viewer/readership, I personally love the off-season and following your content because that's when you get into the nitty gritty, nuts and bolts of football where I learn the most. I can ask off the wall questions about obscure things and get good answers because what else is going on? Slow times impact your bottom dollar which is unfortunate, but it's a gold mine for me. That being said, wishing for 100,000 new subscribers in 2026!
In reading some of the questions and responses, it is occurring to me as a Minnesota sports fan that I am more disappointed in the Vikes' playing this year than normal BECAUSE they made all the moves and went for it this year. Let me explain - after decades of watching the Twins and the Wolves and the Vikes be good enough but never great, and the owners and leadership never doing anything about it, it was really exciting to see the Vikes make real moves these last few years. It felt like we really had a shot this year, with the investment in the lines, etc. And to have it fail so completely is... hard. But I'm still really glad they went for it, and I hope they continue to do so.
We're all in favour of "buying JJMC time", but given this mis en scene, that seems a lot more like hope than an achievable plan. Ideally, KOC/WP/JJMC have been working on getting the ball out quickly, which is possible.
There will be plenty of time to discuss KAM's performance in the offseason. For now, JJMC needs to show that he can make 10 starts in a row. Improvement would be nice, too, but this will be too small a sample to draw any long-term conclusions.
I would push back a little bit on the idea that we can compare the Vikings number of top 100 picks in recent years with the Lions or Packers. Both of those teams were able to offload their aging QBs for a boatload of picks (3 1s for the Lions and basically 2 2s for the Packers, I believe). They have definitely done a few things like the Hockenson trade and the big trade up for Turner that I never would’ve done, and that’s kept them from getting more top 100 guys, but a big part of the discrepancy between them and the other teams is just due to different circumstances that predate Kwesi. Trade Hunter, draft a TE instead of trading for Hockenson, and hold onto your Turner picks, and things probably look better, but I don’t know how they could’ve competed with the other teams in the division draft pick wise given the circumstances.
The thing that catapulted the Lions is that they were supposed to get their haul for Stafford and then have to go find a new qb. Instead, they got all those picks *and* their new qb.
The Lions are where they are, but it's difficult to give their FO a lot of credit for this--much less see any sort of teachable moment. It approaches "just draft Brady in the 6th" as an outcome that nobody remotely expected.
I would give the Lions front office plenty of credit, personally. They’ve made plenty of bets that paid off, including Goff, so hard to not tip the cap for me. Again, there’s plenty of stuff the Vikes could’ve done to favor top 100 draft picks over win now or win soon vets, and I agree they should’ve done those things in most cases, but I just don’t think they were in a spot to do it quite the way the other three teams have. Maybe they knew that and tried to zig with an older roster while the rest of the division was zagging with the draft, but in any event it feels like they’ve hit the wall on that strategy.
They've drafted well, and lower-price UFAs Montgomery and Anzalone have worked out.
My point is that they didn't target Goff/view him as getting their guy, they took him back as a salary dump by the Rams. When Cutler and Rusty were traded, a QB went back the other way, too--but the picks were the key compensation in all three trades.
If we accept the QB is the key part of a roster, then the Lions lucked into that key, which has massively facilitated what they've been able to do throughout the rest of the roster. It's not a critique--being lucky is part of success in sports--but noting that this path isn't replicable.
Ask to Jason's question about your viewer/readership, I personally love the off-season and following your content because that's when you get into the nitty gritty, nuts and bolts of football where I learn the most. I can ask off the wall questions about obscure things and get good answers because what else is going on? Slow times impact your bottom dollar which is unfortunate, but it's a gold mine for me. That being said, wishing for 100,000 new subscribers in 2026!
In reading some of the questions and responses, it is occurring to me as a Minnesota sports fan that I am more disappointed in the Vikes' playing this year than normal BECAUSE they made all the moves and went for it this year. Let me explain - after decades of watching the Twins and the Wolves and the Vikes be good enough but never great, and the owners and leadership never doing anything about it, it was really exciting to see the Vikes make real moves these last few years. It felt like we really had a shot this year, with the investment in the lines, etc. And to have it fail so completely is... hard. But I'm still really glad they went for it, and I hope they continue to do so.
We're all in favour of "buying JJMC time", but given this mis en scene, that seems a lot more like hope than an achievable plan. Ideally, KOC/WP/JJMC have been working on getting the ball out quickly, which is possible.
There will be plenty of time to discuss KAM's performance in the offseason. For now, JJMC needs to show that he can make 10 starts in a row. Improvement would be nice, too, but this will be too small a sample to draw any long-term conclusions.
I would push back a little bit on the idea that we can compare the Vikings number of top 100 picks in recent years with the Lions or Packers. Both of those teams were able to offload their aging QBs for a boatload of picks (3 1s for the Lions and basically 2 2s for the Packers, I believe). They have definitely done a few things like the Hockenson trade and the big trade up for Turner that I never would’ve done, and that’s kept them from getting more top 100 guys, but a big part of the discrepancy between them and the other teams is just due to different circumstances that predate Kwesi. Trade Hunter, draft a TE instead of trading for Hockenson, and hold onto your Turner picks, and things probably look better, but I don’t know how they could’ve competed with the other teams in the division draft pick wise given the circumstances.
The thing that catapulted the Lions is that they were supposed to get their haul for Stafford and then have to go find a new qb. Instead, they got all those picks *and* their new qb.
The Lions are where they are, but it's difficult to give their FO a lot of credit for this--much less see any sort of teachable moment. It approaches "just draft Brady in the 6th" as an outcome that nobody remotely expected.
I would give the Lions front office plenty of credit, personally. They’ve made plenty of bets that paid off, including Goff, so hard to not tip the cap for me. Again, there’s plenty of stuff the Vikes could’ve done to favor top 100 draft picks over win now or win soon vets, and I agree they should’ve done those things in most cases, but I just don’t think they were in a spot to do it quite the way the other three teams have. Maybe they knew that and tried to zig with an older roster while the rest of the division was zagging with the draft, but in any event it feels like they’ve hit the wall on that strategy.
They've drafted well, and lower-price UFAs Montgomery and Anzalone have worked out.
My point is that they didn't target Goff/view him as getting their guy, they took him back as a salary dump by the Rams. When Cutler and Rusty were traded, a QB went back the other way, too--but the picks were the key compensation in all three trades.
If we accept the QB is the key part of a roster, then the Lions lucked into that key, which has massively facilitated what they've been able to do throughout the rest of the roster. It's not a critique--being lucky is part of success in sports--but noting that this path isn't replicable.