So Atlanta took Penix over McCarthy

There was so much talk on the board about Minnesota 'moving up' to the top 3 or so to get a QB, it never made sense to me. Chicago, Washington and New England all desperately needed QBs....why would they trade out? All the B.S. about why take a QB high if you can't protect him, don't have a talented roster, was just hogwash and I knew it. You take a talent like QB regardless and that's exactly what happened. The Vikings got that extra first round choice to make sure they got a top 4 QB because they werent getting the top 3, but they ended up not needing it. So the NFL world consensus is that Caleb, Jayden and Drake are better than Penix, McCarthy and Nix and I think that is going to turn out to be wrong.

For me it kind of broke down like this: didn't read much at all about Caleb Williams. He was untouchable, the consensus #1 overall pick, wasn't going to waste my time researching him much other than some peripheral stuff. Read about his crazy good natural ability, but also read he wasn't accurate and played too much hero ball. 

Jayden Daniels, although extremely talented, concerned me because of his slight physical presence. Could see his mobility and off program play would be outstanding. Good arm, not elite arm. I liked him a bunch, but never seriously did a huge deep dive because he wasn't a realistic get for Minnesota.

Drake Maye was the guy I did a pretty deep dive on and my thought was: this is it? It truly was. This is the guy rumored for KOC to be salivating over? He had a better year before his last season of CFB. He's a big, tall kid that can move. Nice arm. Lots of the tangibles that make GMs drool. I still think Daniels was the one KOC was enamored with, not Maye. I also think the whole Viking's brass section knew that nobody was knocking off the top 3 teams to snag QBs. Very interested to see how he performs this season, he's got the right coaching staff in place now.....I'm a fan of Mike Vrabel. 

Michael Penix Jr. I really liked.....he was my Plan B if JJM was snagged. Great arm talent, accurate and more athletic than many gave him credit for. Mature. Also stronger than most think. But big time injury history that makes things risky. Stands tall in the pocket. Will be interesting to watch as well.

Bo Nix was a kid that I just knew Minnesota wouldn't be interested in....KOC wants a big arm ideally. He wouldn't take his first piece of clay with Nix's tangibles. His intangibles are stellar. Good kid, good leader. Tough minded. Competitive. I would find myself rooting for him in a secondary kind of way but Sean Payton is his coach and his face is so punchable. He'll have a nice career, but his ceiling is the lowest of all the QBs.

I won't bore anyone with my JJM feedback, you all know ad nauseam where I stand with him, why I like him, why he was my 1st choice for Minnesota, blah blah blah. Its going to be actually pretty fun watching all of these guys ball and see where it all shakes out.

Zanary wrote:


The 2024 draft had too much high-end QB talent to ignore. As disastrous as the injuries and what-not of 2023 were, that may have been a "karmic exchange" in which we paid the bill, up front, for some good QB luck starting, hopefully, this season.

No disrespect really meant towards Darnold, but...he joins the many one-and-done bits of the team's legacy. He ended up being a brilliant placeholder, but no more than that.

Uncle Sammy threw some beautiful passes last year for Minnesota, there were games where I just marveled at his arm talent. Very impressive at times, many times actually. But as we've all discussed, he reverted to past bad habits toward the end. I also was mildly surprised he didn't garner more FA attention, but I think other than Seattle, teams were wary and non-believers. Your term of 'brilliant placeholder' is accurate IMO.