Ben Leber, Former Minnesota Vikings Linebacker

This is Tony Kornheiser's show. I'm Tony.

You expected someone else? So what exactly is the show about? I don't know. It's a sports show nominally. Football's over, but we're finally at a point where things matter in college basketball, and baseball season is on deck. Greatest three words in the English language, pitchers and catchers. We have some of the best voices come on and explain what matters and what makes an upset, like Ryan does. Nine over eight. No, that's not an upset.

No, yeah, it is, Bob. And if you're lucky, I might just tell you about my search for discounted sleep pants or my worries about what my dog just ate. Listen on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey Ben, thank you for taking the time to hop on. Oh man, always a pleasure.

Thanks for having me on. No doubt. Now, we certainly know there's so much quarterback movement going on. I guess the big story that's popped over the past 24 to 48 hours is that Kirk Cousins might be open and willing to move to Atlanta with his wife who's from the area, what have you. What do you hear? What do you know?

What do you believe might be true? Well, it's certainly been a topic of conversation around these parts really ever since he got injured. And now it's kind of picking up steam. Obviously, we're kind of coming to the finish line here. So obviously, the rumors are flying around. You saw Mike Florio in Pro Football Talk talk about his sources out at the combine saying he's moving his family out there. They're starting the preparations. It sounds like there might be a deal kind of already done. So much of that, I don't know what to believe because we all know that the combine's there. His agent was out there. The combine is all for spreading rumors, building leverage, whatever you can do to get your player the best deal. So I don't know what to make of that.

I trust Mike's sources, but I do know this. There is a large part of the Vikings fans locally, nationally that all want Kirk back. We all saw what we could do and what he could do with this offense. Year two under KOC really flourished, was putting up MVP type numbers. Defense, I think surprisingly, was way better than they're expecting in the first year under Flores. So all things were turning in the right direction and then he gets hurt.

But I will say this as well. There's a growing and ever-growing a group of fans as well that get really excited about what the possibilities are if Kirk leaves. And I think there's going to be a little bit of grief if he doesn't come back. But I also think that there's going to be a lot of excited fans to see what this leadership group can do via free agency, via the draft. And I'm not talking just at the quarterback spot.

I'm saying about building the whole team. That Ben Lieber is here with us, the chair of sport we show on CBS Sports Radio. Well, not even a couple of months ago. Well, we've heard recently from Kirk Cousins about potentially taking a discount. Talking about how fortunate he is. He's made about $230 million in career earnings.

Where does that fall into, hey I really want to stay but I'm just going to end up leaving. What do you think about those comments? Well, he certainly hasn't shown that he's willing to give anybody a discount. For his prior contract, the one that Rick Spillman gave, I don't blame him at all going for something that big and fully guaranteed.

I mean if you got a team willing to give you a fully guaranteed contract, you take it. I think that he's obviously a very logical person. He's very self-aware. I think he understands that he's made a lot of money. He's made generational wealth for his whole family. He's going to do great things when he's done playing.

It's not like the revenue stream is going to just dry up when he's done playing. So I think he adds all that up and he has to think about where he's going to be the most comfortable. Maybe his being close to his wife's family in Alpharetta is going to be great for him. But I think when it comes to leaving a legacy, I think he's fought so hard to get out from under this critical rock he's been in his whole career about not being a winning quarterback, not even being a top 10 quarterback. He's been fighting for respect.

I think his whole career, and I really believe these last two years he's finally gotten that respect and is gaining more and more national respect. I think that if he goes to Atlanta, he gives himself a harder situation to win a championship, to cement his legacy as a quarterback that could maybe win the big one. I think his best opportunity is here. So money aside, if it comes down to legacy and what I think is going to make him the most happy, I think that's staying here in Minnesota. Ben Lieber is joining us via KFAN out in the Twin Cities.

If he does move on, you had mentioned that there's a segment of Viking fans who would say, hey, it's nice to go ahead and start over. Quesi Adolfo Mensah, we know he's going to have a chance and an opportunity to potentially build the team in the way that he wants to. What are those options and is it a long build?

You know, potentially it's a long build. Defensively, whether or not Daniel Hunter comes back, you still need to add pass rushers. You've got DJ Wanam, that tour quad, and he's not going to be ready at the start of the season. Outside of those two guys, you don't have much many guys that can actually win a one-on-one battle and be a straight-up dog on the outside. For me personally, I think that we need to upgrade the interior part of our defensive line. We don't really have a true pass rusher on the inside part of the defensive line. They like to move guys around at our defensive ends and move them around on sub-packages, but we don't have a true three technique. I think great defenses need to have a great three technique. I also think they could probably upgrade a linebacker position. Our cornerbacks, although you saw a lot of effort, just flat out weren't very good. What are you going to do with Harrison Smith?

Sounds like they might let him go to save some money as well. Now you have a little bit of a hole at safety. Defense alone, if all you had to work on was defense alone, that's quite the task of not only finding some high-end starters but also finding some depth. We saw that kind of rear thugly head as the season went along. We didn't have enough depth. That's the defensive side of the ball. Obviously, you want to probably add one more guy in the interior offensive line. Dalton Reisner has not been re-signed back yet. He had a fantastic year when he stepped in.

You need to find a running back as well even though it's seldom used in this offense. But I think people get really excited by the money that they could save. We all know that they're going to sign Justin Jefferson at some point in time. It's going to be a monster deal, but he deserves it.

But where else are you going to spend that money? You got to spend it on defense and there's a lot of intriguing free agents out there. It's going to be tough for the Vikings. We know Kirk Cousins and the way the NFC North is pretty much moving forward. Ben Lieber is joining us here on CBS Sports Radio.

Even covering the Vikings, you're real familiar with these other teams in the NFC North. Another name that has been bandied about and is likely to move, we all know, is Justin Fields. What has been your observation of him and I guess when you've seen him out there and healthy? You know, I think he sort of needs to put his pride I think aside just for a little bit because I think he's the most dangerous when he does run the football and he does have designed runs and he becomes an extension of that running back spot. Watching him in college and early on, I think that he wants to prove himself as a pocket passer and that was one of the things that I think a lot of people stereotyped him coming out of college. They're like, well he's a dual threat guy.

I'm like, not really. He actually wants to be a passer and I think at the pro level, for whatever reason it is, whether it's just process, anticipation, timing, whatever accuracy, he has not proven himself to be a consistent pocket passer but he's extremely dangerous when he can run the ball and he has the freedom to run around and he plays with a reckless abandon. I think he's actually a pretty damn good player. He just needs to find the right offense, the right organization that believes in him long term and I think he can flourish.

So Ben, where do you think that might be? Well, probably Washington. There's something about Washington that I feel like I think would be a fresh start for him, clearly a fresh start with their ownership and I think that they understand that there might be some bumpy roads and I think they're willing to grind it out with him. I don't, for some reason, I think with the way things are in Atlanta, with some of their offensive young, offensive firepower, I don't think that they want those guys to wither on the vine very long. I think they want to see what they can get out of those young guys and I do think that that's what makes Kirk Cousins so intriguing is he's a guy that can throw the ball around and accurately and down the field and in the right spots for their big, tall, outside wide receivers to see if they really got the juice to make it in this league.

So they want to hit the ground running. I feel like Washington can probably be a little more patient. Well, certainly.

Ben, final question for you. You know we're moving towards the NFL draft and then we're going to blink. I know time flies. It's going to be training camp all of a sudden. What is the most intriguing story for you between the draft and training camp?

Is there a particular player who you really have your eyes set on to see what they do as we move on into the season? When it comes to the hottest names in the draft right now, and I know that we won't really want to wait and see until the season starts, but Jayden Daniels to me is the most intriguing guy of the quarterback possibilities in the whole draft. We know what he can do running the football. We know how athletic he is.

He's got a great arm. He really wasn't, from an attempt standpoint, wasn't really asked to throw the ball a ton, but when he did, he was pretty darn good. I think that he's the biggest x-factor in this whole thing as far as like, what is he going to be in the NFL? Depending on who drafts him and who that offensive coordinator is and what sort of system they run, what's he going to look like? I think you can kind of say pretty surely, like with these other guys, what sort of offenses they fit in, but for him being such an x-factor that he can be so dynamic doing both, I don't know.

You risk him running the ball as much as Lamar does, or showing off some of that arm talent and getting down the field, is he more dangerous that way? I don't know, but I'm really intrigued to see. Yeah, we'll see a lot of varying opinions on Caleb Williams and May. It's going to be real fun and interesting because a lot of times we know that, hey, all the names that get bandied about, they don't always work out.

So Tom will certainly tell. Well, Ben, thank you for taking the time to join us. Where can people follow you and your work, especially as everything gets kind of parsed out with Kirk Cousins? Oh man, I appreciate that. Well, on Twitter X, it's just at Nacho Lieber, a little homage to Nacho Lieber, right? So you can just check that out and then, you know, if you're on the Instagrammy thingy, then probably Ben Lieber Official. That's where you can find me. Well, Ben, thank you for taking the time to hop on and we'll see how things kind of play out in the Twin Cities. Thank you. Yeah, no problem, man. Thanks for having me on. Baseball has been boring. Listen on your Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. You'll be glad you did.