Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - ESPN's Courtney Cronin reacts to the Vikings cutting Riley Reiff

Episode Date: March 10, 2021

Matthew Coller and ESPN's Courtney Cronin get together to talk about some of the regrets the Vikings should have in their handling of Riley Reiff's situation and what the Vikings will do next at left tackle. Will they play Brian O'Neill on the left size? What does this mean for Ezra Cleveland? How about the cap space they have left? And is Anthony Barr next? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Not surprised in the slightest. I think the last couple days when you see Cam Robinson, Taylor Moten, Brandon Sheriff, I mean, I know that he's a guard but you see three offensive linemen get the franchise tag particularly two tackles who are going to be paid 14-ish million dollars and with Riley Reif and the situation the Vikings were in against the cap I mean this does get them into the black which is good but um if I'm him and to my knowledge, there wasn't any, they wanted to extend him. They wanted to lower that cap number, which was, you know, I think it was an absurdly high cap number. It was $13.95 million for this season. And they just couldn't afford to keep him at that price.

But if you extend him and then you're able to, you know, lower that cap hit for this year and then keep him in the fold a little longer, it's a good thing. But when you're him and you're thinking about your potential earnings hitting the open market when you just saw two guys, and granted they are a little younger than Riley Reif, who's 32, but when you saw that happen, to me that was signaling even more that Riley Reif would not be here because a number of different things we need to consider here when it comes to restructuring and pay cuts and the potential of that first off they already made him do it last year like at the 11th hour

before the season started when they acquired unique in Gawkway via trade they had less than a million in available cap space doing that to finalize that deal. They had to get reef. They had to get him to take a pay cut. So he took a $5 million pay cut. So to take another one months, almost a year to the date when they were trying to trade him for Trent

Williams in the draft, if I'm Riley reef and they would come to me with an idea for pay cut I'd be like in all polite words thank you but no thank you I'm gonna go hit the open market I mean they had tried a couple different times to you know to really to mess with his pockets in a way whether it was via trade whether they were going to try to upgrade him or try to upgrade the position and then they get Ezra Cleveland, who's your left tackle. There are all these signs pointing to they didn't think Riley Reif

was the long-term answer. I know that there are several people in the building who evaluate this roster who do like him and wanted to keep him in the fold, but financially I understand it because he sees other guys going out and getting $14 million for a one-year guaranteed salary he wouldn't stay here for a at a reduced price and he shouldn't because he already helped them out once and i mean he wasn't happy about it when when we talked to him last year it's very clear i mean there were reports that he was going around saying goodbye to the locker room that monday before he finally agreed to the restructured deal. But you can't make a player do that multiple times,

especially when he's a starter and played as well as Reif did last year. So he's going to go hit the open market and see what he can get. And honestly, I can't blame him, just given kind of the circumstances of what we've seen with other offensive linemen the last couple days. You make a lot of great points about just the way that they treated Riley Reif. It's kind of hard to come to him and say, yeah, sign an extension, sign a restructure, because they always acted like they didn't want Riley Reif there. And all he did was play pretty good at

left tackle. I mean, yes, if he was going up against Khalil Mack, that was going to be a tough day for him. That's a tough day for most people. He was not on Trent Williams' level, but trying to trade for Trent Williams, then drafting another tackle, and then saying, hey, you have to take a pay cut. I mean, do they expect him to just have amnesia and forget that those things happen? And you're exactly right. And this is why I always thought that this would happen happen is because when you look at the market it's only Trent Williams and the the one one other tackle I think maybe two other tackles who could get starting jobs if you're him there's more than two or three teams that need tackles you're saying I'm going to get a ton of money elsewhere why should I stay and help you out

when you guys have been trying to move on for me until, oh, wait, I had a very good year last year. I think the biggest Riley Reif regret, though, because this is how it goes sometimes where, sorry, man, we need you to take a pay cut or whatever. That happens. The biggest Riley Reif regret is not trading him midway through the season. At the trade deadline, they're 2-4, and they're saying, oh, we can get back in the race, we can get back in the race, when that was never that realistic that they could be a legitimate contender. So not only did they not get a draft pick,

they also didn't get a sample size on Ezra Cleveland at left tackle or Brian O'Neill at left tackle or Rashad Hill in the mix here somewhere so they didn't get to see that down the stretch and now we're left to go wait is it Ezra time is it not Ezra time I have no idea no and that's the thing like this needed to happen I mean I've written this in every piece since January that Riley Reif in earnest would be the first domino to fall for this team in free agency, which would dictate what they could do beyond that point. I mean, yes, Kyle Rudolph was released last week. He came with five plus million dollars in cap savings, but Reif gives you 11.75. There's

some dead money they have to carry with that. It's not a lot. It's 2.2 million. And so that puts them kind of in that six, seven million dollar range of dead money. It's $2.2 million. And so that puts them kind of in that $6, $7 million range of dead money. It's not an awful amount. But nonetheless, you still have a void that you're going to have to fill at that left tackle spot. And we don't know. We have no idea how they're going to do this because you have a guy like Ezra Cleveland who played three seasons at left tackle at Boise State. Last year when we're in the draft process and we're talking with, you know, members of the front office, Rick Spielman, Jamal Stevenson, like there was no consensus about where Ezra Cleveland would play then

because they weren't sure what they were going to do with Riley Reif. And then you get to the point where Cleveland starting its second team left guard in training camp. And then, you know, midway through the season or a little bit before that, it moved over to right guard where he played nine games and did pretty well at it, all things considered. But now you have to decide, do you want to move him to left tackle? Do you want to move Brian O'Neal to left tackle from right tackle,

which then maybe you'd put Ezra Cleveland over right tackle but consider this Brian O'Neill is in line for an extension this offseason right tackle and left tackle can give you very different uh you know price tags uh associated with that so you know if I'm O'Neill's camp and they're talking to me about moving to left tackle I want to make sure that you know the deal that I'm having done is left tackle money, not right tackle money, which, you know, the low end could be like a $10 to $12 million a year thing. High end, which I saw PFF had him at like a five-year deal that was, you know, an average annual value of $15 a year, which could actually be pretty good left tackle money. But all things considered, you have to worry about the finances there. then there's also like the the school of thought of well what do you do if you're playing this game of musical chairs and then let's say you do move uh cleveland the left tackle and you keep o'neill just for the sake of this argument keeping it right well then

you have two interior spots you have to figure it out are you going to do it in free agency you have the money now and there's a bajillion guards available that you can get at a discounted price and that and it's not that you have to shop the bargain bin and find josh klein and dakota dozier like you can get like some quality guards uh at a fraction of the cost or do you end up using the 14th overall pick for rashaun slater for elijah vera. Like, who are you going to use that on? And how are you going to fix the interior of the offensive line? Because pass protection was an issue last year. It has been the last couple of years.

They haven't truly addressed it on the interior. Now's the time to do it. But with all that said, it gets complicated now. I mean, we do know with three, five of the mix, we can at least start planning ahead on all the scenarios, but it gets complicated now. I mean, we do know with three, five of the mix, we can at least start planning ahead on all the scenarios, but it gets very complicated. And it's certainly something that bears watching over the next couple of weeks to see what else they do,

if they do do anything on the offensive line entry agency. I feel like we went through this last year with a lot of defensive positions where they would release someone and we would say yay look how much cap space they created hey you didn't need that guy anyway and then we would talk about well how are you really going to replace him and it was well holton hill should be okay over there or mike hughes will stay healthy i promise and it feels like the same sort of maybe i think you called it this last year like whack--mole, where you fill a hole and then another one pops up. And another thing pops up.

Yeah, exactly. So you have cap space to fill some holes, but more holes pop up when you move Riley Reif out. And now you're talking about sliding people around. We don't know at all what Ezra Cleveland looks like at left tackle. Not even a little bit, because we didn't even see him there at training camp. We do know that Rashad Hill can play, but he's a free agent also, so he could go somewhere else if somebody else was going to give him an opportunity, which I think is in the realm of possibility from his starting experience in the past.

We've seen other guys like him get decent contracts to be starters. There's so many moving parts to this now, and you bring up the draft, and that's what came to mind, like the timing of the Vikings being at Rashawn Slater's pro day and watching him run a sub 540 and then releasing Riley Reese the next day. But if you draft an offensive lineman, which is great, and you need them, but then you didn't draft a defensive lineman, then you didn, and you need them, but then you didn't draft a defensive lineman. Then you didn't draft a wide receiver, a quarterback, if that is a possibility. Like that, you sort of, if you can't find someone or you don't have an immediate answer right now,

then you're talking about kind of locking yourself into drafting one of those tackles in the first round, and that's all the other things that you could have drafted instead. So I wonder about this. Like is it one where they should look back and say, ah, well, maybe we should have just let him go and not kept him on the restructure before the season and played Ezra Cleveland? Or, I mean, how do you look at this one kind of big picture? Because I think it's just a sign that the cap is not a myth. Like it would have been better.

Like Riley Reif, it's just not a myth. And this is how it has to go. This helps you a little, but it doesn't solve all of your problems. No, you still need, I mean, if they're, I think over the cap had them at like just over $8 million in cap space, like 8.7. So that's good. That's probably one free agent, maybe two. But then again, you're shopping towards the lesser, least expensive free agents and not necessarily getting that marquee offensive line. And if you think that you really need that, which I think they do, to fix your offensive line. But think about it this way, too.

This is just the first domino to fall to get them into the black. They still need to decide what the heck they're doing with Anthony Barr. Very clearly, Mike Zimmer wants him in the mix, even coming off of the pectoral tear. But he's got the third highest cap hit on the team. Like, will he agree to a restructure? I don't know because I mean you keep kicking this can down the road and eventually it's going to explode with these like absurdly high cats um and that's something that they need to figure out as soon as possible I

mean the league year is a year is a week away the new one and so that's going to be a priority for them in still creating cap space like if you start seeing them restructure cut guys and there are several on the defensive side of the ball like it should show you or at least maybe highlight what they plan to do in free agency because the way that I look at this they don't have unlimited financial resources so whatever you address in free agency the opposite then has to be addressed in the draft I don't think you can honestly do both but defense obviously is the priority right there's so many holes to fill they need another edge rusher they need unless it's going to be Stephen Weatherly and a mix of DJ Juana but you need another edge rusher you need a three technique like I don't know why they haven't

cut Shamar Stephan yet to me that is a no-brainer an absolute no-brainer to be able to move on create you know a little bit of cap space that's important um it's not a ton but you could create some and then you could go after a three technique and then you wonder what they're going to do at cornerback and safety they need somebody to start opposite Harrison Smith because I don't think that they're going to try to you know work out some long-term deal now the franchise tag window is past Anthony Harris so I there's just a lot of needs that they need to address on the defensive side of the ball but it started with the offensive side to create any sort of opening for them financially to go after these needs and go after players and help them let's do a quick pie chart before we get into some of those possibilities of, like, who they might spend this cap space on and what the next domino to fall is.

Or let's make some predictions on what happens with Anthony Barr. But we need a pie chart first. Sure. Pie chart of who's playing left tackle. All right. So your options are Brian O'Neill, Rashad Hill, Ezra Cleveland, free agent, or draft pick. Can you do five? Oh.

Five options? Or should I make it four? No, we'll do free agent tackle or – okay. Yeah, free agent tackle. How about you just keep Rashad Hill in the free agent tackle mix to make it four? So you have Brian O'Neill, Ezra Cleveland, free agent, or draft pick. That is your required pie chart. Five options would have made this a little more difficult when it comes to the math.

I would get the music started. Here's your pie chart. All right. That's enough pie chart music are you done that's definitely not enough time for me i'm at 65 right now you can't you can't do this to me you know that it takes me a while okay hold on 100 minus 75 that's 25 okay i'm gonna add 15 here and then okay this is this is why i should have been prepared for this and I'm not and I'm very sorry to the listeners um because it's just you know it's too much um but I don't

think anybody's surprised that no one should be surprised because math is hard um I'm ready okay ready all right go ahead I put O'Neill at a 30 chance I honestly kept a lot of these close together um I'm going to go ahead and give you my first two. O'Neal at 30%, Ezra Cleveland at 35%. Why are those two so close together? Because we've never seen either of them play left tackle in the NFL. Cleveland makes a ton of sense, and that's why he has the highest of my percentages of this pie chart, because you drafted him to play left tackle he played three years he has second round pick it makes a ton of sense that the guy was a left tackle at one point brian o'neill

is a converted tight end um i think that they want to see what they have in ezra cleveland before you completely rule that out and say okay well he needs to stay at right guard because we like him better at right guard why not play him at the position you drafted him to play that you were absolutely prepared to have him play at some point, or at least all signs would have pointed to it. Obviously, Rashad Hill would have been in there as kind of a stopgap. But, you know, had they moved on from Riley Reif, let's say they did get the trade for Trent Williams,

or, you know know they were prepared to move on from him at multiple points last year whether they would have cut him or whether they would have traded him like to me having Cleveland in the fold points to the fact that they think he can play left tackle now why is Brian O'Neill at 30 percent well I think that they would consider that then again you have to figure out like that's more movement on an offensive line that has struggled. You know, and honestly, last year was probably the most consistent, just in terms of personnel, not moving around that they had in the preseason. Before then, they started having to, you know, replace Pat Elfline and then replace Dakota Dozier, like the whole thing. So I think that in given some of the comments that we heard from Rick

Spielman and also from Mike Zimmer at the end of the season, it sounds like they like, they like O'Neal at right tackle. Absolutely. He's in line for an extension this year. He'll probably get paid, you know, sometime in the off season. They Garrett Bradbury um and they like Ezra Cleveland so there's three pieces right there that are going to be potential franchise players for them so I don't think that you move O'Neal just yet if you drafted somebody to play left tackle and you haven't even given them the chance to do so so that's probably why I have it uh the close percentage is like you know you got

to figure too financially they might not be trying to pay left tackle prices for Brian O'Neill like just saying I think there could be a discrepancy in how much you'd get paid but there's that so that's 65 I put a free agent slash Rashad Hill at 15 there aren't any free agent left tackles they can go after right now like the market is not saturated with tackles, it's saturated with guards. So it'd be too expensive. They're not going to go after Trent Williams this time around. Like it's just not, it doesn't make any sense. So if you have Rashad Hill play left tackle, that's a stopgap option.

Like who knows? I mean, we honestly don't know how much longer this coaching staff in front office is going to be in Minnesota like they've you know this is kind of the prove it year or everybody could be gone why would you risk that on having a you know having Rashad Hill not that he's bad or anything like that but like don't you want your guy who's potentially your franchise guy so 15% for that 20% for draft pick, because if they really do like Rashawn Slater, or if they like any of these, like, you know,

tackles that are around to them, you know, that could be, you know, around at 14 or anything like that, or I don't think they'd trade up for a tackle, but it is a possibility given where Rashawn Slater is expected to go, Elijah Verrettaker as guard, tackle flexibility, all that stuff. It makes sense to me to think that maybe they do like Cleveland at right guard and they want to go draft a tackle.

So that's my pie chart. I could see any one of those options. I think I might give my most to Brian O'Neill moving to left tackle because just the thing about not using Ezra Cleveland in practice at left tackle I know that's the odd thing that's the really weird was at some point I mean obviously we didn't get to see him in practice outside of training camp I don't know if he was there I mean it was kind of this remember like this whole year we're trying to figure out like the mystery of the offseason of like where last offseason where's Drew Samia playing well then it's like well where's Ezra Cleveland playing we saw him at left guard and

training camp and then he's at right guard during the during this preseason or during the regular season I would imagine they're going to let him play some form of tackle this year whether it's left tackle or right tackle I don't know hey I want to tell you about our very cool new sponsor symbol symbol is a new sports marketplace where you can trade shares of professional teams like stocks go to symbol.app that is s-i-m-b-u-l-l dot A-P-P, to sign up for the promo code PURPLE to get a $10 deposit bonus if you are a first-time user and you are off and rolling. Here's how it works. You buy stock in your teams, and then when your team wins, you earn cash payouts that

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So go to sodastick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. All of their apparel is screen printed here in Minnesota on super soft, super comfy shirts and hoodies. You will love it. That is SodaStick, S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com. Original Minnesota sports inspired goods. Code Purple Insider for free shipping. So if they, let's see, if they move Brian O'Neill over to left tackle, then you could have Ezra Cleveland still play right tackle, or you can bring in somebody else, or you can draft somebody else. A draft pick seems very likely in this draft with a lot of really good tackles, but where that happens is pretty unclear. I mean, there are some great tackles that will probably be there at 14, and I don't think that anyone's going to be upset if they draft an offensive lineman. But is their head coach going to allow them to draft an offensive lineman when there are

so many needs on the defensive line and a bunch of edge rushers and only a couple interior defensive linemen that could be first round draft picks, maybe only one in Christian Barmore. So this is it's got so many moving parts that I think you're right to kind of spread it out in the pie chart. So let's talk about what's next then. Is what's next, could what's next be to sign Kevin Zeitler? Like,

do you think it's possible at all that what's next is to try to get a big money guard and use all of this money on, on a guard? I don't, I don't think that that's going to be their next step. I think they're going to focus a lot of their money on the defensive side and try to load up there after what happened last year. But Zeitler being released for non-offensive line enthusiasts, he is one of the better pass-blocking guards in the NFL

and also has been successful in the run-blocking area too. Him being let go as a cap casualty kind of does wave a little bit of a flag of, hey, would you guys actually invest big time on the guard position this time since it's really gotten you pretty badly over the last couple of years? Yeah, I mean, like the more expensive options would be Zeitler, Gabe Jackson, Joe Thune, you know, and then you can shop the bargain bin, which technically is not even like kind of mid-tier. I won't call them the bargain bin, which is the Richie Incognitos, which I don't think

that's going to happen for obvious reasons. I mean, Nick Neeson's still out there. They liked him. He was just hurt. Lane Taylor, James Carpenter, J.R. Sweezy, Austin Blythe, John Feliciano. I mean, there's a lot of names that you can get guys who are in their late 20s to early 30s who are cap casualties of their team that you have your pick of the litter. So it would make a ton of sense for me to see them go after an offensive lineman, a guard next week at some point. Now, will they?

I don't know, because I think I personally think it's a smarter idea to do that. And then you don't over, you don't reach for a tackle or you don't reach for a guard in the draft. I think you put yourself at an advantage. If you can handle that position in free agency, it's the one position that's been their Achilles heel for a couple of years now. Bring in experience, like good experience. Josh Kleiner's experience, but was it really that good? Tom Compton had experience.

Did that work out for you? So did Dakota Dozier. And just those things, like don't make that same mistake a couple times where you're shopping the bargain bin, you know, scraping the bottom of the barrel to try to find somebody to come in here who is just not very good and not able to play the way that you want to. When the run game is, your offensive line is so dependent, or your run game is so dependent on the offensive line, your offenses, really, that's got to be a massive priority for them. Do I think that they do it?

Realistically, I think they're going after some defensive end I mean there's several that were cap casualties um or not tagged by their team I mean I you know I'd love to see them go after a Carl Lawson but I think the Bengals are going to end up paying up for that it still would behoove me to see them not make any sort of move in free agency for a defensive player just given how how much their priority is finding pass rushers and you're not going to stop at Stephen Weatherly in doing so I mean you need to be able to go after guys on the defensive side of the ball that was the weakest link for this team last year it makes the most sense to me to spread out the money to a bunch of mid-tier type of people.

And again, it's not a lot of money. It's 11.9, but that only gets them, according to Over the Cap, about 9 million above the salary cap right now. We'll see how they can make some more space, and we'll talk about that in a minute. But let's say you ultimately end up making about 15, 17, 18 million dollars. I don't think you want to spend half of that or more on one player. I think you want to look to four or five different guys. You mentioned someone like Austin Blythe, who has played a couple different positions for the Rams. He's been a very Vikings-y-like offensive lineman, but would be a clear upgrade from someone like Dakota Dozier. He's not going to break the bank, and there are a number of other guys that would fit that description too, on both sides of the ball. Like when you look for

role players in the free agency or guys who are situational or guys who are not necessarily superstars or will not command a lot of money, but can get the job done. I mean, this free agent class is loaded with those types of players. It doesn't have a ton of big-time stars. It has a lot of those mid-tier quality players. And I think if you went after a corner who's a veteran, a pass rusher who's a veteran, a three technique who's a veteran and decent player, and not just one guard but a couple of guards to bring in, you've got a better shot than, I mean, I was just thinking about the Raiders and how they tried to pour a bunch of

money into let's get the higher end type of guys that are a little bit of like the sexy picks like Trent Brown I think they made him the highest paid left tackle and that blew up on them Nate Solder the same sort of thing in fact if I'm another team I'm looking at Riley Reif and saying I don't know I mean I think he'll get paid crazy, but they should look at a 32 year old and go, I don't know, is that the right thing to do? So you have to kind of think differently than they did last year, where they thought we'll go get Ngakwe, that will solve our problems. We'll go get Michael Pierce. He's the big name nose tackle that will solve our problems. And that didn't work. I think that's the better way to do it. Will they actually do it will they actually

do it that way I don't know yeah and I mean think about you know the strength of this year's draft class with defensive linemen in the first round or edge rushers um there's going to be several that would be available to them so does that mean that if you want to address your interior pass rush which has been not so great the last couple of years, do you go after Kwon short? Do you go after Jarrell Casey? I mean, and Damakensu,

remember years ago, like when he posted some picture of himself in Minnesota and everyone was freaking out thinking he was coming here, you know, he loves these one, two year deals that he's been signing from the Rams to, you know, Tampa Bay. I mean, wherever he's been, he's been signing from the Rams to um you know Tampa Bay I mean wherever he's been he's been there on a short term on a short-term thing and you know I think that

that you know especially when you don't have to spend let's say they created 19 million in cap space you don't have to spend the bulk of that on one free agent you can spread it out like you can be making mid-tier moves and still expect somewhat of an upgrade. I don't know how much, but it'd be better than the spot you were in at least a year ago. Let's talk about Anthony Barr and what's coming next here. I don't know when there's going to be a resolution to Daniil Hunter, but it feels like there has to be an Anthony Barr resolution fairly soon if they want to create more space by the time free agency comes and they can start negotiating and offering lots

of money to people if I'm Barr I am looking at what Riley Reif just did and saying yeah okay that makes a lot of sense to me dig your heels in because the team signed you to this contract and they don't have that many options they can cut Anthony Barr if they want um the Miami Dolphins did that with Kyle Van Noy where they just cut him and took the cap space and moved on they can do that but he's also aware of how much Mike Zimmer loves him and doesn't want to cut him, so he can say, all right, well, instead of restructuring, which I'm not going to do, then how about you just let me go, and I'll go sign with somebody else. I mean, he could do that, but I feel like he would be kind of calling their bluff. Like, they're saying, hey, in this situation, we could cut you and create $7 million,

and if I'm Barr, I'm saying, go ahead. I dare you because you know, you don't want to do that. How do you feel like this is playing out? Well, I mean, realistically, they can't cut him because yeah, it's $7.7 million in cap savings, but it also is 7.8 million in dead money. Like they pride themselves for what it's worth on having kind of that low number in that area. And I don't see ownership wanting to sign off on that when they just gave out very expensive extensions to the quarterback, the head coach, the general manager, the running back last year, and having to incur money for players who are not even going to be on the roster. Like, to me, that's kind of a non-starter.

But, you know, I think that, that yeah so he has the automatic conversion clause in his contract which is you know where the um base salary converted the signing bonus he has to sign off on it but they could they could do that that's what they did with eric kendrick's to and it could i wrote about this last week it could lower his if you gave him like the it's been in the league for seven years like you gave him the vet minimum for seven gave him like the, he's been in the league for seven years, like you gave him the vet minimum for seven, gave him like the rest of it as a signing bonus, you could lower his cap hit by half. That would be an option, but then it like,

it just kind of inflates everything for next year and you're in the same boat. But, you know, I don't know. I mean, depending upon how this year goes, I don't know who's going to be running things in the front office or the coaching staff next year. That's just, that's just something that you have to watch out for. But I don't see Barr going anywhere. He is too important to what Mike Zimmer wants to do on defense. There have been multiple points that he could have gone somewhere else, obviously, in free agency two years ago, and then he walked that back and then joined the Vikings. They

overpaid, in my humblest of opinions, for him in 2019 free agency to get him back here from the Jets. But, you know, it worked out. But he's coming off a pectoral tear. If you try to trade him right now, I don't know what that market would be unless you were, like, packaging him with somebody else. And I know Peter King had the three-way trade with Kirk and Deshaun Watson and Jimmy Garoppolo and in there was Alexander Madison and Anthony Barr being sent to San Francisco uh the whole package it was a lot but you know that's the only way I could see it if it would it wouldn't just be like an outright Anthony Barr for this like they were he would have

to be packaged with something else so I do think he's still in the mix next week they're just going to have to work around if he doesn't want to restructure which you know any player you know can can look at themselves and say well I could get more on the open market go ahead and cut me like I just don't think the Vikings are going to do that because of the dead cap that comes that's associated with it it's too much it's financially doesn't look good for them them when they're already in a tough spot. And I think the fact that nobody was interested in trading for Kyle Van Noy, who's sort of similar to Anthony Barr, tells you that other teams, and Riley Reif too, that a few people asked me,

oh, well, couldn't they just trade Riley Reif for a late-round draft pick to get something for him? And the answer is not when everyone knows you're going to be a cap casualty, then they're just going to wait till you're a cap casualty and they're not going to trade for you. And the same thing I think would pertain to Anthony Barr. The only argument for it is that you don't just get his cap space for this year, but going forward through the rest of this deal, he is very expensive through the rest of this contract and his cap hits. So you would get more of that for next year. But you're right when you're talking about $7 million in dead cap, that isn't anything

that anybody wants. So they're sort of at a standstill here. And you're right about this whole, oh, well, we'll just use the base salary and move it around and everything right but that's a bill to pay for the owners who have to write a check right away and also for you have to pay it later like it's there's no like cheap thing you can do to just make it go poof like once you sign the contract like you've got to stick to it in at least some way or you get penalized for not sticking to it. And that's what the Vikings keep running into. I do think Anthony Barr will just stick to his guns here. And ultimately, maybe they will do that and move some money around a little bit.

But I don't think they want to get themselves into too many problems here. So before we wrap up, though, our original plan, if nothing happened to Riley Reif, was to just talk about a few of the names that we thought would be best fits for the Vikings. So I think that's a good idea now that they have a little cap space to talk about this. I'm going to throw one out there for you, and you tell me if I am a crazy person for using this name as a Viking free agent target. Okay. Anthony Harris. Do you think that there's any chance Anthony Harris comes back to the Vikings? I don't think it's crazy. I really don't.

And getting Anthony on like a reduced price, it should be a little bit easier to do, right, in theory, because he didn't have a great great year anything like that and he didn't obviously have like the interception numbers in the year before but if he could come back on a slightly reduced deal like or you know a couple years you know let's say it's like a three-year deal and it pays you like 30 something million I could see something like that happening I'm not going to go to the guarantees or anything like that. Cause I haven't thought about it off the cuff, but no,

I don't think he's going to be able to make top dollar hitting the open market. There are a lot of safeties out there, like a ton of safeties and free agency. And just given where Anthony Harris kind of how he finished his year this year, I think it was, it was a down year, all things considered. And, yeah, they do need somebody opposite Harrison Smith. Is that person in the draft? Well, they don't draft safeties very high.

They have it in a number of years. If they approached Harris with a considerably lower average annual value, you know, price that you're going to – contract you're going to make every year, like how much you'd make per year. I think that he might consider it, but I also think he's going to test the open market. I mean, that's the goal, hitting free agency and seeing how much you can make. Hey, everyone. I want to tell you about our friends at Scout Logistics. And I really do mean it when I say friends. They are fans of Purple Insider over at Scout Logistics. And since they reached out wanting to support this show, I want to tell you about what they

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check out ScoutLogistics.com or call 855-217-2688, extension 232, to connect with them directly to find out how Scout Logistics can minimize risk and overperform and go the extra mile for your company. Yeah, and that's where I wonder, and this sort of goes for, I was thinking about like Trey Boston, how every year we would go, you know who would be good for the Vikings if they wanted a cheap safety? It would be like Trey Boston. And then he'd sign for one year and $4 million.

And we'd go, I don't know why that is. Deep safeties are just not getting the type of money that you're all around playmaking safety like a tyron matthew or like a harrison smith or jamal adams like i think that the league is sort of drawn a line with the value so if anthony harris goes out in the market and says haha i'm going to get my huge life-changing contract and then everybody else goes we don't really have the cap space to throw that at you. It makes sense to me for the Vikings to say, why don't you come back, one-year deal or two-year deal with an option or something like that,

and you can move on if you do X, Y, and Z, whatever they want to do for it, to make it look better than it is. And so he doesn't feel like he's coming back with a tail between the legs. But come back at a reasonable price play in mike zimmer's defense get improved pass rush play better this year and then try it again next year when everybody's throwing money around like drunken sailors i actually think that's a good idea i don't think he would get like three years 31 or four years 44 with like 12 guaranteed i don't think that that would be in the mix for him but like if you if you i'm looking at free agent safeties right now i kind of jogged my memory for these

deep safeties like to sean gibson when you know he went from houston to chicago i mean he when he was there he signed a one like just over a million dollar a year contract and he's about to hit free agency again if they don't retain him like getting har Harris at a reduced price should not be difficult, because there are so many free agents on this market. But, you know, do you like him enough to be like, we want you in the fold for the next three seasons? Like you don't know what Harrison Smith, how much longer he's going to play. I mean, he's on the other side of 30.

I know he wants to play a couple more years, but, you know, he could be in line for an extension too. So it's like if you have Harrison Smith in the fold and you extend him and then you bring back Anthony Harris, well, at least you kind of solve the back end of the defense. But I don't know. Do they need an upgrade at the safety position opposite Smith? I think that's something you have to ask the coaching staff to get.

You know, obviously they need an upgrade up front. And they need an upgrade up front and they need an upgrade at the corner at cornerback play. Like we expect the two rookies from last year to be better. And obviously, you know, don't know what's going on with Mike Hughes. I highly doubt that they will pick up his fifth year option, but you know, there's that's it's a, it's a deep position in this year's draft. You could wait until day three and get a,

get a potentially a starting cornerback but all that said um with harris like he knows your defense like how many more changes do you want to keep going through here right and they brought in i mean the georgia locas of the world never used them like i guess you could do that you know there's like lamarcus joiner is another expensive free agent from Vegas. Ricardo Allen, Joukowsky Tartt, Trey Boston's always hitting free agency, it seems like. So it would make sense, yeah. But I just don't know. Like, with that many names out there, I don't think that Harris is a super, super priority.

Yeah, this is one that they could wait on, I think. But in terms of like it could actually end up being a savvy move to do it after a down year. I know that people were frustrated by his play last year, but the bigger sample is he fits really well in his defense. And I would say it had more to do with rookie corners and no pressure than it did to Anthony Harris forgetting how to football. Give me a couple of names that you like, though. Like if you were saying, hey, Vikings, these are great targets for you, whether it's big fish or whether it's bargains, who do you have on your, hey, you guys should look at this guy list? I mean, Zeitler's the number one, right? I think that anybody, and there's so many guards out there, and of course, the first argument people are going to bring up are some of these people are in scheme fits. Well, maybe they should be adjusting some of the things that they

do in the run game just saying with their offensive line but nonetheless um zeitler's a big one i like carlos dunlap i i think that i don't know if he'd want to play again with zimmer but like done i'm thinking about like former zimmer fits So obviously Dunlap, Carl Lawson, who I brought up earlier from the Cincinnati Bengals. I mean, I think that if you are going to spend, there's two positions you'd want to spend if you're going to spend like big money in free agency. That's on the defensive line and that's, you know, at guard or, you know, if you really want to spend it at tackle, which I don't think that they would, that's what you would do. Like, there's a lot of guys that, you know, are out there, like the Matt Judons, Melvin Ingram, Bud Dupree, Shaq Barrett. Like, those guys are, you know, three, four outside linebacks, but could they potentially fit into the scheme? Potentially.

It just would depend on how they're used but i think you do prioritize in my opinion what i would do is prioritize getting a guard one and then you can potentially get one like on day two or day three and then trying to use the rest of that cap space to go after a defensive end yeah the uh defensive end market and the drafts are so deep that um there's a lot of players to look at here but you're right there are more guys who strike you as three four outside linebackers than they do as you know guys really yeah yeah right but you make a good point that it's not so much that yannick and gawkway did nothing for. He got five sacks, led the team, as I've mentioned, maybe once or twice or a hundred times. But they couldn't play him every play,

and that's what they wanted if they were going to sign him to a big contract extension. If they were to bring in someone who was desperate for a spot where they could just situationally rush the passer, then you could talk about adding rotational guys. And I think that San Francisco and Philadelphia teams that went to the Super Bowl in recent years that had these rotations of pass rushers, where you were bringing in fresh guys to rush over the tackle in the fourth quarter, I think that was really helpful for them. I think it made everybody better. And we've talked about

like someone like Benny Curry and how he's had success. Well, that's always been his role, where he just comes in and then he just rushes the passer. So that is a place where they should look, draft a guy, bring in a situational rusher. Whatever it is, you can't have too many good people trying to get after the passer. I agree, and that's their priority. Mike Zimmer said as much this offseason, they've got like a help wanted sign outside of TCO Performance Center, you know, help wanted pass rushers. They need it. Like, and that's going to help, I think, when you have a cornerback group or pretty young secondary still developing to be able to have everything shored up up front to where they're not left back there on an island um and struggling kind of to keep things you know together on the back end of the defense that's going to help you but it all starts up front so i mean and there are a lot of intriguing options like the draft is going to be fun this year with how many quarterbacks are going to go in the top 10

but also how many pass rushers how many defensive ends you probably expect to be taken in the top 20 like there's a lot there and that's that bodes well for minnesota because like i said at the top of the podcast what in my opinion what they do in free agency the opposite they'll have to do they'll have to do the opposite in the draft because they just don't have the financial resources to be like spending like crazy and, you know, addressing needs that they're going to try to address again in April. Courtney, our first domino has fallen. And so I can't wait to see what's next.

And there will be all sorts of things going nuts in the NFL. This week already feels kind of nuts, but next week, I think it's going to be twice as crazy. So you will be along for the ride as always. I appreciate your time during this breaking news that Riley Reif is gone. So goodbye, Riley Reif. We don't really know you very well because Riley Reif didn't like to do interviews. So I'll really not miss anything about him in particular because he just never spoke to us. But other than that, like, he played well.

He had some dry humor. Do you remember, like, last year when he talked to us during training camp and he said he was an open book? And then somebody was like, well, where is Drew Samia playing? Tell us about Ezra Cleveland, and then he wouldn't say anything. So I appreciated that part of it. That's right. I made him laugh one time.

Yeah, you did that. He was such a serious guy, and he really didn't like the media stuff. And I said, after that, I said, I thought you were an open book. And he actually kind of giggled. And I was like, wow, I made Riley Reif laugh. That's a great journalistic accomplishment. So anyway, well, Courtney, lots to come, lots of draft sims to do. And actually, yeah, this means our next time we get together,

a draft sim has to include that there is no Riley Reif and whatever else happens. So I'm looking forward to it. Me too.