Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Friday roundtable: Star Tribune's Ben Goessling talks Anthony Barr's contract and helping Kirk Cousins

Episode Date: March 26, 2021

Matthew Coller, Sam Ekstrom and the Star Tribune's Ben Goessling deep dive into Anthony Barr's restructure and the odd relationship between Barr and the Vikings. Also why the Vikings haven't done more to help Kirk Cousins, whether the cap space they recently created means a big move coming and how the Danielle Hunter situation will play out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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with Drizzly or Instacart, Coors Brewing Company, Golden, Colorado, and as always, celebrate! Hello, welcome to another Friday Roundtable. Matthew Fowler here along with Sam Ekstrom and our guest today, Ben Gessling. As always, our Friday Roundtable presented by Scout Logistics and Symbol, your stock market for sports. What is up, Ben? Not much. How are you guys doing? We are waiting very patiently for this next big move that the Vikings created so much cap space for.

Sam and I did a whole show on all the players remaining, and we thought that there was no question immediately they would sign someone. And yet they didn't, and here we wait. So as we record this on Thursday for Friday, Ben, is there going to be a Friday news dump, do you think? It's certainly possible. It would seem, generally it seems like, you guys probably experience the same thing, but it seems like every time anybody does one of these, between the time we're recording and the time that it actually airs,

something will happen. So, yeah, in the next couple hours here, you know, we're certainly tempting fate. I think there's definitely that possibility. Well, I felt like you were going to be the catalyst, Ben, because it was your reporting that sort of opened our eyes to this additional cap space that was created through the Anthony Barr move. And it felt like, well, now that this is out there, now they have to make a move because they have the space,

and they seem to have this tendency these last few days to, if they have the money, they've got to spend it. Like when Grandma gives you the $50 check at Christmas, you're going to go to the electronics section at Target and spend it all at once. Yeah, the interesting thing there, because I kind of had to think about this when I found that out. It's like we all found out about it later. They obviously have known about it the whole time.

So their plan, whatever it is, has not needed to change now that we find out about it now. So our understanding of the plan certainly changes a little bit. But whatever their plan is has been the same the entire time because they've known about it the entire time. Yeah, I mean, they have the money now to go out and sign help on the offensive line, a third receiver, a safety, you know, whatever they want to do within reason, of course. But at this point in the pre-season game, it's not like you're going to go out and spend tons of money on a top-level guy anyway. You could go do it.

You could go get help for your roster at this point if they wanted to do it. So the fact that they haven't yet is a bit interesting, especially because they're going to get another $8 million from Kyle Rudolph when that comes off in June. So they have the money to do what they need to do, unless what they're planning to do is something with Daniil Hunter that then takes some of that cap space immediately. It wouldn't have to be that kind of a structure, but maybe that's where they're going. Maybe they've got something else planned.

It certainly seems odd that they haven't done anything to this point. Well, it's so interesting, Ben, because there are so many options. And yet the longer we wait, the more a lot of the decent players come off the market. I noticed that one of Sam's targets, Zach Fulton was signed by the New York giants today. And that's just like where we are right now with offensive line free agency is like, yeah, big target is Zach Fulton, but you know, there's a, Austin Blythe hasn't signed anywhere. There's some other guys,

there's some tackles out there. There's the Mitchell Schwartz who we're not really sure about his status or the Eric Fisher idea. But there's also the big swing possibility, which would be something like a trade for Orlando Brown. And I think the door is open to almost anything when they overpay for Patrick Peterson, which we can decidedly say now, after watching all the other corners in his ballpark sign for less. So you overpay for Patrick Peterson, which we can decidedly say now after watching all the other corners in his ballpark sign for less.

So you overpay for him. You sign a nose tackle for a big contract. Like, they are into big swings here. What's the most reasonable big swing that you could actually see happening? Well, I mean, the tackles, I guess, are the ones that are interesting. And you mentioned Mitchell Schwartz. Asking around about that the other day. It sounds like he had that back surgery in February.

It sounds like he is planning to wait around until the early summer to make a decision. So if they want to get in on that, and it's hard to know what the market is going to be for him, but if they wanted to get in on it, especially when that Rudolph money comes off, they'd have the ability to do it. The catch with that, of course, is that you have to wait until then and you have to figure out your tackle situation probably before that. But yeah, I mean, I think there are things like that they could be looking at in terms of the tackle market. The guards, Austin Blythe, you mentioned. I'm trying to think of the other name I was kind of keeping. I mean, Trey Turner is still out there. That one seems like it's taken a while, but that would maybe be something that they consider.

I mean, you're talking about guys like that. I think on the offensive line they probably make the most sense. Beyond that, you're right. A lot of the names, a lot of the options are signing elsewhere. So by the time you get around to doing something, there may not be that much to pick from. Yeah, for sure. And I thought Alejandro Villanueva would go in that first wave,

and he's kind of still sitting there too, which is a little curious to me. And then you've got Russell Okung, which is a big name, and he's aging too. And I think you've just got to wait it out on some of these guys and see what happens. But let me ask you this, Ben. Just order of operations with the money that they have. How do you think this plays out just from a linear perspective? Like they've got this money now, and they have a few options. They could do something with Hunter's contract, maybe Harrison Smith's contract.

They have to probably do something with Brian O'Neill at some point. And they have to save money to actually sign their draft class. And I know they get this like $8 million kick on June 1st. So if you were to project today, what do you think the order is that they'll do some of these transactional moves with some of their existing personnel. Well, I mean, the interesting thing with Hunter and Smith is you could do those deals in a way that doesn't increase the cap this year. I mean, you could conceivably do Hunter's deal in a way that actually lowers his number this year, and then it goes shooting up after that. But you're figuring the cap goes back up because of the TV deals,

and that's fine. I don't know that it's wise to assume that it's going to go completely back up next year. I think it could be more of a gradual progression than just put it all back in next year once the stands are full again in stadiums and the new TV deals kick in. I don't think it's going to work quite that way, but you could reasonably, I think, lower Daniil Hunter's cap hit this year and then put some of that in later. So I don't look at the Hunter and Smith situations as being something they have to do with this money now, because I think there are ways that those questions are independent of what they have in this year's cap. And I'd say the same thing with Brian O'Neill, because you could basically, a lot of these deals they've done for guys like Brian O'Neill, they've typically said, we're going to keep you on the last year of your rookie deal for the most part. And signing bonuses will come into that to some degree.

But the extension starts after this year. So if they do it the way they've done Harrison Smith or Stephon Diggs or Daniil Hunter in the past, this year's deal doesn't get touched much. And then we add five years on the back end. So I don't know that any of those moves have to be kind of exclusive with what they want to do in the free agent market. I think the money they have, they could say, let's go out and sign a couple of guys on the free agent market to fill existing holes.

And then you worry about those extensions later. I think they've put themselves in a spot where they don't have to do the Daniil Hunter thing right now or the Harrison Smith thing right now to get the rest of their business done because of what they did with Anthony Barr that we just found out about a little bit after the fact that they did it. Let's talk about that Anthony Barr contract. You don't have to explain everything that they did, but I think just the bottom line is that Anthony Barr could become a free agent after next season, which we may eventually now see the end of the Anthony Barr era in Minnesota. There have been many times where we thought that we were going to see it,

whether it was signing or trade or Mike Zimmer holding a press conference to rebuke trade rumors that did not exist. We still don't know. Where did they come from? No, we still have no idea. Some TV guy tried to take credit, but I don't even know if it was him either. So maybe he just saw some purple insider speculation. I don't know.

But anyway, so there have been a lot of times where we thought that Anthony Barr was not going to be a Viking anymore. And I just wonder, can we just rewind a bit and talk about Anthony Barr as a Minnesota Viking? Because he is, I think, the most recognized guy as the fans, media do not value him as much as the team does. Even more than Shamar Steffen. Right. And yet I also think, you know, the big fundamentals, Shamar Steffen. But I also think that there's something to the argument that Mike Zimmer makes for him about things that can't necessarily be quantified.

Are we going to look at Anthony Barr's time here as a huge success, just kind of a guy who the team fawned over and fans never really bought into? Or is it somebody that we should look at and say, wow, they just massively overvalued him and overpaid for him, and it actually damaged their situation? I guess I'd put it somewhere between the first two options you mentioned there, simply because he has been part of a lot of good defenses and I think even if his numbers individually aren't what a lot of people

would hope that they would be and we should also remember that he is a guy that has a skill set and a body type to be a 3-4 pass rushing linebacker that has never been used that way in Minnesota despite you know the annual flirtations about him spending more time with the defensive ends and working on his pass rushing more. He's never done that or never been asked to do that regularly. But he gets paid that way because that's the way that position works. So I think it's somewhere between successful because of what he's meant to their defense and kind of just a guy because you do see these times where he does disappear.

I mean, Mike Zimmer at this point kind of famously said he has a tendency to coast at times, and you don't see him just take games over. And they still – I remember talking to people in the organization when they did the second deal, and it was still just like, yeah, but have you ever seen a guy look that good? Like, well, no, he's a physical specimen, but at some point the results have to be there. So I think it's somewhere between the first and the second ones you mentioned. The only thing I guess I would say that makes it, the notion of it being a failure is worth considering,

is that I remember when they drafted him, there was at least some chatter that they were interested in Aaron Donald. Now they had Sheree Floyd at the time. So I don't know if they would have done it, but I think they were looking pretty seriously at Aaron Donald. And if you look at it as that would have been the pick, if they hadn't taken Anthony Barr, and I don't know that we can say that for sure, but if that was the case, then yes,

you would say this is a failure because they missed on the best defensive player of the decade probably or at least the last half of the 2010s to to take Anthony Barr so if if it was that I could see it you know saying it's an abject failure but independent of knowing that with any certainty I would say yeah he's he's been a guy that has meant a lot to their defensive structure, but probably hasn't done everything you would want to see him do for the way that they've paid him. Hey, everyone.

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And I think it's interesting, too, that over these past few years, we've seen Eric Kendricks, who was drafted a year later, pretty clearly, I think, pass Barr in the pecking order. This is an all-pro talent that just blossomed, really, in the last three years, and we didn't see that final ascension from Anthony Barr, which is probably part of the reason that he is a little overlooked by fans. A lot of his greatest qualities are not statistical. They're not production-based. They're very intangible. It's his size. It's the way that opponents have to account for him. It's his chemistry with Eric Kendricks. It's his ability to call plays with

the green dot. And I think that he leaves a little something to be desired, but I keep coming back to the team does tend to struggle when he's not available. Like I think back even in his rookie year when he was a pretty splashy player that year too, they struggled when he got hurt. 2016, he played like the second half of that year with i think a wrist injury and he was very ineffective as was the team uh 2018 he was out for a stretch they went one and two and then obviously last year we saw like how kind of the run defense fell off with troy die and you know eric wilson trying to pick up that slack. So there is value there compared to his backups, who seem to be below replacement level.

It's just hard to point to any one thing on the stat sheet and say, like, this is his impact. Well, it's funny because a lot of those things you mentioned there, Sam, I've talked to people in the organization that say the same thing, that we struggled in a lot of ways that you just outlined because he wasn't there. He has this presence both in the huddle and just in terms of what opposing offenses have to account for that changes things for them.

So they certainly have had opportunities to move on from him and have decided not to do it because of what they seem to think of what he means to the defense. The tricky part becomes, you know, like we're talking about, that guys at that position get paid for tangible results, and they have paid him like he's Von Miller or Justin Houston or Zedarius Smith, guys that are getting 10, 12 sacks a year that earn those types of contracts. And that was the deal he was going to get from the Jets to be that type of a player.

So he gets paid that way, and they value what he does intangibly, almost on the level of a 3-4 pass rusher. So it's a fascinating case because it's really from the time that they drafted him, and he was one of those guys that i remember when they took him they were they were i remember rick was up at the podium almost gloating that we have guys on our board that you guys aren't even talking about and that i think was where they were going because everybody thought no he's he's a guy that's going to go 12 13 14 that's too high for him at number i think they had picked eight and then they traded back to nine. But from that point on, it has been something where their valuation of him has been different than almost everybody else's. And you have three or four different examples of that now happening where they've had chances to say, you know what, it's been fun, but it's too much.

And they've said, no, we're going to keep coming back to them. So I'm trying to think of like the sitcom on-again, off-again relationship parallel to this. Ross and Rachel probably a little bit, or like my wife was into Sex and the City for a while, so Carrie and Big, where they keep getting back together. It has a little bit of that feel where you think, okay, they're done, they're done, and then they just always find their way back together. It's like Dwight and Angela, and then the Jets were Andy, you know, sort of that second suitor, and they were both fighting over Angela and ended up

with Dwight, the Vikings. You should jump in on Sex and the City, Ben. What? I said you should jump in on Sex and the City. It's quite good. Yeah, I've seen a lot of it by kind of osmosis over the years. But, yeah, it's got its moments. But, yeah, the Dwight Schrute personality type may be a little bit better parallel for some of the people we're talking about here than big. So I'll just leave that one and move forward um but you know that is an interesting trend though with this team in recent years where in pro football focus does play a role in this because we can look at their grades for everything and we can look at their data on how many pressures

an offensive lineman allowed or those things that are not supposed to be quantifiable they're quantifying them by how Anthony Barr covered or how he tackled or whatever it might be and so when you compare him to the top guys Luke Keekly at his best Eric Kendrick at his best you just see that those guys are performing higher even if Barr is still good by their grades these other players don't need that excuse of oh it's you don't see it like well I'm pretty sure Luke Keekly had a lot of things you don't see too but the things that they could quantify in those grades turned out to be a 90 instead of a 75 and they've really done this with offensive linemen where we look at Pat Alfline or we look at you know Brett Jones versus Dakota Dozier and we say it's so obvious on paper that these are things that you are valuing much

higher than you should be and yet I feel like it's really gone that direction so now fans sort of understand some of the values of these players even better than they do and that is I think a concerning trend and even when it comes to the cornerback play where you look at Malcolm Butler's numbers from last year and you go wow I mean he should have gotten more than six million dollars on a one-year deal and certainly was worth more than Patrick Peterson last year and yet here we are it feels antiquated Ben. Yeah there are certainly a lot of areas and right down to the way that they play on offense that kind of reflect this belief of, hey,

we know that everybody else thinks that this is the right way to do things, and we hear Mike Zimmer talk about focus plenty, and we hear people talk about what you guys, which is the universal term for people in the media that are covering the team. If you hear the phrase you guys, it refers to us. There's kind of this operating philosophy with them that we know that everybody else thinks this is the right way to do things, but we either prefer to do it this way or we think we know better. And on some things, I suppose you could point to them having success with those results.

I mean, they've made the playoffs three times in the first six years until last year, and they've had probably more sustained success than anybody's had here since Denny Green. But when you are paying and their ownership is paying for a team that should contend for championships and make deep playoff runs. And that certainly is the expectation with the resources they put into it. It does get harder to say this kind of contrarian approach has produced the types of results to last. It seemed like the ultimate kind of overcorrection after DiFilippo, didn't it? It feels like DiFilippo kind of ruined it because he had the modern approach to passing. And then they corrected so hard in the other direction. And I think Mike Zimmer kind of took to that. And obviously, he loved what happened in 2019. They tried to run it back in 2020 with a

worse defense and didn't work out. And I'll be fascinated to see how hard they lean into that in 2021. And I have a tough time thinking that Clint Kubiak is going to come in and modernize this thing with under Mike Zimmer's watch. I just think it's going to be more of the same of what we've seen. It's just hard for me to believe that Mike Zimmer, who watches all this film, doesn't see what's happening around the league and say, you know what, there's got to be a little more of a balance here because we are so far in one direction. And I know sometimes it can benefit an offense when you are extremely different. But also it can just make you like silly if you continue doing the same things over and over again, like running on second down and 12.

I'm surprised that there hasn't been enough whispers in the ear just to kind of balance this out a little more evenly on offense. Well, and you hear chatter about play callers here, kind of feeling like they have been handcuffed. And certainly there's more chatter with that with some than others. But it's been a fairly universal theme that guys, when they've left here, have said, you know, it's a little easier to work when there's not almost this quota of how much you need to run the ball.

And certainly that's something Mike Zimmer has made very clear he believes in. But you're right. You do start to think how much of this is because he thinks this is the best way to win and how much of this is because he identifies with it as the way things were done in the era where he was raised. I mean, how much of this is personal preference versus I'm evaluating this objectively and I still believe this is the best way to win. That always, I think, becomes the question, especially for coaches that have done it a long time,

have come to like their way of doing it, have kind of built an identity around a certain brand of football. How much does that become something that prevents you from evolving, prevents you from adapting, as much as it is something that you can kind of hang your hat on and say, this is how we're going to win games. I also wonder what it says about how Mike Zimmer feels about Kirk Cousins, because we

talk about how our evaluations of certain players are different than theirs. And when Pat Shermer was doing this same sort of thing, he was running the ball with Latavius Murray, he was throwing screens to Jarek McKinn of thing, he was running the ball with Latavius Murray, he was throwing screens to Jarek McKinnon, and he was running play actions to take shots down the field, it all made so much sense because of Case Keenum's limitations, that you were trying to protect Case Keenum from Case Keenum-ing a little too much, where he would get excited, as Mike Zimmer said, and throw interceptions two in a row to Washington and almost throw away that game or something in 2017.

But that's the way you generally treat a journeyman quarterback, is you kind of try to work around their weaknesses. And I think that when you pay a quarterback like the Vikings did, the expectation is, and especially when the guy has big numbers, is that you're going to want to really put a lot on his shoulders. You're going to want to build up around him. You're going to want to throw the ball a lot. And Mike Zimmer, I don't think, sees the numbers.

I think he only looks at what he sees for the skill sets. And he looks at Delvin Cook and says, nobody can stop this guy when he's at his best. And he looks at Kirk Cousins. And, I mean, first impressions matter, right, Ben? I mean, his first impression of Kirk Cousins is, what, the Buffalo game where they score six points and the pick sixes and the fumbles and strip sacks. And so in his mind, I think he says when it's all on Kirk, that's what is going to happen, which I don't think is necessarily true, but I think that plays into why he wants to run so much.

Yeah, I think that's probably part of it i mean it's i think you bring up an important point there in the sense that yes i think there's a there's a personal preference thing about this but there's also a realization that we have to win games a certain way because of what i think of my quarterback and we can argue about whether that evaluation of cousins is right or wrong i've certainly, the let Kirk Cook movement has not really gotten going yet, but I think, and you guys have talked about it a little bit, and I certainly wondered about it myself, that when you have the receivers that you have, should you say, hey,

let's just ride it and you're going to have some games where he throws a couple picks, but you're also going to have games where he's brilliant and you can try to see if that works given the fact that you have these two great receivers and you hit a home run trying to replace Stephon Diggs with Justin Jefferson at least it appears that you did so there is it's certainly interesting to think about what they would be if he looked at Kirk Cousins differently. But there does seem to be this kind of thing of, even with some of the red zone play calling at times that we saw at some of those games last year where it's just trying to run the ball and not putting it in Kirk's hands because they're afraid of what's going to happen.

I even go back a little bit to at the combine about three weeks before they signed Cous cousins in that, that side session he did with us where it was just like Mike Zimmer dropping bombs left and right about Sam Bradford's knee and Teddy Bridgewater's knee and what we think of Tase Keenum. And, but he said something there about, we have won 40 games in the last three years or whatever it was or four years, I guess it would have been because of how we played as a team.

Even at the time, he was kind of saying, I don't want to put all of this on a quarterback. So I almost wonder if he looks at it and says, this guy is part of the reason I can't have everything I want on my defense, and I can't have all of this stuff make sense on our budget. So you'd hope that that's not going into the evaluation, but you talk about first impressions, I think that was part of the first impression as well,

is that he was even before they made the deal with Cousins kind of sounding the alarm a little bit, and then they went and did it anyway. And I do wonder sometimes in his mind what that does to the way he looks at Kirk Cousins. And on the periphery of all of it is this offensive line. And I don't think they intentionally got bad pass blockers on this team, but that's the way it's worked out, is they've drafted and acquired from a certain mold.

They've gone for scheme fits every step of the way. And it created now a system where if they did choose to throw more often they would be making that quarterback more susceptible to pressure we've seen what happens when he's forced to drop back more particularly when they're trailing in games and again the dichotomy is they have to realize that but they also haven't really taken steps to address it. Like all of their O-line acquisitions as recently as, you know, Ezra Cleveland or bringing back Dakota Dozier were designed around blocking for Dalvin Cook. And then they leaned into Dalvin Cook more than they ever have last year. And that problem still exists. I mean, even if they did decide to trust Kirk Cousins, Justin Jefferson, and Adam Thielen to be sort of the trio of leaders on offense with Dalvin Cook as more of a supplement,

they still would have this pass blocking issue. So it probably all is part of the equation, right? What Zimmer thinks of Kirk, but also what they know that they've created on the offensive line is difficult, I think, to pivot from. Well, you go back, and it's interesting because I was talking about this on our Access Vikings podcast a little bit this week too, in the sense that you go back to as far as Riley Reif and Mike Remmers. You had Pat Elfline. You had Garrett Bradbury. You had Brian O'Neill.

You had Ezra Cleveland. Alex Boone probably a little bit with this, maybe not quite as much. But all of those guys, when they signed them, what did we hear with every single one of them? Their strength is run blocking. They are guys that can get to the second level. They fit with our zone scheme. And can you do that and still be a good pass protector?

Yes, you can. Brian O'Neill i think has become certainly a above average pass blocker and and has probably still some room to grow there but they have acquired guys for first and foremost because of what they do to help that running scheme and that again is is kind of that thing of you know whether they think that's the best way to win because of what they have in dalvin Cook or whether it's a preference thing. They have set themselves up that way. And then when you have a quarterback who is not going to be Russell Wilson, where he can play behind a bad offensive line and be mobile enough and creative enough to make that work,

you do put yourself in tough situations when you don't have a group that is going to be an excellent pass-protecting offensive line. There's a bit of a feeling of, Kirk, we paid you, so now you've got to work with what you've got to work with. And that does not really work with the player. And I guess if you were saying it as bluntly as possible, you would say, why are you working against your quarterback? Because even the handling of the Stephon Diggs thing thing like Justin Jefferson has made that all go away but they didn't know they were getting Justin Jefferson at the time they traded digs and and at the time that they would not be right right right and and when they would not listen to Stefan digs so it goes back like Stefan digs knew that the way to win was

by throwing the football and throwing it to him specifically, and he was right. And yet, they wouldn't even have a discussion with Stephon Diggs. He said that in that ESPN interview that his biggest thing was they kept telling him, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. They wouldn't even really engage and hear him out in the offensive philosophy. And you know this, and Sam, you know this, Stephon Diggs, he may be an odd cat at times, but he is not a dumb guy. He's a smart guy. He knows exactly all the numbers for targeting him

and for the contested catch. He knows all that stuff. And he knew that the success was being driven in the league through throwing to top receivers. And yet they're like, no, no, no, we can't do that. We got to keep sticking to what we do. And if I'm Kirk Cousins, I'm feeling like, well, I'm very happy that I have all this money, and I'm happy to throw – I'm happy to have a great quarterback rating every year

because I'm only throwing when I'm asked to throw to wide-open receivers down the field. But I would also ask, like, why are you 32nd in spending on the offensive line for three years in a row? Yeah, I mean, it's like getting a really expensive car and then saying, we're not going to insure it at the level that would make sense, or we're not going to purchase whatever performance package would help the car function at a higher level. I'm not enough of a car guy to have a great analogy here, but yeah, they have, they have spent big on a quarterback that they thought was going to be the

missing piece that was coming up that NFC championship game loss, of course, that they thought was going to put them over the top. And then that hasn't worked out that way. And they've continued to kind of just say, well, if we, if we try to recreate that same formula, then we can put it all back together. Rather than saying, this is a different team, this is a different quarterback, even though we had that year, let's try to optimize things with that guy.

So, yeah, it continues to be confusing. I don't think we're going to see it change. But I guess that's what makes it fascinating to watch, is this kind of continued attempt to say this approach we have developed is going to work just given enough time. In one of these years, it'll break through. Folks, the football offseason is off and rolling, and SodaStick has you covered with Minnesota sports-themed gear.

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show as well on social media. Follow them at SodaStickCo on Twitter and at SodaStick.com for your original Minnesota sports inspired goods. Code Purple Insider for free shipping. Let me ask you a question, Ben, put you on the spot a little bit on Cousins. Is a 2019 duplication enough this year for him to earn the next extension? Because last time he went into the two years left on his deal, you know, he had the 10-6. They won a playoff game. I think it was 26 touchdowns, six interceptions.

So if that were duplicated and they won one playoff game and done, would that earn him then another couple years? Because obviously they'd have to do something to get that $45 million number down. Yeah, I think it is. Because I think in that scenario, if they make the playoffs and win a game, I think that probably is still enough for them to be able to go to the Wilts and say, hey, we're making progress. We've got young defenders that are going to continue to get better. We've got corners that are still in the first contracts. Just give it more time. We think we're heading in the right direction now that we've had this

defensive reboot. So in that scenario, I think right direction now that we've had this defensive reboot. So in that scenario, I think it still means that Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer are running the show. And I think at that point, yes, they will need to do something with that cap number because it's interesting given how much money they've already pushed into 2022. They are not, the cap will be better and they'll,

they'll have some things that they can do with it. But they're not going to be in a situation where they have $75 million. I think they're already looking at something like, it's projected to be like $20, $21 million under the cap, which isn't something, it's something to work with, but it's not so much that they just say, ah, $45 million, that's fine. I certainly think they would be looking again at what can we do to bring that number down. And Cousins is once again in a strong negotiating position because he's got a $45 million number that's fully guaranteed now. So he's going to say, if I'm going to come off of that, you have to do something to make me happy

too. So yeah, I certainly think if it goes that way i think it's a very good chance they do an extension similar kind of thing and we're continuing to roll with it into the future the interesting part about the salary cap stuff is that you know people think that getting fans back and the tv deal is just going to shoot it through the moon and that you know you could spend whatever money you want. You could void whatever years you want, all that stuff like they're also spreading losses out over a number of years. So it might not go up to four hundred million dollars all of a sudden from one hundred and eighty. I mean, I think that some of this stuff still carries some risk, even though you feel like it's OK, but you do it and do it and do it and do it. And then all of a sudden it's like using the credit card or whatever.

Like, yeah, eventually you always have to pay it off. Let me ask you one more thing, Ben, before we close out a very fun Friday round table here. How's the, how's the Daniil Hunter thing play out? You think, because this is something that I have been, I have been a ping pong ball, just bouncing back and forth on this on how I think it's going to go. But I'll just give you my guess, since we're going to keep them guestling here on the show with this.

Wah-wah. Yeah, I know. Sorry. But I think that they cave, because they usually do. And I think that they sign him to some sort of extension. Yeah, I'm with you. I think, in the end, betting on the Vikings to pay players is generally a pretty good bet. I mean, even with Adam Thielen, when they did that most recent one, Adam Thielen was not in a good negotiating position.

He had signed a below-market deal because he was worried about overplaying his hand as a restricted free agent, and they had him locked up for a couple more years. There would have been no reason that they had to do it, especially when they had just paid Stephon Diggs, and they had every reason to know that Adam Thielen making more money than Stephon Diggs was going to make Stephon Diggs mad, which it did. So in spite of all that, they did it anyway because they like Adam Thielen. He's a popular player.

He probably was in a worse negotiating position than Daniel Hunter is going to be from an on-the-field perspective if you assume Daniel Hunter is healthy. So assuming he's healthy, assuming they're okay with where his neck is in terms of the long-term prognosis, even though he's got three years left on it, yes, I think they pay him because I think they know. I mean, the leverage he has is, hey, all you got to do is look at last year. When you didn't have me, you had no pass rush. You couldn't stop anybody.

Your young secondary was exposed. If you don't have me, you have big problems. And you need to win this year. I think they've spent the money they've pushed into the future is in part because if they don't win, it becomes somebody else's problem. So who cares? So, yes, I think in the end they will pay him. They'll figure it out.

They'll have Rob Brzezinski work it out so that the cap all is fine. I mean, Rob Brzezinski is kind of their version of Harvey Keitel's character in Pulp Fiction where he's the fixer. He makes everything better. I think that's what will happen. Yeah, I think this all gets done with Daniel Hunter getting a new deal. It did cross my mind early in free agency when the whispers came out that they were pursuing Carl Lawson and Trey Hendrickson. It was the same type of thought process I had when they traded for Yannick Ngakwe was, is this an insurance policy for Daniil Hunter, or is this trying to sort of

recreate that tandem edge rusher thing that they had going for so many years with Griffin and Robison? And I still am not positive. I think it wouldn't hurt them to have had another really good edge rusher to at least give them maybe a little leverage or insurance in those negotiations. So if they go south, at least they have something to fall back on besides Stephen Weatherly and DJ Juana.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a valid question because the Ngakwe trade was so much at the time sold as, hey, we're going to have both these guys together, when they knew full well that Daniil Hunter's neck is not in a good spot. And I think they were hoping he would come back, and I think they were kind of pushing for him to try to get it fixed to be able to play last season. But, yeah, obviously in the end it didn't work that way. So that trade is always kind of viewed, you can view it through either lens,

I think, and be justified in doing so, that it was to pair him with Daniel Hunter or was an insurance policy. So yeah, I think that's a fair question with this set of moves again, that they were looking at Lawson and Hendrickson. Yeah, I'm sure they want more pass rush. They like building this defense from front to back, but if you don't have Daniel Hunter, then you have nothing. What I keep coming back to is that whatever the analytical thing to do is, which would be to trade Daniel Hunter and get draft picks in cap space, they probably won't do that. So that's why I think that it comes back to they probably sign him.

Ben Gessling, Star Tribune Vikings beat reporter, you do great work, of course, and everyone, if they're not already following you, which they probably are, you're breaking down everything cap-wise that none of us really understand. So you're doing a great job there. That has been your offseason. So we appreciate it. The only place I use my accounting degree these days, so I use it for something. Is the track and field season ramping up, Ben?

We start Monday. Nice. Yeah, it's here. Hopefully the Nice. Yeah, it's here. Hopefully the weather keeps doing what it's doing. And we don't, I mean, usually when the season comes around, Mother Nature says, oh, that's a good time to dump a foot of snow. But hopefully this keeps up. I've been waiting because March came in like a lamb.

So now it's going to go out like a lion, I think. So maybe it'll work out for you, Ben. Thanks for coming on, man. This was great. Really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it as well, guys. Thanks for having me. Thanks, Ben. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.