Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Playing GM for the Vikings 2026 offseason

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

You've been asking, so Matthew Coller opened up the Be A GM game on Stick to the Model and simulated the Vikings' offseason. Plus, he answers a handful of your Vikings questions. The Purple Insider podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Also, check out our sponsor HIMS at https://hims.com/purpleinsider Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider presented by Fandul. Matthew Collar here. And a lot of you have reached out over the last couple of days and said, hey, have you seen this website called stick to the model.com where you can put yourself in the general manager's seat, redo contracts, sign free agents, go to the draft, make trades. I was like, okay, well, that sounds like it's right up my alley. And indeed, it is. So in this episode, what we're going to do is completely rebuild.

the Minnesota Vikings roster and go through the 2026 off season and see where we end up. It gives you a grade at the end. So I'm curious about what the website thinks of my offseason plan. I also have to say that because of the way the site is worked out, you can't exactly tell the Arizona Cardinals to take 90% of Kyla Murray's salary or work out a trade for Derek Carr, who's retired. So what we're going to do is we're going to look at the rest of the roster first and then see where we're at with the salary cap situation and with the roster and

then talk about maybe who the best quarterback option would potentially be. So let's jump right into it. And the first step that we're going to have to take, you guessed it, is to create some cap space. Now, this is a rough outline, I'm sure, with this website, because they don't have every single detail of every single contract. But we're going to work through it and see some of the different levers that the Vikings can pull and maybe potentially how much cap space they might be able to create. So that's going to begin with going through contracts and restructuring certain ones, cutting players, and seeing what we can do here.

We'll begin with Justin Jefferson's cap hit, which we are going to lower from $35 million by about half. And right away, we have created almost $16 million more in space there. we are going to give an extension to Brian O'Neill. We're going to give him a new two-year deal. I think that's about right for Brian O'Neill based on his age and potential timeline. But he has performed still at a very high level. And I know he's gotten dinged up at times, but it's a lot of, it's an ankle, it's a foot,

it's things that offensive linemen go through. Not a huge concern for me long term for Brian O'Neill. He's a captain. He is still top-notch, still one of the top 20. tackles in the league, probably one of the top five to seven on the right side of the field. So I am going to extend Brian O'Neill, and that will create for us another $5.6 million in cap space. We are going to restructure Byron Murphy's deal with an extra void year.

I know that I have sort of treated in the past void years like they are the root of all evil, but the way that the salary cap keeps going up and up and up and up, a void year you agree to now by the time you actually get to it will be worth in terms of percentage of the cap so much less. And also when we think about where the Vikings are at in their timeline, they are in a position to try to win right here, right now. So if you got to kick money down the road to get one more player, then you got to kick money down the road for one more player. Like they set up since 2022 to be in this spot to try to win in this window. So we're going to do what it takes. in this simulation. This is not a, let's think a lot about the future type of offseason

simulation. So we're going to add a void year to Byron Murphy. And now we're at $9 million over the cap. Now we've got T.J. Hawkinson and we're at a crossroads. I am going to restructure T.J. Hawkinson rather than cutting him. I think that Hawkinson can still play. I think we saw numerous times this year the flashes of what is still there for Hawkinson. I'm thinking of the throw down the seam from J.J. McCarthy against the Dallas Cowboys, where he went up and got it. Some of the plays that he came up with against Cleveland, throws the checkdowns that he turned into first downs.

I think he's reliable. He's smart. We saw that even when he was asked to block more, to chip more, that he could do that, has the contract been totally worth it because of the injury and maybe some of the regression after the injury? I would say no. but when you look at the difference between what he would cost for restructure versus what he would gain for cutting him, it's about the same.

So we're going to make $7 million more here, and it's close to nine if you cut him. That's not really a huge difference between cutting and restructuring. For me, that's just keep T.J. Hawkinson a good football player. We will restructure the deal of Christian Darrasaw, and that gets us into the green. we have cap space my friends uh we're going to give an extension to jonathan grenard and i am running through this a little bit quick and not going through exact extension details because i'm going to

tell you the truth like that's hard to figure out so we're just kind of pushing the extension button and there's another part of this too which is structure of contracts you cannot do the exact details with free agents to have lower cap hits right away and then kick it down the road so we kind of have to work with some restrictions here. But we're going to extend Grenard by three more years. I think you want him as a Minnesota Viking for a really, really long time. Very confident that he's going to bounce back in terms of sacks. But his pressure rate was still really, really good.

He's a guy that I would not be giving up anytime soon. So now we're at $17 plus million in cap space. Now we're going to make some cuts. Javon Hargrave will create, let's see, 11. million dollars if we cut him before June 1st, but 15 if we cut him after June 1st. So we're going to do that. We're going to create the most possible cap space out of a post June 1st cut. We are going to extend Blake Cashman. He's going into the last year of his contract. So that makes sense to me. Cashman is another guy that you're going to want here longer term.

Now, we could get into some sort of deeper discussion about these extensions of, hey, if the window closes after this year, then what? But you always have trades in your pocket down the road. You also have the possibility that you're good in 2026 and a lot of these players are still in their primes or late primes. And you're trying to add around those guys and not necessarily doing a full tear down. So I'm going to leave the door open to that. Keep core players with this team adding two more years to Blake Cashman's. give them a little more money and that will gain us another couple million dollars in cap space

Aaron Jones is a release. Let's see. It does change a little bit post June 1. So we're going to do that. We're trying to maximize every amount of cap space and just this group of moves right here, which will, I'll recap at the end every single move that we made. But if I'm going a little fast for you, but with Aaron Jones, I mean, this is an easy one to release. And if you can create, a couple more million by post June 1, then that's something you have to do here. 44 million dollars now in cap space. And Ryan Kelly, we are going to release as well. And now we are over $50 million.

Woo! Look at that. We went from $40 million in the hole to now $50 million in cap space to work with. That doesn't necessarily mean, hey, spending spree. It definitely goes fast with a handful of players. but it shows you that they had always set up their cap situation to be able to do this and that when you go and look at that number in the off season and go, oh man, they're 40 million over the cap, they're in so much trouble.

Uh, not necessarily. So let's look now. I think that I've covered pretty much everyone that can be restructured or released. Let's look now at potential trades. I have struggled to find too many trades that I've been really high. high on for the AI offering the trades. But we'll take a look at them anyway. Indianapolis trying to get Blake Cashman for the 78th overall pick,

but I don't think it's a good idea to be trading someone like that away. Dion Henley is being offered by the Chargers. They want the 49th overall pick. That's going to be a no. That's what I mean. It's hard to find trades that you really like because if it's a player you want, it's giving away draft capital. I don't think that's a good idea.

So I did say that, hey, it's an all-in type of off-season, but I also don't think it's a let's be completely dumb and just blow up the whole franchise and give away all draft capital. That is something we're not going to do. We're going to assume that Rob Brzezinski is a restrictor plate, and he's going to hold them back a little bit. But I do like, I mean, I do think Diane Henley would be interesting as a linebacker, but we've got some other plans there, I think.

So New England wants Blake Cashman. Arizona's offering cornerback Garrett Williams for the 82nd overall pick. Again, I just can't really justify that. The Giants want to give us Bobby Okariki for the 49th pick. Dexter Lawrence. Okay, now that's now you've got a little bit of my attention with offering Dexter Lawrence. And I mean, it's not insane that the Giants could trade him. I'd be very surprised if John Harbaugh came in and said,

Yeah, we're moving on from one of the biggest beasts in the league. But there was some stuff there last year. So let's see. The cap hit would be almost 19 million and they want the 82nd and 97th overall picks. I think in theory that sounds very doable. This is a trade that needs some discussion because Dexter Lawrence, as Vikings fans know, is a monster and is one of the most unstoppable forces in the league in the middle where teams are winning with interior pressure.

And we certainly saw that last year with Seattle. We saw it the year before with Philadelphia. And the Vikings getting Javon Hargrave and Jonathan Allen were trying to emulate it. And then as the season went along and they kind of figured out where those guys fit in. I mean, they kind of did dominate up front at the end of the season. Not kind of. They actually did at the end of the season versus Dallas versus Detroit. And if you added Dexter Lawrence with Jonathan Allen and Jalen Redmond and Jonathan Grinard and Andrew Van Ginkle,

I got to think very long and hard about it. I am not convinced that in real life that they are going to trade Dexter Lawrence, so I'm going to pass on this. But I think that if teams come walking up to the Minnesota Vikings with a monster player like this, that they will have to really think about it if it's somebody at a position that's going to be such a difference maker. So I'm going to move on, but I'm just going to throw it out there that I would have to think long and hard. Giving up two draft picks and taking on $19 million of cap space, though, is not really ideal. We've got our RFA tenders here. We are going to not tender Ivan Pace.

And that's going to be one of the more disappointing ones of the last, you know, I don't know, handful of years under KOC is when Brian Flores got here, it seemed like, wow, he found something really interesting and special in Ivan Pace, somebody that came out of UDFA undersized, and then he's this little rocket run around making plays. But I think he was a good fit for when they had Harrison Phillips and Jonathan Bullard, because those guys were kind of gap holders or gap movers. So you would see Harrison Phillips take a guy and slide him in one direction. and Bullard would go in the other direction.

They were so strong that they could move these guys in the offensive line. And then somebody like Ivan Pace would have a free look at either a blitz running at the quarterback or stopping the run on the way to the quarterback. But I think that when they switch to penetrating defensive tackles, he kind of got left behind in that conversation because he wasn't able to, you know, stick guards in their place and things like that. And he fell out of favor like few players that we've ever seen. I mean, he was playing a lot of snap.

early on. And then Eric Wilson took the job and we just did not see Ivan Pace. So I'm going to go with no that I will not be tendering him. The other one is Ben Sims. It's a little bit, a little bit too much for me to go with $3 million for Ben Sims. So we're going to confirm no tenders there. Now we've got to look at our own free agents. I think that you'd love to resign Jay Laneler. You'd love to kind of go like full, let's go crazy as the GM. But I'm trying to balance Hey, what's some really, like, interesting stuff that I can do with, let's also be realistic. I mean, do we really want to trade Jordan Addison under the current circumstances? I think the answer is no.

We could do an offseason look at that, but I think the answer is probably no, that we want to keep Jordan Addison, because when we look at this cap situation, to have somebody, now long term is a different discussion, but to have somebody that's only going to cost $4 million for the type of production, two 900-yard seasons, 19 touchdowns in his first two years. I just think that's hard to walk away from, even though there are serious concerns about his behavior. But we're going to let Jalen Naylor hit the market. We're going to retain Jalen Redmond on the exclusive rights free agency.

And we'll have to see if it's possible to give him an extension here because I think that's something they will absolutely be doing. other free agents, Jeff Okuda, Rondale Moore, Justin's school, Brett Rippin was a biking again? It lists Brett Rippin. Who was he playing for the bike? Oh, that's right. He came back at the end. That's right.

Forgot about that. Bo Richter, we're going to retain for $1 million in the exclusive rights. We're going to go Xavier Scott. Same deal. And now we get to Eric Wilson. I've been looking at some of the market prices for linebackers. And I think somewhere between 7 and 9 million. it makes sense for Eric Wilson.

I would not go more than two years because of his age. It's rare to see a player break out at 31, but that's what happened in this defense. I think for the way Brian Flores wants to play, somebody who could be an outside linebacker or an inside linebacker, someone who's really difficult for running backs to handle on blitzes up the middle, which they use all the time, versatility, intelligence, toughness, all those things. I'm giving an extension to Eric Wilson.

We're assuming Harrison Smith is retiring. Tavier Thomas. Ryan Wright, we definitely need to resign. Let's give him a multi-year deal. And I think the only other one, Fabian Moreau, who was actually, you know, decent down the stretch. Ty Chandler is going to be one of those guys that we always kind of go, shouldn't Ty Chandler have been a bigger part of this thing?

But he wasn't. So we're going to move on from him. And we are going to keep the. the goat, Andrew DePala, and now we can look at other free agents. So I'm going to just go kind of position by position here of their needs and start with the running back position. Now, I would love for the Vikings to get Brees Hall and kind of break the bank there. But even when we look at the projected money, I think it's going to be higher than what

stick to the model is projecting for him. They're projecting $12.7 million. Kenneth Walker, 10.7. I think it's going to be higher for both of those guys. And I'm trying to split the difference between like hacking the website and also doing this realistically. Because if I could go in and sign Kenneth Walker to $10 million, I'd be like, absolutely, let's go. But I think the Seattle Seahawks are keeping Kenneth Walker.

Come on. They're not, after he's the Super Bowl MVP, they're going to let him go. And I also think you don't get the Super Bowl MVP who was a workhorse like that for 10 million bucks. even in a running back world where they're still not getting crazy money. So let's go look at some other options. Javante Williams, 26 years old, was very good for the Dallas Cowboys. He costs $9 million. But my issue with Javante Williams is that he's not really an all-around back.

So that's why I'm looking at a couple of guys here. I'm going to pick from one of these guys. Travis E.T.N. from the Jaguars. Kenneth Gainwell from Pittsburgh, who lit up the Vikings. It would be classic Vikings to go with the guy that kind of smoke them. Kenneth Gainwell, and then Rashad White, who I'm very interested in is an all-around running back. I think White and E-TN are guys who you can mix and match, but are also guys that you can use every down. So I'm going to go with Rashad White.

I think the Vikings need a guy who could catch out of the backfield to replace Aaron Jones, somebody who can pass protect, and I'm going to sign him to a 7.1.1. $1 million deal over two years. And we will have somebody now in our backfield. Yay, our first big free agent signing. So let's look here. Wide receiver, what I would like to do at wide receiver is get somebody cheap who I think could kind of be Naler-like or, you know, remember, they went and got Rondale Moore for almost

nothing. And Moore was not, I wouldn't say he was having the best training camp, but there was clearly an idea for Rondale Moore of what they wanted him to be. So, all right, he's going to be this kind of, you know, get him the ball a handful of times, a couple times a game, get him on the field, just give a different little dynamic. It was clear that they wanted to do that. And then he got hurt. And of course, they were not able to do it.

But let's see if we can look for a role player like that. Because we've got some guys here in free agency that are more in that range, like a 2-2-at-well, Diamy Brown, Greg Dorge. I actually like Greg Dorch. Maybe for this as somebody who is that like Brandon Powell type, but maybe a little bit quicker. Kendrick Bourne. Tyler Johnson, one of us.

Jahan Dotson was not that special last year. Sky Moore. Olomidi Zakias is, I think, a good role playing wide receiver. But let's go with Greg Dorch, kind of that undersized type of player that has some jolt to him and could be a role. player. Let's go with him. $8.6 million.

I mean, I think that that's a little bit. I mean, that's probably about right. A lot of those role playing guys are getting around 10 these days. So, okay, we've got ourselves a rotational wide receiver and $19 million to still work with. It sneaks up on you fast, folks. We need, in terms of offensive line, clearly a center. The Purple Insider front office is big on this, that a veteran center is necessary.

So that's going to be our main target looking around for a center to sign. And we're also going to need probably a backup offensive tackle if we're not bringing back Justin's school, who did improve at the end of the year. But I think they'll go with somebody else. Cade Mays for $13 million. I mean, that eats up a lot of what we've got there. Connor McClothern, looking for interior guys. You know, I think we're going to go with Luke Fortner.

you've got Linderbond there. I think Linderbom's price on this website is too low. I think he's going to go for about $20 million. They've got him going for more like 11. I just don't see that. I just do not. Linderbom is a star. And if we're trying to play this the right way, play it the fair way that we think is

realistic, let's get Luke Fortner on a two-year contract for $11.6 million. and we will sign him there. And now we are down to only $7 million in cap space. You see how this goes really fast when you start resigning people? Let's go back to our cap management and see if there's any other button we can push, lever we can pull. Is there anybody else's contract we can work with? Okay.

Let's go back and restructure with a void year to Andrew Van Ginkle to give us seven more million And should we extend? Can we extend Isaiah Rogers? Would that make sense? It would only save us a little bit of money. He was very good. I don't know if it makes sense quite to do it right now. So we're just going to have to work with this 14 million bucks in cap space. That's what I mean. It goes quickly. All right. Let's look at what else we need. A swing tackle. I mean, it's hard to figure out what we can be looking at for swing. How about Josh Nyman? Who's into Yash Nyman? I am. $2 million on a one-year deal. Let's get our swing tackle. He played a lot for Carolina last year and was, you know, there's swing tackles.

Edge rush, you know, you'd love to have, let's take a look at the end. You'd love to have one more veteran edge rusher. They did not do that last year. And it was a little disappointing with the depth that they had at the edge position. looking on the interior, this might be something we have to do in the draft, but is there somebody that we can get as a run stuffer? Tierra Tart, I think, signed an extension, but, you know, we'd love to have Tierre Tart on this side of things.

He's always a disturber. If you're a hockey fan, you know what I'm referring to. Let's see, there's quite a few of these types of run stuffers, but I'm going to go with, and I'm, I love seeing old names on here, like Jaqualen Roy is there. How about this? Sebastian Joseph Day used to play for the Rams. He's kind of bounced around.

He's 31. He sort of falls into that Harrison Phillips type. So let's get, let's get him on a $3 million deal. Oh, the offer was rejected. Oh, I'm sorry, Sebastian Joseph Day. Who do you think you are? Sebastian Bach. Okay.

So we've got a little bit of depth. there linebacker is another position that i think we're okay at the depth is a little weak let's go look at corner now the vikings have their starting corners and we've only got nine million dollars left to work with so uh we're going to move to safety actually here should i go oh now see this is where we got to start thinking about the draft should we draft a safety to start or should we sign a safety because we're only looking at nine million dollars left here and we have to at least keep in our heads that you usually need a little extra cap space for depth and there's also a quarterback situation to be resolved.

Hooh. Okay. It's feeling a little tight. You know, hey, a few minutes ago, we're like 50 million bucks. Yeah, let's go. And now it is feeling a little bit tight. Let's see. How about a rotational type of corner to sign not one of the bigger names, but somebody who can just

fill a roll and give us a little bit more depth because that was definitely lacking for last year. So let's scroll down a bit here. Roger McCreary is an interesting one. wants $4 million on here. D. Alford from the Falcons, $3 million. Avanti Maddox,

I would like is a little bit on the expensive side. Cam Taylor Britt. Let's go with Camp Taylor Britt. It hasn't been great. No doubt about that. But, you know, some sort of depth here for $2 million. And some of this is, some of this to me is just philosophical. Like, hey, a $2 million rotational guy, whoever Brian Flores likes.

Like, I'm going to go with this guy, but, you know, whoever you want. And now we land at the safety position. But what I'm going to do is I'm going to keep $7 million in the bank here because that is for the quarterback situation. We're going to go to the draft and then we're going to kind of see where we're at with the roster after the draft. So that's our free agency. And again, I'll recap all these things at the end.

Let's go with just a three-round draft for right now. I mean, I'm sure we could go through a seven-round draft, but at least I know the players right now in the first three rounds. We're going to go through it quickly. And we're going to jump right in to the 18th overall pick. This one might be actually pretty easy if Mansour Delane is on the board, the corner from LSU. I'm having a tough time, not just clicking.

Let's take a look at the other options, though, but I mean, I think you just click that. Oh, we've got some trades, though. Got some trades. We can move down potentially to get 30 and 60. Ooh, 30 and 62. We could move down. Okay, I actually kind of like this.

We could move down with Philly to get number 23 and number 54. 50. Now, you guys have heard me. talk about this, the lack of top 100 picks is really the biggest reason the Vikings have failed in the draft. I mean, of course, yes, they missed on certain scouting reports and things like that, but there's no question to me that the biggest reason they don't have more players that are young and helpful on this roster is top 100 picks. So moving down five spots to get number 54. And, you know, I know that it gives you the percentages here for the offers. You know,

know that every time you make a trade on a draft sim, people be like, no way anybody's making that trade. But, you know, I think, yeah, realistic if they're trying to go get their guy. So we're going to make a trade. We're going to move down. We're going to leave Monsour Delane on the board, which is risky because I think he's a very good cornerback prospect. And we are now looking at Avion Terrell from Clemson, Denzel Boston, Denzel Boston,

Kevin Concepcion, the wide receiver from Texas A&M, Caleb Banks defensive tackle from Florida. Got some options here. Colton Hood, Brandon Cicay, Colton Hood and Brandon Cese are both corners. Emmanuel Neil Warren. Is anybody interested in Emmanuel Neil Warren?

Because we did not spend big on a safety. So this kind of sets us up to draft a safety in the first round. At 23rd, feels like good value. but he's not toward the top of the list. Avion Terrell from Clemson is the top player here. Do we see if we can get away with drafting a safety later? That's what I'm going to do. And if we don't get one,

then we'll circle back to the free agent pool and see what we can get. If only they could actually do it this way. So let's take Avion Terrell, the cornerback from Clemson, and then we should have our next pick is the one that we trade it. No, our next pick is our second rounder, and then it's the one we traded for. So second round here, we have some wide receiver options. Zachariah Branch from Georgia, Omar Cooper from Indiana.

Offensive tackle Jennings Dunker, if you think that that's the way to get maybe a future tackle. If things don't go well, Connor Lou is a center. You could take a very talented center here and develop him. But what I'm trying to do through this situation is I am trying to rebuild for help right now. and also be good later. So key positions, those more valuable spots,

I think I want to go wide receiver here and get someone to fill the shoes of Jalen Naylor right away. And then if I don't want to give an extension to Jordan Addison, then I can have Omar Cooper as the wide receiver from Indiana. So I'm going to pick him. And now we are looking at the 54th pick that we got from the Philadelphia Eagles. I really think in this draft, the early impression, I shouldn't say definitively, this is what I think right now. But my early impression is that trading down in the back end of the first round is going to be a good idea.

Because the prospects from 18 to 30 might not be that different. And I think historically that's probably the case. So now we're looking and we could still get Connor Liu, who is coming back from an ACL, but that doesn't mean, as a career is over. They do need a future center. we did just sign Luke Fortner to a two-year deal. We could get Judarian Price. We could look at running back here.

We can look at safety here. Let's look at safety. Now we're looking at, you know, not the top guys necessarily. AJ Halsey is from LSU, Kianti Scott from Miami. He's ranked 61 on this board. Not really falling in love with those ideas. but kind of like the idea of getting Conor Lou as a future center. Kind of set on the offensive line, though.

What about the running back position overall? Judarian Price, Jonah Coleman, Emmett Johnson, Nick Singleton, Ketron Allen, all those guys on the board. I've liked taking Judarian Price. His reputation maybe isn't the most explosive guy. It's right around this ballpark, though. Let's take Jonah Coleman from Washington. so we've got now a wide receiver or running back and now we're into the third round

and now we're kind of like just taking good players. Camari Ramsey is safety from USC. I mean, I think there's a lot of good reason to do that. Also maybe looking at some linebacker depth, also interior defensive line. But usually if you didn't spend a pick on interior defensive line right away, that you're not really going there. So let's go Camari Ramsey, the safety from USC. and we should have maybe one or two more picks here.

We could look at some edge depth. J. Sean Barham from Michigan is an interesting name there. Outside linebacker, Kyle Lewis from Pitt. These are now getting into guys that I'm not really as familiar with. Brian Parker. How about this? Brian Parker is a tackle that is expected to be a center from Duke. I think he's a tackle, but expected to kind of be like a nice project center.

Let's go Brian Parker. from Duke. And now we have reached the end here. And I might want to go back and look at free agency and see. So I've got $7 million. I think I should look at safety that if I'm not going to spend one of those first two picks on a safety, that I really have to sign one. And you can get safeties for a good amount.

Let's take a look here. Nick Cross, it's a little too expensive. You could see that some of these guys we can't even look at, can't even talk to, stay away from him. Now, here's one. Brian Cook from the Kansas City Chiefs. He has been a big part of some of their defenses, $4.7 million. That would only leave us with three, though. Is there a good deal out there?

I'm not so sure that there is unless, okay, here we go. Aloha Gilman, who kind of emerged a bit for the Baltimore Ravens, and I remember them talking a lot about him when the Vikings played the Ravens. So let's get Aloha Gilman as our last signing here, sort of one of those late safety signings after the draft. And now go back and take a look at our summary. So the website here is giving us a B. They don't love it in terms of our cap health.

Well, no kidding. We're not going to have the best cap health here. Future outlook also not grading very well. No kidding. But our roster moves got 25 out of 25 and needs filled 20. 24 out of 30. Not sure how that exactly works, but it seems like they were pretty happy with it.

Now, let's go with a recap of kind of what we did here, because I can scroll down and we've got the full recap. So we'll break down everything and then we'll talk about quarterback. This is fun. I hope you're playing along at home. So we cut Jvon Hargrave, Aaron Jones, and Ryan Kelly. We restructured Justin Jefferson,

Byron Murphy, T.J. Hawkinson, Christian Darrasaw, and Andrew Van Ginkle. There's a lot going on there. We gave extensions to O'Neill, Grenard, Cashman. The one thing that's left on the table here is Jalen Redmond. Jalen Redmond is left on the table because we can do the exclusive rights free agent thing, but I don't know that I could sign him to an extension here on the site. That I feel like has to happen, and we're only sitting at $4 million in Capspace.

Maybe not be able to do everything I want to do here. But anyway, so we're bringing back Jalen Redmond, Bo Richter, Xavier Scott, Eric Wilson gets a big contract extension. We keep Ryan Wright, Andrew DePaula, we sign Rashad White. That might be a little bit of more spending than I needed to do because Rashad White, we gave over $7 million. And if we're also drafting a running back, then, but I kind of like that. I mean, I kind of like the idea of that one is probably the miss right there is if I was going to draft a running back, then I shouldn't sign Rashad White. But I also feel like Rashad White and Jordan Mason with someone developing behind them.

But I spent a high pick. I spent a little bit of a high pick on the running back. So I think that might be my miss. Greg Dorch, uh, the wide receiver, role player, Luke Fortner, the center, Josh Nyman, Sebastian Joseph Day, Kim, Taylor, Britt and Aloha Gilman as depth. And then our draft, Avion Terrell, Omar Cooper. Jonah Coleman, that's the one that I would say

I regret because I signed Rashad White. I should have waited until later for a different running back. That's where I should have looked a little closer at safeties. I kind of got tunnel vision of like, oh yeah, I wanted to draft a running back. I like this kid. You need some explosiveness. Like, let's go. But I'm going to not grade myself very high on that move.

Though, look, I mean, you're going to have a rotation. It's just a high pick to start. spend if you've already spent some money in free agency. But I can't, you know, you can't go back once you've made the moves. Um, so, okay, that's probably a miss there. But getting a starting corner and a wide receiver who's contributing right away, we looked in the third round for the safety Camari Ramsey, which I think, you know, if there's any position that you can get third, fourth round guys who can start. We saw this from, well, Cam Bynum, uh, Xavier Watts. It is a quick transition type of position.

So, you know, that's a potential starter there. And then in the third round, we get Brian Parker. We also traded down to grab an extra second round draft pick, which might be like, if there's, if there's one where you could say, I don't know how realistic that is, getting an extra second for trading down a few spots might be a little too much. So if we just kind of wash out the Jonah Coleman pick and go with Rashad White, then that can be our offseason there. So that leaves us with only a couple of million dollars to work with, about five million bucks to work with.

And we didn't really even do that much. So it does go pretty quickly and you have to do a lot in order to get there. That's the lesson. But also, if the Minnesota Vikings are going to get a quarterback from somewhere else, Derek Carr, Kyler Murray, Marcus Mariotta, whatever range they're going to get, bring back Kirk, sign Aaron, Rogers. I think what this exercise tells you, and look, you can always structure these things in whatever way you want. So you can make it cheap and then make it more expensive down the road. I also think that if I go check, I might have missed maybe one more extension or something

like that that I could make a little bit of extra money. There might have been something there. But I think it tells you that in order to make this work with the quarterback situation, they're probably going to have to structure things a certain way in order to do that. And also, like, when you sign a guy to a $10 million deal like Luke Fortner, you can make that first year cap hit lower than that. So, again, this is why it's kind of a simulation. But I think if you were doing this offseason where you're trying to fill a lot of immediate needs, you're getting veteran players, you're extending your guys like Eric Wilson in the off season,

that you are looking at trying to get a, veteran quarterback. And if you could trade with the Saints or trade with the Arizona Cardinals to get Kyler Murray or to get Derrick Carr and get them on a fairly cheap contract to go with this team. And it does have a depth chart option. The depth charts are a little bit on the wonky side, though. Like they have Taki Taimani starting and stuff. But if we look through the, you know, the depth chart, it's hard to argue that this team wouldn't be very good. I mean, you have a strong backfield now, strong wide receiving core. You keep Hawkinson.

I think that if you add Fortner as the starting center, that you've got a strong starting five on the offensive line. And then a deep defensive line with bringing back Jay, J. La Redmond, adding Sebastian Joseph Day to that mix and filling out your secondary room a little bit more and giving Brian Flores more to work with with a handful of, you know, draft picks and free agents there. So look, I mean, I did the best I could. And I'd be curious about what different moves you guys made.

Leave them in the comments section. Two things. Number one is give me a great. How did I do? Let's just say that part of my option here, part of my offseason plan is for the Vikings to acquire Derek Carr. And the Saints have to take a lot of that money. And they can fit him into the cap. So that's your off season.

They go get a quarterback. And this is the rest of the team. Like how many games are they winning? What do you give me for the grade? I mean, if you want a different quarterback option, like grade the moves around the quarterback situation, how did I do? Did you like it? Did you hate it?

Let me know in the comments section. Also, how about this for a Fandul question of the day? So the Vikings right now on Fandul are plus $2,700 to win the conference. That's about the same odds as the Falcons and a little bit behind the Washington and commanders, tell me what one move they could make outside of quarterback that you think would actually move that number up. Like, could they make a move this off season that could move that number closer to the top, make them more of a preferred team for next year's predictions?

That's a fan dual question of the day. So I hope that you've enjoyed this exercise. And I wanted to answer a couple of fan questions as well. But I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you get a chance to do it yourself. And also it kind of shows you about how like, you know, you're sitting there making these moves and doing different things like, oh, how do I, you know, move this piece over here and add to this. And it's, you know, it's complicated. And I think that's what makes it so much fun to play general manager in the off season. So I had a good time with it. But I'd love to try different versions of it. I'd love to see other people's different versions of it. Who did you sign? Who did you trade for? Did you trade back? because I do think the Vikings trading back is a potential option. And I mean, I have some regrets over drafting a running back high and signing one.

But I also think that a running back rotation in a team that clearly, because the Vikings also just hired another person with a running background onto their coaching staff, clearly want to massively improve. And, you know, you develop a guy for a year and maybe he's the one that takes over for Jordan Mason or something. I don't know. Like, I'm not sad about having three running backs. I just think I might have changed that one move. But it's written in stone.

So let me answer a couple of questions here on the show for you. Just these have been written into me. Often I take ones from the Friday mailbag on the newsletter. So if you get a chance, sign up, Purpleinsider. Dot football. It's going to be a lot of stuff over there for the offseason. That is for sure. Folks, you may have noticed by all of my old football references that I have reached.

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insider. Individual results may vary based on studies of topical and oral monocodil and finestriide. Feature products include compound drug products, which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness, or quality. Prescription required. See website for details, restrictions, and important safety information. So the first question comes from Robert S. says, we have seen how some people refuse to let go their initial impressions of Sam Darnold, despite his great success in the last two seasons. Kyler Murray's leadership qualities have been criticized since early in his career. Has he been improving in those areas, i.e.

body language, cheering up teammates when things aren't going well, but can't shake his reputation. That's a great question. I think that the narrative with him that came out of Arizona after 2024 was that he and Drew Petzing and Jonathan Gannon had been in a good place. Now, that doesn't mean that he suddenly became John Elway in terms of his leadership capabilities, but it felt like that trio of the offensive coordinator, the head coach, and the quarterback were much more on the same page than they had been when he was with Cliff Kingsbury and when he was a younger player. I don't think that Kyler Murray is ever going to be the type that is super comfortable being out there and loud and like, let's go.

and you said like high, you know, high-fiving teammates and so forth. And I think that, you know, leadership, what, what Sam Darnold teaches us about leadership is that the most important thing at the pro level. Now, maybe you see this at the high school or college level where, yeah, pumping up teammates is important, keeping everybody, you know, excited and positive. But the most important thing at the pro level is lining up, call on the play, executing the play and keeping everybody on the same page, giving them their assignments,

getting them lined up correctly and running it and succeeding with it. And if you do that and show up every single day at the facility at the right time and practice the right way and all those types of things, then that's what pros are going to care about the most. Now, you can have personality issues behind the scenes and there might be some of that. And you can have issues with getting some of that. somebody to be a little bit more on the, like, outgoing side, which seems potentially an issue bit for Kyler Murray.

But, I mean, most of the thing here is they've got a leader in Brian O'Neill. They've got a leader in Justin Jefferson. They have guys on this team that have been here and that have won games and so forth. They really need a quarterback who can run the plays. That was a struggle last year. Like, J.J. McCarthy is extremely positive toward his teammates. And you see that all the time. And I think you could see how much he cares about, you know, getting his teammates on the

same page and getting, you know, keeping them pumped up and, you know, all that sort of stuff. And when you're winning, it's cool to have that. But when they were not on the same page and when they were jumping offside or committing false starts left and right and when it seemed like, you know, they had to dumb down the offense, well, that's kind of the type of leadership that you're looking for from a veteran and quarterback is these players want to go out and run the offense to its absolute maximum capability. And I think that that does frustrate people at times with Kyler.

And that connects to the leadership issue. So I don't need them to high five everybody. What I need them to do is to be prepared. And that's the thing about what you're talking about. I would connect a little bit the video game thing to seeing ghosts. I don't know if Kyler Murray has a video game addiction. that he can't shake. I don't know a lot about him.

And it seems like nobody else does really either in trying to put my finger on, like, where does this all come from? And, you know, who's reported these different things about Kyler Murray? And it's a lot of, well,

somebody put this out there that it's in his contract, which seems like it might have been to cover their own rear end if the contract was bad because everybody was going to say it was too much money when they made it. Like, these things are complicated. but if he does have an issue with being prepared, then that would be very concerning to me if he's this far into his career.

Now, when I was looking back at his games in 2024 and looking at his data and so forth, I mean, I felt like he ran an offense that was much more of the style of KOC and the much more of a style of a Kevin Stefansky or a Clint Kubiak than he ever had before. So I don't know if there was a problem with the way it worked out with Cliff Kingsbury because you just didn't really hear this stuff with Jonathan Gannon and with Drew Petzing last year. It was really coming out of that Steve Kime and Cliff Kingsbury era that a lot of that was out there and only when they really had to pay him. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I think he's got a different type of personality, but can that work if he's if he's making

plays and if he's throwing the ball where it's supposed to be thrown and and Jefferson's getting it like yeah then I and they're winning like of course then that's going to cure everything but yes I do think there is a connection that you could draw of people had a certain impression of Sam Darnold they assumed he couldn't see the field they assume that he couldn't read a defense because many years ago he said something and and maybe Kyler early in his career had an issue with not being as prepared as a young player as he needed to be I don't know where that stands right now. I do know that there was a guy here in Minnesota that we talked about couldn't lead a team to save his life. And then he got the right coach who encouraged him to do it.

And then all of a sudden it felt like he was much more of a leader in Kirk Cousins. So I don't know. That leadership dynamic is always very, very dicey to try to figure out from the outside. The only people who really usually know for sure are the ones that are in their locker room. Walt says, let's see, it's, I kind of like what Atlanta did in building their hierarchy with Matt Ryan as president of football ops, Stefansky is coach and then bringing in a general manager who appears as someone who will work alongside the coach. Well, Ryan heads up everything. Would that structure be something that the Wills would consider? They could give Brzezinski the president title and hire a general manager to work alongside Kevin O'Connell.

I love this idea. I think this idea is perfect because what you want is O'Connell and the next general manager answering to someone that is not directly the Wilfs. What, I mean, think about a business structure, even, okay, I'm going to take you back to Purple Insider in high school working at McDonald's. But, you know, like, look, you might go like, hey, come on, it's the NFL. you can't compare it to McDonald's, but they think a lot about these things, about the structure. They put a lot of many million dollars into what the right management structure is.

So stay with me here. We had an owner of our McDonald's. Like, it's not just, it's not Ronald who owns all of them. It's like individual owners own McDonald's. They, they buy a franchise. So see, not different. I'm going somewhere with this, I promise. So we had our owner who owned like five different McDonald's,

Donald's in the region. And then he had a regional manager who was there for like the different positions. And then we had like a top manager for our place. So when I think of this structure, I think of Wilf's owners and the regional manager who everybody each like manager had to answer to as being the Rob Brzezinski here. And the owner, the regional manager was there directly liaison. So they were the one that was reported. directly to the owner.

So there's kind of a go between where you have each individual manager of the McDonald's is and they report to someone who is the right-hand person of the owner. And I like that for Rob Brzezinski based on what he's done in the past, but also the trust from the Wilf's for Rob Brzezki to lead them through this offseason, to be with this franchise for almost three decades. clearly this is someone that they want by their side. So why not have him at the very top? And then the general manager and coach answered to him.

And he is the one that's telling the Wilf's, all right, here's what's going on as opposed to, you know, I mean, it's a little bit of like when the cat is away, the mice will play. And it has kind of felt like that a little bit in recent years where it's like you have all these sort of power things that are going on behind the scenes. you need somebody who is boots on the ground every day that can be in charge of all that, who has the direct line and the most power with the ownership.

So I really like this idea. I think this is the right way to do it. GM asks, what's the situation with Jalen Redmond? If I understand it right, we have exclusive rights to him next year and could sign him to an inexpensive one-year deal with no compensation. Well, some, some compensation. Not a lot, though. However, that changes after next season.

If he has another good year, he will become an unrestricted free agent. If my facts are right, do you see assigning him to a multi-year extension? I think for a player like that, you have to. Defensive tackles are worth their weight in gold these days. And Jalen Redmond is a difference maker. He's in his mid-20s. He's just coming into his prime. Sign him to a three-year type of contract, cheaper in the first year, more expensive in the next

couple years, fit it into our little cap that we struggled, you know, to make all of our signings, find a way. He's not only a great story. He's an impact player. He's somebody that gets into the backfield and gets TFLs, creates pressures. He is a difference maker up there. And you don't have a lot of guys. And I shouldn't say he's super young, but you don't have a lot of guys who are, hey, this one's going to be here for multiple years. Jonathan Allen is probably 2026. And that'll be it for Jonathan Allen. So. So you need some foundational pieces that can be here over multiple seasons. And I think Jalen Redmond is a guy that you'd like to see that.

It does complicate things of where you're at with the salary cap. But normally when you have a situation like this, you end up keeping that guy. One more question from Kip says if you could change one to two things the Vikings did differently over the last two to three years. What would it be besides drafting better? Well, what would it be besides keeping Sam Darnold for the year 2025? The thing for me, even when we pull every lever on that website and we try to make as much cap space as possible, and even when we trade down, it still feels like the Vikings are short on the salary cap and on the draft capital. And I think if you were going to go back and tell them one thing to do, it would be, do not be short-sighted based on losing the game against the Rams and then feeling like you have to fix every single thing that happened in that one game.

So you have to go spend $18 million on a guard, who I think is a good player. And I think we'll be better for them this year with a fully healthy off season. But that's a lot. It's a lot of money to spend there. They, they, you know, gave away draft capital. When you start going back at the players they gave away draft capital for, I mean, I'm, I'm as impressed with Cam Acres as anybody else in the world. But, you know, you gave up draft capital for Cam Robinson, for Cam Acres, for Jalen

Rager at one point, because you needed a punt returner. I think what I would advise would have been the short-sighted moves, like sometimes look down the road sometimes look at, you know, trying to get, you know, letting somebody go to get a comp pick as opposed to extending everybody all the time. That's probably what I would say is to be just a little bit more over multi years as opposed to just this tiny little window and we're going to shove all the chips to the middle of the table and that's that probably would adapt that a little bit. It's not about like one or two moves necessarily outside of.

quarterback, it's really about trying to be a little bit more on the efficient side, as opposed to saying the rules don't apply to us, which is kind of what it felt like is the rules of efficiency that when we talk about, you know, drafting premium positions, signing not the biggest, most expensive free agents and, you know, trying to get comp picks and things like, like, there's are things that have sort of proven to work over time that they kind of like turn their nose up up a little bit at hey we need to win right now and i understand that for sure and you see how short sometimes shelf life is in the NFL but i think if we were going back in time there would be a little bit more of that so anyway well thanks everybody for watching and listening to this episode i hope you

had some fun i hope you go and play around with stick to the model and uh maybe do a little GMing yourself and let me know what you think there in the comments section. So thanks again, everybody. And we'll talk to you soon. Football.