Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Should the Vikings extend Harrison Smith?

Episode Date: July 8, 2021

In a quick take podcast, Matthew Coller talks about a report that the Vikings and Harrison Smith are working on a contract extension. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider, Matthew Collar here, and another quick take for you. I am technically on vacation, but there was too much to talk about. So I recorded some quick opinions on some things going on that I didn't want to leave on the table because they were interesting. So before we get into it, just want to remind you, the show is presented by SodaStick, Minnesota sports inspired goods. Go to SodaStick.com. It's S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com.com also birdie golf it's way too hot for you outside go play indoors in woodbury it is a super cool place birdie golf make sure you check that out and

of course thanks to scout logistics for their support as well so here's my quick take for the day harrison smith our friend doogie over kstp TV, he says that the Vikings are making progress with Harrison Smith on an extension. And we know that the first days of camp are contract extension days. This is how it always seems to work out. Last year, I was actually surprised that the first day of camp did not have a Delvin Cook contract extension because usually it tends to work that way. And that one, we had to wait all the way until the end of camp. But we're also figuring that Brian O'Neill will be signing a contract extension. So it would not be stunning in any way if we show up at TCO Performance Center for the first couple of days of camp and they're holding a press conference to announce a contract extension for Brian O'Neill. That one is obvious and it's a good idea. I don't think he's going to

get Ryan Ramchak money because he's not quite on that level, but he'll get a big contract. He deserves it. It's the least debatable contract I think maybe we've had. I don't know. I don't remember another one where there's no real conversation to have. He's young. He's good. He plays tackle sign them. There you have it. That's all. That's good. We're all set there. Harrison Smith though, there is a little bit more conversation to be had with Harrison Smith and a contract extension. The first part of it is that a Harrison Smith contract extension could maybe counterbalance the Brian O'Neill in terms of cap space. Just thinking with an older veteran player, what they would want to do is try to lower his cap hit to create a little more space.

And then if they want to bring somebody else in or use a little more space for something during training camp, then they can use that. That's generally how they set up some of these veteran contract extensions. So they'll probably be in training camp with some money left over if they want to make a trade or if they want to sign a player late. And that is a luxury that they have really not had in the last few years. Yannick and Gakwe, they had to tell Riley Reif, take a pay cut or take a hike. And that was kind of an uncomfortable situation in order to make that trade. So this year in terms of cap space, they could help themselves even more with a Harrison Smith contract extension. Now, I don't know exactly what it would look like, but I called up Malcolm Jenkins contract and every team

does these things different, but the Saints, they like to play with the salary cap themselves. And Malcolm Jenkins is an older player. So he signed a four year, $32 million contract with $16 million guaranteed. So his cap hits in the first two years of that deal were 3.3 and five. And then his cap hits in 2022 and 2023 were around $12 million. If the Vikings did something like that with Harrison Smith, then that would be fair considering his age, where he's at in his career. You would not project the next few seasons are going to be quite as good as his. I think it was an MVP season in 2017 that there was a very good argument for him on the number one defense being the best player and being in that conversation. He didn't really get a whole lot of buzz for it because he's Harrison Smith, but he should have. That's not the same version

of the player you have now, though he is great and he is still the key to the defense. And last year, I will say that it's hard to get a complete understanding of how good Harrison Smith was because he was playing with cornerbacks who literally didn't know where they were supposed to go and that was a problem but PFF had him last year as the 12th best corner in the league so you could make a comparison there to an older Malcolm Jenkins Jenkins has a couple of years on him, but if it was something like four years, $32 million, and maybe again, we're talking about a little bit more than that because Harrison right now is

set to make a $10.2 million or in his current contract, the average annual value is $10.2 million. So he would want, I'm sure to be a little bit higher than that, a little bit higher than where Malcolm Jenkins is. Maybe we're talking about 13, $14 million. If he wants to go higher than that though, 15 million is Justin Simmons, the highest paid safety in the league. Harrison is 32 years old. I think that's a tough sell. So maybe we're talking average annual value somewhere around the Tyron Matthews, Tyron Matthew, Landon Collins, $14 million a year. So maybe it's a little higher than where Malcolm Jenkins is at. But the point is the structure

would help them in the salary cap immediately by a little bit, and then probably a little bit next year, and then go up two years from now. And at that point, usually the Vikings structure these deals, as you saw with Kyle Rudolph, where after the first two years, they can get out of it without it being majorly problematic. So there's no real discussion there other than, hey, he's good and they'll probably want to sign him. The only conversation for me is, will Harrison Smith want to sign a contract extension with the Vikings? Because if this doesn't work, then you're talking about a lot of guys leaving that signed one year contracts. You're talking about maybe Patrick Peterson,

Bashad Breeland. There's a number of them, Xavier Woods, Mackenzie Alexander, all these players who signed short-term deals, all potentially going elsewhere. And then you're forced to try to rebuild it again through free agency, rebuild it again through the draft and the players that you've drafted the last few years and develop them. And does Harrison Smith want to go through that again? Is Mike Zimmer, the coach is another part of this. I don't have a great understanding for the Mike Zimmer, Harrison Smith relationship, but it seems like it's pretty good. And it seems like no one has mastered Mike Zimmer's defense more and no player is cared about and appreciated more

from Mike Zimmer than Harrison Smith. And that's a good situation for you. If you know your job and you've mastered your job, you're one of the best in the league. And even though Mike Zimmer has his ups and downs, you're that's your guy that, you know, like the devil, you you know type of situation there's got to be a part of Harrison Smith though that thinks what about a Super Bowl we have seen this happen a lot where players get to their 30s and they say is there anywhere I can go where I could potentially win a Super Bowl I'm thinking of like Rod Woodson going to the Baltimore Ravens, that kind of thing. We

see it all the time. Somebody latches on with Kansas City. Every older player wants to go to Kansas City or the Rams are kind of hot right now. So you see players saying, oh, maybe I should go sign with the Rams. Like Golden Tate, I think, listed the Rams on his list. I'm not a huge believer, as all of you know, but like that's what happens. Whoever the hot team is, the older player wants to go latch on and hope to go win a Superbowl. And often if you look at Superbowl teams, you'll find, Oh, I didn't remember that that 30 something year old player wasn't Andre Rison, a member of the Packers when they won with Favre or something like,

you know, these older players looking for a place to land. So would he Eric Weddle did this too with, I think, Baltimore. Would he want to do that rather than signing an extension? If he plays really well this year and they don't have a great season, is he going to believe that next year is the year he's going to be able to win it. But there's also the stability with the Vikings. And the one thing that the Vikings consistently do to make sure these players stay around, other than the Daniil Hunter situation,

but even then, to some extent, they usually give them very fair contracts. And with the Hunter situation, I maybe shouldn't name that one because they didn't have to work this out. They could have sat there and said, whatever, man, you're under contract. And instead they said, okay, okay, let's work out something. Now I think that the Vikings got the better end of the stick there again on the Daniel Hunter situation. But the point being that they're going to go to Harrison

Smith and they're going to give him a very fair offer. If they, I mean, I guess now that I look at it, it's probably going to have to be higher than the $8 million a year with Malcolm Jenkins, but the guarantees were very good. $16 million guaranteed for Malcolm Jenkins that put him kind of in the middle of the league. So if Harrison is higher than that, that's probably where they go. Very few teams will value him as much as the Vikings because they are so familiar with what he means to their defense so for the Vikings there's also another part that you could say look when you're projecting a player out no matter how great he was a couple of years ago if you do end up paying Harrison Smith $15 million a year, which is the money that Justin

Simmons, Buda Baker, Eddie Jackson, the younger players are getting, or Tyron Matthew, who's three years younger than Harrison Smith. If you're talking about that type of money and Matthew's going to get a new deal here, I believe as well, then it's maybe a little tricky because you're sort of repeating history in paying everyone. And how's that going to work out going forward? There's also the part that, and now it looks better that they didn't do something like this because they've rebuilt the defense, but there's always the part of me that will wonder what if they had traded him when they were rebuilding the entire defense?

And again, no one wants Harrison Smith gone. He's a great, great player. But what if in rebuilding the entire defense, everyone else left, they had traded him and gotten a high draft pick back? Where would we kind of be with this right now usually in your team building paying guys who are into their early 30s for long-term contracts for big cap hits it's not always the most prudent thing to do Harrison may be the exception he's very very good it's not like he fell off the edge of a cliff I expect even a bounce back year this year from him but would it would it also be a crazy thing to let this thing

play out for both sides I don't think it would be a crazy thing to let it play out I fully expect that they will sign him but I also think that there's an argument for Harrison and for the Vikings to just let this go and see where it takes us and then decide how does he look at the end of his age 32 season and for Harrison how does the team look at the end of his age 32 season so but I will have my notepad ready for that day one of training camp contract extension announcement I just think it's something to maybe wonder about. Like, would one of those sides look at it and say, maybe we shouldn't? We'll see.

All right. Thanks for listening to this quick take. And I appreciate you guys listening. See you later.