Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - So...why no Vikings trades?

Episode Date: November 4, 2020

Matthew Coller and Sam Ekstrom from Zone Coverage break down the Vikings' lack of movement on deadline day. Did the team get convinced they can compete now or was it simply not a year for sellers? What will happen now with each player who was allegedly on the block? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I thought they were going to happen. We were told that there were going to be trades and there were not any trades. Why were there no trades? They're asking this question in like 30 of the 32 markets today because there were two trades and they were both extremely minor. There were no trades at all. So I guess we got spoiled in previous years. The NFL trade deadline actually got really interesting there for a short spell, kind of Major League Baseball-like. And then today, I'm guessing that COVID-related, you know, you don't want to have to go through the six days of the player and they can't play in the first game and just the unpredictability of the season

maybe kind of put a damper on what teams wanted to do. But, yeah, I mean, to bring it home, the Vikings, wow. I mean, if there was ever a year to sell, and I know they traded Yannick Ngakwe, but with some of the pieces that are just sitting there, I can't figure it out. Obviously Rick Spielman was driving hard bargains and didn't get what he was asking for. I'm going to take a shot at it for the explanation for why the Minnesota

Vikings did not trade anyone. And I'm going to do it without accusing them of getting too high on the Green Bay Packers win. Because I think this is an extra challenge that I, as a professional podcaster, am up for. How are you going to spin it? How are you going to spin it? All right, here's what we got. I think it starts with the price. When Desmond King was traded for only a sixth-round pick, that's when I first –

Could have had him. Well, right. I mean, for a sixth-round pick, maybe if you could or wanted to resign him. But when you look at the Vikings' future in terms of their salary caps going forward, that's a pretty tough one. If you were doing it for a rental this year, it still doesn't make sense even for nothing. But when he goes for a six round pick and he's a very good player, you're thinking, well, what's Anthony Harris going to go for then? How would Anthony Harris get anything more than Desmond King just got when both of them have their contracts coming up after this year? Both are pure rental players. And I think it starts with right there. And then the other part of it with some of these other players is just cap situations like Kyle Rudolph or Adam Thielen.

When you look forward down the road, a lot of teams I'm sure would love to have Kyle Rudolph or Adam Thielen, but they have big contracts and they're under contract for years to come. And I think when teams are looking at their future cap situations, they're saying, well, if we take on Kyle Rudolph, then we have to cut Kyle Rudolph and incur a dead cap hit. And why would we want to do that? And just to circle back to the Anthony Harris or the Riley Reif point, if you eventually just let these guys go in free agency, you get comp picks. So if you get a fourth round comp pick for Harris, then why would you accept the sixth now?

And I'll even add for Riley Reif, he has played so well this year that I would not count out a contract extension for him. I'm sure that he's not thrilled with how the whole Ngakwe thing went down, but he's allowed five pressures this year, which is the second best among tackles in the entire NFL. He's playing really well. Left tackles aren't hard to find. And I think if he plays this well the rest of the way, maybe you extend him, lower that

cap hit for next year and go forward. So even though there's a case to tear it all apart as much as you can, the opportunity and the buyers to give players off to just might not have been there. And I think that's evidenced by the fact that no one else made any trades today. Well, I don't think Rick Spielman wanted to, like, give his players away like Halloween candy. You know, I think that when you've already got multiple thirds, multiple fourths, multiple fifths, multiple probably in the sixth too, I don't know. They've got a million picks.

So do you need another fifth? Like, do you need a fifth for Kyle Rudolph when, you know, you've already got so many of those late round picks? Like, I think the hope was is that you could maximize value on someone like Reef, who, as you mentioned, is playing out of his mind. He's got, like like the green arrow next to his name like the stock is going up where you know there's a number of trade candidates where I think the stock is going down like a Rudolph or a Harris they're not worth nearly as much as they would have been like in the offseason so I think Reef you could have maximized that value and you know sometimes maybe we're too close to the situation we we think guys are worth more than

they actually are. I thought Reif could have bought you maybe a day two pick. I just thought that based on the precedent that was set before in the league with the urgency that some teams badly needed a tackle, and as well as he was playing, I thought you could get real value there. Clearly that wasn't the case. Or maybe they just wanted to hang on to him because they don't want to endanger the life of their quarterback, who, by the way, you still have to pay and you still want to have some semblance of success out there.

With Harris, great point. They'd rather get the 2022 fourth-round pick than the 2021 sixth-round pick so um they'll take that and then you know there were some other bigger bigger fish like adam thielen or eric kendricks the people tossed around and i never thought that was really credible i always thought that those were building blocks rather than trade pieces so um i guess if you spin it the way you did collar so adeptly it does make sense and here's, too, that if you want to tear this roster apart, let's say the rest of the way that Green Bay is the best game you ever play in your life. It's a total fluke, and you don't do it again, even against these bad teams coming up.

Let's say in a couple weeks you lose to Cooper Rush playing quarterback for the Cowboys and Jake Luton playing for Jacksonville. You're just atrocious the rest of the way. I don't think that's going to be the case, but let's just say you end up three and 13 or four and 12. Then you still have the option to move the guys that you could have moved now, but you might be able to move them for better prices in the preseason where you can give them to

someone for an entire year. Plus, there's a lot more teams that are talking themselves into it before a season than there are now there are only a handful of teams that can actually win the super bowl right now when you're talking about in march every team is thinking we're going to be you know much better this year this year's our year kind of thing and you can talk somebody into it and i think of that for and this is what i want to i want to go through the individuals here that were discussed and did not move and talk about what their futures are but i think that the fact that a rebuild is not off the table if you

play horrendously bad the rest of the way and it just looks like this whole thing needs to be taken down and you need a new gm you need a new coach, all that. You can do that still later and maybe get more. There's the other point that if you play really well and you end up 7-9 and you think, well, okay, 2021, we actually should be better because the Ezra Clevelands of the world and the Cam Dantzlers and Jeff Gladneys have all shown massive improvement in the second half of the season. They're ready to take a big step.

Then you say, well, good thing we didn't move Adam Thielen then because we're still going to need him in 2021. But I want to start with the outlook for some of these guys, and I think we can begin with Adam Thielen. The way that I look at this, Sam, is he can be good for a number of years from now. And at his price, it's fine at the moment for a guy who's a really good wide receiver. He's not paid like Julio Jones, but he's also not paid in the lower tier either. So he is good and will probably stay good.

And even if at some point you are starting a rookie quarterback in 2022, you'll be happy to have Adam Thielen on your team. So I think it made sense projecting him forward as a guy that doesn't look like he's going to fall off the edge of a cliff with age. Do you agree with that? I do. I think he's going to age pretty well with as smart as he is and as good a route runner as he is. He might lose some of that straight line speed, but that's not really how he wins. He wins more with savvy, I think, than that raw speed.

And I think he's the perfect guy. And, you know, maybe people are a little sensitive around here because they've seen sort of the attitudes of Randy Moss and Percy Harvin and Stefan Diggs harpoon their time in Minnesota. And you want to make sure your receivers are comfortable, right? And it seems like Adam Thielen is the perfect pairing to put with Justin Jefferson to sort of keep him grounded because he's not really a peer per se because there's like 10 years difference between them, right? Thielen's sort of the grandfatherly figure and Jefferson is this young kid. And I don't think there would be any kind of begrudging between them. And who knows if there really was any of that with Diggs and Thielen.

You know, there's a lot of people like to speculate. But I feel like Thielen is the perfect mentor for Jefferson to have around versus trading Thielen, bringing in like another first or second round pick. And suddenly you've kind of got the two young bucks, I don't know, maybe butting heads a little bit. If you project it forward, feed me the you project it forward feed me the ball no feed me the ball and uh and then you have maybe a bit of a problem you know three years down the road so uh I just think Thielen's uh I think he's still really good and I think that he's only gonna benefit from Jefferson's presence so next year is also a very good wide receiver draft and if you add somebody else let's say you don't draft

a quarterback but instead you draft the kid from alabama who runs insanely fast and is super super good i think they've got two of them smith and weddle um just pay just waddle waddle sorry that's right just pick one you'll be fine um then you try to transition feeling eventually two three years down the road into the jake reed role and maybe he doesn't get paid as much but spends his whole career in Minnesota. And you could see this going well for him as he goes down the stretch. Next year, a $13 million cap hit, not that bad. You can deal with that. Now, as I'm going down the list here, I'm just looking at guys that are not just the ones we were talking about in trades, but people who are right now looking like cornerstones that might have a chance to go somewhere else.

Anthony Barr with his injury this year, I don't know if that impacts the way that they look at his future or not. Eric Wilson has been good. I'm really interested to see more of Troy Dye. Eric Hendricks is clearly an all-pro caliber and I think much better, much more impactful from a week-to-week basis than Anthony Barr was, but it's really hard to get out from under that contract. $7.8 million dead cat money if they want to get rid of Anthony Barr. What do you think for his future and how this injury kind of opens the door for Eric Wilson to prove that could be his job? Well, I don't think you want to sell low on Barr if you wanted to contemplate a trade, and you would be selling low.

I think that his value is just so intangible because it's in the way that teams have to account for the Vikings' defense. It's in the amount of space that he takes up, like his size and the threat that he provides as a blitzer. So I think the Vikings see that, and I think Mike Zimmer has this sentimental attachment to Barr because he was his first pick. I think the Vikings hang on to Barr. And I think Wilson, as great as he is, I just think that Wilson is looking at an opportunity now where he is going to be an unrestricted free agent. He can go to the highest bidder. I don't think it's going to be a Barr situation where he gets cold feet about leaving and wants to come back at a discount. I think he's going to get paid, and I think he should do that.

And I don't know if the Vikings can afford a third linebacker contract, right? So I think you let Wilson walk. You bring Barr back. I don't know if he has one of those clauses in his contract that allows the team to, you know, lower his cap hit and kind of push it out into the future with the signing bonus. But I think he stays. Go to SodaStick.com to get your original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. If you have not seen this stuff yet and you've been listening to this podcast, what are you doing?

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original Minnesota sports-inspired goods. Code Purple Insider for free shipping. $15 million cap hit for Anthony Barr. Even though I agree with everything that Mike Zimmer says about him and that you just said about him in terms of his talent that is ridiculous for what he brings I mean I don't think that he has the impact of the elite linebackers and that's being paid almost edge rusher type of money and that's just not what he does even though again very good I agree with you that he probably stays

because i don't know who's trading for that i don't know who looks at anthony bar the age he'll be getting to the production coming off of an injury and the cap hit and says oh yeah that sounds great let me take that off your hands that would be something that you'd have to add draft picks to get somebody to take yeah who had a ton of cap space. I mean, that would almost have to be like, what was it, Jamie Collins went to Cleveland because they had a ton of cap space and they just were like, okay, we'll take that giant contract. But that will be an interesting one to handle. Here's the thing, just one quick interjection.

So normally having two linebacker contracts that size is no bueno. But look at what they have elsewhere. They've got no big contracts at corner they've got no big contracts at um defensive tackle unless they count shamar which is like moderate like minimal to moderate when pierce comes back it'll be not that bad yeah daniel is the one big defensive end contract so and i think you're going to shed probably one of your safety contracts. So your defense is no longer, like, crazy overcompensated. So you can probably steal from somewhere else. And they don't need to, like, they don't necessarily need to go give big contracts

to corner or, you know, defensive tackle either. So I think they can probably rob Peter, pay Paul, and there's how you keep Barr. Yeah, I think where it hinders you is that you can't sign a veteran this, that, or the other thing. And I think that those guys are really important when you can sign a veteran guard who's decent. Like if they had Josh Klein this year, they're decent. And I don't know what his deal is, but if they had someone like him at left guard instead of one of the worst left guards in the NFL, that's a big improvement. It's a big improvement if they had a veteran corner.

But you just can't afford these people when you're pouring so much money into a linebacker. Harrison Smith and his future. I think he's here. I think he reworks the deal or gets a contract extension, and he ends up being a Viking for life. I don't guarantee that, but I think he stays and will double up. Anthony Harris probably hits the market. Yeah, I think you assessed it right. I think that Smith has proven that he's probably a little better suited to play with shoddy cornerbacks than Harris, who's had a little bit of a tough year. And I feel bad for Harris because he's probably going to lose value because he's a year older and his numbers aren't as good.

Probably won't get the contract that he would have had on the open market last year, especially in a depressed cap environment. So that's unfortunate for him. But I think that he probably walks. It's clear that the team couldn't come to terms with him on an extension because I know they had that window to extend after the franchise tag didn't happen. And I think that's a good move on the team's part. If you're going to extend Harrison, and maybe the team has that in mind, I think they understand that if you're going to have two expensive linebackers, you can't continue having two expensive safeties. And maybe that's a veteran stopgap. Maybe you try to find somebody experienced, cheap, who can slot in a George Iloka type.

I don't know if it's exactly George Iloka. Hey, maybe Curtis Riley is the guy, the guy that just brought in, I think from New York. Or maybe it's Josh Metellus. So I think you can find a second safety without exerting too much effort. Kyle Rudolph. I wonder if Kyle Rudolph, I have no feel for this. We have not talked to Kyle Rudolph in quite some time, which is really unique for the Vikings beat because he's been one of the center guys that is always out there every week. And we

have not spoken to him in some time, but Kyle Rudolph's making a decent amount of cash. I'm sure he is a happy human being in terms of what he's compensated for. But what's he got now? 11 catches through how many games? I mean, that is not what Kyle Rudolph expects. And it is sure as hell not what you're paying for. You are paying Kyle Rudolph elite tight end money or top 10 tight end money for Rhett Ellison-like production where it's a guy

who's mostly blocking for you and not moving him I'm sure is because of his cap I mean who wants to take that on and plus have him for the future maybe you could June 1st cut him but even then that you know hurts your flexibility for you know when it comes to March and signing players and everything else if you're another team taking this on. But at this moment, it is not a good contract. We talk about Barr not being a good contract. Rudolph, bang for buck, not a good contract at all. And I wonder if he would prefer to be somewhere else after this year.

I think our jaws were all on the floor when that initial contract came out. I think a lot of us were assuming this is it. Like, the Vikings aren't going to blink. They're going to win this standoff, and they're going to deal Rudolph, and that's it. Herb Smith's the guy. And then they came to terms kind of at the 11th hour, as they tend to do with these players.

But they've got a pretty nice out here. You know, the dead cap goes down from $13 million to $4.35. So, while you hate to eat that, I think it's a clear decision to make instead of paying the $9.45 cap hit. Rudolph just isn't as effective, and he's gotten out-snapped by Smith in the last two games, and Smith is already a better blocker. I think that much is clear. He pops up constantly on those Dalvin Cook touchdown runs.

And when you have Dalvin Cook in the red zone, who's suddenly this touchdown machine, doesn't seem like they're even needing Kyle Rudolph that much. They're just content to run in the red zone anyway. I think this is the end for Kyle in Minnesota. I think he would have loved to be a lifelong Viking, but his talent does not – he has not aged well, I guess we should say, as an offensive-minded tight end. Yeah, I mostly agree.

I also think that for whatever reason, Kirk Cousins to a receiver the entire time that Kirk Cousins has been here in the touchdown pass in New Orleans but that's the only time that those two guys have ever been on the same page I mean at one point in his Vikings career he's getting targeted 100 plus times and now he just couldn't pay Kirk Cousins to look his way unless the play is like a screen and it's designed for Kyle Rudolph yeah I think that's the only way out I don't think that they can trade him and I think he probably wants to go somewhere where he can have that sort of resurgence second part of his career kind of like Tony Gonzalez in Atlanta like go to a good team at the end of his career and see if he

can win there I don't think there's much future here. And the only reason I think he wasn't traded is probably because nobody wants to take him as a rental and then cut him at the end of the year and take on dead cap. Like that's not worth paying for. The last one I want to ask you about is just Daniel Hunter. And obviously his agent or a source put out that he wants to be the highest paid defensive end of the league or get traded.

Which direction do you think it goes with Daniel Hunter long-term? Got a hard time seeing this team part with Daniel Hunter. And I think if he believes that he is due a raise, he's going to have to explain how, you know, the season-ending neck surgery isn't going to be a problem. Right. What do you think a raise would – a fair raise would be for Daniil Hunter? He's getting paid, you know, 17.7 against the cap next year,

17 the year after that. It couldn't be more than a couple million. What's the top defensive end contract right now? And then coming off a season-ending surgery, I don't see a lot of leverage for him. I don't think he's that unfairly paid. Like Adam Thielen 2016, that guy was unfairly paid. Daniil Hunter 2021, not that unfairly paid. So I, I don't see, um, the Vikings trading him, but I also have a hard time seeing them, you know, give him a raise.

So I guess maybe he's going to just play the holdout card and then try to force their hand. I've never kind of pegged Daniel as that, as that kind of guy, but you know, when you're in rarefied air as one of the best athletes in the league, I guess you, you have a little more power. So I think we just got to see how this one plays out. I've got, we haven't talked to Neil all year. Like we've got no read on what he's going through. You know,

some reports could be probably a bit exaggerated in the media and, and I don't think he's posted or said anything like on social media that would, would be all that sinister. So I don't think there's going to be a ton of movement either way. I think he comes back, and I think he plays, and I think he's good. Even though sports took a break, your business didn't. You have to keep moving, and that means hiring is more important than ever. Indeed is here to help.

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Don't forget to use the promo code BLUEWIRE at BetOnline.ag. That's BLUEWIRE, all one word, BetOnline, your online sportsbook experts. So what's interesting about his contract is looking at OverTheCap.com, his fully guaranteed in his deal was $17 million, which is in the range of Bud Dupree and Preston Smith, who are clearly inferior players to him. Top of the league, Joey Bosa, $78 million, fully guaranteed. So I think that there's something to be done in terms of reworking that

if that's the only way that Daniil Hunter says he'll ever play for the Vikings again. But, man, when you're under contract through 2024, it's pretty hard to say, okay, sorry guys, just tear that thing up. You do see teams like the Patriots tried to make Stephon Gilmore happy by giving him more cash this year before the season. It didn't work because there's still reports that Gilmore is unhappy. But when the fully guaranteed parts of your contract are 50 million less than the top guy and you are a top five player, I think it makes sense to rework it and find some middle ground.

The fully guaranteed is what's going to matter to him much more than what his cap hit is or what is even his average annual value at the same time, man, if you put him out on the trade market and somebody says two firsts or a first and a second, that's you get the cap space you get the draft picks you're still building your team that's where it gets really tricky but the Vikings just don't let these guys go I mean they they really try as hard as they can to maintain all of their talented players and I

think that he goes under that category so now before we wrap up, Sam, and I appreciate your time on a relatively interesting evening in America, which I'm, I'm sure you're anxious to get back to the coverage of, but, what's going on, what's going on in America? We won't get into it. So how many games do you think they win the rest of the way? Like, is this going to pay off for them? Or is this going to be like, oh, okay, well, they kept every one and they're going to have to address it later? I don't think they're going to go win the next five, as I've heard some speculate.

They will mess up somewhere. There's enough talent that they're not going to be a three-win team, but there's also not enough talent that they're going to get on a roll that we saw in 2015 or 17. That's not going to happen. I think they might flirt with 500, maybe get within a couple games of 500 late in the year, but I think they end up settling at seven wins.

They still have to go to New Orleans and Tampa. I think they could sweep that three-game homestand. That's sort of the pivotal point. Like, if there's any hope of them even thinking about being in the race, you look at the next two, and let's say that they beat Detroit, lose at Chicago, or split those two games in some manner, they could sweep the home games and be 6-6. And then at that point, you can at least convince yourself

that you've got something to play for, and absolutely they would. I mean, they'd have a legitimate shot to win nine and sneak in as a wild card. So I just don't think they are going to string games together. I think there's still too much unpredictability. The secondary is being held together by like, you know, bubble gum and duct tape. Still don't know who's going to play on Sunday, probably like Chris Jones and Marcus Sayles. So I think they will win seven. I think six or seven is probably the right answer um you know the the sneaky game that they're going to lose that they think right now they're going to win i think it's dallas because dallas

will come here with probably andy dalton uh back after he gets over covet and a concussion but he'll come back and andy dalton has enough talent with those receivers who destroyed the vikings even when they were a decent defense last year. And all of those weapons, the Vikings have come nowhere close to shutting down a top receiver this year, and Dallas has two or three of them. So even though Dallas is bad and has no idea what they're doing and is poorly coached, McCarthy knows Zimmer. Zimmer knows McCarthy.

It just sort of has that, like you should normally have a home field advantage here, but you won't. You might underestimate Andy Dalton a little bit. He can have good games. He's sort of like Kirk Cousins' light kind of thing. And if you don't pressure him, Andy Dalton will make plays. And this team still, even after watching the game back, PFF gave the Vikings a lot of pressures,

and they took a lot of time to get there, though. It's like one, two, three, four. Oh, and there's a pressure on Aaron Rodgers, who doesn't like to throw the ball to anyone but his number one receiver. So Sam Ekstrom, read his work at Zone Coverage. And you and I also, I don't think I've ever promoted this on the podcast, which is a mistake. We also do Friday Purple for WCCO Radio on their Twitter page, you and I and Sloan Martin and Henry Lake. So people should go check that out if they want to hear more of us together. And who wouldn't want that? Who wouldn't? All right. Sam, thanks

for your time, man. You bet.