Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - The Vikings restructured Kirk Cousins' contract -- what does it all mean?

Episode Date: March 14, 2023

The Minnesota Vikings restructured Kirk Cousins' deal to kick money down the road and create cap space for this year. Does that mean he's in his last year as a Viking? Will it restrict them in the future? Dr. Eric Eager of the SumerSports show joins to break it down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar along here with Dr. Eric Eager of the Sumer Sports Show and Sumer Sports, where he co-hosts with former NFL general manager Thomas Dimitroff. And we have really big news to break down. Eric, the Vikings have restructured Kirk Cousins' contract. And if you even just take a little peek over at the comment section here in our StreamYard box, what you can tell is that this thing is being debated quite a bit by fans today. Is it great move by Kweisi Adafo-Mensa because it sets them up for the quarterback of the future or is it uh 2024 salary cap wtf because they are

going to take a 28 million dollar dead cap hit if he leaves i feel like this needs to be a parsing through the facts of what is going on here before we even analyze whether we like it or not but uh hello by the way thanks and thanks for joining us. Yeah, it's great to be here. It's great to hang out, talk football. Yeah, there's a lot to digest here, right? I think, you know, you look at all the moves last year and into this year, the, you know, funny, everything that you guys reported was all true, right?

Like ownership told them to play, you know, to play everything that you guys reported was all true, right? Like, ownership told them to play, you know, to play out last year, try to win. They did a bunch of things that were good for 2022. And they won, you know, they went 13 and four, lose the playoffs. Now, it's like, okay, it's fun's over time to rip the-Aid off. They cut Adam Thielen and they don't post June 1 it, which means they're eating 13 dead here. Eric Hendricks, a Ring of Honor player, he's gone. You do, you know, you kind of leave open the possibility for Cook, Smith, and Smith. You get a couple free agents that kind of make sense for the future,

and Josh Oliver, you know, Marcus Davenport, although it's just a one-year deal, you get a couple free agents that kind of make sense for the future and josh oliver you know marcus davenport although it's just a one-year deal it kind of sets you up for franchise tag possible extension if you were to be good uh in this new brian flores defense and then the cousins thing happens right and so they they open up the caps there's a very very clear path to opening up enough cap space to be compliant this year. If you cut Harrison Smith, Dalvin Cook, CJ Hamm, restructure Brian O'Neill, and cut Zedaria Smith, like all that is consistent with what they've currently done. And instead, they not only, they don't extend Cousins, but they do sort of extend

Cousins' financial burden on the team by adding two void years onto the deal and spreading out his $20 million roster bonus into what is now a signing bonus. Right. That is what they did. So let's talk about what we like and don't like about it. I mean, I think that it makes sense from the perspective of they are not locking themselves into Kirk Cousins being their quarterback in the future if they do not extend him after this deal, which this deal makes it so much likely or less likely for him to be extended and much more likely for him to be gone after this year. And they were going to pay this dead money

anyway. They just chose to split it between this year and next year, as opposed to pay it all this year. That's the part I don't like. It makes sense to give yourself quarterback flexibility. You could draft a quarterback this year if opportunity arises. You can draft a quarterback next year if you get to the end of the road with cousins, you decide now is really the time to draft a quarterback, put that player into the mix. Hopefully at that point, if you're the Vikings, you're saying we've got Justin Jefferson locked up. So we don't have to worry about whether he's under contract or if he's going to sign it and not knowing who his quarterback is. So all of those things make a lot of sense.

The problem is that I have just stood on the ground of do not hurt yourself for the future with the salary cap. That if we were making out off-season goals, that might've been number one, do not hurt yourself for the 2024 cap. Because if you think Bears fans are having fun, well, that could have been you and they were going to take on a 12 million dollar dead hit for next year but that's extremely manageable considering how much acrobatics that they had to do to make this all work but 12 million dollars wasn't too bad in void dead cap space 28 million dollars will probably make them a top 10 team in terms of salary cap hit for their quarterback

for someone who's not playing here. And that part of it is the hardest part, especially if they did it in order to keep Delvin Cook or in order to keep Harrison Smith, players who are not going to be a part of this long-term thing. That's why just last night, someone was asking, hey, do you think it's a rebuild or what's going on there? And I said, yeah, I mean, we're leaning that way. We're leaning toward the rebuild with a Marcus Davenport move, which to me is an A plus. It's just such a great swing at a player

who has potential to be very good for a very low price. And if it doesn't work out, who cares? And then they swing back the very next day and do something that does hurt them. And then you add even more void years to the point where this is like, I saw someone on Twitter compare it to Bobby Bonilla. You're gonna be paying for this for the rest of existence

and at least for one year. So say they were to draft Will Levis this year. What's the big thing we always talk about a million times over and over is the rookie quarterback contract. For one year, it completely negates it. For two years, it still makes it harder. Instead, you're still paying the quarterback position a decent amount of money for really the next two years. So it does actually make it so you don't get that advantage. And I know people have brought up,

well, the cap's going up, it's going up for everybody. Well, other players are having their contracts come up. They're gonna have a lot of cap space. True, but not as much as they would have had had they not pushed 16 more million dollars down the road. I think it would have made more sense in my mind if they just said, let's eat this 30, what was it going to be? $36 million cap hit for this year, work around it, move the guys we need to move and try

to replace them with players who might be something for the future. Now it feels like this is potentially being done so they can add other pieces. I don't know if that's Odell Beckham or whatever other veterans that they might be going after, but that's kind of what it looks like is, oh, we've got some other people on our radar. We better create this cap space. So it's not just about being compliant, at least is how I'm interpreting this right now. Yeah. I mean, they might want to keep Dalvin Cook. They might want might want and you know my my colleague former intern at pff as well teach that you can look at his website for rushing yards over

expected like dalvin was terrible last year he had a few like long runs that obviously were great um but for the most part as a running as a runner he was he was wasn't very good at all like and and i know quacey has that data i know he's making a decision with that in mind um you know harrison smith is another one like i think obviously he's still an asset to this team but you know is he going to be an asset 2024 and 2025 that's a good question um you know they they i actually really like the garrett bradbury signing it's basically you know what you would get if you took a center and like you know know, early in the first round type of thing. But yeah, Cousins is going to be around their neck for a while.

And I know somebody said, oh, it's not it's not 28 million. It is like the way void years work is like if you were to extend him, then you spread that cap out over the course of the void years. But if you void the contract, then all of that dead money gets accelerated to when you void it. And so it would all come on next year's cap. So there is like a little bit of a chance that Cousins does get extended. The problem is, is the extension. Cousins has already been paid this money. This is the point of it.

Like he's already, that $20 million roster bonus that they just converted to a signing bonus, that was going, and that's part of the cap flexibility. You have roster bonuses sometimes because if you have a good cap year, for example, last year, the Chiefs with Patrick Mahomes, they paid all of Patrick Mahomes' $27 million roster bonus, but it does give you the freedom to convert that and spread it out over five years if you want to, or the length of the deal, whichever is longer. So he's already made that money.

So if you extend him, you basically add $28.5 million cap charge to whatever extension he gets, which we know, given his agent is the fact he's a first ballot Hall of Fame agent, is going to be top market so everybody's like oh Kirk's only the 11th biggest cap hit this year yada yada yada it's like no you have to look at the long-term you know handcuffs that he's put on this team you know the

roster is the way it is because of his previous deals and the roster is going to be what it is because of the subsequent like either you're signing him on and it's 28.5 above and beyond that or you're letting him go and it's 28.5 just next year dead and that to me like again it's just the gift that keeps on giving it's the exact opposite of for that is what Cousins has been to the Vikings. And it just makes me question. Because I think, you know, Quasey comes from, you know, Niners are a very well-run organization. The Browns, we have people that work for Sumer that used to work for the Browns.

Like, I get what he's doing in a lot of situations. Like, it makes a lot of sense relative to the other analytical clubs. And then what he does with cousins makes no sense sometimes. And yeah. And that's so the point about the 28 million that you're saying is you are dead stuck with it. It is dead cap for next year. It is what it is unless he signs an extension, but it also is what it is.

Then you can just spread it out over the other years. So you still end up having to pay for it. And this is where we, when we say kick the can down the road, but eventually that catches up with you. That's why we say it because it does like, that's how everything works. And I thought Andrew Brandt on Twitter put it really well the other day when he said, you can make the cap not exist for one year. You can't make the cap exist for more than six months, basically. Or one player. Right. The cap is, yeah.

And I wrote an article for Summersports.com, if you want to look at it, about what a restructure does. Essentially, and this is going to be important for the Vikings. You need, because the cap does go up, as you said, but it goes up for every single team, right? So it's not exactly an edge and it also goes up at a rate that is basically slower than the top end deals go up right so you can say the cap goes up as a reason to fill your roster with like team like what the

bangles have with von bell and and uh chidobe woozie and guys to fill the depth spots the middle class players because middle class contracts in the league there there have never been more players on minimum contracts than there have been now the middle class in the nfl is going away and it's because the top end deals grow at a rate of 12 to 15 percent a year and the cap grows at a rate of of eight to ten percent so when it comes to guys like cousins it actually you need the guys play to either stay flat or to increase at at worst not decreased at the same rate or you know more quickly than the the cap value of a dollar does and the guys being being 35 years old.

He declined a little bit last year when you look at efficiency and stuff. That's just a bad gamble for the Vikings. And if you cut him, he's obviously a zero value to your team, right? So you're paying 28.5. You have a negative 28.5 surplus. And everybody will talk about like, oh, your cousins has played at a surplus. If you look at PFF war or whatever last few years like yes but when you finally get to the year where they move on from him you're going to be paying 30 ish million dollars for something that's not happening on the field

anymore and that and and unless you have a super bowl to show for it unless you're the rams unless you're one of these teams like i don't really give a crap that your quarterback was on a mini surplus for a few years. It becomes at the charge of that and your, and your roster is desolate as a result of it. Well, and this feels very much like what other teams did with say, Drew Brees or Tom Brady, where the Tampa Bay Bucks are paying a lot for Tom Brady.

And well, you know, that's okay because they got Tom Brady and they got a Super Bowl and even bringing back Tom Brady, he's the greatest quarterback of all time. So you can make that make sense in your mind pretty easily. And with Drew Brees, the teams that they continue to run back over and over again, those were teams that were going into it competing for a Super Bowl every single year. So maybe you could argue that last into it, competing for a Super Bowl every single year. So maybe you could argue that last year they were competing for a Super Bowl by winning 13 games. And what they did in terms of extending Kirk Cousins ultimately ended up working out for them.

But when you look at it right now, it just made so much sense in my mind for them to let this play out, work around the huge cap hit, and then be free of it. And then just shake it off and move forward with your life at the quarterback position, as opposed to still being hamstrung for another season. Because the whole impetus of everything that I've been talking about of why it made sense and what they're doing and moving on from guys. The central to that point was that rebuilds don't have to take long. And by next year, you can go into next year's free agency saying, oh my God, we have so much money to work with because Kirk Cousins is off the books. Our rookie quarterback is coming. We could stack up a defense for Brian Flores if he's still here, assuming that he is, you can add other weapons that you want to add, and you can just have a party. It'll be the most fun March that you'll ever have in your life next year. And this was

like rain on the parade of that looking forward and saying, Oh, they're going to be able to be that team that spends like mad next year. Oh, by the way, around Justin Jefferson, Christian Derrissaw, TJ Hawkinson, and these already really good players that they have. Now it looks like, yeah, you're not going to be completely screwed for next year because some other players are coming off the books and you can make the space and everything else, but it's not like you have the blank check to fill up the roster around whoever your quarterback is. Now, I was talking to our friend Brad Spielberger about this from PFF, their brilliant cap expert, who's been on the show a number of times. And what he said is, look, the bottom line is

that this means it is not going to happen for an extension. Very unlikely. It's not impossible. It's the Vikings. It's Kirk Cousins. You never know. Somehow his agent could just come in and work a little witch doctor voodoo, and then they just do whatever he wants. I knew he had pictures of Spielman. I had no idea that... I'm just kidding. Don't finish the joke. Don't finish the joke. Because we're live and I can't edit it out. But when it comes to that being the bottom line though and now seeing the end of the road even though they have harmed themselves going into 2024 that they've made it harder on themselves for that uh if they play this year and try to win do everything they can sign other free agents with this money that they've made and let's say

they cut zedaria smith we'll see what happens with harrison smith they've made. And let's say they cut Zedaria Smith. We'll see what happens with Harrison Smith and Delvin cook, but let's just say they fill out the rest of the roster. It's spending free agency draft someone so forth. And then you go into next year with the plans to move on. I still think the bottom line of this and what this says, and based on what the owner said, what NFL networks reporters have said every arrow kind of now points to it being the most likely scenario that this is the last year of Kirk Cousins and

ultimately I think that you take that even if the route to get there is not necessarily the way I would have done it yeah I think that yeah and I tweeted this out yeah this is not what I would have done but you take the good with the bad and you look I think that frankly the Vikings act as though their fan base really wants to try to win every year and I think with the exception of a very small but very vocal subset of Vikings fans the I think these Vikings fans get it they look at Chicago like look at Chicago. Look at Chicago. Chicago's made the playoffs how many times in the last few years? They made the playoffs in 2010. They made the playoffs in 2018. They made the playoffs in 2020. They made the playoffs three times in the last decade or so, more than a decade. They're terrible last year. They're

incredibly hard to watch for a number of different seasons and they are the most hype fan base in the NFL right now why because they got a young quarterback they tanked they got the number one pick they traded it they're able to get all these people in like people pretend as though winning nine games is going to get you more hyped up that and I know they won 13 last year. We all know it was a Mickey Mouse 13 wins. And they think that, like, I think most Vikings fans want that feeling, the building feeling, right, and the excitement there rather than the, yeah, that's great, beat Taylor Heineke on the road by three, grinded out a win against Mike White,

had to come from behind against Matt Ryan and a terrible Colts team, coached by Jeff Saturday, had to use a 60-yard field goal to beat the Giants and then lost to the Giants at home in the playoffs, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? And I think the Vikings fans want to experience this. And the Vikings, you know, kind of brass acts like they want nine wins every year. And I promise you, I don't think that that's the case. I think that it's okay every once in a while to have bad seasons. And, you know, we've only seen that a few times in Vikings history, right? 2011, 2013 really were the, you know, the kind of bottom-out years.

Prior to that, it was like 2001, 2002. You know, they've been few and far between for the Vikings. But the water's warm, right? And I'm going to write about this for Sumer next week, and I wrote about it for PFF. But basically, like, the most transient state in the NFL is being crappy. Like, meaning the water's warm. You'll eventually get to above average if you just let the game play out a little bit.

And there's not a ton of value in being average or simply a little bit above average. And I think, again, moves like this, and we'll see where he goes from it. We'll see what he does with both Smiths. We'll see what he does with Cook. We'll see what he does with Hunter's contract and O'Neal's contract.

But I don't think there's a ton of value in trying to win eight or nine games this year. And I just think a Cousins kind of gives you that floor, you know, for better or worse. And I wonder if they're going to look back and say, wow, we could have really used a guy at the trade deadline in 24 to get over the hump. Or we could have used a guy at the trade deadline in 25 to get over the hump, or we could have used the guy at the trade deadline in 25 to get over the hump. And we just, we had, we had dead cap space because we made decisions in 23 to try to win a few more games next year. Yeah. So to touch on a few things, what you mean when you say transient is if you're trying to go from not

great to the top, if you're trying to get to the top, the best route is not from the middle and being an average team to trying to get to the top. It usually has to mean you have to make a pit stop at bad. And even for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2020, they had to make a pit stop at bad, clear out all of their cap, move on from a lot of those types of players

that were expensive and older. And then eventually, you know, we're able to stack the roster around stack draft capital, which is a huge part of this around Jalen Hurts to get to the Super Bowl. So it's harder to go from the middle to the top than the bottom to the top, which seems counterintuitive, but is also true. I also wanted to touch on a few things here. This makes it untradeable, period. Lamar Jackson, dead. No conversation about it. It cannot be traded. You can't trade dead cap money and try to add it on and throw it in there or something. It doesn't work that way. And if they were to trade him right now, the Vikings would take on a $38 million cap hit for Cousins this year,

were they to trade him. so that would not be good and not make any sense so that's not happening like the only options here are extension or play out the rest i also wanted to throw this one up on the screen because i think this is one of the the opinions of rationale or rationalizing that we're seeing a lot which is well they have a lot of cap space for next year it's fine? But they'd have even more cap space if they didn't do this for next year. And also when you lose a lot of players, you have to use a lot of money

to fill all of those positions that you lose. So that's not better. 97 million under the cap is middle of the league next year, in 2024. Like that's not an accomplishment and there's only there's only 26 players on the roster allocated to that right so effective cap space is more in that 77 million dollar range which you look at some teams Patriots are effective cap 147 Texas are 142 Panthers are 11, and they have the number one overall pick this year. Bengals are 112, and they have Joe Burrow. Titans are 120.

Falcons are 112. Bears have the bounty this year, and they're 100 above. You're still not competing for the top three agents with that much money. I'm sorry. And so it's that, but it's also you have Jefferson coming up. You have Hawkinson coming up. And these are going to be the cheap years of your extension for TJ Hawkinson if they sign him, by the way. And actually, it's kind of weird.

I know what they've said about him, but I do think that there is a chance that Hawkinson plays out this year. I could be wrong. I'm very likely wrong, but I think that there's a non-zero chance he plays this year on the option. But Jefferson and Hawkinson, they become more expensive. Those are guys you want to have around for a while. Christian Derrishaw, that guy's going to become expensive, et cetera, et cetera. So again, it's one of those where cap compliance is not an edge. Having cap space is not an edge,

unless it's more cap space than everybody else. And furthermore, one of the things that Quasey was supposed to be for this franchise, and I think he still might be, we'll see what happens in the draft, is gathering a bounty of picks, right? They only have five this year. So there's not a ton they can do to sort of like, hey, I'll give you this year's two for a two next year or a two and a four next year and they pick up 12 picks and that's where their ammo is like they have 97 million in cap space and their normal allotment of picks if not i think actually less because they've traded some in the future as well so it's not as good as it looks and and so the the point is like this year could have been a year where it looked bad,

and then the following years were better. Now it's like it's going to be a little less bad because, you know, somebody asked in the comments, like, what about the positives? The positives are you're going to have a pretty good quarterback playing for you this year. And that, you know, that's a, you know, he is a good quarterback. The negatives are everything else downstream because, you no matter how good he is he's not going to improve he's 35 years old he's going to be the second uh most uh second oldest quarterback in the nfl starting this year and and and so on so that that's i think that the tough the tough

part of this yeah and when we talk about that cap space, as you mentioned, you're only talking about about a half a roster. So you have to fill the whole other half of that roster, but a quarterback position as well. That means that if you draft a quarterback fairly high in the first round, that player actually does make money. Now, the surplus is really that's the whole point of the rookie quarterback contract. And if you're essentially giving away a year of that, making your quarterback position a lot more expensive for 2024, that's just harder to take advantage of the biggest advantage in the sport. That's kind of the whole point for why you wouldn't want to do this. And it just feels like they did this to make sure that they could either keep

one of the guys that they would have had to let go otherwise a Harrison Smith or a Delvin Cook or they're doing it because they have a plan to sign somebody expensive within the coming days that they just don't have enough cap space for I don't think that it's just cap compliance that they were after because cutting Sedarius Smith would have gotten them at least in the range of cap compliance by itself. So there does feel like there's something else there. And, you know, they can certainly make this an exciting off season if they sign Odell Beckham or something. I mean, that would be, that would be a, you know, quite a move if you're replacing

Adam Thielen with Odell Beckham, who does have a connection with Kevin O'Connell. And you're going for absolute broke in the final years of Kirk Cousins and trying to have the best possible offense you have. Although I think if they want to improve their running game, they need a different running back. As you mentioned, there's lots of evidence to point that they need someone else running the ball, not just the blocking tight end, which I had no problem with them signing, by the way, because when you look at the deal it's actually totally reasonable yeah like those are roster decisions that i think like that's a win then move right like marcus davenport is a win then move

even though it's a one-year deal it sets you up to have options like everything other than that makes sense garrett bradbury makes right? We know offensive linemen, especially interior offensive linemen, they progress more slowly and no one progressed more slowly than that dude. But like he actually like was above replacement this year and he gets a decent contract. And now you have, now you have team control over him again. Look, there are good parts of this team. And I think that allowing the 2023 season to be a a good spot.

And, you know, this was the one hammer that I think we all looked at and said, please don't use this. This is the one that you don't have, you know, in theory don't have. But we'll see. Yeah. I mean, there is some argument and I'm not trying to make this, but it is makeable that if they had extended Kirk Cousins in a way that they could trade him after next year, then maybe that would have even been a more favorable option. I sell that so much. Like we said this last year, we said, Oh, this Kirk Cousins extension sets them up to, and like, there must be.

And like, I I'll probably call around and see if this is the case, but I don't have any, I don't have any information about this, but like Kirk Cousins must not be that sought after in the NFL. Like he must, I feel like the way he acts and also what happens, he probably has more value to this team, at least perception wise than he does to any other team. Cause yeah,

like we said that about last year's contract, like we're all like, well, this doesn't seem like the right move, but at least if he plays well in 2022, then we can trade him in 23. And like, it never happens.

There's never, there's always some other quarterback that these teams want more, you know, Derek Carr, Jimmy Garoppolo, Aaron Rodgers, Derek, you know, all that. And then last year was Matt Ryan, Deshaun Watson, Baker Mayfield. Like, there's always, like, wherever, and there's a lot of disagreement on Kirk, wherever you slot him in, right, mid-tier quarterback, kind of trashy quarterback, above average, there's always a

quarterback in the market that other teams want more at that slot and so he's just hard to trade which is like the biggest reason why you should move on from him anyway like the endowment effect is so strong with this quarterback in this team and this team kind of has a tendency for that no matter what i mean think about this if and we don't know what's going to happen and we're going to do another show later tonight because we might have more answers by the way so if you're enjoying this now keep an eye on the channel maybe 9 9 30 later on tonight depending on how things play out but it is remarkable how often we see the vikings paying someone a cap hit that no one else would sign them for if they were to hit the

open market. And just with Adam Thielen as an example, last year, how much they were paying Adam Thielen. And if you would put him out in the free agent market last year, who was paying him that same amount? That was the case with Kyle Rudolph. That's the case with Delvin Cook at this moment. I think that if teams are calling about Delvin Cook, they're not offering second round draft picks for Delvin Cook. They're offering fifth round draft picks because they're not looking at somebody who has a huge amount of value based on his contract versus what he has recently produced. And yet I'm still sort of sitting here, getting the feeling that Delvin Cook's going to be back at a contract that really makes no sense versus what he produces. So that is a trend for this team and it has gone past. It has transcended Rick Spielman, because I think that with Rick

Spielman, we put a lot of it on Rick, what are you doing? Why are you overpaying? Why are you extending? Why are you giving too much? And now it looks like at least at this moment, and we'll see what happens with some of these other guys that they are still going to kind of scrap and claw for this year to hang on to as much as they can. I mean, this isn't quite the Yannick Ngakwe move, which was just out of this universe crazy in 2020 to trade a second round pick and then not have plans to extend Yannick Ngakwe or keep him long-term. If they had extended him, it would have been different, but they kept him for five games or something and traded him.

But it's kind of close in its restrictive nature for the future. That was the big problem with the Yannick Ngakwe move is it took a second round pick out of your pocket. And even though they recovered a later pick, it wasn't the same as getting a second round draft pick. And it still hurts you for almost no gain. And next year it's hurting you with this cap hit for literally zero gain, except for the only gain is that he's not your quarterback anymore. And we don't know for sure that that's actually a gain because that depends on whoever the next quarterback is and how well they play. But it does seem to be something that happens all the time with them where we're talking

about, yeah, they should move on from this guy. It's time, his production, his projections, which you guys at Sumer Sports and formerly at PFF were doing all the time, trying to project. And Timo Riske was great at this, showing how much value a player produces after a certain age can give us the age curve. And we're all, over the last few years, we had been waving red flags at certain players like Delvin Cook, like Adam Thielen, and they just powered right through. And then they wake up and go, you know what?

Thielen didn't have a very good year i guess he's not worth it it's like they need to see it completely fail or make it totally impossible to keep the player before they actually move on and that's happened way too many times well and this is where i i you know somebody in the chat said you know i didn't think of the ownership influence i mean there is i mean you think about it with Adapo Mensa, like, clearly, he'd been in the league for a long time, part of winning organizations. I mean, shit, the one year that he was with Cleveland, they made the playoffs and won a playoff game for the first time in two decades, right? So, like, very clearly has been around good programs and all of that knows age curves. He knows these things ahead of time. Like there is going, there is some, I mean, there is,

there is an influence by more than just him. He doesn't get to, or, and even Kevin O'Connell as well. Like the coach has some influence. I mean, if you listen to my podcast, the super sports show with Eric Eager and Thomas Dmitrov, like Thomas talks about it all the time, how Arthur Blank would tell him, look, you have seven million dollars of cap space do not roll that money over sign another guy right well okay but you get into that and now that seven

million apy turns into a uh a 10 million dead cap the following year and so and you're locked into these things ownership doesn't understand that they They just say, go get your guy. And, you know, oh, we got to make it work with Adam Thielen. Well, the problem with Adam Thielen's deal was if you restructured it, you were going to get stuck holding the bag of $13 million this year. And it was very clear, like the tweets are out there, very clear that he was declining right and so that's i think the problem like we we all we we we we give a and i like to you know i think he's made some good moves i think josh oliver's good

move i think marcus davenport's a good move i the hawkinson move is interesting you'll see how it goes but like there he he is certainly working within the constraints of what ownership is, is, is asking him to do. And that is, and that's going to yield some things where we're maybe giving him too much blame for things that he, that he has to sort of work in. And that, that optimization problem. And I always told this, I said this to my former boss, Neil Hornsby at PFF. I said, look, like every single moment of every single day, I'm going to make everybody a little bit single day, I'm going to make everybody

a little bit pissed off. I'm going to make my wife pissed off that I'm at work. I'm going to make you mad that I'm at home. I'm going to, you know, all this kind of stuff. And I think Adolfo Mensah, of course, like there's going to be at every single moment, he's going to be irritating the people who want Kirk gone, the people who want Kirk on a five-year deal, the people who want, you know, former Vikings on the roster forever, rebuild people like there's

there any you know they're trying to like find a happy middle and I think unfortunately in the NFL the happy middle sometimes is difficult to navigate yeah so when you talk about working within the constraints of ownership this is where there's just a part of me that wants to reject that because who isn't? I mean, imagine if you were Washington football team's general manager in previous years. Imagine you work for the Dallas Cowboys and you work in their salary cap department

and Jerry Jones just decides that he wants to keep Ezekiel Elliott. I mean, there's a lot of teams that are working under owners that have a lot to say about what's going on, and you just have to make it work. You know, I think that that goes for everybody in the NFL almost, and it's just something that you have to still find a way to convince them or find a way to make smart moves around it.

And it's just hard for me to sit and say that adding $28 million or, and it's really 16 more than it was. So it's adding 16 more million dollars in dead cap space was the best possible option, unless it was totally demanded a hundred percent, you cannot move on from Delvin Cook, and this is the only way to do it. But I mean, I don't know how those conversations go between ownership and the general manager. That's where you as the general manager have to find a way to say that can't work. So I think that when you have the GM hat,

then you come along with the criticism and we can't just continue to say, well, look, they didn't make smart moves, but it was probably somebody else. We didn't do that for Rick Spielman and we shouldn't do that for Kwesi Adafo-Mensa. However, I will say that there still is opportunity to set themselves up for the future with making the right moves this off season. you brought up Garrett Bradbury and I was conflicted on the idea of signing Garrett Bradbury back because in part, when I saw what guards were getting, it was like, Oh no, that's way too much. If that's what interior offensive linemen are going for. But then there were two other offensive linemen or two other centers who signed for like three for 18. And that probably set the ceiling of,

you're not getting more than those guys who played just as well or better than you. So this is kind of what it is for your market for Garrett Bradbury. And it turns out to be a three-year deal worth about $16 million. Totally reasonable for the price. As you mentioned, if you were drafting a first rounder,

that's what you would pay. And there's this thing with centers where if you have the best Jason Kelsey, that guy is worth a ton. If you have the fifth best or the 15th, it's probably not that different. If you have the 28th, it's horrible and it ruins your offensive line. It's kind of a funny structure for that position where it's not like a straight line down of what it means to have that guy so having someone that's the 10th best center in the league despite the fact kenny clark will still pick him up and launch him from minnesota to green bay uh it's

good to have that for a middle price and for multiple years and this was always the thing if you're gonna sign players make it marcus davenport where he might be something good for you down the road if you're going to sign players sign a garrett bradbury who is not old is ascending having just played well and make sure you get him for a good price over multiple years and i think that that fits the bill as things that they should do during this offseason yeah for sure like Like you said it perfectly, right? And we've written about this at Sumer. And back when I was at PFF,

you want to go to sumersports.com on the weak links part of like the article we wrote. But like centers can be strong link in the very, very slim case that the guys that Jeff Christie or Matt Berger, you know, bless him by the way, Jason Kelsey, those kinds of guys, or it's all about the weak link. Matt Burke or, you know, bless him, by the way, Jason Kelsey, those kind of guys.

Or it's all about the weak link. And if the guy's a ragdoll, that hurts your offense much, much more than the benefits of him being great, right? And I think Bradbury has ascended to the role where he's not a ragdoll anymore, but he's not elite. And so, obviously, if you didn't get a good price from you can move on from him but um there there was a a benefit to to keeping him and now you look at the offensive line look you got and and there was a there was a comment there that said like they got kept guys too long because they couldn't they didn't draft very well i'm sorry but like the spielman drafted two vikings ring of honor players all poor players derr Derrishaw and Jefferson the last two years at two premium positions. Like, and it's funny because I don't want to get on a rant here,

but like everybody's like, Oh, how dare you do like a rebuild when you've got guys like Jefferson and Hawkinson and Derrishaw on your roster. I'm like, buddy, every single team has good players on it, including the Vikings. So like, you know, to, to stop, to not team build well because you have great players is silly.

The offensive line now is going to be an asset for this team. You have two tackles who are very good. You have the two guards are questionable, but guard doesn't matter that much. Center is kind of okay. And once they move on from the quarterback, I think that there's going to be a lot less pressure on the interior offensive lineman, as you've written about on your website so eloquently.

He's really tough on those interior players. So, again, I think that's a move where we talk about win now versus win then. That's a win then move, right? When you get a Caleb Williams in here, when you get maybe a Trey Lance in here or something like that in the future, there's pass protection, right? There's pass protection. There's a continuity there. The best Vikings offenses that have ever played, right? The Stussy McDaniel, Christie, Dixon, those guys played five years together, right?

That's the kind of thing you're trying to go for here if you're Adolfo Mensah. And I think retaining Bradbury, maybe the fourth best of that group, is still sort of investing in that group. Yeah. And I think the only concern is just that this year, and this is possible, teams attacked the guards so much because they knew there was a rookie on one side who had no idea how to handle most things, but especially when they threw stunts and twists and stuff like that.

And on the other side, still Ezra Cleveland is inexperienced at the guard position. And he also struggled with anything complicated. And those two gave up tons of pressures. So it's almost like, is Garrett Bradbury's PFF grade, his tape, is it a little inflated? Because in previous years, they were attacking him. And then instead, they moved over and started attacking somebody else. Although maybe that will continue if they continue to struggle at guard but I do agree that you know continuity matters here and this is why this also is why with Ezra Cleveland there was some rumor of

extending him before next season and I would say don't do that because you should wait to see if he has the same sort of jump and development as Garrett Bradbury. I do think Garrett Bradbury was better this year. I think that continuity is a huge deal for them and that they should try to keep these guys together and evaluate Ed Ingram to see if he can develop from possibly the worst guard in the NFL last year to being serviceable or average, which still won't be worth the draft pick. The thing about the draft though is, and this is like, how do we sort of deal with this when we're evaluating what Adolfo Mensah does, is they missed on a ton. They missed on a ton of defensive players, defensive player after defensive player. They drafted two corners in 2020. Neither one is still on the team right now.

They cut both before their end of their contracts. They have not drafted a pass rusher. So now we're talking about having to spend $13 million on Marcus Davenport because you haven't drafted any pass rushers who have developed. And if you look at what Kweisi Adafo-Mensa inherited from those contracts, if you are directed to try to win, there was only certain ways that they could really deal with those contracts last year. And one of them was, of course, doing what they did with like Adam Thielen and stuff like that.

So you were going to have to ultimately hurt yourself down the road. So there's just like a lot of complicated moving parts. And yet it's still you have this opportunity that if you check off all the boxes and you manage the cap correctly and you don't hurt yourself for the future, you're still in position to replace those defensive players through free agency in the future. But now it's like, there's so much pressure on this next draft and this previous draft to hit because they're still not going to have oodles of money to just make up for all their mistakes.

And I think that's the part that maybe goes missed sometimes is, yes, it always depends. Do you hit on your draft picks? That matters for everybody. It matters all the time. But how much margin for error do you have? And with Kirk's contract, the other big deals they gave out to everybody, Anthony Barr, Kyle Rudolph, they made the margin of error so thin for the draft that when those players went

bust it it just it just ruined their defense well you just have and and i'm i was a gambler before i joined sumer like you just talk about outs right like how many opportunities like we look at the you look let's just look at the high draft picks since since kirk cousins joined, like, you know, you have Mike Hughes, right? And again, I think corner is a, you know, premium position. But when you look at, you know, look at the Lions, the Lions just got Emmanuel Mosley. They got Cam Sutton in free agency. Corner is a position that you can access in free agency if you have money, right?

Defensive end is not, right? And I know that they had griffin and hunter but like when you look at where they've spent their premium picks since 2018 you're looking at corner tackle worked right let's not even brian o'neill worked then you're going center tight end running back in the top three rounds of 2019 those are none of those are premium positions right you can access all of those in free free agency so yeah the Marcus Epps not working out Chris Boyd not what do you expect Chris Boyd to be he's a seventh round pick right and then you go to the next year Justin Jefferson

that's a hall of fame player Jeff Gladney okay that's another corner but you can access corner in free agency Ezra Cleveland's a starter for you Cam Dantzler was a starter for you. DJ Wanham, he's a defensive end in the round four. What do you expect to have happen? And then in 2021, you're like Christian Derrishaw. Christian Derrishaw's an all pro in this league. And then you have no second round pick. Then you have Kellen Mond. Kellen Mond's a quarterback.

What do you expect to have happen there? And then furthermore, then this year you have seen Boone and the jury's out. But like the people that talk about how the Cousins era went kaput because of the drafts, they don't get that the drafts were trying to fill needs that you could fill sufficiently in free agency if you had the money. The place where you, and they've done great. The place where the premium spots, the tackles, the wide receivers,

they've done fine in the draft. It was them thinking they needed to use a draft pick on a center, them thinking they needed to use a draft pick on a tight end. Newsflash, when's the last highly drafted tight end that did well in the first three, four years of his career? Never. Irv Smith is the rule, not the exception. And so, again, the Cousins are going to be here for another year.

Once Cousins is gone, I implore this team to take better gambles. Take defensive ends high. Take tackles high. You know, take wide receivers high. I mean, Jefferson's an exception for them. The fact that they don't have depth wide receivers is because they haven't used a round three or better pick on a wide receiver other than the one that stefan digs gave them every so this is they're not getting unlucky they're getting expectation from all their drafts and the expectation is lower because you had to use the draft for things that free agency would have

given you if you weren't hamstrung by the quarterback's contract since 2018. That is, you know, that's 101 why they're not, they're not in a great position right now. Right. And when you, yeah, when you go back and this goes from pressure to win right now, and this is why I thought this year might be different because I thought, is there pressure to win right now? Is shouldn't be for next year. There should be pressure to build a long-term, sustainable team that can have a window that opens up for five years, three to five years, which is maybe the best, unless you have Tom Brady or Brett Favre that you can ever have. But even if you have a good quarterback that's a rookie, it's the guy's rookie contract. It's kind of your window when it opens up.

And if you're prepared for that and you're set up for that, that's when you can really succeed and compete for a championship like a team like Philadelphia just did last season. And so there is a major element of Kweisi Adafo-Mensah still paying for the sins of his predecessor. And I mean, look, you signed Garrett Bradbury. You could say that's a success since you drafted him and you re-signed him. And that is the way some people look at success is whether you've decided to keep the player, but ultimately they've drafted. And this goes into the Kwasi era, a second round guard, a first round center,

a second round guard. And they led the the league that trio in quarterback pressures last year that's a lot of draft capital that was put into a position where they did not succeed that you could have signed free agents if you had the money but instead it was desperately filled desperately fill that spot and oh sign jesse davis and hope that it works out or dakota dozier and this is a position that the whole thing about this is not to relitigate what's happened, but to say they should be doing everything they can to shake free of these chains, which they will now not necessarily be able to do by 2024 and not until 2025, because these chains are usually the restrictions of the quarterback contract. So that's why today

is in my mind, Eric, very significant for what this all means. But let me, let me finish on this. Cause I know you're busy and I don't want to take up your whole day. Cause we could just continue to talk about this for hours. And sometimes we do. But Aaron Rogers looks like he's going to the jets because all of his receivers signed with the jets. And you know, I could ask you what you would demand from a team if they were signing you, but I already know because Sumer did it, um, for PFF. But so how about, but how about this though? You grew up in Minnesota. You've got Randy Moss sitting behind you there. I mean, not having a quarterback named Aaron Rogers or Brett Favre is going to be

absolutely crazy for Vikings fans. Most people have never watched the Minnesota Vikings when, I don't know if I should say most, many, many, many people have never watched the Vikings when one of those guys was not in the division. Think about that. The last time, and we're about the same age, we were kids. We were little kids at the last time. I don't remember. I started watching football in like 94. And I've gone back a lot. But I've never seen the Packers. I mean, there was that 2013 year when they had Seneca Wallace, Scott.

I've only been to Lambeau once, and it was a game started by Scott Tolzien. So I've gotten, you know. But you had Brett Hundley. You had some Matt Flynn games, but for the most part, it's been these two guys. It's crazy. By the way, Haley English, done a great job for you so far. One of my former interns, can't wait for her to get to watch her actual quarterback play for the Jets. I did like the nickname Schroemer Esiason for him. That one ended me the other day, but no no i this will be weird man i actually think

jordan love has a chance i've my my quarterback opinions have evolved since he was coming out of utah state i didn't really think he was that good but um it would be the worst beat of all time for vikings fans if jordan love was actually good but you know it'll be it'll be interesting to see i think um it'll be tough for them to get out of it. I mean, Rodgers, and this is a lesson for Vikings fans. Like, the Vikings, every single time they've gotten close, have screwed over any subsequent chance of winning because they tried to win the 98 Super Bowl in 99.

They tried to win the 09 Super Bowl in 10. They tried to win the, you know the 2017 Super Bowl when they signed Cousins and all the Packers tried to win the 2020 and 2019 Super Bowls when they bought back into Rodgers in 2022 and now they're stuck and like they're going to take a huge hit and I think that that is unlike the other two times they moved on, right? Brett Favre was the Packers quarterback before the salary cap and before free agency. That's how long ago it was. And then when Rodgers obviously emerged, there was no fifth-year option. The Packers were actually able to get a very cheap deal on Rodgers after the first six

starts that he had that would never happen now because of the fifth-year option and all that kind of stuff. So the Vikings might luck out because the Packers just don't have the goods to make Jordan Love good, but there's always a chance. I'm gambling against it, but I do think, you know, I like Matt LaFleur. I honestly think, like, he's a good coach and stuff, and I think Love has a non-zero chance, but Vikings fans should be rejoicing today.

Well, I think if you're Green Bay, you're just hoping that you're sure about it after the end of next year, that if he goes six and 11 and throws 27 interceptions and 12 touchdowns, well, then you'll know that would be like a Vinny Testaverde year back in the day for the Tampa Bay Bucs. But the hardest part is probably the most likely scenario, jordan love goes eight and nine and ends up with a 92 or three quarterback rating and it's like totally not sure whether he's good or not and then you have to sign him to an extension and no one knows what to do kind of the daniel jones thing is the worst thing that can happen to you because you get to the end and you

go i think it was good did you guys think it was good? It was kind of good. And they could end up in that same spot. But yes, I mean, I think that Vikings fans will not count out the possibility he becomes one of the best quarterbacks of all time. But I don't think it's likely. It's much more likely that they are confused by the end of next year. So a fascinating time in the NFC North. And again, we could spend all day talking about it,

what the Bears are doing, the Lions beefing up their cornerback position to be able to take on a Vikings dynamic passing game next year and maybe stop anyone's passing game next year, which they could not do last season. But I know that you got to run. We will be back on the channel here if you're watching on YouTube,

though later tonight, Jonathan Harrison and I, our usual Tuesday night get together. So if more things happen, we'll be breaking them down then. But make sure you check out. And I'm not saying this because we're friends

or that you come on the show all the time, but I listen to the Sumer Sports Show, S-U-M-E-R, Eric and Thomas Dimitrov. It is not often that you can just find a two-time GM of the year, sharing all of his insight on what it's like to be in those decision-making positions. And Oh,

you're there also, uh, Eric breaking things down. So it is a really good show that you guys have developed over the last couple of months. And I've become a big listener to it as you'd expect. So thanks so much for your time and thank all of you for taking the time to listen.

We're kind of in the middle of the day here, just firing it up at random. And so many of you join participated in the comment section, 98% of you respectively, which I really are respectfully, which I really appreciate and makes doing these live very, very fun. So thank you as always for anybody who joined.

Thanks, Eric. And we will be back very very soon thanks eric