Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - What does Derrick Henry's deal mean for Dalvin Cook?
Episode Date: July 17, 2020Read Matthew Coller's work at PurpleInsider.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
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Premiering this summer on Blue Wire. Well, welcome into another episode of Purple Insider.
And joining me on the website, a repeat guest
here because I said the website on the podcast, a repeat guest here, Bradley Spielberger,
who since we last spoken has began contributing to Pro Football Focus, also overthecap.com,
has authored a book, doing a lot of different different things and one of the smart cap guys out there
in the world and we have contract issues to discuss brad how are you doing well yeah finally
had some contracts come through you know a bit of a dead period there but uh that was a little fun
for us cap nerds and yeah i appreciate uh you having me on again um yeah just started with pff
doing a lot of the same stuff that i was doing it over the cap. So just trying to merge, you know, some of that advanced stat data with some of that contract data.
So hopefully some cool things ahead.
So the first time we talked a couple of months ago, it was laying out sort of the landscape of what could be for Delvin Cook's contract.
And you threw out there something that might potentially work for a contract. And we talked a lot about just running backs and what they're facing in the NFL today and potential ideas and all sorts of things like that.
So too much later, since we last talked, we have a holdout from Delvin Cook.
And we also have another running back contract to start with, which is Derrick Henry's deal for $50,025,000 guaranteed.
So why don't you tell me first what you think of Derrick Henry's deal.
I looked at it as being kind of in the reasonable area for somebody that considers himself one
of the best running backs in the NFL, and I wonder how you think that might affect negotiations
with Delvin Cook.
Yeah, absolutely.
So it definitely was an interesting deal, I think, for a few reasons.
Obviously with, you know, number one, the league starting to now maybe realize
a little bit kind of the value or maybe lack thereof at the running back position.
But obviously we still saw Christian McCaffrey, you know, top the market.
And I think what Derrick Henry did is I now kind of view there being
three running back tiers.
There's kind of the do-everythings, which is Christian McCaffrey. He's the highest paid guy there. There's kind of
your scat back third down specialist. That's kind of the Austin Eckler market. He's kind of top of
the market there. And I think Derrick Henry kind of, you know, going away from what like Le'Veon
Bell did and other players might do, is he kind of settled and he kind of said, you know what,
I'm a two down back.
You know, I tweeted last night.
I thought it was crazy.
Derek Henry's four seasons, he's played 1,670 snaps.
Christian McCaffrey has 2,000 snaps the last two years alone.
So, anyway, so he kind of settled into kind of another kind of market,
12.5 per year, which I think still pretty much keeps Dalvin where I had him.
I think Dalvin is probably above that, probably $13, $13.5 million range on a per-year basis.
You know, Henry arrived at that $25.5 million.
It's a little bit above what he would have made over the next two years if he got tagged and then tagged again.
It would have been about $22.6 million.
So they gave him, you know, $3 million extra,
get him under contract for four years.
It's basically a two-and-a-half-year deal.
But, yeah, so I don't think it changes how I view Dalvin,
but I do think it kind of cements kind of the thinking we've had of guys
aren't chasing McCaffrey or Dalvin shouldn't be thinking he's in that tier.
So the difference seems to be how much are you involved in the passing game?
And even though Delvin Cook is very successful when they throw him screen passes, about as
successful as you can be leading the NFL in yards after catch last season. But even though I
personally think he could do more of this, it's not a part of their offense to use him as a slot
wide receiver, as an outside wide receiver. He's pretty much in the backfield,
and that is about it, and he runs a lot more than he catches the football. It's not like it's a 50-50
mix. It's catching it sometimes, running screens sometimes, being a check down sometimes, but mostly,
like you said, first and second down, he's getting the ball, but it does seem like there's a little
more value because he can be in on third downs.
They don't have a third down back. In fact, Alexander Madison is more of a sort of a goal
line guy or a late game closer when the defense is worn down. He comes in and runs over people,
but he's definitely not your Vikings fans would appreciate your David Palmer or something who's
coming in only on third downs. So the fact that Cook, if he's healthy,
can be among the league leaders in snaps taken over 16 games,
I think it does put him ahead of Derek Henry.
Yeah, 100%.
And I think he would still view himself as being in that kind of Christian
McCaffrey grouping, maybe not on the money, but just on, like you said,
like maybe he doesn't line up out wide like McCaffrey does,
but he's not a liability on third down.
You're not taking him off the field on third down.
I mean, Derek Henry in that playoff game against the Chiefs
didn't even see the field in the fourth quarter.
Like you're not even using him when you're trailing or stuff like that,
which, you know, I don't think Dalvin has that issue.
Yeah, right.
Exactly.
No, he's definitely going to be in the game almost
no matter the situation, whether you're up 20 or down 20. The only time you take him out is just
to avoid injury if you're really whooping the other team. Now, with him getting this contract,
though, in Tennessee, it seemed like they were going to play hardball till the very, very last
moments of the deadline before they could sign him rather than having him play on the tag.
And then, of course, Twitter explodes with, how dare you pay a running back?
And I understand that.
And I got a lot of tweets myself that, hey, you know, like if the Vikings pay Delvin Cook this,
it will be a mistake even if they sign the same type of deal as the Titans just signed for Derrick Henry.
The way I look at this Delvin deal, though, Brad, is that every one of these is its own
bubble.
It's not like across all teams is the same circumstances when it comes to the salary
cap.
The Vikings have had a lot of money leave recently, and even more money can leave after
next year.
That, to me me makes Delvin
Cook affordable on a deal like this even though I totally appreciate and I'm sure you do too now
as a PFF member the studies that have been done on running backs running backs replaceability and
the risks that go along with contracts so I would just say really quick right right at first you
know I've already gotten a couple comments about how now that I'm with PFF,
I believe running backs don't matter.
And I just want to say that that opinion was formed well before.
And here's an example why.
As a cap guy who trusts the market and trusts that you always follow the money,
Chris Johnson of the Titans signed a bigger deal in 2011
than Derrick Henry just signed yesterday.
He was the NFL's leading rusher a decade later and signed a smaller contract.
That doesn't happen at any other position in the NFL.
So the money was kind of telling me, again, not that they don't matter, but the replaceability and all of that.
So without getting into that whole conversation, that is definitely a piece of it. But I will say, and I agree with you, that you have to look at things from a relative
to the league perspective and in an absolute sense.
So I'm not going to knock this Derrick Henry deal on a relative scale.
Like I said, he settled below a lot of these top running back deals, and it's a later year.
So, yeah, they're giving a decent amount of money to a running back,
but it could have been a lot worse. No question.
Dalvin is interesting. I don't know. I mean, there,
there is room to create more cap space for the Vikings,
but they are definitely pretty tight.
Obviously with us not knowing how next year is going to look, you know,
from a cap perspective, they could make it work,
but I think that it would just create so many more headaches
and be something of a burden to deal with where you can get him on the last year of his rookie deal instead
or maybe throw him a tag or something like that.
It might be easier to maneuver around or to work with.
And that's where things get really interesting because if he does play on the final year of his deal and is incredible again, you've also got an older version than when you're trying to sign him or considering, but I was thinking about this with Anthony Harris, who we'll get to.
The man is going to make $11 million guaranteed,
so it's not like he's going to really have it super tough.
But that's another thing that the Vikings have to balance here.
If they truly believe that Delvin Cook is far better than what they could
replace Delvin Cook with, which I think that a lot of people
in the organization, including the head coach, do think that. And if you watch him, and I know that this is always like a thing that people
fight about, but if you watch him, there are a lot of plays where Delvin Cook should have been
tackled and he gets extra yards. There's a lot of swing passes where someone else gets taken down
five yards behind the line of scrimmage and he gains 20. So there is always the, oh man, I just watched this guy be really special. Let's say that they do sign him to the type of deal
that you had proposed before somewhere in the David Johnson range. And they can,
how can they spread out the money? Because they can use 2020, right? Like the cap right now to
kind of spread that out. Because I was looking at David Johnson's on overthecap.com and I was like, he makes 13 a year,
but there's never a 13 here.
Well, so the big one there would be that if you're looking at David Johnson
on the site, it's no longer going to include his bonus money
because that money is still back in Arizona.
So if you combine that with, you know, his cap hits now in Houston,
you know, eventually one of those years was going to be at or above 13.
So, but you definitely can, you know, push money down the road.
So, for example, Derrick Henry's tag was about $10.3 million
on the franchise tag.
I want to say his cap hit now for 2020 is down about $6 million.
So the Titans created like $4 million in cap space.
If the Vikings were to extend Dalvin right now going into 2020,
his 2020 hit could probably stay the same.
They probably wouldn't even touch it.
And then maybe also try to keep 2021 down, which, yeah, could benefit them, right?
If you say, okay, the alternative is a franchise tag in 2021.
Let's just sign him now.
We'll say, hey, you know, in return, what you're going to give us is, you know,
low cap fits in the early years, maybe kind of smaller cash flows early on.
You know, they don't do huge signing bonuses in Minnesota, stuff like that.
And that's kind of the game you're seeing now.
Like you're seeing running backs make concessions. Like we had Le'Veon, and that's kind of the game you're seeing now. You're seeing running backs make concessions.
We had Le'Veon, and that was kind of the peak of it.
Zeke went full, hold out, missed camp, wasn't going to accrue a season,
so really went for it.
But I think that we're kind of now seeing smart agents basically.
I think Melvin Gordon's agent probably called around and said,
hey, don't do what I did.
Just take the money if it's there because it's not going to be there.
It could be gone tomorrow.
And I wonder how you think that the COVID-19 pandemic and the potential of not playing a season,
which I think they will, but not playing a season the same, best case scenario,
we're talking 25% of stadiums filled,
at least for the first few months, and then who knows after that.
Everything changes quickly.
But at least to start, you're not talking about anywhere near the same revenues.
What is your understanding of what could happen to the cap?
Because I see reports one day that say, boy, that cap, it's going to go way down.
Teams can't spend any money.
And then, oh, here's Chris Jones with a massive contract.
Here's $500 million to Patrick Mahomes.
Here's Derrick Henry getting $25 million guaranteed.
So the way that they're acting hasn't exactly matched up with, hey, we think we're going
to lose all these revenues and be screwed by the salary cap next year.
Yeah, so what I think is going to happen
ultimately is, let's say it goes down about $70 million. So, you know, let's say we're at $200
million for this year, make a nice flat number. Let's say they lose revenues to a point where
next year's cap would be $130 million if they just left it alone. What I think they would then do is,
you know, five years, $14 million per year would get you that $70 million. And I think they would then do is, you know, five years, 14 million per year would get you that 70 million.
And I think you just take that money from, you know, 2026 to 2031 or whatever years it is,
and just push that money forward to at least make 2021 be flat, which would still cause difficulties, right?
I mean, the teams have experienced, I want to say every year from 2014 to now,
it's gone up at least 10 million, if not more, every season.
So a flat cap would still be difficult, but obviously, you know,
it would be better than negative $70 million.
That's what I expect to happen.
I'd be shocked if it goes down.
But, you know, flat is still definitely a challenge.
But what you're seeing with these recent deals, which is interesting,
is the signal that you can tell that this corona concern is real and that it's affecting deals
is if you look at the cash flows in Patrick Mahomes' deal, it actually lags behind a couple
of the top quarterback contracts.
Russell Wilson is ahead of Patrick Mahomes, or he was on his yearly cash flows, until
year four.
So Mahomes basically is going to get more eventually, but because of Corona
and because of the kind of scale we're looking at, those big monies are going to hit,
you know, in 2023, I guess, this is the fourth year of his, you know,
hard to keep track, a lot of numbers.
And same with Chris Jones.
So that's what you're going to see is the payment structure and the way these
guys get their money will be impacted more so than, you know,
the market actually coming down or, you know,
Dalvin taking 10 million a year because that's what it looks like now.
If that won't happen,
he'll just maybe take the cash flows of a guy who signed a 10 million a year
deal while still signing a $13 million a year deal.
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And as an aside even
though the 500 million thing looks amazing for Patrick Mahomes I thought well done by Kansas
City with this deal when I was looking at the over the cap breakdown they can it looks like get out
of it uh in relatively short order now it's not like you're locked into him for 10 years so that
was kind of fascinating and a lesson on just how the salary cap is not a myth,
but it certainly is not as it appears is the way that I would put it.
I asked Rob Brzezinski once, like, is it a myth?
He's the cap guy for the Vikings, if people don't know.
And he's like, well, you know what really helps is ownership who will pay cash is what you're getting at.
Then you can make it more mythical if you
want. But now the Vikings franchise tag Anthony Harris, and this was an interesting one to me,
Brad, because safety value is not as high as some other positions, especially like edge rusher,
where it seems like the contracts have gone almost too far with how much edge rushers are being paid. Where do we stand with safeties if the Vikings eventually do want to sign Anthony Harris to a long-term deal down the road?
So when I look at the safety market, it's really two things for me.
You know, as you mentioned, now being at PFF, you know, kind of being able to look behind the curtain a little bit,
we have safety as one of the top five most important positions in football.
So there's no question as to, you know, how valuable players are at that position.
But for me, if you look at, like, going over to cap.com and just go to the safety page,
just kind of listing them by how much they're being paid, there's 30, 40 really good safeties
in the NFL right now.
So I think the big issue is a lack of scarcity.
You know, the Broncos had, I want to say they tagged four players before,
and all four of them were able to come to an extension before the deadline.
Justin Simmons, safety out in Denver, was their first guy they couldn't agree to an extension with.
Obviously, the Vikings have Anthony Harris in the same position,
but there may just be a disconnect on the value there.
You know, I think Jamal Adams is looking to really blow that market through.
It's at 14.6 now, Eddie Jackson highest paid safety.
I bet Adams wants to top Christian McCaffrey at 16 million.
That's probably around his floor.
But, yeah, you know, I think the big issue really is just that when there's that much talent
and replaceable talent, I mean, Anthony Harris is an undrafted free agent himself. So I think teams are also kind of realizing they may be able to
find a decent safety elsewhere. And I was looking at the 2021 crop of safety free agents. And I
mean, it's a bunch of proven good players and a lot of guys that you could probably put next to
Harrison Smith who would play pretty well, which does not downplay what Anthony Harris did.
When the passes came his way, he picked them off.
That's not easy to do.
In the playoff game, he made a huge play and intercepted Drew Brees.
He intercepted Aaron Rodgers.
It wasn't like he was only getting picks against bums.
I think he had, what, two against Matt Ryan.
So, you know, he has proven to be a ball hawk and a very good player
and a valuable
player whose wins above replacement because of those interceptions is going to be high. But the
question is always, can you find someone else to do it? Because Anderson Dayho played next to
Harrison Smith. And I look at it as kind of like in hockey, there's a kind of thing of the center
usually drives your success and the wingers are often a product of your success and there's a little bit of that going on here the Vikings though will spend this
year over 20 million dollars in the cap on safeties if they were to stick with Anthony Harris if he
leads the league in interceptions again hard to do but let's say he has great PFF grades again they
love them they want him to stick around I, how much is a reasonable amount to be spending on safeties? And in your mind, is it impacted by other positions and how
much they're spending? Because I look at this team and say, they're not going to have to spend on the
cornerback position for some time unless they make a big signing, but everybody is pretty young
in that position. Yeah. So it definitely is a consideration of, you know, a GM where you're
looking at, all right, how much are we allocating to a specific position group? And I think the
bigger question, as opposed to looking at yourself, would more be looking at the rest of the league,
right? So if you're the only team spending, you know, 30 million per year on two safeties,
and the next highest is, you know, 20 million, like you're
probably not getting great value for what you have, right? But I mean, they're both elite safeties,
right? I mean, Harrison Smith and Anthony Harris are among the best safeties in the NFL and you
want to keep good talent. So, you know, I'm sure they were trying to trade him. Maybe that, you
know, didn't get a deal they liked. If he played, if Anthony Harris plays to the level he's been playing the last couple years,
again in 2020, I don't see how they get him for less than, I don't know,
$15.5 million, $16 million a year.
It does help, you know, the fact that he's an undrafted free agent.
Generally, you can get better deals with those guys.
You know, he also may not have been afraid of the franchise tag because I'm
sure it's – I would bet he's making double what he's made in his career so
far just this year, like you mentioned.
So, but yeah, I mean, there is a consideration, but I think an important point at the end
there you said is that, okay, don't just look at safeties, look at our secondary and let's
expand it up to the secondary allocation.
Okay, if every corner is cheap, then yeah, we can have Anthony Harris, maybe the best
ball hawk or one of the best ball hawk safeties in the NFL, you know, making up for that ground.
And a big thing for me, too, is if you think the position market is behind, then it doesn't really hurt you to spend big there.
By that, I mean the tight end market has been at $10 million a year since 2014 when Jimmy Graham signed for $10 million a year.
So when you sign an awesome hooper, everyone says, oh, he's the highest paid tight end
in the NFL.
Yeah, but what is that really doing to the team where, like you said, the highest paid
edge rusher, now you're paying $25 million a year.
A different story.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And, you know, the Vikings have had this sort of back and forth with Kyle Rudolph, but for
as many touchdowns as he catches and as reliable
as he's been, he probably is worth that type of dollar, especially now the difference between
those two positions that's fascinating is there's like five tight ends who can play football in the
NFL and everybody else has just got a jersey. And in safeties, it seems like there's, you know,
two dozen guys who are very, very good. I want you to explain, Brad, kind of
philosophically speaking, when you are looking down the road at a team's contract situations,
how you can spot where these things are going to go. Because I was thinking about Daniil Hunter
the other day, and Hunter's deal now looks hysterically bad for his side. I mean, just
compared to what other guys have gotten,
oh my gosh, like it's the greatest deal in sports. But as you know, his agent also realizes that,
and this probably won't go a lot longer. Next year, he's supposed to have a cap hit of about
17 million. So I kind of use that like, all right, well, where's his dead cap? And you know,
is his salary cap hit too high? And could they lower it? Does he need a new deal? I just kind of do a lot of guesswork there.
Tell me how you figure out where these things are going to go when you're looking down the road at contracts.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I would agree.
The Neil Hunter, I think I wrote this before 2019.
I think I said it was the best contract in the NFL.
Or, you know, on a value basis, it's $14 million a year. Yeah, I mean, that's the beauty of signing, you know, on a value basis, it's, what, $14 million a year.
Yeah, I mean, that's the beauty of signing, you know, early extensions,
obviously.
They locked him up, and he's obviously continued to just be a dominant player.
The tough part there, though, is, so, A, they already did a restructure last
year.
So they converted a bunch of base salary money into signing bonus, which he,
of course, got up front, which, you know,
appeases the player and is helpful.
But it obviously, you know, boosts that, you know,
the prorated money down the line.
So we talk about dead money.
Those numbers all increase.
The tough part, though, is that, and the Vikings in particular are very,
you know, particular about this, is that it's all about precedent, right?
And so when you have a guy who I think after 2020,
he'll still have three years left on his extension,
when you redo a deal like that, the next guy along is going to say,
you're going to say, hey, you know what, yeah, you're a sub, we love you,
but we're not going to extend you with three years left.
Maybe there's one year left, maybe two.
And they say, well, yeah, but Daniel got a new deal
and he had three years left, so why not me?
And that's really tough, but teams do deal with that.
And so it'll be interesting.
You know, like if I'm his agent or if I'm Daniil, I'm probably saying, like,
why would you play again until you get a new deal that's worth at least, like,
$19, $20 million a year?
You know, he's still young.
Like, he's probably around the same age as Miles Garrett.
Every time I look up Daniil Hunter's age, it, like, still shocks me every time.
So, yeah, it's tough.
But for me, it's really looking at, like, can they afford to do it on a, you know,
team-wide, like, organizational-wide basis?
You know, can they set that precedent?
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The Vikings are just trying to figure out what they have in a Fadi Adenabo, and he's older than Daniil Hunter. So that how Kirk Cousins' initial contract for $84 million over three years
and his extension, how they kind of look in the light of day.
Because he signs that extension, what, first day of free agency?
And then it's all set.
We thought this was going to go all summer long with Cousins' side
and the Vikings, and they were going to wait until Mahomes got his deal
and see what happened with Dak Prescott. Didn't go way at all so now how does it look for cousins yeah I
think the relationship there is just is just stellar I think that that front office and Kirk
just love each other honestly the whole building so I think when you build that trust which they
established really in the first free agency you, kind of letting him get that fully guaranteed deal,
letting him break the mold and all of that.
He obviously is coming off of back-to-back franchise tags,
so couldn't have had less faith and less trust in the organization
he was coming from to the new one.
I think those two teams are probably polar opposites in terms of how they're run,
and we'll learn more about that.
Apparently in the next day or so we'll see.
But, yeah, so really what it does is it enables you, like you mentioned,
that happened right away early March.
It enables the team to figure everything else out, right?
I mean, imagine if they were trying to shop a franchise tag Anthony Harris
and they didn't have Kurt's situation figured out,
and they're trying to figure out what they're going to do with Everson,
all these things.
Just when you have the QB in place, and this is the beauty of the Mahomes
extension too, is when you are an NFL team and you know what you have at QB
both financially and, you know, just on the field,
everything else in your job is just easier, right?
Like everything just becomes simpler.
You just worry about the rest of it, which is all small potatoes compared to that.
But, yeah, so his deal looks fine.
I mean, what, a three-year 84 with like a $28 million average was fine.
And as we always talk about, you know,
a quarterback's only the highest paid for 10 minutes
and the next guy comes along,
I think that'll probably change for a little bit here.
I think Mahomes' number's going to stick for a couple years.
But, yeah, if you can get a Kirk Cousins-level quarterback
around $30 million a year, given where the market is now,
you can't argue that's not even a good deal, it's a great deal. I know people love to make fun of
Kirk Cousins and all of that, but the way I look at it is basically a quarterback, if you're a top
12, you know you're a top 12 quarterback, which I'm confident in saying Kirk Cousins the last
two or three years is in the top third of the NFL. If you can get that guy in a reasonable contract, you're looking great.
I've called it the Kirk Cousins line because if you're going to get paid on a
massive contract, you have to be as good or better.
It's sort of like you have to be this tall to get on this ride.
It's like you have to be this good at being the quarterback and totally agree
with you on the point about Washington where he was vilified quite a bit when
he was in Washington for the way that he played that out but when you look at that organization
just from their ownership and on down it's pretty clear that Cousins made the right move to go out
and with Minnesota where I think that it hurt them a little Brad in the $84 million deal was and this
is getting into the beat writery minutiae of this but they had a couple of guys who were good at
their jobs that wanted just a little bit more than minimum money and they weren't able to keep them
and the people who replaced them were terrible at their jobs so you went from Jarius Wright who was
a good average player and I know you pull up his pro football reference page and your eyes are going to pop out of
your sockets.
But when it came to big situations, third downs, you had a number three receiver you
knew would run the right route and be open and catch the ball.
And another guy, Jeremiah Searles, who was a backup offensive lineman, but he played
a lot.
You know, offensive linemen get, and they had a reliable person.
And over the last two years, I think that we've seen those little tiny crevices and areas kind of hurt them a little.
But I do think with this deal, with his extension,
there's going to be less of that if the cap does stay flat.
Yeah, no, I think when you sign, you know,
this whole conversation about what you have to do once you sign that big contract quarterback
and how do you work things around it, there's just less margin for error, right?
So I think like you mentioned, like, but this is the beauty of what the Vikings do really more than anyone else is the draft picks, right?
And so when you have the big money quarterback, the only way you can supplement that is to have really good players on cheap rookie deals
and have enough guys in those spots.
They're not just contributors.
They're true, like, they're not just role players.
They're true contributors.
They're playing, you know, at least 30%, 40% of snaps on offense or defense.
That enables you to, like you said then,
maybe get a little bit of extra cash here and there to your mid-tier guys.
You know, a guy making two a year wants four a year.
And like you said, you couldn't do it in the past.
Maybe now you could.
So that's how you balance it.
Obviously, these draft picks have to hit.
And Kirk has to keep playing at about the same level.
But that's when you start getting crafty.
You start getting smart about how you fill out the rest of the roster.
I think they'll be better this time through as well.
Like I think when you get them as a free agent and you don't even know if
you're going to get him, you don't
truly prepare your roster for that
hit. Maybe obviously you think it's a possibility
and you have. I'm sure there was some
spreadsheets somewhere that had, alright, if Kirk
is this, then what does everything else look like?
But I think they still probably had to adjust
a little bit and really tweak things.
Now that it's their guy that they're
extending that they've had for a couple years
and they've been planning on it, I think they'll do a better job of, like you mentioned,
just kind of retaining those important, you know, sixth offensive linemen and stuff like that
that really do make a big impact at the end of the day.
This is a great point, too, about just their trajectory even as a team
because in 2014 to 2015 and 2016, that's where that roster was starting to be built
on the backs of a lot of
players who were on rookie deals that they had drafted high because they were bad before. And
then they're starting to, you know, come up as a rising roster and develop players under Mike
Zimmer, a very good coach when it comes to development. And then they peak in 2017 as a
roster. All those guys are in their prime. Some of them are either just getting paid or not paid yet and by the time they signed Kirk they're actually on the other side of that
mountain a little bit and now they have an opportunity with a lot of the old money that's
moved out and these young players and draft picks moved in to hit that peak with Kirk Cousins
potentially maybe not this year but potentially 2021 or or 2022. So it'll be an interesting thing to
follow along because I think that there were a lot of Vikings fans who questioned, do you really
want to extend him? Has he kind of shown you what he is? But he might get a second bite at the apple
of having a team that's really competitive if things work out with those draft picks, which we
know is not always the case. You are, Brad, a must-read, a must-follow.
It's BradOTC.
Are you going to change that to, like, Brad underscore PFF or something?
Are you going to be one of those people?
I was going to ask if I'm allowed to or, you know, what's the statute of limitations
and what I got to do to earn that title.
We'll see.
All right.
Well, follow him now at BradOTC, Bradley Spielberger,
one of my favorite people to follow and learn from in the industry.
I appreciate your time, man.
Great stuff.
Thank you for having me on as always.
Always a blast.