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Minnesota Vikings Team Thread (4 Viewers)

Bracie Smathers said:
I don't believe I've heard of this before.

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Vikings PR @VikingsPR

Andre Patterson and Adam Zimmer have been named as the @Vikings co-defensive coordinators:

https://vikings.com/news/vikings-announce-updates-to-2020-coaching-staff…

3:36 PM · Jan 27, 2020·Twitter Web App

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Have to ask Viking fans if they think its a nepotism play with Zim's son as one of the co-defensive coordinators and if so when  does Klint become co-offensive coordinator?
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It could be a problem?

I don't think Zimmer will ever really give up control of the defense, so does it matter that much who the DC is?

Zimmer said he wanted to take some time to think this over and to not let recent events cloud his decision. Well I don't think he can be objective about his sons performance as a coach and Patterson has earned that title, Adam Zimmer has not.

Kubiak is the OC but he is grooming his son to become a coach in the NFL as well.

Some are speculating that Gary Kubiak could become the head coach of the Vikings if they do not do well this season and ZImmer is let go. So Clint Kubiak becoming the OC is relatively close to something that might happen in the near future.

Hopefully they do well enough for Zimmer to keep his job. Only time will tell.

 
Hov34 said:
Am I the only one that want them to let Cook walk?  I do not want to pay a RB top 5 RB money in today's NFL.
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No there are a lot of folks who agree with this. RB do not matter in the NFL meme and so on.

I love Cook, I think he is a special RB I wouldn't want to pay him that much either.

Given his injury history the Vikings shouldn't have to, but Cook has to get paid because who knows how much longer he can even play at that level? I am guessing not many more seasons.

Matybe they can work out something reasonable, otherwise I think they should let him walk, get a comp pick.

Of course Zimmer will likely want to move heaven and earth to keep Cook.

 
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I agree with both of you. Really love Cook as a player, but in this league you just don't pay RBs top dollar if you want to compete for a championship. They're too easily replaceable and I don't want to see another bloated Peterson contract hampering the team.

If Cook was willing to accept an extension that gave him a raise but was still team friendly, then heck yeah I'd want him back, but why would he want to limit his short window of earning potential? He should want to get paid and history tells us there's always going to be a team like the Jets who will do it.

 
5 takeaways from Mike Zimmer’s NFL Combine media sessions

Zimmer does seem pretty confident that something between the Vikings and Griffen gets worked out. No idea what the price would be. I am a little nervous about the price being high, like it was for bringing back Barr and Rudolph, which are moves they made last year that has them in a difficult cap situation right now.

Griffen did play pretty well although I thought the Vikings should have used him more inside than they did prior to the Saints game.

 
-arcK- said:
So it's looking like almost the entire defensive backfield will need to be replaced... 1st round CB again?
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Could be.

Zimmer and Spielman have both talked about how good this offensive tackle class is. So that may be the direction they are leaning for the 1st round.

Depends on who is there of course. Corner and defensive tackle are also big needs.

Sadly it does not seem like they will make Harris enough of a priority to sign him. So there is another downgrade to the secondary if they don't. Which makes defensive back a greater need as well. I suspect they replace him with Sendejo. We know he isn't as good in coverage as Haris.

 
Biabreakable said:
Could be.

Zimmer and Spielman have both talked about how good this offensive tackle class is. So that may be the direction they are leaning for the 1st round.

Depends on who is there of course. Corner and defensive tackle are also big needs.

Sadly it does not seem like they will make Harris enough of a priority to sign him. So there is another downgrade to the secondary if they don't. Which makes defensive back a greater need as well. I suspect they replace him with Sendejo. We know he isn't as good in coverage as Haris.
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It is a great OT class, and I say that as someone who has major concerns about Mehki Becton.

CB and OT seem like the biggest needs to me too. 

I hope they do re-sign Harris. It might be a minority opinion, but I thought he was arguably the best player on the team these last 2 seasons. He and Smith are 2 of the top-5 Safeties in the NFL, and I'd hate to break them up. We saw how much the Chargers D missed Derwin James, and how much the Bears D missed Adrian Amos(and they had a decent replacement in Ha Ha) I would be very nervous about the back end breaking in new starters at CB and S.

In my opinion, Safety(especially guys who can cover) has become a much more important position in recent years. I think once upon a time, it was often the least valued spot on the team, and was sometimes just a dumping ground for CB's, who were too slow to stay at CB, or undersized LB's. Now its a major position, and arguably as important as anything else short of QB, and CB. 

I guess what I am saying, is Harris should be the priority this off season in my opinion. Keeping him is more important than adding anything else at another spot. Keep him, and worry about the rest later, because having 2 elite Safeties can(and has) cover up a lot of other issues.

 
travdogg said:
It is a great OT class, and I say that as someone who has major concerns about Mehki Becton.

CB and OT seem like the biggest needs to me too. 

I hope they do re-sign Harris. It might be a minority opinion, but I thought he was arguably the best player on the team these last 2 seasons. He and Smith are 2 of the top-5 Safeties in the NFL, and I'd hate to break them up. We saw how much the Chargers D missed Derwin James, and how much the Bears D missed Adrian Amos(and they had a decent replacement in Ha Ha) I would be very nervous about the back end breaking in new starters at CB and S.

In my opinion, Safety(especially guys who can cover) has become a much more important position in recent years. I think once upon a time, it was often the least valued spot on the team, and was sometimes just a dumping ground for CB's, who were too slow to stay at CB, or undersized LB's. Now its a major position, and arguably as important as anything else short of QB, and CB. 

I guess what I am saying, is Harris should be the priority this off season in my opinion. Keeping him is more important than adding anything else at another spot. Keep him, and worry about the rest later, because having 2 elite Safeties can(and has) cover up a lot of other issues.
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I agree 100% about Harris.

Just accepting the reality of the tea leaves that it seems the Vikings are not willing to pay Harris what he is worth. This may be entangled with their overall plan that will not allow them to pay top $ for two safeties, even though both players have earned it. So Smiths contract may be a factor in this decision as well is what I am saying. Harris has played great. Hard for me to say Smith was better than him.

 
I really like Harris as well, but I think re-signing him is just not going to happen. He wants to get paid big bucks, and I can't blame him. In an ideal world we'd be able to keep all our guys but that just isn't reality. There are going to be times when we have to watch a good player walk. The bright side is if he signs a nice contract somewhere that will mean a comp pick.

 
Harris is 29 years old so this is really his only shot at getting paid well. He played on a 2nd round RFA tender last year as his first decent money in the NFL.

If the Vikings had not signed Rudolph to a new contract last year they would have money available to sign Harris is basically how I see it and in my opinion Harris was a more important player to keep. At least Rudolph blocked better than any year before.

 
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Where do the Vikings stand with analytics?

Multiple sources in Indy said that Zimmer’s pushback against some uses of analytics is a point of contention within the organization. At the podium Zimmer more or less laid it out: The front office is among the most progressive in the NFL and he sees the role of numbers as less useful. One person with knowledge of the Vikings’ analytics usage said that they are in the upper tier of teams using data to evaluate players, especially at the NFL Draft. Spielman has gone into detail in the past about how the team uses Combine scores to “clone” players. One example would be the number of late-round defensive ends who are tall with long arms and strong three-cone drill scores that the Vikings have picked over the last number of years.

“We go all the way back to 2005 now, and what we graded them as college, what they ended up being with their pro grades, how they ended up performing and you take those two and then you start, that’s when the analytics come spinning back in,” Spielman said in 2018. “And we’re to the point now where you can say… ‘out of the 2,500 traits that we looked at from effective commitment in a psychological score to his arm length to a short shuttle, those were the three most important things at the offensive center,’ OK, they spin it through their algorithms and bam, ‘This guy is similar to that guy that came out in red,’ or bam, ‘This guy is similar to that guy that failed.'”

But when it comes to advice on the coaching side, the analytics department’s advise is falling on deaf ears more often, sources said.
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He then gives some examples of game management decisions on 4th downs that may or may not be in alignment with what the analytics might say about those decisions.

There does seem to be a lack of alignment in philosophy between Zimmer and the analytics. By the numbers the analytics will always be right. Doesn't mean they are right for the specific situation at hand, these are just probabilities based on averages after all. I think this could also be a good thing, as you have push back from Zimmer and more debate about the decisions instead of just following a chart. Ultimately the decision on these things is Zimmers, and as he points out, its him that will be fired for the outcome of those decisions, while the guys doing the research on this will not. 

I have worked with data enough that I don't think it answers anything definitively. It does give you a look at what will most often be correct, doesn't mean it always is correct.

I am still stunned by the idea of 2500 different traits they have for each player.

 
Wow! Did not expect a 3rd round Comp pick...everything I was reading was a 4th. 

To me that is a huge difference for what to expect in the draft as far as movement (either up or down) during the draft itself. Will definitely make the draft that much more interesting for the Vikings!

 
FunkyPlutos said:
Wow! Did not expect a 3rd round Comp pick...everything I was reading was a 4th. 

To me that is a huge difference for what to expect in the draft as far as movement (either up or down) during the draft itself. Will definitely make the draft that much more interesting for the Vikings!
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Plus 2 7ths!! So now Rick won't have to move down to purposely stockpile 7th round picks. He's already got them!

 
According to this the Vikings now have $20 million in cap space. Almost $8 million will be spent on the rookie contracts based on the picks the Vikings have right now.

$12 million isn't much to work with. The Vikings could save another $3 million cap space by cutting Shamar Stephen. Beyond that the only other cost cutting move I see is if they were to cut Riley Reiff, which would save another $8 million or so cap space.

They seem to want to sign Dalvin Cook to a long term deal. The Vikings didnt have a 1st round pick that year, so no other high profile young players needing extensions.

How should the Vikings spend this $12 million?

 
I hadn’t put much thought to cutting Joseph, but it made sense to cut him and Rhodes if it put the team +20M. Time for Zimmer to earn his keep luring/drafting value adds on D. 

If Reiff can +8M, they could take that and use a portion of the 12M to upgrade LT. Or they could draft LT and use Reiff’s 8M toward LG upgrade. 

I wouldn’t extend Cooks above the market of viable FA. RBs kill a team’s cap, and are injured too often. It’s a very draftable position.

Draft

1. LG/DT

2. LG/DT

3. CB

3. OL

4. DE

5. DT

6. LB

7. S

7. DE

7. OL

7. LB

 
Vikings signed QB Kirk Cousins to a three-year, $96 million contract.

Cousins was entering the final season of his three-year, $84 million contract, but the Vikings didn't want to play games with their franchise quarterback It's a two-year, $66 million extension, one that will lower Cousins' 2020 cap number. He'll now be under contract through the 2022 season, and we can assume he'll be near the top of the quarterback market in annual salary. It's certainly debatable if Cousins has what it takes to get the Vikings over the hump, especially with an aging defense, but he'll collect his Sam Bradford-level paychecks while Minnesota finds out. To be fair, Cousins had his highest touchdown percentage (5.9) of his starting career in 2019 and is good enough to continually lead the Vikings to playoff appearances with the right supporting cast.

 
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CJ Ham re-signed to a 4 year deal worth up to 12.5 mill, including 4 mill this year. 

What a dumb signing. He's now the 2nd highest paid FB in the league, and 16th overall RB. For a guy who played 381 snaps, and wasn't particularly useful on them, and was a RFA. That is what they were clearing cap space for? Harris, Griffin, Joseph are all likely to leave, but at least CJ Ham is locked up?

I completely understand and defend the Cousins re-signing, but this is just flushing what little money they have down a toilet. 

 
Do they have a shot at Scherff? He would be my favorite FA signing...and if they could keep either Waynes or Alexander, would be gold!

Oops...missed that Scherff got tagged...Guard should be a priority in FA though. They did well getting Kline last year.

 
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travdogg said:
CJ Ham re-signed to a 4 year deal worth up to 12.5 mill, including 4 mill this year. 

What a dumb signing. He's now the 2nd highest paid FB in the league, and 16th overall RB. For a guy who played 381 snaps, and wasn't particularly useful on them, and was a RFA. That is what they were clearing cap space for? Harris, Griffin, Joseph are all likely to leave, but at least CJ Ham is locked up?

I completely understand and defend the Cousins re-signing, but this is just flushing what little money they have down a toilet. 
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I guess I'm one who likes the deal. He was a big part of the success of Cook and Mattison this year. Underrated and Kubiak knows him so I'm trusting the system here. Not sure about specifics of the deal, though.

 
I like the Diggs deal quite a bit. He didn't want to be there and a 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th is a nice haul. Crazy that Diggs cost a lot more than Hopkins. 

The Vikings have a lot of holes to fill, and adding all those picks(especially the 1st) will make that a lot easier. 

Honestly, other than the Ham deal(which is SO much for a FB, even if Ham were the best in the NFL, which he certainly isn't) I've been pretty on board with the Vikings moves. 

 
If there's one thing I have faith in regarding the Vikings, their cap guy always nails it. I'm not worried about them figuring out how to pay 2 first rounders.

 
Andy Dufresne said:
Not just Diggs. Franchising Harris will cost something like $11m. They got most of that when they redid Cousins' deal but there's other moves too that I can't calculate in my head.
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They have to get a WR in the draft or FA...it's a must...they have nobody - or spend/draft like crazy on OLine so Cousins has a ton of time!!

 
FunkyPlutos said:
They have to get a WR in the draft or FA...it's a must...they have nobody - or spend/draft like crazy on OLine so Cousins has a ton of time!!
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Yep I'm interested to see where this goes. No way Johnson is a starter. He's maybe okay as a 3 but I think that's his ceiling. Now they need both WR and CB badly.

 
travdogg said:
I like the Diggs deal quite a bit. He didn't want to be there and a 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th is a nice haul. Crazy that Diggs cost a lot more than Hopkins. 

The Vikings have a lot of holes to fill, and adding all those picks(especially the 1st) will make that a lot easier. 

Honestly, other than the Ham deal(which is SO much for a FB, even if Ham were the best in the NFL, which he certainly isn't) I've been pretty on board with the Vikings moves. 
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 CJ Ham is their replacement for DIggs. Only partly kidding.

The Vikings take on a huge dead cap hit by trading Diggs after just signing him to a deal last year.

 
Andy Dufresne said:
When the cap numbers get figured out, I wonder if they can afford both firsts, or if they might even try to trade up.
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According to this the Vikings have $13 million in cap space. I see the contract for Harris accounted for and the dead cap of 9 million for trading Diggs being considered in these numbers. I do not see the 22nd pick being counted in these numbers yet. That costs $2,338,764 so it looks like they still have $11 million left to work with.

 
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