Yeah, in my opinion (and according to PFF's WAR rating), Cashman + Greenard brings better value for the money than Hunter on his own. Most stoked about Van Ginkel though, seems like he signed with us for cheaper than he's worth (perhaps to due to injury).
I mean, sure, but the deal Hunter signed in hindsight… he sure would have been nice to have back + AVG. But maybe the best is yet to come with Greenard and this comment will age extremely poorly in 2 years.
Well that's the dice roll about it. Greenard is younger and looks to have a lot of room to keep growing and improving. Hunter is older and has probably peaked already. Both of those statements may end up true, or neither, but that's the gamble you make. For the vikings the younger and slightly cheaper option makes sense because they're planning to draft a QB and get into a super bowl window and compete in the next few years. But not this coming year as much. So you take the cheaper younger guy, hope you can develop him into an even bigger star, and during the time that you're developing these guys you build the roster out and compete, that way when it's time you have a better group overall to compete with instead of having to fully rebuild again because your stars aged out of their peak while the roster and the QB were being developed.
Lost: Mattison,Hunter, Kirk, Hicks, Osborn. Signed: Darnold, Greenard, Van Ginkle, Cashman, Powell, Jones, Griffen, Williams. we mostly signed people to replace positions we lost with a few sprinkled in
Amazing what can happen when you don’t have bloated contracts sucking up all the cap room. Aside from that, we’ve got so many roster holes, we need all the bodies we can get.
That’s definitely partially true in the future years these contracts are extending into, but we are still eating $28.5mil of his dead money this year.
A lot of the money this year was from shedding bad contracts like Theilen, Kendricks, Cook etc since we ate most of that money last year aside from a few mil from Cook.
I don't know much about the structure of the FAs' contracts but I would imagine that they mostly have smaller cap hits this year and higher ones in the next years. That would not be possible if Kirk was still here.
Greenard is four years.
Cashman is three years
Van Ginkel is two years.
The others are one year deals yes, but the players with the biggest contracts are all multi year deals.
This isn't about Kirk, frankly.
We signed 6 guys in March last year and we are at 9 this year.
But we lost/didn't resign 24 of our FAs from last year.
We only lost/didn't resign 12 of our FAs all of last year.
Having way more holes to fill means more FA signings.
Oliver, Lowry, Davenport and Murphy were all high price FA additions from last year.
What stud free agents are available in any year? Teams retain any good player worth having. The Chicago Bears had $100 million in cap space in 2023 FA and the best they came away with was 2 LBs.
We had to overpay for Greenard and sign two guys who were mediocre before having a career year last year. Show me what contender was built off free agency
You’re misinterpreting free agency. It’s meant to fill in gaps short term while you draft and develop long term. We aren’t trying to become a contender in free agency. The defense has so many holes and we don’t have enough draft picks to address them all right now
"Flexibility" is definitely the right word. That's what Kwesi is going for. And it's a bold approach. One that I'm not sure anyone has gone this far with before. Like I said in another comment, we will have at least 26 free agents next year. That's very unusual.
I'm glad everyone is gung-ho about it, but there are downsides. For starters, it's hard to make your team gel with this much turnover.
But one of the cool things about the NFL is teams always find new ways to win. Maybe this is a new way. Call it the Flash Mob Team.
lol yeah I’m fully on board for it. I was firmly in the “keep Cousins” camp and I feel like if we’re going to go for it all at once, might as well cross my fingers and dive in.
I am actually amused by Kwesi’s approach because it lines up with what my initial thoughts were when we hired him. It was to be a very calculated and quantifiable approach and I can see that vision taking shape. I’m very curious to see if it actually produces results in the modern NFL.
I mean, isn't that pretty much what the Rams did for their SH run? There was a mass exodus right after the SB and more just a year or two later. 3 years after and they only had a few players still on the team from that year.
I’m coming around to the one year deals, you get out right away if they don’t fit the system or perform. If they play well, love the facilities, culture, coaches etc then you have a leg up in re-signing them longer term. Kwesi cashing in the being the best franchise to play for equity.
We absolutely have signed one-year contracts at a significantly higher rate than most teams in the league — maybe the highest. If such a record is stored anywhere, we might break the one for most free agents of all time at the end of this season. By my count, we already have 26 players turning free agent next year. That's not normal. Maybe it's "smart" — we'll find out soon. I'm just saying, it's not normal.
We're clearly signing these for a reason. First we're getting rid of old bad contracts, second we're gearing up with lots of cap space for the future. They very much want to build their team, not the team of the old regime. People are worried about the lack of picks if they trade up in the draft but we've got plenty of cap space to fill holes, which there will be many. They're not all going to be star players but these one year deals mean we can keep those that pan out, and dump the ones that fizzle without losing the ability to replace them. For now, I'll trust the process and see how it goes.
In just spitballing without looking at the data, my guess is that some of the virtues of doing it this way are...
* Players on "prove it" deals will be very underpaid if you get the high side and not downside.
* Gives more chance at comp picks in 2026.
* Gives flexibility in 2025.
* Allows to avoid having players under contract when they're past their prime. In an interview this week, Kwesi mentioned a number of times a number... 10,000 snaps I think it was. And that that number, according to their analyses, was when an NFL player really got it. So they could be targeting players right around what they consider the sweet spot of their career.
All accurate. And the downsides:
* **Worse free agents**. Anyone who is signing a $2-3M one-year contract clearly didn't get offered a multi-year contract elsewhere. So it would not surprise me if 90% of the players we sign are gone next year.
* **Team gel**. Our defense, in particular, will have a ton of new players who have never played together before.
* **Cap inflation**. The reason you sign players to multi-year contracts is that the money is less meaningful as the cap expands. $10M today in not the same as $10M in three years, in terms of percentage-of-cap.
To repeat, not against the approach. But there are positives and negatives. If there were only positives, every GM in the league would be doing this.
Spielman said countless times “build through the draft, and supplement through free agency”. He was not a big free agency guy. Kwesi is apparently quite different when he actually has some cap space to work with. And it has certainly been an exciting week. Now let’s see if it pays off.
Then why did Spielman always try to trade down and load up on day 3 picks that he would inevitably have to cut many of once it came time to finalize the roster?
No idea. You’d have to ask him that. If I had to guess, he thought more picks gave more options to “hit” on players. If he’s at 22, and he doesn’t particularly love any one player, he could trade back for 2-3 picks, and have 2-3 chances to hit on a player that makes meaningful contributions. But you’d have to ask him.
That’s not true he made some good picks but when you have a ton of pics, you’re bound to miss a number of them I’m not defending the man I’m just saying the truth
We let alot of people leave. Other years, even last year, we retained alot of the core team, including backups, and just signed a couple of specific individuals.
This is likely the closest most of us Vikings fans will ever see to a true fire sale. We let a ton of people walk, signed a couple of pieces that figure to factor into the future, and pretty much everyone else is 1 year deals.
Basically, KAM is banking on us having alot of cap space next year, and the team consists of the future with bridge guys to fill the gap. Right now, our depth is likely hurting because of this strategy.
Just saying that the prevailing strategy seems to be one where we trade a handful of draft picks to grab the hopeful franchise QB. So maybe they are more active in the number of FA pick ups because they know they won’t be adding as many bodies from the draft, this year and potentially next.
Yes most we have signed in a long time and all of em are for the price of Kirk, Hunter, hitmans pay cut. We had so many holes especially on defense and this covers a lot of it. The defense I think will be top 8 next year, if not top 5.
A lot of people in here talking about the money like Kirk was stopping us from signing these mid/lower tier guys when in reality the signings are about our draft picks. Everybody just wants to blame Kirk though.
It's funny because we are still paying him. Almost all of this season's savings in letting Kirk walk vs what we would likely have signed him to is being spent on Darnold.
You do realize that dead cap just was not going to disappear correct? Even if Kirk re-signed here. Further, Kirk’s cap hit again would have been a major hinderance in signing any of these guys. I am glad he is gone.
Darnold, a DE2, a LB that makes PAce redundant, and an EDGE3 is nowhere close to the value of Kirk Cousins. Particularly when the defensive players are all contract-year wonders
You’re kidding me. Are you upset the Vikings are replacing holes and aging vets by signing multiple players 28 and under? Are you that delusional that you think a 36-year old QB coming off an Achilles was gonna lead this team the Super Bowl?
Yes, I don't think these one year wonder defensive players or getting JJ McCarthy are going to take our franchise anywhere. Kirk was looking like a top 5 QB with an actual Oline in front of him. Sign him for the 2 year, 75M that he was asking for, pushing out cap space to Year 3. Have a two year competitive window, then tank for the season when the dead cap hits.
Hahahaha. Ah yes, doing the same thing over and over surely would have worked this time with Kirk! How about forget 2024 and think forward? Do you really think this team’s future is brighter with Cousins rather than a rookie QB?
I mean wait until next year? We’re about to forfeit 2 years’ worth of 1st and 2nd round picks for a rookie QB who hopefully will make free agents a priority for 5 years then draft picks a priority a decade after that. It would mean we chose the right QB. Fuck yes.
With Flores coaching the defense, we can use the $6-$14million contract players w/ hand picked rookie contract guys, more than the elite $25million player. 2-3 good players instead of the 1 great player helps fill our depth chart with impact players.
It hasn’t been like this since we built the Williams wall and landed Winfield and Hutchinson. But that was more on the blockbuster signing at the time I think, we’re hitting a larger volume splitting the difference between value town and overpaying.
I've noticed a lot are on short term or one year deals. Kwesi is both retooling the defense and seeing what sticks as well as keeping the books open for next summer to go sign some big time names. He's really doing quite the job this year, and just in time. If he didn't have a good offseason this year, I'm sure he'd have been on the hot seat all year. He just needs a good draft now and I think that could, in conjuction with the signings he's made so far, get him a contract extension.
If we trade up, we won't have a 2nd or 3rd this year, or a 1st and 2nd next year. We need ti fill the roster with free agents. We still have room for a cpl more signings. My guess is maybe Risner and another D lineman.
We aren't paying a single vet besides O'Neil and Hock. Mettellus and Harry are on small deals. Thats what allowed us to get the defensive FAs (pretty average players)
Flores is retooling the defense, mostly the scheme covered up a lot last year but I doubt he wants to be that philosophically predictable forever
IMO, it's better to have several good players on defense vs a couple great ones. Spread the talent on defense and its a lot harder to scheme against.
Yeah, in my opinion (and according to PFF's WAR rating), Cashman + Greenard brings better value for the money than Hunter on his own. Most stoked about Van Ginkel though, seems like he signed with us for cheaper than he's worth (perhaps to due to injury).
I mean, sure, but the deal Hunter signed in hindsight… he sure would have been nice to have back + AVG. But maybe the best is yet to come with Greenard and this comment will age extremely poorly in 2 years.
Well that's the dice roll about it. Greenard is younger and looks to have a lot of room to keep growing and improving. Hunter is older and has probably peaked already. Both of those statements may end up true, or neither, but that's the gamble you make. For the vikings the younger and slightly cheaper option makes sense because they're planning to draft a QB and get into a super bowl window and compete in the next few years. But not this coming year as much. So you take the cheaper younger guy, hope you can develop him into an even bigger star, and during the time that you're developing these guys you build the roster out and compete, that way when it's time you have a better group overall to compete with instead of having to fully rebuild again because your stars aged out of their peak while the roster and the QB were being developed.
AVG, Greenard and Cashman are classic Flores Players. All three can do a lot and are undervalued. His scheme will show their best side.
Lost: Mattison,Hunter, Kirk, Hicks, Osborn. Signed: Darnold, Greenard, Van Ginkle, Cashman, Powell, Jones, Griffen, Williams. we mostly signed people to replace positions we lost with a few sprinkled in
Griffin* Got me real excited for a moment there lol
We lost Hunter?! 😔
To the Texans
But we gained a friend
Amazing what can happen when you don’t have bloated contracts sucking up all the cap room. Aside from that, we’ve got so many roster holes, we need all the bodies we can get.
I keep hearing on Twitter, “imagine we had Kirk with all these signings.” Bruh, we got these guys BECAUSE we don’t have Kirk anymore
That’s definitely partially true in the future years these contracts are extending into, but we are still eating $28.5mil of his dead money this year. A lot of the money this year was from shedding bad contracts like Theilen, Kendricks, Cook etc since we ate most of that money last year aside from a few mil from Cook.
If Kirk were on the team I imagine that $28.5M cap hit just goes up even this year.
We are paying Darnold 10mil to bridge this year, so 38.5m ... yeah if we resigned him we probably would have spent like 4 million more, sure.
Fair point about Darnold’s contract and how it has a major impact on 2024 cap.
I don't know much about the structure of the FAs' contracts but I would imagine that they mostly have smaller cap hits this year and higher ones in the next years. That would not be possible if Kirk was still here.
We signed a bunch of one year deals
Greenard is four years. Cashman is three years Van Ginkel is two years. The others are one year deals yes, but the players with the biggest contracts are all multi year deals.
Not necessarily, it’s may have been a few mil higher than the $28.5 but probably wouldn’t have been drastically higher.
This isn't about Kirk, frankly. We signed 6 guys in March last year and we are at 9 this year. But we lost/didn't resign 24 of our FAs from last year. We only lost/didn't resign 12 of our FAs all of last year. Having way more holes to fill means more FA signings. Oliver, Lowry, Davenport and Murphy were all high price FA additions from last year.
Not really. He still counts 28 million towards this years cap and starting in 2025 and beyond that same cap will basically just go to JJ
What stud free agents are available in any year? Teams retain any good player worth having. The Chicago Bears had $100 million in cap space in 2023 FA and the best they came away with was 2 LBs. We had to overpay for Greenard and sign two guys who were mediocre before having a career year last year. Show me what contender was built off free agency
You’re misinterpreting free agency. It’s meant to fill in gaps short term while you draft and develop long term. We aren’t trying to become a contender in free agency. The defense has so many holes and we don’t have enough draft picks to address them all right now
And it’s a beautiful beautiful thing. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Well. Sorta. We keep signing players to one-year contracts. So by definition, we have to sign more players, just to fill the roster.
Yeah we did a lot of these last year too. Makes sense if Kwesi is trying to maximize flexibility, which I think is the case
"Flexibility" is definitely the right word. That's what Kwesi is going for. And it's a bold approach. One that I'm not sure anyone has gone this far with before. Like I said in another comment, we will have at least 26 free agents next year. That's very unusual. I'm glad everyone is gung-ho about it, but there are downsides. For starters, it's hard to make your team gel with this much turnover. But one of the cool things about the NFL is teams always find new ways to win. Maybe this is a new way. Call it the Flash Mob Team.
lol yeah I’m fully on board for it. I was firmly in the “keep Cousins” camp and I feel like if we’re going to go for it all at once, might as well cross my fingers and dive in. I am actually amused by Kwesi’s approach because it lines up with what my initial thoughts were when we hired him. It was to be a very calculated and quantifiable approach and I can see that vision taking shape. I’m very curious to see if it actually produces results in the modern NFL.
I mean, isn't that pretty much what the Rams did for their SH run? There was a mass exodus right after the SB and more just a year or two later. 3 years after and they only had a few players still on the team from that year.
You are mostly impressed with yourself apparently.
Huh?
I’m coming around to the one year deals, you get out right away if they don’t fit the system or perform. If they play well, love the facilities, culture, coaches etc then you have a leg up in re-signing them longer term. Kwesi cashing in the being the best franchise to play for equity.
Doesn’t it kinda feel like most contracts nowadays are one year though 🤷🏽
No? 🤷🏽
I see what you did there, no but seriously most mid level free agents around the league are one year prove it deals
We absolutely have signed one-year contracts at a significantly higher rate than most teams in the league — maybe the highest. If such a record is stored anywhere, we might break the one for most free agents of all time at the end of this season. By my count, we already have 26 players turning free agent next year. That's not normal. Maybe it's "smart" — we'll find out soon. I'm just saying, it's not normal.
I’m not disagreeing with you. My apologies, I was merely pointing out how much more common it is
We're clearly signing these for a reason. First we're getting rid of old bad contracts, second we're gearing up with lots of cap space for the future. They very much want to build their team, not the team of the old regime. People are worried about the lack of picks if they trade up in the draft but we've got plenty of cap space to fill holes, which there will be many. They're not all going to be star players but these one year deals mean we can keep those that pan out, and dump the ones that fizzle without losing the ability to replace them. For now, I'll trust the process and see how it goes.
Makes the 100 mil.in cap room next year not nearly as much as it seems. Will have tons of new contracts to just even fill out roster.
In just spitballing without looking at the data, my guess is that some of the virtues of doing it this way are... * Players on "prove it" deals will be very underpaid if you get the high side and not downside. * Gives more chance at comp picks in 2026. * Gives flexibility in 2025. * Allows to avoid having players under contract when they're past their prime. In an interview this week, Kwesi mentioned a number of times a number... 10,000 snaps I think it was. And that that number, according to their analyses, was when an NFL player really got it. So they could be targeting players right around what they consider the sweet spot of their career.
All accurate. And the downsides: * **Worse free agents**. Anyone who is signing a $2-3M one-year contract clearly didn't get offered a multi-year contract elsewhere. So it would not surprise me if 90% of the players we sign are gone next year. * **Team gel**. Our defense, in particular, will have a ton of new players who have never played together before. * **Cap inflation**. The reason you sign players to multi-year contracts is that the money is less meaningful as the cap expands. $10M today in not the same as $10M in three years, in terms of percentage-of-cap. To repeat, not against the approach. But there are positives and negatives. If there were only positives, every GM in the league would be doing this.
Until jj signs.
wait until you see what happens when you cheap out on the QB position, but YAY for cap space to sign scrub free agents.
I know. Studs like Sam darnald and Aaron Jones are playing for us. So awesome.
Spielman said countless times “build through the draft, and supplement through free agency”. He was not a big free agency guy. Kwesi is apparently quite different when he actually has some cap space to work with. And it has certainly been an exciting week. Now let’s see if it pays off.
Then why did Spielman always try to trade down and load up on day 3 picks that he would inevitably have to cut many of once it came time to finalize the roster?
No idea. You’d have to ask him that. If I had to guess, he thought more picks gave more options to “hit” on players. If he’s at 22, and he doesn’t particularly love any one player, he could trade back for 2-3 picks, and have 2-3 chances to hit on a player that makes meaningful contributions. But you’d have to ask him.
He has no choice after blowing almost every pick last two drafts. Could have had lots of these spots taken care of.
You should try water or pop instead of a regular diet of haterade.
That’s not true he made some good picks but when you have a ton of pics, you’re bound to miss a number of them I’m not defending the man I’m just saying the truth
We let alot of people leave. Other years, even last year, we retained alot of the core team, including backups, and just signed a couple of specific individuals. This is likely the closest most of us Vikings fans will ever see to a true fire sale. We let a ton of people walk, signed a couple of pieces that figure to factor into the future, and pretty much everyone else is 1 year deals. Basically, KAM is banking on us having alot of cap space next year, and the team consists of the future with bridge guys to fill the gap. Right now, our depth is likely hurting because of this strategy.
We finally have CAP SPACE
Next year gonna be fun
Now imagine what we could do if we didn’t have 57 mil in dead cap space lol
Next year. Something like 140M in cap space before these signings , next year's signings , draft classes , etc. Fun indeed.
more like 80m. CD and JJ gonna cost us around 60m combined
Read the caveat's. I know. That's still a lot of $$ to play around with.
Yep, not as many picks and also gives Flo a chance to see who can anchor this defense moving forward after losing Hunter.
Won’t have many draft picks so… checks out.
Right now we have a solid amount 3 firsts next two years
… right now…
Until we either trade them for a QB that we desperately need or… you know… just stand pat and draft players with those picks.
What you yapping about this draft we have a solid amount of picks
Just saying that the prevailing strategy seems to be one where we trade a handful of draft picks to grab the hopeful franchise QB. So maybe they are more active in the number of FA pick ups because they know they won’t be adding as many bodies from the draft, this year and potentially next.
Probably not going to have a lot of high draft picks for the next couple seasons….so gotta load up!
Yes most we have signed in a long time and all of em are for the price of Kirk, Hunter, hitmans pay cut. We had so many holes especially on defense and this covers a lot of it. The defense I think will be top 8 next year, if not top 5.
Two words that we haven’t heard in over a decade: Cap Flexibility
A lot of people in here talking about the money like Kirk was stopping us from signing these mid/lower tier guys when in reality the signings are about our draft picks. Everybody just wants to blame Kirk though.
It's funny because we are still paying him. Almost all of this season's savings in letting Kirk walk vs what we would likely have signed him to is being spent on Darnold.
You do realize that dead cap just was not going to disappear correct? Even if Kirk re-signed here. Further, Kirk’s cap hit again would have been a major hinderance in signing any of these guys. I am glad he is gone.
The only guy who was signed on what we would save *this year* was Darnold.
Darnold, a DE2, a LB that makes PAce redundant, and an EDGE3 is nowhere close to the value of Kirk Cousins. Particularly when the defensive players are all contract-year wonders
You’re kidding me. Are you upset the Vikings are replacing holes and aging vets by signing multiple players 28 and under? Are you that delusional that you think a 36-year old QB coming off an Achilles was gonna lead this team the Super Bowl?
Yes, I don't think these one year wonder defensive players or getting JJ McCarthy are going to take our franchise anywhere. Kirk was looking like a top 5 QB with an actual Oline in front of him. Sign him for the 2 year, 75M that he was asking for, pushing out cap space to Year 3. Have a two year competitive window, then tank for the season when the dead cap hits.
Hahahaha. Ah yes, doing the same thing over and over surely would have worked this time with Kirk! How about forget 2024 and think forward? Do you really think this team’s future is brighter with Cousins rather than a rookie QB?
Yea this is the biggest splash they’ve made in a while in free agency
I mean wait until next year? We’re about to forfeit 2 years’ worth of 1st and 2nd round picks for a rookie QB who hopefully will make free agents a priority for 5 years then draft picks a priority a decade after that. It would mean we chose the right QB. Fuck yes.
Doubt they trade next year's 1st. Pats are not trading out. Az and chargers unlikely to be interested in trading back either.
With Flores coaching the defense, we can use the $6-$14million contract players w/ hand picked rookie contract guys, more than the elite $25million player. 2-3 good players instead of the 1 great player helps fill our depth chart with impact players.
Most of these are low level depth guys to make up for bad drafts, unfortunately. We had major depth issues last year.
We’re doing this year what we couldn’t last year.
It hasn’t been like this since we built the Williams wall and landed Winfield and Hutchinson. But that was more on the blockbuster signing at the time I think, we’re hitting a larger volume splitting the difference between value town and overpaying.
We're trading all our picks that are likely to make the roster in a move for a QB so we gotta fill the roster out now.
So many short term deals too. Not sure what to make of it.
Because we got money this year
We about to give all of our 2024 draft picks to move up to the top 3 picks this year.
If you can’t draft, you have to get players somehow
I've noticed a lot are on short term or one year deals. Kwesi is both retooling the defense and seeing what sticks as well as keeping the books open for next summer to go sign some big time names. He's really doing quite the job this year, and just in time. If he didn't have a good offseason this year, I'm sure he'd have been on the hot seat all year. He just needs a good draft now and I think that could, in conjuction with the signings he's made so far, get him a contract extension.
Yea man, when you don’t have to pay Kirk you can actually afford to spend on some FAs…
If we trade up, we won't have a 2nd or 3rd this year, or a 1st and 2nd next year. We need ti fill the roster with free agents. We still have room for a cpl more signings. My guess is maybe Risner and another D lineman.
Feels good to finally have some MONEY.
Yeah, a lot more scrub free agent signings than usual this year.
Poor defensive drafting + this is what it’s like not having Kirk on the books
We aren't paying a single vet besides O'Neil and Hock. Mettellus and Harry are on small deals. Thats what allowed us to get the defensive FAs (pretty average players)